Non-Catholic Christians...Simon to Peter?

[Gabriel_of_12]

The renaming of Simon to Kephas (Peter) by Jesus himself corrolates to both Peters confession of faith speaking for the 12, and his name change is very significant here. For one every time God calls one to his service a name change appears. Simons happens to be Peter = Rock.

Peter then is given the keys to the kingdom of God singular here in Mathew’s Gospel. **Peter becomes the gate keeper here, **only when God is present with him either when Jesus walked the earth, the Holy Spirit, or while in heaven in eternity. This office of gate keeper, possesser of the keys to the kingdom of God on earth resides in the Pope with the Holy Spirit in the body of Jesus Christ, while at the same time Jesus being the head of his Church promised never to leave her.

This authority to bind and loose in the office of Peter the Rock of which Jesus built his church is never left alone to teach and feed the lambs and sheepfold of God. Jesus being King away to build his mansions for his people in eternity, leaves Peter as his Vicar in Johns Gospel to feed and tend his flock until Jesus returns. This Peter and his successors have been and will continue to obey the commands and mission given to Peter alone.

The other apostles are given such authority also, but Jesus gives the unchanging name of a Rock to Simon immediately with the Keys to the kingdom of God to bind and loose on earth while he Jesus will bind and loose what ever the gate keeper opens and closes, Jesus promises to do the same from eternity. Then from Jesus resurrection before ascending to heaven, leaves Peter with the mission and command to watch over his sheepfold.

It is only when Peter or a Pope decides to speak from his humanity from pride, is when Jesus speaks to Peter “get behind me satan”. The point is there cannot be a Christian Catholic Church without Peter for it is here where Jesus will build his icclesia (quahal) church.

I believe ones definition of “Church” is what causes different interpretations. To the Catholic and scripture the “Church” is the body of Jesus Christ, not a building, not a select group of people who make up a body of believers, these are not the Church Jesus built upon Peter and the apostles. To be in the “Church” of Jesus Christ one must be partakers of his body, blood soul and divinity to be a member of the body of Jesus Christ. It is here where the gate keeper on earth is in full communion with the sheepfold of God the body of Christ with Jesus the head where God is all and in all.

God has always left a spokesperson in charge of his creation since first Adam. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever more. To deny what Jesus did with Peter and leaving him with the keys to the kingdom of God, is to invent a new Jesus who left no foundation on earth for ages to be taught, fed the Revelations of God.

Peace to you all

 

[pneuma07]

Perhaps the Old Testament should be considered in the discussion. It’s an example of God being able to inspire the writing of Scripture and preserve that Scripture for use by the Jews right up to the time of Jesus without the agent of an infallible Magisterium.

Doesn’t that call into question the need of an infallible Magisterium to preserve God’s revelation or if one still deems it essential are we saying that the Jews lost God’s revelation until the time of Jesus?

Dear Non Serviam,

John H. Newman wrote

if the revelations and lessons in Scripture are addressed to us personally and practically, the presence among us of a formal judge and standing expositor of its words, is imperative. It is antecedently unreasonable to suppose that a book so complex, so systematic, in parts so obscure, the outcome of so many minds, times, and places, should be given us from above without the safeguard of some authority; as if it could possibly, from the nature of the case, interpret itself. Its inspiration does but guarantee its truth, not its interpretation. How are private readers satisfactorily to distinguish what is didactic and what is historical, what is fact and what is vision, what is allegorical and what is literal, what is idiomatic and what is grammatical, what is enunciated formally and what occurs obiter, what is only of temporary and what is of lasting obligation?
Such is our natural anticipation, and it is only too exactly justified in the events of the last three centuries, in the many countries where private judgment on the text of Scripture has prevailed. The gift of inspiration requires as its complement the gift of infallibility. (On the inspiration of Scripture, ch. 15 1884)

The OT example IMHO does not rule out these reflections .

First “preserving God’s Revelation” is not the same as preserving written words. Revelation is certainly more than written words. And preserving it needs the context
by and in which we can have the ability to understand the written words at best.
We know there were seriously different streams within I century Judaism, to the point that, eg, resurrection of the flesh was affirmed or utterly reject. Even if they all had the same Scriptures.

( BTW There was no fixed canon of Tanakh yet. There were Law and Prophets. As for the other Books, or Ketuvim, the jewish canonization, followed today by most protestant brothers, took place seeminlgy well after 70 AD. So probably some difference in Scripture was there in Jesus’ time within judaism itself )

Samaritans themselves were rooted in Mosaic revelation, but they had developed what was, by the I century, considered another corrupted religion .

