The Widespread Absence Of An Early Papacy

Gavin Ortlund just put out a video that provides a good overview of a lot of the evidence against the papacy. He makes some points I didn't make in my last post, and my post covers some things not included in his video. When you think of the evidence as a whole, notice that there's such a large number and variety of contexts in which the papacy is absent among the early sources. In addition to being absent, the concept of a papacy is sometimes contradicted. I mentioned some examples in my last post. And keep in mind how important Catholics tell us the papacy is, how it's allegedly the foundation of the church, the source of Christian unity, and so on. The First Vatican Council claimed that the papacy is a clear doctrine of scripture that's always been understood by the church. In reality, the papacy isn't in scripture or the earliest extrabiblical sources, and it's sometimes contradicted by those sources.

Some Ways To Argue Against A Papacy

It's useful to think of ways to concisely address a subject. That helps when we don't have much time in a particular context or we're looking for brief way to start a conversation on the topic, for example. In a post a few years ago, I summarized nine lines of evidence to consider when evaluating the papacy:

Regarding the evidence against the papacy outside of Matthew 16, think of the many contexts in which a papacy could have been mentioned early on, but wasn't: there's no reference to a title for a papal office (in contrast to "apostle", "deacon", etc.); the qualifications for holding other offices, like apostle and elder, are mentioned in places like Acts 1 and 1 Timothy 3, whereas there's no such discussion of the qualifications for being a Pope; passages discussing the structure of the church, like 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4, say nothing of a papacy; the imagery used for the church in Ephesians 2 and elsewhere doesn't make any effort to portray a papal office; the imagery used for the apostles in Matthew 19 and elsewhere (e.g., twelve thrones, twelve foundation stones) doesn't make any effort to portray a papal office; in passages in which the apostles are anticipating their departure in some sense (Paul departing from the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, Paul and Peter anticipating their deaths in 2 Timothy and 2 Peter), there's no reference to a papal office, looking to the bishop of Rome as the foundation of the church, looking to the bishop of Rome as the center of Christian unity, or anything like that; the earliest sources to comment on the Roman church and its importance (Paul in Romans, Luke at the end of Acts, Ignatius, Dionysius of Corinth, Irenaeus, etc.) give a variety of non-papal reasons for the Roman church's significance; the early opponents of Christianity, including ones who addressed the religion at as much length as Trypho and Celsus did, showed no awareness of a papacy. Furthermore, passages like 1 Corinthians 12:28 (mentioning "apostles" as the first order in the church) and Galatians 2:9 (grouping Peter with other apostles and naming him second) make more sense if there was no early belief in a papacy than if there was a belief in it.

Some of the arguments don't have enough significance to use in isolation. They should be part of a cumulative case instead. But some of them could be used in isolation. You could choose one or more to start with, then move on to others if warranted.

Agnosticism On Controversial Issues Before The Reformation

Just as people are often undecided about religious issues in our day, the same was true in past generations. That category of agnosticism is often, I'd say typically, ignored in discussions of historical theology, especially pre-Reformation church history.

We'll be told that everybody before the Reformation held such-and-such a view, but the fact that some individuals were agnostic on the subject won't be mentioned. (Probably often because the person making the claim about what everybody believed isn't aware of that agnosticism.)

For example, as I've mentioned before, some individuals were agnostic about whether Mary was assumed to heaven. That agnosticism persisted even into the second millennium of church history. See, for example, the entries on Aelred of Rievaulx, Isaac of Stella, and Peter of Celle in Michael O'Carroll's Theotokos (Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1988).

Another example of this kind of thing is discussed in Craig Atwood's book on the Hussites, The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009). On page 180, he refers to some pre-Reformation Hussites who "wanted to leave up to God the question of whether the [eucharistic] bread changed or remained bread".

We see this sort of thing frequently in our day, with predestination, eschatology, church government, and whatever else. We need to keep in mind that people were sometimes agnostic on religious issues prior to the Reformation as well. People tend to focus on opposition to a belief when thinking about an alternative to the claim that everybody held that belief before the Reformation. But we need to remember that agnosticism is another category that's relevant. The people who were agnostic about the subject shouldn't be grouped with the people who affirmed the belief in question.

Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Pre-Reformation Hussites (Part 3)

Murray Wagner refers to how Petr Chelcicky "denounced the doctrine of purgatory...Chelcicky's rejection of purgatory has its precedent among the Waldenses and Lollards and is paralleled in the Taborite demand that chantries for the dead and intercessory prayers to the saints also be abolished." (Petr Chelcicky [Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1983], 121-23) Wagner refers to how Chelcicky ridiculed "the veneration of saints" (127) and was "critical of prayers of intercession to the saints" (143). Craig Atwood refers to Taborite opposition to images (The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius [University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009], 118). Katerina Hornickova writes:

In reality, the view of saints’ merits and intervention in Hussite and Utraquist teaching varied among different fractions of the religious movement, from refusal by the radicals to acceptance by conservatives....

With the influence of Matthew of Janov, and wyclifite ideas on the Hussite theologians Jacobellus of Stříbro and Nicolas of Dresden, the radical Hussite party’s view of the contemporary Catholic cultic practices of veneration of saints’ relics and images was largely negative....

[quoting Nicolas Biskupec of Pelhřimov] "from the authority of the doctors it is clear that invocations and prayers are (forms of) cult that are appropriate only for God…Therefore we do not pray and invoke the saints, nor do we seek help from them and thus impede the cult that only God deserves"...

Nicolas’ ideas were developed in the writings of Petr Chelčický (c. 1390–1460), an original thinker, close to the radicals, in his writings of 1430s-1440s. The founding ideology of what came to be the Unity of Brethren takes on a similar critical view on the cult of saints, refusing the intercession of the Virgin Mary and the saints.

Some of the more radical Hussites were premillennialists for a while (Murray Wagner, Petr Chelcicky [Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1983], 33).

Atwood writes that "The churches that developed out of the Hussite reforms made congregational singing a central part of worship decades before Martin Luther set Protestant doctrine to tavern tunes." (The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius [University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009], 52)

Regarding literacy, education, and the reading of scripture: "The Czech Reformation had made lay reading of the vernacular Bible a key component of reform, but in Prague it was primarily the aristocracy and wealthy burghers who had this privilege. The Taborites extended biblical literacy to the common people. This ideal of an educated, active laity would bear rich fruit in the Unity, especially in Comenius's advocacy of universal education." (111)

Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Pre-Reformation Hussites (Part 2)

Some of the Hussites held to "an outright denial of any notion of Christ's presence in the eucharist...In time, Tabor arrived at a eucharistic position very comparable to the symbolic teaching." (Murray Wagner, Petr Chelcicky [Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1983], 59-60) Craig Atwood compares the Taborite view to Ulrich Zwingli's (The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius [University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009], 252). Wagner summarizes:

Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Pre-Reformation Hussites (Part 1)

In other posts, I've discussed other groups who were forerunners of the Reformation to some extent, the Waldensians and the Lollards. I've occasionally discussed the Hussites as well, but not as much. What I want to do in this series of posts is provide more examples from the Hussite movement. Though that movement continued into the Reformation era and beyond, my focus here will be on the pre-Reformation Hussites.

Reformation Resources

Reformation Day will be celebrated at the end of the month. I've been maintaining a collection of resources on Reformation-related topics, which you can access here. I've updated that post since linking it last year. The baptismal regeneration page has been updated in multiple places. I added an entry addressing the subject of apostolic churches and the alleged problem of Protestants disagreeing with what all apostolic churches believe. I also added a link to a post on Marian apparitions. The link on the perpetual virginity of Mary and children of Joseph from a former marriage has been updated.

