Search results

Wow. I don't know of any serious scholars who think the apostle Peter wrote 2 Peter. Do you?

No, and no, and no. I am saying that the "gates" of hell are entry points and defensive barricades, and they "prevail" against an attacker only by keeping it out. Hell is the attackee in Jesus's comment, not the attacker.

I wonder if we can all agree that the assault on the "gates of hell" has yet to be mounted. The prophecy that those gate will not withstand the Church's assault (not the Church repelling Satan, but Satan's gates being unable to repel the Church) is the end game. We're not there yet.

And the question I posed is, WHY?

But those things are good things to do even if not an attempt to "earn" anything. Indeed, we are commanded to do a number of things that "earn" no salvation in the doing. The ritual of water baptism, like circumcision before it, signifies the ritual participant's membership in the people of...

"by the Apostles" plural? Not by Peter alone? What did Iggy know that we don't?

Okay, I'll ask you the question John might have asked in 66 C.E. if you and he were having the conversation: Why could only the bishop of Rome qualify to be pope?

I would challenge your use of "Therefore." Are you a sola scriptura guy?

Obviously dead popes don't appoint successors, although they could appoint a successor while alive. Peter's successor, if elected or unanimously acclaimed, must have been elected or unanimously acclaimed the Bishop of Rome by some subset of Church leaders. Where is the legitimacy in that? I...

Sure, but it hardly follows that Peter's appointment of a successor (as opposed to by election by other elders/bishops/apostles still alive) was the intended succession protocol. Indeed, we don;t know what the original succession protocol even was. We have no clear proof that Peter appointed...

No need to limit this to apostles. EVERYONE who does not yet know something cannot yet teach it. Duh! Well, Peter did not understand the need to reach out to Gentiles until the Cornelius incident (not learned from Paul). That doesn't render every word he preached prior to that incident...

If A seeks to assert ecclesiastical authority over B, but lacks power (be it physically or by persuasion and fear of damnation) to force B's submission, then it is B's choice whether to submit to A's authority. If A doesn't seek to assert such authority over B, then A's power to force...

I'm not seeing what this has to do with Peter's primacy, much less that of his successors.

So, the Hebrew script for "vav" looks like a nail -- and now everyone thinks it's a type for the Crucified Christ! Sorry, that's wishful thinking at best. The language was spoken before it was written, and however "vav" originally sounded (a matter for speculation) someone created the written...

Fair point. The logic is compelling even of the Scripture is less than explicit.

I just don't see a clear indicator of pre-eminence here -- but it hardly matters. There is nothing in this to indicate that Peter's successors were intended to have pre-eminence over the other apostles' successors.

You affirm what I have not denied. I don't know how to be any clearer: the ONLY conclusion of yours I am challenging today is your conclusion that the Torah passages saying God will visit a father's iniquity on three and four generations of progeny refers to "ages" rather than parent-child...

Actually he said it to all of the apostles as a group, not just to Peter. I don't claim that Peter and his successors were excluded any more than the rest of the apostles and their successors. Jesus is "with" them all -- yet bishops can fall into doctrinal error. The question being discussed...

Well, I certainly didn't learn this! I don't doubt Matthias was an "apostle" or that Paul was an "apostle," as he occasionally called himself. But I reject the notion that this means I "must by default accept that the apostleship would go on and that the church would have apostles governing it...

It also means that polygamy is not to be practiced by bishops -- even in any locales where Timothy might visit in which polygamy is common.