Paul Did NOT See Peter as Head of the Church

[spedteacherita]

Romans 12:4-5
Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function,so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

Romans 15:5-6
May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:10
I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.”

Your Protestant forefathers CHOSE to disagree with the historical Church, the Catholic Church. They CHOSE to create division within the one body of Christ. They CHOSE to accept disunity in mind and thought.

And those choices are perpetuated by their descendants to this very day.

The choices they made at that particular time were based upon the need to stop the corrupt things that were happening in the Church at the time. I think both sides could have done better than they did and perhaps we wouldn’t have had the divisions that we do today.

I was thinking of those same verses that you posted Randy, that point to the Body - can we not today work together as a Body? Are there not strengths in all Christian churches that we don’t spend our time fighting within and instead use our various gifts to continue to spread the gospel of Jesus?

With the amount of ways we have to get out the Word of God we should be doing that - supporting those who are doing that and those who are being martyred for Christ at this very point in time?

Blessings!!

Rita

 

[Jon_S_1]

The choices they made at that particular time were based upon the need to stop the corrupt things that were happening in the Church at the time. I think both sides could have done better than they did and perhaps we wouldn’t have had the divisions that we do today.

I was thinking of those same verses that you posted Randy, that point to the Body - can we not today work together as a Body? Are there not strengths in all Christian churches that we don’t spend our time fighting within and instead use our various gifts to continue to spread the gospel of Jesus?

With the amount of ways we have to get out the Word of God we should be doing that - supporting those who are doing that and those who are being martyred for Christ at this very point in time?

Blessings!!

Rita

The narrative is that the reformers were motivated by corruption in catholicism. And while it is true, it seems the reformers were far more politically motivated at least as it progressed.

Regardless though, if there is corruption what a great thing to work at cleaning up while remaining faithful.

It’s like a marriage. If your wife or husband is being a pain is it better to work through it and stay married or just get divorced and find a better wife or husband.

The church is the bride of Christ and anyone leaving her is divorcing Christ’s bride.

Christianity is weakened and watered down because of our divisions. Ask some non Christian friends. Talking with a Jewish coworker he basically said he saw christianity as a place where you could believe almost anything about anything. He saw it as relativism. And as a whole he is dead on.

We can have diversity, we have lots of rites and churches in union with Rome that look very differently and even have different views on things but at the end of the day they are catholic, they are one with Christ’s bride.

How wonderful it would be to have a Lutheran rite/community or an evangelical rite/community.

 

[KathleenGee]

It seems Protestants haven’t gotten beyond the pope of Luther.

Likewise how do we become one??

Becoming one is the very first and primary mark of the Church…Our primary focus is to enter into the communion of the Holy Trinity through the Word, the Mass, and most of all the Eucharist.

We find our spiritual, intellectual, physical, and souls united to the Lord in the Holy Eucharist more than anything, and through the Eucharist, He then connects spiritually, the oneness of mind and heart to each other.

So I might not have spoke to anyone before Mass. But when we come out of Mass, we are all united together to serve the Lord in joy.

 

[Denise1957]

But he did say, even “instruct” to “print” a book as Word, and that what it contained could also travel to the ends of the earth, to every creature.(note I said also, not negating oral apostolic gospel).

Where in sacred scripture did our Lord say to print a book and that it should travel to the ends of the earth?

 

[KathleenGee]

My close friend was raised Catholic and we shared our faith so deeply.

But one day I was disturbed to find out that she wanted the easy way…I was always more complicated thinking about things.

Anyway, our lives grew apart. She got married, went back east and her husband and she came to my home one night to make me a Seventh Day Adventist…I had just become devoted to the rosary and can see it binded me to Christ and His Church and they had no effect on me…except I was so troubled. Later they left.

But she got divorced and never returned to the Church. She remarried…and again we went separate ways…she became a dr. I felt compelled to call her and I felt this aloofness from her…but did so anyway.

She called and left me this message that was so impersonal that it really upset me and alienated me.

Then this winter I began to seek her again…only to find out…on the eve of my birthday…she had died of cancer…7 years ago…no obituary, no funeral but some wake in a public park, no burial…no references by other siblings…who all died in a 7 year period. I was so upset.

But I found out that as Catholic…the Mass reading came about the following weekend…that when we die to ourselves…we now belong to Christ…we no longer belong to ourselves. I cannot judge where she is or how spiritually nourished in her last days…but for me it was a loss of the sense of myself…that part of me died…

As a Catholic she was a part of me through Christ…and the separation and in this way is such a terrible effect still on my being.

