else.
Summing Up the Scriptural Stunners
I first opened up to the papacy because I saw the practical need for it. In time, however, I came to realize how strong the evidence for the papacy was within the Scriptures. To sum it up:
1. Matthew 16:18–19 establishes Peter as the “royal steward” of Jesus’ kingdom-Church, and promises him the infallible backing of heaven for his decisions about the interpretation of divine law. A succession in office is implied by the fact that the royal steward of the Davidic kingdom was an office-holder with successors.
2. John 21:15–19 gives Peter an unparalleled and incomparable triple commissioning as the unique shepherd or “pastor” of all Christ’s sheep.
3. Acts 1:15–26 establishes the principle that the apostles occupied an “office” (episkopen) that could be filled by another after their death, thus establishing the principle of “succession.”
4. Acts 5:1–11, the account of Ananias and Sapphira, demonstrates that lying to and “testing” Peter is tantamount to lying to and testing the Holy Spirit.
5. Acts 15:1–31 shows Peter exercising his role as chief shepherd or “senior pastor” by putting an end to debate that threatened to break apart the unity of the early Church by rendering an authoritative judgment about the issue under question.
Does the Bible lay out a whole theory of the papacy? No, because that wasn’t why it was written. Does the Bible reflect the fact that Peter was the divinely-authorized leader of the Church? Yes. Does early Church tradition reflect the fact that this role fell to his successor upon his death? Absolutely. Let’s close with the testimony of Saint Jerome, the first great Bible translator of Christianity, from a letter addressed to Pope Damasus I (c. A.D. 376):
I think it is my duty to consult the chair of Peter, and to turn to a church whose faith has been praised by Paul (Rom 1:8). I appeal for spiritual food to the church whence I have received the garb of Christ…. Away with all that is overweening; let the state of Roman majesty withdraw. My words are spoken to the successor of the fisherman, to the disciple of the cross. As I follow no leader save Christ, so I communicate with none but your blessedness, that is, with the chair of Peter. For this, I know, is the rock on which the church is built!11
May we, like Jerome, combine dedication to the study of Scripture with loyalty to the Bishop of Rome, the successor of Peter.
1 D. Stephen Long, “In Need of a Pope? Protestants and the Papacy,” The Christian Century, May 17, 2005, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2005-05/need-pope.
2 Not his real name.
3 All the other Hilkiahs known in Scripture were priests.
4 See William Cooke Taylor, ed., The Bible Cyclopaedia: Or, Illustrations of the Civil and Natural History of the Sacred Writings (London: J.W. Parker, 1843), vol. 2, p. 718, where it is noted that the practice of wearing the key on the shoulder was still current among the Moors in the nineteenth century.
5 See Kaufmann Kohler, “Binding and Loosing,” The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York: Ktav, 1906), http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3307-binding-and-loosing.
6 “Bishop” is a corruption of the Greek episkopos, “overseer” or “supervisor,” through the German bischof.
7 For example, around A.D. 180, the early Church Father Irenaeus, pastor of the city of Lyons in France, wrote the following about the Church of Rome: “It is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority.” Then immediately he proceeded to list the succession of bishops of Rome (i.e., Popes) from Peter down to Eleutherius, who was still Pope in Irenaeus’s day: “Eleutherius does now, in the twelfth place from the apostles, hold the inheritance of the episcopate. In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 3, Sections 2–3; http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103303.htm).
8 Not “unable to fail,” a common misconception among English-speakers.
9 See the discussion in the online Catholic Encyclopedia under “Infallibility”: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07790a.htm#IIIB.
10 It is actually the Basilica of St. John Lateran (not St. Peter’s Basilica) that is the cathedral of Rome, the “official” church of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope.
11 Letter 15.2. See NPNF 2, 6:18. See also Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi: Epistulae 1-LXX, ed. Isodorus Hilberg, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinarum (CSEL), vol. 54 (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1910), 63–64.
Chapter Two
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
The Bible and the Blessed Mother
For myself, as for many Protestants, the role of Mary in the Christian life was the major sticking point in the process of my conversion.
One memorable episode comes to mind. In the Fall of 1999, we had just moved to the University of Notre Dame. I was warming to the Catholic faith and had just read a modern Catholic apologist who had made some good points in favor of Catholicism, so mentally I was toying with the idea of becoming Catholic. I came home from class to our small, on-campus, basement apartment in the married student housing, and Dawn was there with the kids to greet me. She told me about a conversation she had earlier that day with another grad student wife who was a Catholic. They had talked about teaching the faith to children, and the Catholic mom had given her some catechetical material she used with her own kids. I picked up one of the booklets and opened it up. It happened that the page I turned to showed Jesus on the cross with his heart on fire. The stream of fire went up to heaven before the Father. So far, so good. But there was a catch. There was also a stream of fire leading from Jesus’ heart to the heart of Mary standing below him, next to the cross. The hearts of Mary and Jesus were united by this stream of fire, which joined and went up before God.
I didn’t really understand what this was meant to represent, and I definitely was not accustomed to the romanticized, even mawkish artistic style that Catholic children’s books traditionally use. I was completely “freaked out” by what looked to me to be a denial of the exclusive role of Jesus Christ as the mediator between mankind and God the Father: “there is one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ” (1 Tim 2:5). It confirmed all my worst fears about Catholic Mary-olatry. I tossed the booklet down and ran into the other room. I gave myself an internal tongue-lashing. “What were you thinking? Get control of yourself! This Catholic stuff is crazy idolatry. You can’t go down this path. You’ve got to stop reading those Catholic apologists!”
But the attraction was just too great. The beauty was too much to resist. My resolution only lasted about a week, and then I was back to reading Catholic literature and talking to my friend Michael about the Church again.
Sometime later,
