If No One Is Pope, Everyone is Pope – A Homily for the 21st Sunday of the Year

Curios as to how Protestant commentaries analyze 2 Peter 3:4.

Pretty much the same as what we've been saying all along. Here's the passage:

2Pe 3:4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

Gill says that "by 'the fathers' they mean the first inhabitants of the world, as Adam, Abel, Seth, &c. and all the patriarchs and prophets in all ages; the Ethiopic version renders it, 'our first fathers':"

And by "they" he means the mockers in whose mouths Peter is placing these words. You see, this isn't Peter talking. These are last days mockers arguing from continuity that there will not be an apocalypse, because from the days of the first humans till now there's never been a global catastrophe. Peter then reminds them of the flood, which disproves the continuity theory.

So this passage doesn't come anywhere close to violating the command of Christ to avoid the use of the three ecclesiastical titles. A has been said to you several times, by several of us, we accept the validity of the term "father" as a description of a real fatherly function, such as a biological father, or an evangelist like Paul who has really participated in the conversion experiences of specific individuals. Those are relationships, not titles. So the prohibition of Jesus against ecclesiastical titles of honor stands. Blurring the distinctions between these functional relationships versus the prohibited titles does not solve anything. It just creates a pretext for violating a direct order from our true CO.

Speaking of solving things. I need to admit an error I made earlier. It was an honest error, but an error nonetheless. I argued that Paul being teacher to the gentiles was not problematic because the word used was didaskalos, which I suggested at the time was strictly "teacher," whereas "rabbi" was strictly "My great one." I have done further research and realized that didaskalos also carries the sense of "master," and that while "rabbi" really does literally mean "my great one," it was semantically evolving into a rough equivalent to "teacher."

The ambiguous part for me is when did that shift occur, and to what extent. I have read some authorities who suggest "rabbi" was just coming into fashion as a term of praise to the Jewish sages during the time of Christ, and so still carrying the emphasis of pride of title, and that may explain 1) why He was disposed to forbid it to His disciples, and 2) why later Greek texts would equate it with didaskalos. Because it seems didaskalos was one of those dual purpose words,, having an early history of "master" as in slave master, but evolving into teaching, but having an overlap period in which it could be used for either, which is why it could be used as the Greek equivalent of rabbi. So that by Paul's time, when He uses it to speak of being a teacher of the Gentiles, he is emphasizing the teaching as a function, not "master" as a title. In any event, Paul uses it to describe His relationship to the Gentiles, and does not employ it as a personal ecclesiastical title, and is therefore not in violation of the command of Christ.

So what I'm saying is the idea that Jesus' command still forbids certain ecclesiastical titles still stands. That general principle is obvious from the text. But the word history of some of those titles is more complicated than I initially realized, and I do apologize for not accounting for that in my earlier analysis.

Peace,

SR

The content of passages in Romans, 1Cor and Eph refer to the unique spiritual gifts given to every believer by God the Holy Spirit when we are baptized by the Spirit.

One such gift provided to male believers is the gift of Pastor-Teacher. It is a very real spiritual gift. It is a spiritual communication gift for perceiving the requisite Gospel to be taught between the Pastor-Teacher and his flock in the local assembly.

Worldly religious organizations working independent of being in fellowship through faith in Christ in their thinking, confuse the thinking of a pastor-teacher with a worldly mastering of soulish thinking. Many worldly systems then require the office to be held by persons with academic credentials to validate their mastery of academic topics, so as to prepare them to minister to others. That is a false system of pastoring, similar to present scholarly approaches in modern Judaism or Catholicism.

Human anthropology for the believer is a composition of body, soul, and spirit. Isolating the human spirit and its system of perception from the body and the soul, fails to acknowledge the system of teaching, which God provides and is very actively works, in this present Church Age.

A parallel spiritual communication gift for communicating the Gospel to unbelievers is the spiritual gift of evangelism. A person with that gift is guided by God the Holy Spirit in the presence of other unbelieving persons to communicate the right thinks to the local audience to communicate His Word to them.

