Bryan finds the visible church

For years, Bryan Cross hunted for the elusive whereabouts of the visible church. He spent countless hours searching for clues. Pursued countless leads, which–alas!–turned out to be blind alleys. Often the trail went cold. Often he despaired of ever tracking down the location of the visible church. 

But at long last he got a solid lead. A PO Box for the visible church. 

He flew to Quad City International Airport, then rented a car, which he drove to the Duck Creek Plaza shopping mall in Bettendorf, Iowa. He had to double-check the address, since that seemed to be an odd location for the visible church. Once inside he consulted the directory, which led him to a UPS store. 

He scanned a wall of private mail boxes until he found one with the matching PO Box address. Apparently, the visible church was 3” x 5” and 14” deep. That was a bit of a letdown. 

The mailbox had a glass face with some ornate brass work. Peering through the glass he could dimly make out something inside. Perhaps it was directions to the visible church.

In desperation, he bribed the clerk to open the box for him. Inside was a postcard.

A few minutes later, Bryan was sitting in his rental car, staring at a postcard of Shell Beach. Bryan had finally found the visible church.

Pope Francis vs Cardinal Burke on “Manhood”

A couple of days ago, Steve posted a link to this interview with Cardinal Burke:

"The Catholic man crisis":

I think there has been a great confusion with regard to the specific vocation of men in marriage and of men in general in the Church during the past 50 years or so. It’s due to a number of factors, but the radical feminism which has assaulted the Church and society since the 1960s has left men very marginalized.

Unfortunately, the radical feminist movement strongly influenced the Church, leading the Church to constantly address women’s issues at the expense of addressing critical issues important to men; the importance of the father, whether in the union of marriage or not; the importance of a father to children; the importance of fatherhood for priests; the critical impact of a manly character; the emphasis on the particular gifts that God gives to men for the good of the whole society.

The goodness and importance of men became very obscured, and for all practical purposes, were not emphasized at all....

Now, check out this all-new headline from "Pope Francis":

Listen to women more, don't be macho, Pope tells men:

MANILA (Reuters) - Pope Francis said on Sunday men should listen to women's ideas more and not be male chauvinists.

The Argentine pope made impromptu remarks during a youth rally at a co-ed Catholic university in the Philippine capital, Manila, after he noted that four of the five people who addressed him on stage were male.

"There is only a small representation of females here, too little," he said, bringing laughter from the crowd.

"Women have much to tell us in today's society. At times we men are too 'machista'," he said, using the Spanish term for male chauvinists.

"(We) don't allow room for women but women are capable of seeing things with a different angle from us, with a different eye. Women are able to pose questions that we men are not able to understand," he said to more applause.

He noted that it was a 12-year-old girl, not any of the four men, who had posed the toughest question, asking why God allowed children to be abandoned..

He ended that part of his impromptu remarks with a joke: "So, when the next pope comes to Manila, let's please have more women among you."

Francis has said that, while the Roman Catholic Church's ban on women priests is definitive, he wants to appoint more nuns and other women to senior positions in the Vatican.

Peter, unity, and the “proper exercise of the keys” in Acts

Andrew Presslar 784:

As others have noted, the binding and loosing referred to in Matthew 16 almost certainly refers to the inclusion of the Gentiles in the covenant community of God (though as still others have had occasion to note it is even more certain that the proper exercise of the keys is not limited to this). Understanding Isaiah 22 by Matthew 16 (the old being fulfilled in the new), the deposed Sobna corresponds to the Jewish hierarchy, while the power given to Eliakim (signified by vestments and the bestowing of the key of the house of David) corresponds to the establishment of the Christian hierarchy–the office of the papacy in particular.

This expectation that “the power given to Eliakim (signified by vestments and the bestowing of the key of the house of David) corresponds to the establishment of the Christian hierarchy–the office of the papacy in particular” is hogwash, as I’ve shown both from this very passage you quote (“it will be cut down and fall, and the load that was on it will be cut off, for the Lord has spoken”), and from Peter’s clearly analogous “first” in the 12 Tribes of Israel “Reuben … my firstborn, … the firstfruits of my strength, preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power, you are unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence”

You rightly note that “the binding and loosing referred to in Matthew 16 almost certainly refers to the inclusion of the Gentiles in the covenant community of God”, but as you say, “it is even more certain that the proper exercise of the keys is not limited to this”.

Jesus himself notes what “the proper exercise of the keys” in the gospels:

Luke 11:52: Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”

Marshall notes of this verse: “The scribes have taken away the key of knowledge. They thus prevent other people entering in. The key consists of the knowledge of God and leads to knowledge of God”. In language that refers to “the key that leads to knowledge” of God or salvation, this parallels 1QH 4:11, “And they stopped the thirsty from drinking the liquor of knowledge’, in a context that makes it clear that Torah is meant’. …” Thus, “in and by God’s revelation he himself is known”.

In Matthew 23:13 the keys are “implicit” in a parallel verse: “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.

Thus, Peter, in “the proper exercise of the keys”, is to enable “the thirsty” to “drink the liquor of knowledge”, of the knowledge of God “Torah”, – because “in and by God’s revelation he himself is known”.

By the very words of Christ we have what is “the proper exercise of the keys” – it is the very thing that Peter has done, in opening the Torah first to the Jews (Acts 2), then to the Gentiles (Acts 10-11).

Following that function, he is “cut off” in the book of Acts. This is “the proper exercise of the keys”, and the completion of it is shown, again, in “Scripture alone”. And it is fitting, because this represents the “completeness” of his mission. As Paul writes in Ephesians 2:

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, [not “the Church is our peace”] who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace [between Jews and Gentiles] and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

This is “church unity” spoken of by Christ. Here, “in himself, one new man in place of the two” (instead of “Jews and Gentiles”, there is “one new man”, the church), ontologically complete, reconciled in one body through the cross.

“I (as in me, myself, yours truly) am the One True Church”

Seen on the Internet:

I have decided that I agree with the Roman Catholic apologists who say the Orthodox Church is not the One True Church; and I agree with the Orthodox apologists who say that the Roman Catholic Church is not the One True Church. In this matter they both prove their points; they are both right.

[a Roman Catholic blogger has] stated it as one of his "Laws" that "any church that does not claim to be the One True Church is only a denomination or sect." ... [P]ersonally, but I must say that he has stopped short of the full logic of this allegedly self-evident law. We should go a step further. So here is my Law: Anyone who does not claim to be, all by himself (or herself as the case may be) the One True Church, and to possess in his person the fullness of the Catholic Church, is not a church, but only a part or member of the body.

Therefore, I am announcing now, after much consideration, that I have decided that I (as in me, myself, yours truly) am the One True Church - just me and no one else. Yep. Unless you are me you cannot enter into the fullness of the Catholic Church...