Can a woman serve as an elder?

The Bible says that older women may teach the young women to be serious, love their husbands, love their children, be discreet, be chaste, be keepers at home, be good, and be obedient to their own husbands.  Women prophesy, pray, sing songs, sing in prophetic songs of the Spirit, and exhort (encourage).  

But can a woman serve as an elder?

This is a question that would surely cause controversy since the church has gone to relativism in many organizations.  For many, the polls determine what is right and what is wrong.  They say, "What do the majority of people believe?  The majority must be right."  But if you look through Scripture, the majority were never right.  God has always worked through a faithful remnant who went against the flow of the majority.  For us, we walk in submission to those apostles who were restored to the church in this great move of the Spirit of God that began in 1948.  The Scriptures are not for private interpretation, but those things that have been hidden in times past are now revealed to God's holy apostles and prophets.  So we are not concerned with our own opinion or anyone else's opinion.  We are concerned only with what has been revealed concerning the question of whether or not a woman can serve as an elder or hold the office of an elder... or any other question.  
 
Concerning the question of whether or not a woman can serve as an elder or hold the office of an elder (or any other question), what is revealed turns out to always be what the Scripture says.  It seems that every time God reveals anything, He reveals that the Bible means exactly what it says and says exactly what it means.  
 
"I suffer not [do not allow] a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man." 1 Timothy 2:12   The elders of the local church must be apt to teach and also are the highest level of authority in the local church.   Can a woman serve as an elder?   God has not designed His Church in this way.  It is not according to the pattern of Scripture.  This does not mean that women are inferior to men, but they are different from men.  
 
By the way, there is no Biblical basis for the local pastor (sometimes called a minister) in the local church as we see today.  This was a practice that was introduced centuries after the church was established and is part of the reason for the descent into the dark ages.  
 
The older women may teach younger women.   "The aged women ... That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed." Titus 2:4-5  
 
Women prophesy, pray, sing songs, sing in prophetic songs of the Spirit, and exhort (encourage).  1 Corinthians 11:4-11 "Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.  But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.  For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered."  
 
Let me add that the power of submission is not trivial.  When the apostles are walking in submission to each other and to Christ, they have all the authority of Christ.  When the local elders are walking in submission to each other and to the authority of the apostles and Christ, they carry all the authority of the apostles and of Christ.  When the local deacons walk in submission to the authority of the local elders, they, in turn, walk in that same authority.  The same is true for every family.  Every husband who is in submission to the government that God has established for the church is a partaker of that same authority.  The wife, through submission to her husband is a partaker of that same authority.  The children in the home also have the same spiritual authority through submission to their parents.  

Every member of the Body of Christ is to submit to every other member of the Body of Christ.   The reason for this submission is that we are submitting to the Christ in our brother and our sister.

We are truly discerning the Body of Christ.   This discernment of the Body of Christ is what changes us by degrees until we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a Perfect [totally mature & complete] man [not men and women but "Man", the Body of Christ joined perfectly together with each other and with the Head, Jesus Christ in perfect order and love] to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.  Ephesians 4:11-16   This is how Christ really is, a Head in Heaven and a Body on earth.  When we see Him as He is, we become like Him.  1 John 3:2  
 
Not only that, but "He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward."  Matthew 10:41  For instance, there are some men who cannot hold an office because they have had more than one wife, yet, they can have the same reward through submission.