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very true, but Catholics were there from the beginning....protestants came alng about 1,600 years later....big difference!!!
Boy, you have a skewed incomplete comprehension of history!

#1 Sorry, but Catholics weren’t “there from the beginning” of God’s People! Before Catholics were the Jews. And even before the 12 tribes of Israel was Abraham!

(You’re not gonna tell us that ‘Catholics’ were hooked up directly with Abraham, are ya?)

ALL: This is what happens with elitist Catholics who flunk basic Bible history!

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#2 How did John say we are linked to God as His children? Having the right ancestry or spiritual ancestry?

Have you ever read John 1:12-13? 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

Being born of God is the key; not who your great-great-great-great-great-great (etc.) spiritual godfather was!

Otherwise all those Catholic mob members from the 1930s —>1970s, especially on the East Coast, could claim some kind of “trump” over the most devout Protestant!!!

Jesus reiterates a present-tense relational reality in the parable of the virgins (Matthew 25:1-12). These virgins were all ready, so they thought, to take part in the bridegroom “train” upon the return of the bridegroom. They lacked one key component and were therefore “locked out.” What was that? Oil for their lamps! Oil is symbolic of the Holy Spirit!

You can have abelief in Jesus; look forward to His return; fulfill all the “structure” of “religion”; have the ‘proper’ apostolic successive spiritual ancestry; and yet, if you rely upon your spiritual genealogical ties — and fail to have the Holy Spirit illuminating and energizing you, then guess what? You, too could be locked out just like those virgins!

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#3 Per Victorinus, circa 280 A.D., “Christ is the Rock by which, and on which, the church is founded.” Nobody replaces Jesus. He needed no successor as “Vicar” of the church; and He extends Himself as a foundation to whom He sees fit!

Peter only called himself “an apostle” (1 Pet. 1:1) and a “fellow elder” (1 Pet 5:1) and declared Christ to be “the Chief Shephard” (1 Pet. 5:4).

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#4 Christ has given a universal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:4-9; Rev. 1:5). As Irenaeus said, circa 180 A.D.: “...I have show that ALL the disciples of the Lord are Levites and priests.” And: “For ALL the righteous possess the priestly rank. And ALL the disciples of the Lord are priests...”

This is called the “priesthood of all believers” — which the Catholic church has undermined via its special priestly class.

The same authority Jesus gave to Peter in Matthew 16:18 is given to all the apostles in Matthew 18:18. Thus, the church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets [plural], with Jesus Christ as the cornerstone” (Eph. 2:20). Peter was only one of the “chief apostles” (plural) (2 Cor. 12:11; Gal. 1:18-19).

ALL authority is in Jesus Christ (Matthew 28:18). He didn’t relinquish it or turn it completely over to any mere man. Jesus added in Matt. 28:20 that He would be with us always!

Jesus is the Chief Shepherd, the cornerstone, the Living Authority, and the Ever-Present One with His church, which includes Protestants!

THERE IS SO MUCH NONSENSE IN THIS POST THAT I CAN’T FIGURE OUT HOW TO ANSWER IT NOR DO I HAVE THE TIME RIGHT NOW.