 

[pneuma07]

Good point, my apologies-the three synoptics all listed Simon as being chosen first and I got careless. Another of the variations in the Gospel narratives, much like the difference between Mark and Luke as to when the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law took place.

I do consider tradition useful, much as I do history. I simply treat it with the same caution as with which one should treat historical texts, recognizing that simply because a text was preserved, doesn’t mean that it was influential (cf. some of the Nag Hammadi documents who had the good fortune to be kept in the right place) or that people writing hundreds of years later for their own purposes didn’t have similar blind spots to the ones we have today.

I agree that there was a special honour reserved for Peter, that Peter describes in Acts 15:7 and carries out in Acts 2 and Acts 10. This could be seen as a type of Primacy, but not the primacy of authority taught in Catholicism.

As for John 21 I believe that to be more about Jesus restoring Peter to ministry, as I’ve been discussing on other threads.

Lastly, there was a petrine party, at least in Corinth, as we learn from Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians in vs 12

11
For it has been reported to me about you, my brothers, by Chloe’s people, that there are rivalries among you.
12
I mean that each of you is saying, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”

Whether this party existed elsewhere I don’t know, and whether or not it played a role in future beliefs about Peter’s authority, I can’t say, but “I follow Cephas (Peter)” does have a familiar ring to it.

As for Mark, you know, I was speaking about a “small t” tradition witnessing to his petrine discipleship. In another thread I’d like having an exchange about Sacred Tradition.

My point is essentially: wheter a “petrine school” in some sense existed or not, it appears, for the reason I gave in the post you’re answering here, it was not promoting the petrine role .

It appears, instead, it was the “other schools” ( or the primitive Church as a whole), represented by the three evangelists other than Mark, which delivered passages pointing to petrine primacy in the NT. A seemingly common shared element.

 

[Peter_J]

Good quote, pneuma07. I’ll have to save it on my computer for future use.

 

[pneuma07]

That’s a possible interpretation-I would think that if John was an insider there would have been even more pressure on him to “fit in” with his acquaintances and deny Jesus. Given the early church’s description of John’s character, if he had fallen, I can’t believe he would have left this information out of his account.

Peter is indeed reminding the group of the honour that God gave him by making salvation available to the Gentiles through his preaching of Jesus as the Christ. The vision he received had direct bearing on the question and on God’s thoughts on the matter.

Once Peter finished sharing, Paul and Barnabas contributed what God had showed them-we see no sense here that Peter had “undisputed leadership” beyond that which the other Apostles also possessed. Rather we see that each of the leaders contributed to the council, on an equal basis until James began to spoke and made “his judgment” (vs. 19). We know from tradition that James led the church in Jerusalem at the time of the council.

We see shared episcopal leadership, with authority for the meeting being taken by the leader in whose area the meeting took place.

“if he had fallen, I can’t believe he would have left this information out of his account.”

Same here. I just mind that Peter displayed probably more boldness than any other,
with its presence at the location of the Passion… before falling.

As for the Jerusalem Council i could see that it is not generally what you could say a mind-changing issue. Our particular views on it depend as a rule from our general views, and not the other way.

Confirming this “rule”, i’m satisfied with considering James, the local leader, as precising implementative disciplines about an issue which had been settled in its principle previously. Peter’s contribution does look decisive in forming the Council’s orientation.

This was just an excursus.
The main point is that I cannot see Peter’s opening words there as a whole summary of petrine service, in relation to what we can get about this service in the NT.

 

[pneuma07]

Good quote, pneuma07.
I’ll have to save it on my computer for future use.

Hi Peter !

Thanks.

I like saving some newmannian quotes too.

 

[mbgumby28]

Jesus is the rock that the Church was built with. Peter is the rock that the Church is built on.

 

[pneuma07]

Non Serviam,

John Chrisostom on what commission Peter receives here (Homily 88 on John)
“He says unto him, Feed My sheep.”
And why, having passed by the others, does He speak with Peter on these matters? He was the chosen one of the Apostles, the mouth of the disciples, the leader of the band; on this account also Paul went up upon a time to enquire of him rather than the others.
And at the same time to show him that he must now be of good cheer, since the denial was done away, Jesus puts into his hands the chief authority among the brethren; and He brings not forward the denial, nor reproaches him with what had taken place, but says, If you love Me, preside over your brethren, and the warm love which you ever manifested, and in which you rejoiced, show thou now; and the life which you said you would lay down for Me, now give for My sheep.

