The Biblical Requirements for Presbyters

http://www.churchsociety.org/cstrust/appointments/biblical.asp

[Church Society] 18 Feb 2009--We have used the term presbyter in this document because it is a word found in the Bible (the Greek being presbuteros) and from this word, through Anglo-Saxon our modern English word ‘priest’ is derived. Unfortunately there is also a long tradition of using the English word ‘priest’ to translate a different Biblical word (in Greek hiereus) which is used to refer both to the priestly line in Israel and the pagan priests in the Graeco-Roman world of the New Testament. Properly speaking the English word “priest” means presbyter, that is an “elder” and was a term and role already familiar in the synagogues out of which the early Christian communities sprang. In the New Testament the word presbyter seems interchangeable with another word, “overseer” (Greek episcopos) as can be seen from Titus 1.5 & 7.