Yes, but that still leaves prophets in some sort of gray area outside that of elders and deacons. Perhaps a new thread on the role(s) of prophets in the church might be in order. I am not aware of an office of prophet (among the many offices) in any Anglican churches, or, actually, any mainstream churches as well as the RCC and the EOC.
A separate office, certainly. (I did quite a bit of research on early church prophets at one point, as one way of looking at questions of what today we might call "lay" ministry).
No, like other roles/offices attested to in the early church it seems to have fallen into disuse, at least in a formally recognised sense, by about the fourth century or so. I have known people who have been recognised as having a prophetic gift and been allowed to exercise it, but usually from within some other role.
Was that as a type of teaching or was it the traditional understanding of foretelling the future?
The abilities of prophets in the Bible seem to have evolved over time. Even linguistically, in the person of Samuel the name shifted from "seer" to "prophet". The prophets in the historical books of the Old Testament were gifted in foretelling the future as well as performing various miracles. Both the major and the minor prophets foretold the future, but also included long narratives which, kindly, might be called exhortation. In the New Testament we have Philip whose four daughters were prophetesses, which is the first mention of women having that gift (Deborah was a judge, not a prophetess). However, we have no idea as to what they actually did as prophetesses. Prophets are also listed among God's gifts to the church. For cessationists, which most mainline churches are, that simply means that God provided prophets during the Old Testament period whose writings and foretelling provided a solid proof of the legitimacy of Jesus as being the promised Messiah. For non-cessationists, the problem becomes one of defending the obvious historical lacunae of centuries of church history where none of the "sign" gifts including tongues, healing, and prophecy were missing or, at best, inactive.
The subject of the thread is elders, not prophets. The author of 1 Timothy (and God who inspired it) would know better than us how women were being used in the NT church yet still wrote:
Stating what you think 1 Timothy 5:1-2 refers to does not, in itself, make it so. Ignoring the use of presbyteros in the parable of the prodigal son does not make that usage go away. presbytes is a noun derived from presbyteros (Renn's Expository Dictionary of NT words) so it is not an "other" or different Greek word. In Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the NT, these two words are treated together in a single entry which starts by stating that the one is the comparator of the other having the meaning to "denote greater age". The use of the term to refer to Jewish or church elders derives from this age related meaning.
I'm not denying that different ages are referred to in 1 Timothy 5:1-2, but that is not the only consideration in this text. This was Paul giving Timothy instruction in how he was not to "rebuke" but to "exhort" elders of either gender or any age who were ministering to the assemblies. The end of the chapter continues to give instructions on how Timothy - without preferment - was to react to proven sins which had been committed by elders of the congregation. Once their guilt was established by 2-3 witnesses, then they were finally supposed to be "rebuked before all", so that other elders in the ministry would fear to commit the same kind of offense.
Granted that they were highly significant women, as were Ruth and Esther, but none were elders in the New Testament understanding of that word. In fact, there were no elders at all in the Old Testament. There were no synagogues, either, for that matter. The New Testament church structure has a surprising affinity with that of the synagogue system with had developed following the Babylonian captivity.
This is simply a passing reference to Philip, not a claim.
I apologize for the confusion. I was thinking in terms of a New Testament framework. However, you are correct. These three other women are cited as being prophetesses. Curiously, the Talmud apparently asserts that there were seven female prophetesses in the Bible. Do you know who the other five were (Anna is not included in the Old Testament, obviously)?
I did a bit more investigation and found this list - Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Huldah, and Esther.