We can ask ourselves more specifically:

1. What can feeding/tending sheep mean ?

Here is Francis de Sales’s answer ( end XVI century):

(The Catholic Controversy. Papacy.)
“In Scripture to rule and to feed the people is taken as the same thing, which is easy to see in Ezekiel (xxxiv.); …. and in several places of the Psalms. … In Psalm xxii., verse I, The Lord ruleth me, i.e., as shepherd governeth me, and when it is said that David had been elected to feed Jacob his servant and Israel his inheritance: and he fed them in the innocence of his (Ps. lxxvii.,71,72) it is just the same as if he said to rule, to govern, to preside over.
And it is after the same figure of speech that the people are called sheep of the pasture of Our Lord (Ps. xcix. 3) so that, to have the commandment of feeding the Christian sheep is no other thing than to be their ruler and pastor.
It is now easy to see what authority Our Lord entrusted to S. Peter by these words: Feed my sheep.”

1. What sheep has Peter to feed/tend ?

Here is Bernard de Clairvaux’s answer ( XII century):

(De consideratione Book II, 15)
“… to whom, and I include not only bishops but also Apostles, were all the sheep entrusted so absolutely and completely? ‘If you love me, Peter, feed my sheep.’ What sheep? The people of this or that city or region, or even of this or that kingdom?
‘My sheep,’ he said. To whom is it not clear that he did not exclude any, but assigned them all?
There is no exception where there is no distinction.”

I hope these arguments can help.

 

[Peter_J]

One’s interpretation of “the Gates of Hell” plays a large role in how one looks at the passage. If one sees the gates as attacking the church and the church having to defend itself, then one tends to heaven outlook on Peter’s commission related to authority and “keeping things safe”. On the other hand, if one sees the church as confronting the gates and bursting through them to free people caught in their sin and destined for Hell, and one sees the truth of Jesus as the Christ as the means by which this will be accomplished, then an entirely different image begins to form. Peter’s confession of Christ signifies that God has chosen him to deliver this message to Jew and Gentile, to loose them from the claim hell has on them and to permit their sins to be forgiven!

 

[Non_Serviam]

I think that “without the agent of an infallible Magisterium” is misleading.

For one thing, we agree that infallibility was exercised at least by the writer of each book of the OT.

I don’t know if we agree on that actually. I believe the writing was inspired, but I don’t know if this would be an active exercise of infallibility as would a dogmatic definition from a Pope post Vatican I. It at least raises questions of intention and volition-i.e. what did David consider his Psalms to be?

By saying that, I’m probably inviting responses of “OK, but the exercise of infallibility in the OT was strictly individual, not corporate.” But consider: didn’t the question of a particular writing being Scripture or not, come up back then? Clearly, saying “This book calls itself infallible, and it must be correct in saying that because it’s an infallible book” doesn’t work. I would conclude that, even back then, there must have been some kind of discernment by the whole people of God about which books were Scripture – in other words, a corporate exercise of infallibility.

If this were the case, you would be positing a sort of divinely-inspired “wisdom of crowds”, which is a very different thing from the Catholic concept of a Magisterium. The key difference being that nowhere does the people of Israel claim that their selection of scriptures is infallible-they believe that God has inspired them, but they make no claim to any exercise on their part in having done so. Jewish claims about such things are quite remarkable in that respect when compared to Catholic or Muslim claims to leadership and the organization of the scriptures.

 

[Non_Serviam]

Dear Non Serviam,

John H. Newman wrote

(trimmed in the interest of space)
Such is our natural anticipation, and it is only too exactly justified in the events of the last three centuries, in the many countries where private judgment on the text of Scripture has prevailed. The gift of inspiration requires as its complement the gift of infallibility. (On the inspiration of Scripture, ch. 15 1884)*

The OT example IMHO does not rule out these reflections .

First “preserving God’s Revelation” is not the same as preserving written words. Revelation is certainly more than written words. And preserving it needs the context
by and in which we can have the ability to understand the written words at best.
We know there were seriously different streams within I century Judaism, to the point that, eg, resurrection of the flesh was affirmed or utterly reject. Even if they all had the same Scriptures.