In both of these positions, the believer in the body of Christ serves a unique role predestined by God in His Plan.

The most embarrassing place to be for an unbeliever or out of fellowship believer, is in an audience of either an evangelist or pastor-teacher with these spiritual gifts. They have the ability from God the Holy Spirit to spiritually perceive exactly what is necessary to communicate His Word to individuals and collective groups in their local audience. In order to communicate to individuals, it frequently is required to catch their attention, or communicate a topic of faith directly perceivable by that listener. There is nothing hidden from God in our lives. It isn’t uncommon for a pastor-teacher to directly perceive explicit hidden sin in the lives of his audience in order for him to effectively communicate the Word to that audience.

Believers in sin, who conceal their thinking by counterfeit behavior, lay completely exposed before those with these spiritual gifts. Likewise, when searching for one’s pastor-teacher, not all people who hold the worldly office are uniquely gifted to perform that task with some other believers. Some pastor-teachers are logistically predestined for explicit audiences. The Body of Christ has many members and likewise for systems of teaching which He provides for His Body.

One might glean some academic information from other teachers, but knowledge of His Word is fed directly by those whom He has provided for His Body.

Springfield Reformer:

Thanks for the protestant commentary on this. This is one of those vague passages as it could mean all of the OT prophets were fathers [beyond the ones specifically names as such, Abraham, Isacc, David in the NT] and broadens the usage of the term to all of the OT prophets who lead the OT Jewish people and term fathers, if I read Gill correctly, also refers to all spiritual fathers for all ages. So does he believe that spiritual father is restricted for usage within dome defined age, or does it go beyond the NT period into early Apostolic Church. As the article I linked earlier pointed out, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons used the term “fathers” as did Saint Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century, so those 2 at least, seemed to think the term spiritual father could indeed be applied to men like Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch, etc.

And as you do acknowledge, Paul as a father is acceptable as he was involved in the conversion, pastoring and shepherding of souls. A parish priest called father is, from the Catholic perspective, doing the same. It is the parish priest who is the ordinary minister of the sacrament of baptism, which as I think you know, from the Catholic perspective, is a sacrament that gives Grace and removes original sin and makes one an adopted son or daughter of God. So just on that point, a parish priest functionally in terms of their pastoring ministries is in essence equivalent to what Saint Paul was to say the Corinthians.

Hey no problem with your views, I am not trying to play a gotcha game. I stand by the Catholic position but at least you have the objectivity to recognize that reading MT 23:7-9 in English today and thinking it can only mean X is problematic as you do recognize words, even in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, etc, can have different meanings and do change over time.

So that by Paul's time, when He uses it to speak of being a teacher of the Gentiles, he is emphasizing the teaching as a function, not "master" as a title. In any event, Paul uses it to describe His relationship to the Gentiles, and does not employ it as a personal ecclesiastical title, and is therefore not in violation of the command of Christ.

not satisfied with this view; approaching this as an honorific title prohibition would be equivalent to forbidding washing of hands before meals, etc. This was a Jewish audience. Perhaps the real focus here was the unity of the Jewish disciples so that none, as "Rabbi" started his own Bible College. Remember Gamaliel and Shammai had their own schools. I also note The Lord said But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He gave his apostles the keys of the kingdom of heaven to determine which commandments were binding. They decided some commandments did not apply to Gentiles. In the NT I see no instance of any of the original apostles or disciples who actually heard Jesus calling themselves Rabbi, Father, or Master. I do see them using those terms in the NT for others.
as to someone's view of it as a commandment I must point out the Gentiles who claim the name and title of Christian strain st a gnat and swallow a camel in that they selectively ignore or make of no effect by their tradition what he said anyway; How many call themselves "reverend," "doctor," "professor" or "brother" as an authority figure to avoid "father" or "teacher?" The real issue is not the titles but the underlying conditions: 30,000 denominations and sects in disunity, and counting.

