I would agree with you that Peter was mentioned more and that he was the first apostle. That’s the gist of Matthew 16:18. Christ was to build His church on Peter’s confession of faith and Peter was the first convert. But you can’t use implications to say that Peter was given any more authority than the other apostles. In fact Christ was asked specifically which one of them was the greatest and He certainly didn’t tell them Peter was.
I think you are confusing the gift of primacy with a secular understanding if authority. Peter had primacy because God revealed truth to Him, Jesus prayed for him not to fail, and gave him the keys. The authority is in right doctrine, not in “lording” over others.
Had Peter had any primacy over the other apostles, it is unlikely that the Scriptures would not have mentioned it somewhere. Christ never did.
Maybe you did not read the passages above pointing out the many examples in scripture that Peter was prime. I don’t see how you can avoid so many. Also, it seems that, even if you wish to reject the Roman Church, which has been your approach, how do you explain the fact that the Orthodox support this doctrine, even though they don’t have any love for Rome either?
Regarding the keys, to this day, no one has any idea what Christ was talking about when he said He would give Peter the keys. We can only speculate.
Only a person that did not understand the Davidic Kingdom could possibly make such a ridiculous statement. Perhaps you would like to personallly reject what the Church believed for the first thousand years on this point, and that is your privilege. however, to assert “no one has any idea” is preposterous! One wonders what would happen if you accepted that Jesus really did give authority to Peter!?
Most believe the church has the keys and the keys are the path to salvation. Using Roman Catholic speculative and implicative belief, we can assume that if Christ gave the keys of the kingdom to Peter, then surely He did to all the other apostles and disciples. Wouldn’t He have given them to Mary also?
Your hateful bigotry demonstrated so far on CAF against Catholic belief and teaching surely does not put you in a very tenable position to use “Roman Catholic Speculative belief”, even if there was such a thing, which there is not!
Jesus gave the keys to Peter, and no one else. Why is that so hard to accept? What changes if you accept it?
Certainly He would have wanted Paul to have them. After all if you want to find someone considered special in Scripture, it has to be Paul.
This is another example of interjecting your secular concept of authority into Christianity. What is “specialness”? Is that scriptural?
Christ went way out of the normal way in order to make Paul an apostle. Is that any harder to believe than to believe Peter was made special? No it isn’t.
Why would you want to make some sort of “specialness” out of it. Each has their gift appointed by God. Peter had gifts that Paul did not, and vice versa. They were not "special’ in themselves. The gifts, graces, and appointments they made came from God.
Speculation and assumptions are not what theologists and scholars are looking for in interpreting Scripture. They are looking for facts. In the absence of facts, we should believe what we are actually told in Scripture.
Are you assuming there are no “facts” in scripture? What does that mean “in the absence of facts”??!! Are you saying that Jesus did not give certain gifts to Peter, including the keys.