( BTW There was no fixed canon of Tanakh yet. There were Law and Prophets. As for the other Books, or Ketuvim, the jewish canonization, followed today by most protestant brothers, took place seeminlgy well after 70 AD. So probably some difference in Scripture was there in Jesus’ time within judaism itself )

Samaritans themselves were rooted in Mosaic revelation, but they had developed what was, by the I century, considered another corrupted religion .

Your final example, puts to rest your initial quote. Jesus came to a people who didn’t have an infallibly defined canon or one sole interpretation of scriptures or theology-and yet he used those scriptures and quoted from the writings of their theologians. Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would lead them into all Truth-He never said when that would take place or whether it would only be reconciliation with him at the end of life when one would arrive at “all Truth”.

We see in the New Testament that the Apostles made mistakes, tried different approaches to church life and ministry, and even quarreled-we know from history that there were valid differences in the doctrine and practice of difference assemblies who were taught by different Apostles-we see them moving toward unity, but respecting diversity with charity whenever possible-a very different view than is often suggested by Catholics when discussing the church in Acts.

As for Mark, you know, I was speaking about a “small t” tradition witnessing to his petrine discipleship. In another thread I’d like having an exchange about Sacred Tradition.

My point is essentially: wheter a “petrine school” in some sense existed or not, it appears, for the reason I gave in the post you’re answering here, it was not promoting the petrine role .

It appears, instead, it was the “other schools” ( or the primitive Church as a whole), represented by the three evangelists other than Mark, which delivered passages pointing to petrine primacy in the NT. A seemingly common shared element.

We both agree that God chose Peter for special honour-we simply disagree on what that honour was-if it indeed was ongoing universal leadership of the sort currently exercised by Popes, it would be silly for Mark to not make that clear to his readers as they would need to know this as part of their understanding of God’s intention for the church. The current Pope has no false humility about being Pope, and he shouldn’t. OTOH, if it was as I’ve pointed out God choosing him to speak in Acts 2 and 10, then humility makes a great deal of sense-one wouldn’t feel a need to draw attention to those past achievements, but would rather focus on one’s current task of being an Apostle. That would be true humility in my book.

“if he had fallen, I can’t believe he would have left this information out of his account.”

Same here. I just mind that Peter displayed probably more boldness than any other,
with its presence at the location of the Passion… before falling.

As for the Jerusalem Council i could see that it is not generally what you could say a mind-changing issue. Our particular views on it depend as a rule from our general views, and not the other way.

Confirming this “rule”, i’m satisfied with considering James, the local leader, as precising implementative disciplines about an issue which had been settled in its principle previously. Peter’s contribution does look decisive in forming the Council’s orientation.

This was just an excursus.
The main point is that I cannot see Peter’s opening words there as a whole summary of petrine service, in relation to what we can get about this service in the NT.

I agree that we read into Acts 15 what we bring to it, although I think verse 7 does provide a very strong reference for my interpretation of Matthew 16 and John 21. As much as I dislike proof-texting, it is as close as one can get to a 1 verse explanation of God’s unique role for Peter.

 

[Peter_J]

I don’t know if we agree on that actually. I believe the writing was inspired, but I don’t know if this would be an active exercise of infallibility

So noted – but with a little surprise, I would add. I would think that if a writing is divinely inspired, it naturally follows that it’s infallible.

as would a dogmatic definition from a Pope post Vatican I. It at least raises questions of intention and volition-i.e. what did David consider his Psalms to be?

I’m not really sure what you’re asking.

Isn’t it possible for someone to write something infallible without realizing it’s infallible? (And, conversely, isn’t it possible for someone to think that what he wrote was infallible, when it wasn’t?)

 

[Peter_J]

We see in the New Testament that the Apostles made mistakes, tried different approaches to church life and ministry, and even quarreled

Yes … and, throughout the history of the Church, Church leaders have made mistakes, tried different approaches to church life and ministry, and even quarreled. So I’m not too clear what your point is?

 

[Peter_J]

Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would lead them into all Truth-He never said when that would take place

Incidentally, some Protestants posters here have been very insistent that it would take place during the lifetime of the 12 apostles.

 

[pneuma07]

Your final example, puts to rest your initial quote. Jesus came to a people who didn’t have an infallibly defined canon or one sole interpretation of scriptures or theology-and yet he used those scriptures and quoted from the writings of their theologians. Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would lead them into all Truth-He never said when that would take place or whether it would only be reconciliation with him at the end of life when one would arrive at “all Truth”.