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

Remember Gill is addressing this as Peter quoting a hypothetical group of yet to be born mockers in the last days. So there’s no prerequisite that these “fathers” are internal to the church or even the faithful OT believers, but may simply represent the ancient peoples generally. The mockers being quoted are unbelievers, so it stands to reason they would not necessarily limit themselves to church history, but would rather be talking about human history generally.

This is actually the case with modern evolutionary skeptics, who have argued against the global flood, and also reject the apocalypse, because they reject that God intervenes in human history with these large scale judgments. In fact, many Protestants think these skeptics are probably at least a partial fulfillment of Peter’s prophecy.

As for the Father versus father controversy, I want to ask you to acknowledge something. I’m not asking you to agree, but just recognize this, that we are not saying, none of us, that these terms are off limits for descriptive use, only for use as ecclesiastical titles, which is a very narrow application. None of us has ever denied that Paul could teach or be a spiritual father to those he actually helped find faith in Christ. We only deny that such descriptive terms should evolve into formal religious titles, because as Augustine suggests, this can lead to pride and even idolatry. No one ever called Paul “Rabbi Paul,” or “Father Paul,” etc. That’s our point, and if you make it out to be more or less than that, you are not faithfully representing our actual argument.

Now I’m an attorney (plus a few other things), and I can tell you it’s cool to have that “Esq.” appended to your signature line in Outlook. But as a Christian I can also recognize the temptation to pride, to regarding oneself to being in some superior clique that can look down on others, and the badges of pride, titles and such other indicators of status, contribute directly to that temptation.

That’s what I think Jesus was getting at. It’s a narrow command but extremely useful, not hyperbole at all. He doesn’t want pride in the church leadership. He wants a servant heart. But the prohibitions are real. If you have a role in someone’s life as father, someone you actually know personally, then use of the right term to describe that role is fine. But not as part of your name. You may be revered, but you cannot be “Reverend.” You may be a father or teacher to someone, but you are not allowed to be “Father CT,” or “Rabbi SR.”

Anyway, I’m not asking you to agree, but I think it would be very helpful if you could at least acknowledge that this is our argument. Because then we could stop going on these defensive rabbit trails of “that’s not what we said,” and we could get down to addressing what we think is the real point, why you allow your clerics to bear such titles, when it would be so easy to comply with this command of Jesus by just using people’s names, as exampled by Paul, Peter, and everyone else in the New Testament church.

Peace,

Springfield:

It is true titles can lead one to pride, which of course, was the source of the fall in Genesis, thus one needs to be careful with anything that can cause pride, not only titles.

I understand your concerns of titles for clergy as one of the key principles of Protestantism is the stressing of the universal priesthood, which Catholicism affirms as all baptized are baptized into Christ and thus part of the universal priesthood. There is a danger that the non ordained clergy could be seen as not on equal standing with God. So I do recognize your concerns. But I would argue that would apply to anyone who is in any type of leadership position in the Catholic Church and Orthodox Church, who do use the term father in the context of spiritual father and Protestants who don’t. For example, a Protestant clergyman who use the term Doctor such and such [if they have a Phd from a Protestant seminary] or maybe some other term or don’t use any term at all, but still because they are the pastor of a local protestant group, is subject to the same temptations that the Catholic and Orthodox clergyman called Father Peter or Father Petros is subject to, which is of course pride.

