I Commend to You Our Sister, a Servant of the Church

The term deaconess is not used until the fourth century. Paul calls her a helper of the church, indicating that she had means at her disposal and she used them for the well being of the church. Now, she is called a servant here, not a deaconess. And she is identified as a particularly valuable and outstanding servant of the corinthian cancerian church. But we cannot bring ourselves to believe that the apostle means to speak of deaconesses in the midst of the requisites for the deacon in first timothy three 11.