We see in the New Testament that the Apostles made mistakes, tried different approaches to church life and ministry, and even quarreled-we know from history that there were valid differences in the doctrine and practice of difference assemblies who were taught by different Apostles-we see them moving toward unity, but respecting diversity with charity whenever possible-a very different view than is often suggested by Catholics when discussing the church in Acts.

.

     Dear NS,

if I get correctly, I have difficulty in seeing how Jesus quoting Scriptures disproves considerations about the “antecedent probability” that Revelation, to be faithfully guarded and transmitted, needs something more than a collection of acknowledged writings. I guess we share that there is not connection between quoting Scriptures and promoting/accepting Sola Scriptura and I’d like to know your direct opinion about Newman’s considerations.

I also guess an exploration of the rich and difficult set of pericopes within the Upper Room Speech about the role of the Holy Spirit ( such as John 14: 25-26, and 16:12-13 ) could go far beyond the scope of the present thread.

Whether you and I differ substantially in the way we see the Apostles’ behaviors in general in Acts, I do not know. In the “Jerusalem Council”, in particular, I see an early and probably paradigmatic example of “development” of the doctrine. They ( ie Church leaders) have to decide about a momentous issue which is coming out how, in order to correctly apply what they received. And the tool is a Council. Can you concur with this ?

 

[pneuma07]

We both agree that God chose Peter for special honour-we simply disagree on what that honour was-if it indeed was ongoing universal leadership of the sort currently exercised by Popes, it would be silly for Mark to not make that clear to his readers as they would need to know this as part of their understanding of God’s intention for the church. The current Pope has no false humility about being Pope, and he shouldn’t. OTOH, if it was as I’ve pointed out God choosing him to speak in Acts 2 and 10, then humility makes a great deal of sense-one wouldn’t feel a need to draw attention to those past achievements, but would rather focus on one’s current task of being an Apostle. That would be true humility in my book.

Two points can be hopefully of some help.

1. We often listen from non-catholic brothers . “Would Peter behave as a Pope ?”.
   The nature of the question seems to imply a unique possible style of being Pope, through the centuries. Now, do we believe the service is exercised in the very same style by BXVI as it was by, say, just a XVIII century predecessor ? Or by a IV century as by a XII century pope ? Does a negative answer imply some ( who ?) of the afore mentioned ones are not to be considered Popes ? I’d simply say:
   there is IMHO no single “papal style”, through the millennia and the extremely different historical contexts and personalities against which we must check whether Peter, BXVI or anyone between the two should precisely conform in order not be disqualified from being a legitimate Pope.
   (personally I do not hear BXVI repeating routinely “I’m the Pope guys”, we just know he is, while he obviously won’t deny that if asked ).
2. There are core doctrines which are not made so clear in the Gospels ,let alone in all of them. (there must be reasons why we have received four Gospels,and not just a single one after all ). This is why, IMHO, building Christianity from scratch by a “cover-to-cover reading” does not have as much sense as quite many Christian brothers seem to believe in modern times.
   Think just of Christ’s divinity. More central to Christianity than Peter’s role, isn’t it ? I wish you good luck debating with JWs about that on the synoptics alone !
   The striking thing is that petrine service is pointed explicitly to in no fewer than three Gospels. You can be sure that was not the product of a “party” within the primitive e Church.

 

[pneuma07]

I agree that we read into Acts 15 what we bring to it, although I think verse 7 does provide a very strong reference for my interpretation of Matthew 16 and John 21. As much as I dislike proof-texting, it is as close as one can get to a 1 verse explanation of God’s unique role for Peter.

We cannot even find any specific time limitation in God made a choice among you,(U) that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear. But even if you should find this limitation in the particular context, at present my difficulty with the exegetic proposal we’re dealing with (which I confess I encounter now for the first time, ignoring therefore its patristic support, which could be considered together later ) is another one. Which is:

the core commission to Peter, in both John 21 and Luke 22:31-32, is not about starting the Church, or churches. It is not about leading new believers into the flock.
It is about *shepherding those **belonging *to the fold, without exclusions or limitations:
“tend my sheep”, “confirm your brothers” .

Bless you

 

[Non_Serviam]

So noted – but with a little surprise, I would add. I would think that if a writing is divinely inspired, it naturally follows that it’s infallible.

