Who is the “presiding elder” in I Tim 3:1-2? It says he must be the “husband of one wife”. Was it the bishop? If so, then they used to be allowed to marry.
It can’t be the deacon because the deacon is mentioned later in chapter 3.
Protestants interpret this as their church “elders” who are like the officers who run the church. What is the Catholic interpretation?
Here is a link that could help you:
ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/PRIEST3.HTM
Insight #2: The word “priest”
Now that was the first insight I wanted to share with you that led me to conclude there is a New Testament priesthood. The second is something I discovered when pondering the different offices in the Catholic Church. In my Protestant congregation, we had elders and deacons. I knew that the Catholic Church had deacons, but I had never heard of a Catholic elder. “Why was that?” I wondered. The answer involves a little lesson in translation.
- The origin of the word
In Greek, the word for elder is presbuteros. That word was transliterated into Latin as presbyter, which then in English became shortened to priest. That’s why you never hear about “Catholic elders.” It is because Catholic priests are Catholics elders. That’s what the word “priest” means; it is simply a shortened English form of presbuteros. You can check any dictionary you want to confirm this. So obviously we can say that there is some kind of priesthood today because there are elders today.
- Examples from the Douay-Rheims
In fact, if you read some older Catholic translations of the Bible, they will use the word “priest,” entirely appropriately, where the Protestant Bible says “elder.” For example, this is the Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible, which is the Catholic equivalent of the King James Version.
In Titus 1:5, Paul tells Titus: “For this cause I left thee in Crete, that thou shouldst set in order the things that are wanting, and shouldst ordain priests in every city, as I also appointed thee.”
In James 5:14-15 we read: “Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil, in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man; and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him.”
