The Keys In Matthew 18:18

See this Twitter thread from The Other Paul for some good points about Cameron Bertuzzi's recent video on alleged evidence for a papacy in Isaiah 22. We've said a lot about Isaiah 22 and the papacy over the years, and anybody who's interested can search our archives. In the remainder of this post, I want to add some points to the ones made by The Other Paul.

More About The Arguments For Pauline And Petrine Papacies

The Other Paul and Geoff Robinson just produced a good response to the video by Trent Horn and Suan Sonna on a Pauline papacy.

Since Luke 22, John 21, and Jesus' singling out of Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane have been getting a lot of attention, I want to point out how unusually weak Peter is in the gospel accounts leading up to Jesus' death. While all of the disciples are referred to as being unfaithful to Jesus in that context, and Judas is obviously the worst of them, the degree to which Peter falters is often underestimated. As I said in my initial response to the video by Trent and Suan, Peter boasted louder and fell harder. Before we even get to his triple denial of Christ:

Was there a papacy in the early church?

There's been a lot of discussion of the papacy lately on some popular YouTube channels. For example, Cameron Bertuzzi recently had Joe Heschmeyer and Jimmy Akin of Catholic Answers on his channel, along with some Protestants arguing for the other side. Here's a good one-hour summary, from Gavin Ortlund, of the problems with arguments for the papacy. The Other Paul has been producing a lot of good material on the subject as well, often with Geoff Robinson. Steven Nemes has been making a lot of significant points, such as in this recent video on Matthew 16 and Isaiah 22. You can find collections of our posts on these issues here and by clicking on the relevant post labels, like Papacy.

“Pope Francis” is Coming to Town

One of the challenges that we face in dealing with the papacy today is the aura of celebrity that accompanies modern popes in the era of mass media. “Pope Francis” may be diminished, but he’ll still get lots of media coverage.

That’s why it’s so important to help out here. When “Pope Francis” visits the US later this year, he’ll be greeted by some true brothers in the “city of brotherly love”, Philadelphia, who will be informing the awe-struck Roman Catholics there of the true nature of the papacy and what the Gospel really is.

Geoff Robinson is coordinating the activities, which he’s named “Operation St. Cyprian”. The idea, of course, is to promote a time in the church when claims of papal authority were rejected in the early church. Cyprian was a bishop of Carthage from 250-258 AD; he rejected the notion of a papacy, or a “bishop of bishops”, or compulsion by “tyrannical terror” (in this he accuses the bishop of the Rome at the time, “Pope Stephen”). This is from The Seventh Council of Carthage under Cyprian:

It remains, that upon this same matter each of us should bring forward what we think, judging no man, nor rejecting any one from the right of communion, if he should think differently from us. For neither does any of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience; since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another. But let us all wait for the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only one that has the power both of preferring us in the government of His Church, and of judging us in our conduct there.

Geoff has set up a “GoFundMe” site to help raise money for incidental expenses related to the event: http://www.gofundme.com/opstcyprian:

We will be stressing the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and the necessity of trusting Jesus alone to be declared righteous before God and to have peace between God and man.

We need to raise funds to cover miscellaneous expenses ranging from the printing of materials to share to t-shirts for our volunteers to fees and SEPTA tokens. We also want to provide some food and drink to our volunteers in their downtime so they can focus on sharing the gospel.

We are [also] attempting to establish a debate between a Roman Catholic and a Protestant apologist. The expenses, including airfare, of the two will need to be paid along with costs for the venue. Any funds above the $2500 will be used to establish a debate or an event to invite contacts to discuss matters pertaining to the gospel.

Any extra funds that are not spent will be given to one or more organizations that engage in evangelism, which will aid us in our efforts.

Let’s help take care of this request: http://www.gofundme.com/opstcyprian. Please donate if you can; if you can’t, please share this link on Twitter or Facebook or other places where you might share things.

If you can help, contact Geoff at: geoff.papaloutreach@gmail.com.