Why is there no papacy in Ephesians?

In other posts, I've discussed some neglected material in Ephesians, a portion of the Bible that's often underestimated in apologetics. See here regarding Jesus' Bethlehem birthplace and Ephesians 2. Or see here regarding Ephesians 6:1-3 as evidence against the idea that the early Christians set a false date for Jesus' second coming, for example.

Another context in which Ephesians is important is the papacy. Think of all the topics covered in Ephesians that are relevant, even though it's such a short letter: the church as the body of Christ, Christian unity, the church compared to a building with a distinction made between different types of stones, order within the church, etc. Roman Catholics claim the papacy is important in contexts like the ones addressed in Ephesians. Supposedly, the Pope is the head of the church, which is relevant to Paul's comments about subjects like the body metaphor for the church in chapter 1 and the comments on church order in chapter 4. We're told that Peter is a foundation of the church in a different way than the other apostles, which is relevant in Ephesians 2:20 and elsewhere. We're supposed to think that the papacy is the center of Christian unity, and Paul writes about the principles of church unity in Ephesians.

But Paul's use of the body metaphor for the church makes no mention of a papal role for Peter and the bishops of Rome. Jesus is described differently than the other foundation stones in Ephesians 2:20, but Peter isn't. Paul's comments on church unity and church order say nothing about a papacy. Ephesians 4:11 mentions apostles in the plural first, which is reminiscent of 2:20 and 1 Corinthians 12:28. Paul seems to have thought that the first rank in church leadership is the apostles, not Peter and the bishops of Rome.

I mentioned 1 Corinthians 12. The point I'm making in this post isn't that Ephesians by itself is sufficient to assess the papacy. Rather, Ephesians is part of a cumulative case, and its significance in that case is often underestimated.

For more about the evidence outside Ephesians, see here and the Papacy post label here. You can also search under other relevant post labels (Simon Peter, Church Authority, Ecclesiology, etc.).

Lollards Who Didn't Recant

In a post a few years ago, I discussed the fact that many of the pre-Reformation opponents of Roman Catholicism, such as the Lollards, renounced their views when put on trial. You can read that post for a discussion of the significance of those recantations. For reasons I address there, the pre-Reformation opposition to Catholic beliefs is significant even if some of the people who held those views recanted. But not all of them did, and I want to mention some relevant categories here that could easily be overlooked.

Robert Lutton's Lollardy And Orthodox Religion In Pre-Reformation England (Suffolk, England: The Boydell Press, 2011) mentions that some Lollards fled persecution and were never found (151). If they weren't found, they presumably didn't recant under pressure or for any other reason, as far as we can tell. Lutton also refers to some Lollards who were put on trial posthumously (154). You can't recant at a trial when you're dead.

The Lollards are often thought of as followers of John Wycliffe. A few decades after his death, his body was exhumed and burned by his Roman Catholic opponents, and his ashes were thrown into the Swift River.

"They burned his bones to ashes and cast them into the Swift, a neighbouring brook running hard by. Thus the brook conveyed his ashes into the Avon, the Avon into the Severn, the Severn into the narrow seas and they into the main ocean. And so the ashes of Wycliffe are symbolic of his doctrine, which is now spread throughout the world." (Thomas Fuller, quoted here)

More Non-Divine Healings

I've been writing about healings that seem to come from a non-Divine source. I've discussed UFO healing cases, for example, including ones that involve medical documentation.

While it's good to have evidence like medical records, we shouldn't dismiss cases that involve lesser forms of evidence. There's some value to testimonial evidence, there's a cumulative effect to lesser forms of evidence that aren't so significant when considered in isolation, and so on.

I've been addressing issues like these for many years. Part of what I've been responding to lately, though, are the recent claims made about miracles by people like Ethan Muse and Joe Schmid. In Joe's recent videos explaining his conversion to Roman Catholicism, he cited evidence like medical records and photographs for much of what he appealed to, but there were times when he brought up something like testimonial evidence apart from X-rays, videos, and such (e.g., his citation of the testimony of Adam Blai).

What I want to do in this post is discuss Guy Playfair's testimony about healings from an apparently non-Divine source. For those who don't know, Playfair was a paranormal researcher best known for his work on the Enfield Poltergeist. You can read a tribute to him that I wrote several years ago here.