Catholic unity brings us to such a deep relationship with Christ, however mystical…and our relationships we have as Church are so deep…that each one of us is truly a part of each other in Christ.

Just another angle here…as I am grieving again for her…

 

[benhur]

No, he wishes that we all be one DESPITE our personal difficulties about doctrine.

So did Peter have personal difficulties with the Jewish magisterium, or the Sanhedrin, and most rabbis when he declared Christ the Son of the Living God? Did he submit to his leaders, humbly, in love for Israel, the one true light of the OT ?

Agreed, we must die to ourselves, lean not on our own understanding, and trust in the Lord and His truth as revealed by the Spirit and thru His church, the body, and thru Writ, and thru teachers, and pastors and parents etc, even nature. We all do this when we proclaim faith in a loving, triune God. Before new birth we had difficulties believing anything doctrinally sound. So we all do know what it is to set “personal difficulties”, even unbelief, a side.

This is why it is so hard for us to see people outside the bounds of the church…because at some level they are trusting in themselves instead of Christ and the Bride of Christ.

Yes, that goes both ways. There are many paths to not fully trust in Calvary, in His redemptive work.

And what is outside the bounds of the church ? Have the boundaries changed ? Has the method of setting boundaries changed ?

Maturity is submitting to the nudging of the Lord when He says a brother with a different conviction is brother with equal footing in His hands.
"

Keep yourselves from those evil plants which Jesus Christ does not tend, because they are not the planting of the Father. Not that I have found any division among you, but exceeding purity. For as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ are also with the bishop. And as many as shall, in the exercise of repentance, return into the unity of the Church, these, too, shall belong to God, that they may live according to Jesus Christ. Do not err, my brethren. If any man follows him that makes a schism in the Church, he shall not inherit the kingdom of God. If any one walks according to a strange opinion, he agrees not with the passion [of Christ.]."

ST Ignatius of Antioch…107AD

Amen. Thank God we are not gnostics, the primary enemy, even strange schismatic opinion in the church at the time. He was not addressing baptismal or confessional, or Marian or even Petrine doctrine opinions. There were bigger fish to fry- gnosticism. So amen,when a gnostic comes around stick to your prsebyter.

Blessings

 

[Jon_S_1]

Jon S;12823702:

So did Peter have personal difficulties with the Jewish magisterium, or the Sanhedrin, and most rabbis when he declared Christ the Son of the Living God? Did he submit to his leaders, humbly, in love for Israel, the one true light of the OT ?

He submitted to God himself…Jesus Christ.
Unless Jesus has returned to tell you differently, you should submit to his bride the church, and those of whom he gave authority don’t you think?

Agreed, we must die to ourselves, lean not on our own understanding, and trust in the Lord and His truth as revealed by the Spirit and thru His church, the body, and thru Writ, and thru teachers, and pastors and parents etc, even nature. We all do this when we proclaim faith in a loving, triune God. Before new birth we had difficulties believing anything doctrinally sound. So we all do know what it is to set “personal difficulties” ,even unbelief, a side.
Yes, that goes both ways. There are many paths to not fully trust in Calvary, in His redemptive work.

And what is outside the bounds of the church ? Have the boundaries changed ? Has the method of setting boundaries changed ?

Perhaps I should have been more clear, outside the bounds of the catholic faith/orthodoxy. To be separated brothers from the church, is like being separated from the family. You may be family but you choose to be apart from us.

Maturity is submitting to the nudging of the Lord when He says a brother with a different conviction is brother with equal footing.

At what point is a brother not on equal footing and who decides this?

"Amen. Thank God we are not gnostics, the primary enemy, even strange schismatic opinion in the church at the time. He was not addressing baptismal or confessional, or Marian or even Petrine doctrine opinions. There were bigger fish to fry.

Blessings

a schism occurs from within the church among baptized people…otherwise it is just a heretical sect.

His use of schism is intentional. Luther caused schism, as did Calvin and many other western “reformers”. I think it’s important to heed the words of someone like Ignatius, someone who led the church where christianity first grew from just 50 years before.

 

[MartinJordan]

Amen. Thank God we are not gnostics, the primary enemy, even strange schismatic opinion in the church at the time. He was not addressing baptismal or confessional, or Marian or even Petrine doctrine opinions. There were bigger fish to fry- gnosticism. So amen,when a gnostic comes around stick to your prsebyter.

Blessings

It was not about bigger fish. The Gnostics downplayed who Jesus was. Marian doctrines and Peterine, NEVER downplay what Jesus did for us but promote and proclaim Him as the Saviour of the world, that Jesus Is Lord of all.

You have to thank God for the Catholic church.

