Before you read my quotations, feel free to look up all the praise heaped upon Samuel Miller’s book on The Ruling Elder.

Anyway, Miller writes in Chapter 7,

The celebrated Professor Neander, of Berlin, was mentioned in a preceding chapter, as probably, the most profoundly learned Christian antiquarian now living. In addition to the quotation from him presented in that chapter, the following, from the same work, is worthy of notice….

The same writer says:-“We find another office in the apostolic times-that of Deacons. The duties of this office were from the first only external, (Acts vi.,) as it seems to have taken its rise for the sole purpose of attending to the distribution of alms. The care of the poor, however, and of the sick, and many other external duties were, in process of time, imposed upon those in this station. Besides the Deacons, there were also Deaconesses appointed, who could have free access to the female part of the Church, which was, on account of the peculiar manners of the East, denied, to a great extent, to men. Here the female had an opportunity of exercising her powers for the extension of the true faith, without overstepping the bounds of modesty and propriety, and in a field otherwise inaccessible. It was their duty, too, as experienced Christian mothers, to give advice and support to the younger women, as seems to have been the case from Tertullian, De Virgin. Veland. c. 9.” [21]

Then in chapter 12,

But the eligible candidate for this choice [of Ruling Elder] must be a male member [of the congregation wherein he is nominated]. Some, indeed, have seriously doubted whether there were not in the apostolic Church, female Elders, or Elderesses; and also whether there ought not to be a similar class of Elders in every Church at the present day. A great majority, however, who have treated of this subject, believe, that the female officer,-apparently referred to in Titus ii. 3, and a few other passages in the New Testament, were intended to be merely a temporary appointment, arising out of that state of seclusion in which females lived, and do still live in the Eastern world, and not at all necessary in those countries where females may be approached and instructed without the intervention of individuals of their own sex. The Presbyterian Church has judged and acted in conformity with this view of the subject.[12]

I find this quite interesting. Here is an argument that there were some sort of female Elders permitted by Paul in the NT Church, but that we shouldn’t copy that today. Why? Because we allow for more mixing of the sexes.

I don’t agree with Samuel Miller’s understanding of NT Church government. But I don’t think that means he was ignorant or deceptive about what the Bible says. Truthfully, I almost think I would have more respect for him if he had advocated women Elders based on his mistaken view of the NT data, than to simply dismiss it as ad hoc. But the word “almost” is very important in that last sentence. I think it might be instructive for any debate about offices and gender to realize how differently the data has been interpreted in the past.