"Firstborn" In Luke 2:7 And The Alleged Perpetual Virginity Of Mary

From Gregory Lanier's new commentary on Luke:

"Also, because prōtotokos here [in Luke 2:7] is modified by 'her,' it registers at the human level and does not convey the transcendence of Rom 8: 29; Col 1: 15; and Heb 1: 6." (Christian Standard Commentary: Luke [B&H Publishing Group, 2025], approximate Kindle location 4693)

Luke uses "only begotten" elsewhere (7:12, 9:38). He could have used it in 2:7, which would have implied the prerogatives, honors, and such of the "firstborn" terminology without casting doubt on Mary's perpetual virginity. In a culture in which women normally have multiple children, like ancient Israel, a woman whose child is called "firstborn" is normally expected to go on to have others or thought to have had others already, and Luke's gospel refers to others if the gospel is interpreted in its most natural sense (8:19). To refer to a woman's child as "firstborn" when she may not have any other children, but is expected to have more, is different than referring to the child as "firstborn" when writing after you know there were no other children. You could do the latter, but it would be less natural. Even if a term takes on additional uses over time, you should ask what the best explanation is of how the term originated. That has implications for later usage. "Firstborn" makes the most sense as a term originating in a context involving multiple children. That likely was the original meaning and the usual meaning afterward, even though exceptions developed under some circumstances. The issue here is how we best explain the terminology, not how it might be interpreted.

Some Significant Biblical Commentaries Due Out Soon

It looks like Craig Blomberg's new commentary on Matthew should be coming out in early November. Here's the Amazon page for it. And Craig Keener's multi-volume commentary on Mark is scheduled to begin coming out in January. It looks like the first three volumes will be out that month (here, here, and here on Amazon), and the fourth and fifth are scheduled for September of next year (here and here). You can find the first three volumes offered in an electronic format and at a lower price at the publisher's web site.

New Projects From A Group That Funded Tom Schmidt's Book On Josephus And Jesus

I've written some posts that cite Tom Schmidt's recent book on Josephus and Jesus. He recently mentioned that an organization that funded his book is in the process of making a documentary about it, and they've referred to other projects they're working on. Here's something from a page at their web site about their projects:

"Other projects of ours span biblical times to well into the Christian era. They include new evidence regarding the extraordinary spread of ancient Christianity in East Asia, a new discovery of perhaps the earliest Christian artifact, new testimony concerning the famous darkness of the crucifixion, among others."

A Good Discussion Of Psalm 22 And Isaiah 53

Michael Flowers recently recorded a video with Joshua Pearsall about the two passages. They make some good points about the passages and respond to some objections raised by critics (Dan McClellan, Kipp Davis, Tovia Singer, Bart Ehrman).

Michael has also written a good article about Psalm 22:16, which I discussed in an earlier post.

You can find a listing of some of our posts on Messianic prophecy fulfillment, in canonical order, here. And here's a collection of posts on prophecy issues more broadly.

How Baptism Of Blood And Baptism Of Desire Work Against Baptismal Regeneration

Advocates of baptismal regeneration frequently allow for many exceptions to the rule of baptismal regeneration: people were justified differently during the Old Testament era, people were justified differently during part or all of Jesus' time on earth, Cornelius and those with him who were justified before baptism were exceptions to the rule, and so on. Two of the exceptions they make involve supposed other forms of baptism, such as being baptized by blood if you die as a martyr before being water baptized or being baptized by desire if you intended to get water baptized, but died before the water baptism was carried out. Much can be said about the problems with such views. John 3:5, probably the passage most prominently cited in arguments for baptismal regeneration, appeals to Nicodemus' knowledge of the Old Testament scriptures, which makes less sense if Jesus was referring to a means of justification different than that of the Old Testament era, and the passage says nothing about blood or desire. And see my post here about how unknown and contradicted baptism of blood and baptism of desire were among pre-Reformation sources. Baptism of blood was popular, but not universally accepted. Baptism of desire seems to have been initially absent, then became a minority view, then reached majority status hundreds of years into church history. That doesn't sit well with what many advocates of baptismal regeneration say about how their church is the church of the earliest centuries of Christianity, how they passed down all apostolic teaching in unbroken succession throughout church history, how the alleged early unpopularity of justification apart from baptism supposedly is such strong evidence against that view of justification (compare that to the early unpopularity of baptism of desire), etc.