MJ

 

[Jon_S_1]

Also Ben hur,

Who decides how big a fish needs to be to fry it?

 

[KathleenGee]

Peter and the Nazarenes were expelled from the Jewish synagogue.

They had continued to meet in the synagogues. This expulsion caused the Nazarene Jews to stop worship of the Lord on the Jewish Sabbath, moving theirs to Sunday as well as ending the practice of the 40 Day Fast…these done, again, out of protest.

So although they initially continued to meet with Jewish believers, their discussions among them and disputes, eventually led to their expulsion.

Most the Nazarene Jews also left Israel due to the Diaspora, Christian Jews already residing in Rome when SS Peter and Paul arrived, these meeting in private homes with the liturgy led by presbyters. When Peter and Paul arrived, they were immediately accepted because of their relationship to Christ. And remember, irregardless, Paul first spent 15 days with Peter to insure he understood the encounter with Christ…again this reflecting the spirit of the CHurch to not go out alone…but in submission to lawful authority.

As the Gentiles were most readily accepting of the Good News, the Nazarene Jews that remained in Israel; in comparison, ‘fell into oblivion’, my seminarian use resource. As of now, the Hebrew rite is being now utilized in the Middle East…Jerusalem?>…I have to consult my sources. I know the Hebrew Catholics are a good source of information and faith.

www.HebrewCatholic.net…it used to be www.HebrewCatholic.org.

 

[benhur]

Also Ben hur,

Who decides how big a fish needs to be to fry it?

Ask Ignatius. We were talking about his letters.

Otherwise , in your case, The California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

 

[benhur]

He submitted to God himself…Jesus Christ.

Right, because the Father revealed the rightness of it, and to not submit to Sanhedrin and most Jewish leaders, even magisterium mainliners.

Unless Jesus has returned to tell you differently, you should submit to his bride the church, and those of whom he gave authority don’t you think?

Does He have to return to tell someone differently ?

Like Peter, who seemed not to submit to Jewish authorities as a disciple/apostle, really did submit to the Jewish mission. So also do many others submit to the spirit , even the mission of the church, though not apparent to “mainliners”.

Perhaps I should have been more clear, outside the bounds of the catholic faith/orthodoxy. To be separated brothers from the church, is like being separated from the family. You may be family but you choose to be apart from us.

I think this a relatively modern paradigm, certainly not found in first church ( a brother separated from family-you either were a christian or you were not)

At what point is a brother not on equal footing and who decides this?

According to some citing Matt18 a brethren can decide, then two or more, then the congregation, and as in Acts, a council. Oh,and sometimes only the Lord himself knows.

His use of schism is intentional. Luther caused schism, as did Calvin and many other western “reformers”. I think it’s important to heed the words of someone like Ignatius, someone who led the church where christianity first grew from just 50 years before.

And some Catholics have said if the church handled it differently, Luther might be a Catholic saint today (and maybe Ignatius would have been in his corner condoning his “concerns”).

As the Didache says, “cause not a schism and* pacify* those that contend”. Takes two to tango.

 

[Jon_S_1]

Right, because the Father revealed the rightness of it, and to not submit to Sanhedrin and most Jewish leaders, even magisterium mainliners.
Does He have to return to tell someone differently ?

Like Peter, who seemed not to submit to Jewish authorities as a disciple/apostle, really did submit to the Jewish mission. So to do many others submit to the spirit , even the mission of the church, though not apparent to “mainliners”.
I think this a relatively modern paradigm, certainly not found in first church ( a brother separated from family-you either were a christian or you were not)
According to some citing Matt18 a brethren, then two or more, then the congregation, and as in Acts, a council. Oh,and sometimes only the Lord himself.
And some Catholics have said if the church handled it differently, Luther might be a Catholic saint today (and maybe Ignatius would have been in his corner condoning his “concerns”).

As the Didache says, “cause not a schism and* pacify* those that contend”. Takes two to tango.

God told David Karesh to light his compound on fire…and his congregation was okay with it…

I think that there is more to the litmus test than individual “Christian” groups regulating their own little corner of the world.

Yes, Jesus has to return to tell someone differently…otherwise it is personal opinion that one is following guised as Jesus.

Joseph Smith being my example…

Obviously these are extreme examples but it should raise the point of a question I’ve asked previously.

What is the threshold of saying “that’s not from God” and who decides where that line is?

If it is merely the decision of individuals or individual churches, then there is no line and orthodoxy does not exist and Christianity is just whatever popular opinion wants it to be.

 

[benhur]

Peter and the Nazarenes were expelled from the Jewish synagogue.

