Does the Bible clearly teach that a church elder should be a man and not a woman?
Yes. In the lists of qualifications for an elder in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9, specific reference is made, among other things, to the fact that an elder must be a husband (Greek aner, man or husband) of one wife. The elder, then, is to be a married man loyal to his wife. Whether we like it or not, the specifications require males. The very structure of the passage in 1 Timothy supports this conclusion. The qualifications for the office of elder (3:1-7) include being “an apt teacher.” They follow immediately after the prohibition of women as teacher-elders (2:11-15). This placement of the qualifications for eldership (including fitness for teaching) immediately after the prohibition respecting women reveals explicitly that women should not be elders. Making them elders would cast them in a type of teaching role that Scripture specifically prohibits to them.