As for Saint Augustine, he did refer to the Bishop of Rome by the term Papa [Father/Pope] as well as venerable, so while Augustine certainly understood the Christian should guard against pride, lest you fall, he did not take Christ words in Mt 23:7-9 to restrict titles such as father for Bishops and in the case of Augustine, the Bishop of Rome was the only one I can find that he called Papa [Father/Pope]. Here is the translation from schaff at ccel as I wanted to avoid any Charges of translation bias

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf101.vii.1.CCIX.html

So while I do recognize your concerns, I don’t agree with the restrictions you are making with respect to the word father. I will point out that the Catholic term Monsignor has come to be associated with careerism and thus is a title that many Bishops now shy away from as it promotes in language, a tiered system among parish priest, and Monsignor does not give anything in terms of Holy Orders. As one priest once told me, the Bishop if the chief Pastor of the diocese and on faith and moral teaching, that is his job. But in terms of pastoral ministry, I [this priest speaking] am in the front lines so sometimes when the Bishop makes a pastoral decision about how we are going to prepare kids for the sacrament of The Eucharist or Confirmation, I feel that sometimes I need to tell the Bishop what he is proposing is not the best way. Some priests would just kiss the Bishop’s you know what and play along. As this priest noted, it was these types of priests who were the careerist and many times, not all, got the titles of Monsignor. In other words, this particular priest was not fond of the term Monsignor to differentiate parish priests who were pastors. And no, he was not a spirit of Vatican II lunatic, very solid Irish priest who was my pastor back in the 90’s.

Good job with your post and I appreciate the respectful dialogue. I do and I will commend people who post the way you do, of course those who don’t, I freely acknowledge I sometimes loose my cool with some here and post accordingly.

Grace and Free will can’t go together?? I disagree

It all depends on how you interpret "free will". Please note the following observation from Moses:

Deu 31:21 And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring). For I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give."...Deu 31:27 For I know how rebellious and stubborn you are. Behold, even today while I am yet alive with you, you have been rebellious against the LORD. How much more after my death! ...Deu 31:29 For I know that after my death you will surely act corruptly and turn aside from the way that I have commanded you. And in the days to come evil will befall you, because you will do what is evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger through the work of your hands." ...

Our "free will" is to act corruptly and to provoke the Lord. It is only because of God's steadfast love that He constantly works with us to bring us around. There isn't anything that we do for God including wanting to live for Him.

Free will is an illusion. Our desire is to freely act against God. We deceive ourselves when we believe we are acting for God.

Mary is not God and no Catholic teaching would ever make such claim because that is heresy.

Let's look at the facts that are claimed about Mary by the Catholic Church:

2) She did not die

3) If one makes a request to her, she will intercede with the Son and the Son will not deny His mother

4) Salvation came to the world because of Mary's righteous act

Now how does any of this differs with our Lord Jesus?

The [sic] issue of pre-Vatican II and post Vatican II on who is part of the Church is what you are getting at. There is only 1 Church, all are in it at some level, some more than others, but all are related to it or part of it so the question of how one understands “outside the Church there is no salvation” is one of those things that has always been part of Church teaching, but it has never been completely and definitively defined.

The dogma of the Roman Catholic Church reads as following:

2.Christ founded the Catholic Church in order to continue His work of redemption for all time.

3.Christ gave His Church a hierarchical constitution.

4.The powers bestowed on the Apostles have descended to the Bishops.

5.Christ appointed the Apostle Peter to be the first of all the Apostles and to be the visible Head of the whole Catholic Church, by appointing him immediately and personally to the primacy of jurisdiction.

6.According to Christ's ordinance, Peter is to have successors in his Primacy over the whole Catholic Church and for all time.

7.The successors of Peter in the Primacy are the Bishops of Rome.

8.The Pope possesses full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Catholic Church, not merely in matters of faith and morals, but also in Church discipline and in the government of the Church.

9.The Pope is infallible when he speaks ex cathedra.

10.By virtue of Divine right, the bishops possess an ordinary power of government over their dioceses.

11.Christ founded the Catholic Church.

12.Christ is the Head of the Catholic Church.

13.In the final decision on doctrines concerning faith and morals, the Catholic Church is infallible.

14.The primary object of the Infallibility is the formally revealed truths of Christian Doctrine concerning faith and morals.