They had continued to meet in the synagogues. This expulsion caused the Nazarene Jews to stop worship of the Lord on the Jewish Sabbath, moving theirs to Sunday as well as ending the practice of the 40 Day Fast…these done, again, out of protest.

So although they initially continued to meet with Jewish believers, their discussions among them and disputes, eventually led to their expulsion.

Most the Nazarene Jews also left Israel due to the Diaspora, Christian Jews already residing in Rome when SS Peter and Paul arrived, these meeting in private homes with the liturgy led by presbyters. When Peter and Paul arrived, they were immediately accepted because of their relationship to Christ. And remember, irregardless, Paul first spent 15 days with Peter to insure he understood the encounter with Christ…again this reflecting the spirit of the CHurch to not go out alone…but in submission to lawful authority.

As the Gentiles were most readily accepting of the Good News, the Nazarene Jews that remained in Israel; in comparison, ‘fell into oblivion’, my seminarian use resource. As of now, the Hebrew rite is being now utilized in the Middle East…Jerusalem?>…I have to consult my sources. I know the Hebrew Catholics are a good source of information and faith.

www.HebrewCatholic.net…it used to be www.HebrewCatholic.org.

Hi Kathleen

I agree to their rich heritage and valued point of view. Just that we have to bear in my mind what branch, sect, type of Hebrew.

 

[benhur]

God told David Karesh to light his compound on fire…and his congregation was okay with it…

I think that there is more to the litmus test than individual “Christian” groups regulating their own little corner of the world.

Yes, Jesus has to return to tell someone differently…otherwise it is personal opinion that one is following guised as Jesus.

Joseph Smith being my example…

Using such analogy God would have given up on all correspondence with us after the apple incident , and then the Cain/Abel incident.They all supposedly heard the same thing from God yet totally different outcomes.

 

[Jon_S_1]

Using such analogy God would have given up on all correspondence with us after the apple incident , and then the Cain/Abel incident.They all supposedly heard the same thing from God yet totally different outcomes.

I don’t follow…maybe check my edited post and clarify. Thanks.

 

[FathersKnowBest]

Right, because the Father revealed the rightness of it, and to not submit to Sanhedrin and most Jewish leaders, even magisterium mainliners.
Does He have to return to tell someone differently ?

Like Peter, who seemed not to submit to Jewish authorities as a disciple/apostle, really did submit to the Jewish mission. So also do many others submit to the spirit , even the mission of the church, though not apparent to “mainliners”.

You should really study the Korah uprising in Numbers 16:1-33.

In this event, Korah and others had tried to arrogate to themselves an authority not granted by God nor delegated to them by someone who HAD divine authority.

In a NT context, it is referred to by Jude in 1:11.

It is also a violation of the teaching of St. Paul (see, for instance, Hebrews 13:17).

 

[PRmerger]

You should really study the Korah uprising in Numbers 16:1-33.

In this event, Korah and others had tried to arrogate to themselves an authority not granted by God nor delegated to them by someone who HAD divine authority.

In a NT context, it is referred to by Jude in 1:11.

It is also a violation of the teaching of St. Paul (see, for instance, Hebrews 13:17).

Yes. Korah’s rebellion is a very good example.

We ought to tremble at the very idea! Note that when Korah attempted to rebel against the Divinely established authority of a man (Moses), asserting that everyone in the nation was anointed and that they ought to be able to go to God directly withing having to use Moses as mediator, God disagreed. And disagreed violently.

 

[FathersKnowBest]

Yes. Korah’s rebellion is a very good example.

We ought to tremble at the very idea! Note that when Korah attempted to rebel against the Divinely established authority of a man (Moses), asserting that everyone in the nation was anointed and that they ought to be able to go to God directly withing having to use Moses as mediator, God disagreed. And disagreed violently.

And St. Jude warns US against this very same thing happening in the NT age.

It’s almost as if God had foreseen the protestant arguments of today.

 

[SteveVH]

Right, because the Father revealed the rightness of it, and to not submit to Sanhedrin and most Jewish leaders, even magisterium mainliners.

Not true. Jesus told the people to submit to the teachings of the Jewish leaders:

“Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.” (Matthew 23:1-3)

I think this a relatively modern paradigm, certainly not found in first church ( a brother separated from family-you either were a christian or you were not)

You are correct that this is a modern paradigm. Until the “Reformation” it wasn’t an issue. You didn’t have separate churches springing up on every corner preaching their own version of the Gospel, holding conflicting beliefs, and still considered “Christian”.

And some Catholics have said if the church handled it differently, Luther might be a Catholic saint today (and maybe Ignatius would have been in his corner condoning his “concerns”).

It really doesn’t matter what “some Catholics” say.