I was wondering with Elder being mentioned in 1 \u00a0or 2 or 3rd John and refers to a woman. I just remember reading it (II John 1; III John 1). I remember someone mentioning it to me a long time ago and the question I have now is how do you tell two elders apart from serving in the church and an older person? Is there a difference in the Greek or just the wording? Anyway, the question came up in my head.<\/p>\n\t
“The Elder” is the title John refers to himself in his letters. II John is written either to a woman or to a church using a woman as the personification of a church. III John is addressed to a man named Gaius. Elders are never women since one of the requirements is to be the husband of one wife.<\/p>\n
When the office of elders is mentioned, the word “the” usually appears before the word. In Greek that is also the way they refer to a person’s name. They often say “the Jesus” instead of just “Jesus” as we do in English. If the word is being used as a description (an adjective) then no “the” will appear before the word.<\/p>\n
For example, in Titus 2:2 it says in Greek: presbutas nephalious einai<\/em>, “(Elderly men) (sober) (to be).” In comparison, Hebrews 11:2 says in Greek: en taute gar emarturethesan hoi presbuteroi<\/em>, “(By) (this) (for) (were borne witness to) (the) (elders).”<\/p>\n There are some cases where a “the” doesn’t appear in the text, but the context shows us we are talking about the duty or office of the elders and not just older men in a congregation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: I was wondering with Elder being mentioned in 1 \u00a0or 2 or 3rd John and refers to a woman. I just remember reading it (II John 1; III John 1). I remember someone mentioning it to me a long time ago and the question I have now is how do you tell two elders…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[123,76],"class_list":["post-19524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-elders","tag-terminology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":55887,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/were-the-apostles-also-elders-and-can-there-be-unmarried-elders\/","url_meta":{"origin":19524,"position":0},"title":"Were the apostles also elders and can there be unmarried elders?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 17, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My prayer is that all is well. I have questions regarding the eldership and its qualifications. Based on what the scripture teaches regarding the elders' qualification (and work to a degree), we read about them in I Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:6-9 (along with Acts 20:28, Ephesians 4:11; and I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":68309,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-arent-the-elders-helping-me-to-learn-to-preach\/","url_meta":{"origin":19524,"position":1},"title":"Why aren’t the elders helping me to learn to preach?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 8, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I hope this email finds you doing well. I have a question. I finally got to preach and teach for a month in another congregation. I asked the elders in my church to attend one day and give me pointers. 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In Revelation chapters 2 & 3, the seven letters are addressed to \"the angel of the church.\" The angel refers to the elder\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":91021,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-do-you-deal-with-an-elders-wifes-gossiping\/","url_meta":{"origin":19524,"position":3},"title":"How do you deal with an elder’s wife’s gossiping?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 4, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Do the wives of the elders have any authority over the other women of the congregation? Are there qualifications for the wife of an elder? How should it be handled when the wife of an elder repeats hurtful information about a member of the church she learns from her\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31598,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-should-an-elder-do-if-no-other-elders-left-in-the-congregation\/","url_meta":{"origin":19524,"position":4},"title":"What should an elder do if no other elders left in the congregation?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 3, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: If you have three elders in the church and two elders resigned, what is the function of the elder who is left? He still has a continuing desire to shepherd the flock and the rest of the congregation has no grievance with him. Answer: A man can preach without\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31472,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/should-a-woman-be-on-the-committee-to-select-elders\/","url_meta":{"origin":19524,"position":5},"title":"Should a woman be on the committee to select elders?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 27, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, I attend the church of Christ in a small town. We are looking at appointing elders in our congregation.\u00a0 There is what I feel a potential problem, since we are so small, most of the men who have been elected as potential elders leave very little left to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}