15.The totality of the Bishops is infallible, when they, either assembled in general council or scattered over the earth propose a teaching of faith or morals as one to he held by all the faithful.

16.The Church founded by Christ is unique and one.

17.The Church founded by Christ is holy.

18.The Church founded by Christ is catholic.

19.The Church founded by Christ is apostolic.

20.Membership of the Catholic Church is necessary for all men for salvation.

Quite frankly, I don't understand what has not been "completely" defined.

HarleyD:

Salvation was given to Mary by a Special Grace and thus she had the Grace to respond in faith to the Angel Gabriel. And not to dispute Moses, but all OT texts should be interpreted in the light of the Person of Christ, i.e. as Saint Augustine said the OT prefigures the NT and NT fulfills in Christ the OT.

So again, I don’t outright reject free will the way the Reformed theologians do. To Love God one as to be free, otherwise it is not Love. Are we weakened due to the consequences of original sin, yes. But does God Grace enlighten and transform us to live out our faith and practice the virtue of Love, which is the greatest of faith, hope and love [Saint Paul in 1 Corinthians] yes it does.

As for #20 yes that is true, but who is and is not a member is the question. Like I said, even when that statement was written by Father Ott, and he is an orthodox Priest theologian not doubt, Fr. Fenney was claiming or interpreting that only those who are visibly in the Catholic Church would be saved, thus Orthodox and Protestants have no chance. Fenney was excommunicated by Rome in the 1940’s over this view and we are talking over 20 to 25 years before the close of Vatican 2.

Take a look at the Fr. Feeney case, he rejected baptism of blood and baptism of desire [which the Church Fathers affirm] and had a restricted view of outside the Church there is no salvation and those same Church Fathers affirmed “extra Eccliesiam nulla salus” [outside the Church there is no salvation].

Feeney was correct about secularism, communism and free masonery. He was an early prophet on the hole anti-hate speech movement which seemed to have its origins in the Ivey league in the 1950’s, and of course now if you speak out for traditional marriage, you are charged with hate speech.

Here is the actual Letter from the Holy Office in 1949 [the CDF] which had Pope Pius XII affirmation. Again, this is still 16 years before the close of Vatican II. So the reformulated statement in Vatican II in a positive manner “All salvation is from Christ through his Church” is in keeping with the Dogma and actually communicates it more accurately, despite the protests of some sedevacantist.

So I actually thank you for bringing up #20 in Ott’s list because it allowed me to go back and provide some clarification on this.

http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/cdffeeny.htm

Salvation was given to Mary by a Special Grace and thus she had the Grace to respond in faith to the Angel Gabriel.

The grace given Mary was the same grace given all believers. The exact same work in the Greek is used in this passage in Ephesians in regard to all believers.

And there is nothing anywhere in Scripture that says that she was given more grace than any one else.

She was highly favored but among those born of women, there was none greater than John the Baptist. Jesus' own words.

Mary and Grace

The word grace used in this passage in Luke is used in one other place in the Bible and that is Ephesians 1 where Paul is us that with this same grace, God has blessed us (believers) in the Beloved. IOW, we all have access to that grace and it has been bestowed on us all.

http://biblehub.com/greek/5487.htm

Luke 1:28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”

Ephesians 1:4-6 In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Greek word “grace”

charitoó: to make graceful, endow with grace

Original Word: χαριτόω

Part of Speech: Verb

Transliteration: charitoó

Phonetic Spelling: (khar-ee-to'-o)

Short Definition: I favor, bestow freely on

Definition: I favor, bestow freely on.

HELPS Word-studies

Cognate: 5487 xaritóō (from 5486 /xárisma, "grace," see there) – properly, highly-favored because receptive to God's grace. 5487 (xaritóō) is used twice in the NT (Lk 1:28 and Eph 1:6), both times of God extending Himself to freely bestow grace (favor).

Word Origin: from charis

Definition: to make graceful, endow with grace

NASB Translation: favored (1), freely bestowed (1).

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.