I don’t know if I would go that far-many of the early Christians saw marks of inspiration in some noncanonical works and yet didn’t see them as infallible. I think we have more of a Venn diagram sort of situation with inerrancy and inspiration-with the Scriptures representing the overlapping portion.

I’m not really sure what you’re asking.

Isn’t it possible for someone to write something infallible without realizing it’s infallible? (And, conversely, isn’t it possible for someone to think that what he wrote was infallible, when it wasn’t?)

We’re mixing up inerrancy and infallibility here-my apologies for starting it. A writing can be inerrant, without stating the writer was infallible during its writing. I can correctly address an envelope, making the writing on said envelope without error, and yet nothing was “protecting” me from making a mistake while writing the address.

We agree that what David wrote was without error. I believe we also agree that David was protected from introducing error into his writing. Yet David to the best of our knowledge was not aware of any such protection.

It’s a very different sort of situation when a person can tell us that the text he is about to write will be of a certainty without error and then sits down to write something.

Paul speaks of testing all things, having spiritual gifts and utterances in the church verified and validated by the assembly, and even tells his readers to test what he has written-it seems to be a very different dynamic than one of an infallible church, infallible councils and infallible Popes.

Does that make sense?

 

[Non_Serviam]

Yes … and, throughout the history of the Church, Church leaders have made mistakes, tried different approaches to church life and ministry, and even quarreled. So I’m not too clear what your point is?

Per my last post, it’s a sense of dynamic-we don’t see the Apostles bandying about claims to being an infallible Magisterium while they make these mistakes and have these quarrels.

They are leaders, but at the same time they display an attitude of learners, recognizing that being led by the Spirit doesn’t mean they will always say or do the right thing-they may have to backtrack, apologize and revisit their actions or words.

Incidentally, some Protestants posters here have been very insistent that it would take place during the lifetime of the 12 apostles.

“some protestants?”

I agree that Scriptural revelation finished during the lives of the Apostles and that all knowledge of “how” to be saved was available at that time, but even Paul said that he saw through a glass darkly and would only fully know truth after his martyrdom. In that sense he was being led to all Truth-his appearance before Jesus after his death.

 

[Non_Serviam]

Dear NS,

if I get correctly, I have difficulty in seeing how Jesus quoting Scriptures disproves considerations about the “antecedent probability” that Revelation, to be faithfully guarded and transmitted, needs something more than a collection of acknowledged writings. I guess we share that there is not connection between quoting Scriptures and promoting/accepting Sola Scriptura and I’d like to know your direct opinion about Newman’s considerations.

I also guess an exploration of the rich and difficult set of pericopes within the Upper Room Speech about the role of the Holy Spirit ( such as John 14: 25-26, and 16:12-13 ) could go far beyond the scope of the present thread.

Whether you and I differ substantially in the way we see the Apostles’ behaviors in general in Acts, I do not know. In the “Jerusalem Council”, in particular, I see an early and probably paradigmatic example of “development” of the doctrine. They ( ie Church leaders) have to decide about a momentous issue which is coming out how, in order to correctly apply what they received. And the tool is a Council. Can you concur with this ?

I believe Newman became convinced of the need for a human authority, and expressed that conviction in a compelling literary fashion. It is interesting to note that Newman had grave misgivings about the dogmatization of papal infallibility prior to Vatican I in spite of his acceptance of a need for authority.

Do I believe human authority is useful? yes. Do I believe it is valuable to have individuals in authority who are aware of how the documentation of an organization came into being so as to better understand the “spirit” of that documentation? Yes. Do I believe that an organization should have officers to ensure that it runs smoothly and in line with its original intent? Yes.

That said, I have serious concerns about the model of one Bishop over a diocese and one Pope over the Church. Jesus and the Apostles appointed plural leadership in every instance. Jesus named 12, Bishops (plural) were appointed over local churches that were planted, they met in council to discuss problems in Acts 15-and resolved the issue through consensus.

We see in 3 John that one leader Diotrophes was trying to take sole control of that church, and the other elders were resisting him and appealing to John for help.We see in letters of Clement and other ECFs that the church in Rome was led by Bishops (plural) who guided it and kept one another accountable. We do not see singular leadership and a reliance on infallibility to preserve that individual from catastrophic error.

I agree that a study of the pericopes in John would be very interesting, but beyond the scope of the discussion (as much of what we are currently writing is as well)

I agree that Acts 15 is a paradigm, but one that is no longer followed since the triumph of the monarchical episcopacy-any thoughts on that development?