How do we best explain what happens with the unbaptized martyr or the catechumen who dies before being baptized, for example? Instead of proposing a baptism of blood or a baptism of desire, it makes more sense to conclude that they were justified through faith without baptism. The martyr gave his life for Christ because he was already regenerated. He had no need for being regenerated in a future baptism of water or blood. Similarly, the catechumen was going through the catechetical process because he was already regenerate. Both the martyr's behavior and the catechumen's make more sense if regeneration had already occurred. As I've said before, people like Abraham, the tax collector in Luke 18, and Cornelius aren't exceptions to the rule. They are the rule. That's why Paul cites Abraham as if he's normative, Jesus speaks in Luke 18 as if what he's describing is normative, Acts 11 and 15 refer back to the events of chapter 10 as if they involve the normal means of justification, etc. Similarly, the martyrs and catechumens under consideration aren't exceptions as far as their regeneration and justification are concerned. They're further evidence for the rule. The rule is justification apart from baptism. It's the regeneration, faith, and justification the person already has that motivate the person to get baptized.

Part of what's involved here is the principle of simplicity. We prefer the simplest explanation, all other things being equal. Dividing up history as advocates of baptismal regeneration do, with different means of justification during different periods, and proposing other forms of baptism (blood, desire) not suggested by Jesus and the apostles, among other complications introduced by advocates of baptismal regeneration, doesn't provide the simplest explanation of the evidence.

Charlie Kirk and chaos

I believe what we have witnessed in Charlie Kirk's assassination by an LGBTQ+ and specifically trans-friendly killer and continue to witness in its wake is ultimately a spiritual war.

Please let me take a step or two back. Here's what I mean.

The God of the Bible is a God of order, not chaos. Arguably distinctions are necessary for there to be order. At least the God of the Bible orders creation by making distinctions.

So, for instance, God separates light from darkness, day from night, water from land. He distinguishes between the greater light (sun) to rule the day and the lesser light (moon) to rule the night.

He distinguishes between creatures of the sea, land, and air. He distinguishes among land creatures - livestock, crawling things, wild animals.

He distinguishes between humans made in his image from animals. And he distinguishes between male and female.

Such distinctions and separations help order creation. Indeed, creation started out as "formless and empty". Roughly speaking, the first 3 days of creation God forms the formless, while the last 3 days of creation God fills the empty.

However, when we blur or erase distinctions, such as when we blur or erase the distinction between male and female by saying saying men can be women and women can be men, that there are no inherent differences between male and female, then we attempt to unravel the created order. We attempt to introduce chaos into the created order. This wreaks havoc. Like intentionally slashing a knife several times across Van Gogh's Starry Night to mar it beyond recognition.

I think that may be one reason why the apostle Paul in Romans 1 uses idolatry and homosexuality as emblematic or paradigmatic examples of human rebellion, for idolatry attempts to blur or blot out the distinction between the Creator and the creature, while homosexuality attempts to blur or blot out the distinction between male and female.

As such, idolatry and homosexuality represent paradigmatic examples or perhaps even the epitome of the creature rebelling against the Creator by attempting to turn the created order into chaos.

And, not coincidentally, that's precisely what Satan and his fallen hordes would love to see happen to creation. They can't hurt God directly, but they can destroy what he has made. They can turn his entire creation including his creatures - most of all the creatures which bear his own image - into chaos. By disordering the ordered, they can unmake what God has made, they can uncreate creation.

Satan and his ilk know there's no redemption for them. Yet, if they must burn, then they want the world to burn with them. They want to take down as many as they can - deep down, down to the fiery pits of hell.

Charlie Kirk's killer is cut from the same cloth in terms of motivation and endgame. Not only him, but there seems to be a destructive and even self-destructive nihilism animating much if not most of the left today. (I won't bothsides this, which would be like comparing the LA wildfires to a solitary matchstick.)

If the killer is guilty and receives the death penalty, then I hope he repents before he is executed. If he remains impenitent at death, then he will join the father of lies and a murderer from the beginning and the primeval demons in the lake of fire.

I realize all this is at best an inchoate sketch. Nevertheless I hope it conveys something of why I think it's ultimately a spiritual war.

A Neglected Line Of Evidence For Sola Scriptura And Against Alternatives

There's some material in the New Testament that I've referred to as departure passages. They provide some evidence for sola scriptura and against alternatives to it. See here for a post about the departure material in the apostle John's writings. That post also has a link to an earlier article about departure material from Paul and Peter.