Recently, I’ve been engaged in a number of interesting discussions with Protestants who deny that the papacy was established by Christ in the person of St. Peter. And as I’ve been engaged in these discussions for several days, I’ve been just jotting some thoughts down and organizing my own thoughts on the topic, studying the scriptures, trying as hard as I can to gain a full picture of what the scriptures have to say, especially as others present their interpretation and ideas on the topic, and I started to collect a bunch of different points and notes that I wanted to discuss. And so what I’d like to do tonight is investigate this question of whether Peter was the first pope, whether Peter was the first pope. So I’d like to invite you to think through this with me. I’d be very happy if you would add to these thoughts and this discussion with your own comments or ideas based on either the ideas that I share or ideas you’ve heard or learned somewhere else. Because I think that there’s a serious problem for Protestants in that they begin prejudiced against the Catholic Church and begin automatically denying anything that the Catholic Church teaches. And I would argue that they read their prejudice and their conclusions into the scriptures, rather than reading the scriptures and then forming their own conclusions. This is especially true when we consider historical context of the scriptures that we read, and it’s also very obviously true when we see how Protestants simply ignore certain passages and make claims about what the Bible says that are simply not true. The Protestant position that Peter is not in any way the leader of the church, or the first pope, really doesn’t account for all that we read about Peter in the New Testament, and I think this ultimately demonstrates the falsehood of the position. So what I would like to do in this talk is dig into this topic, and seek to establish an answer to the question whether Peter is the first pope. And I’m obviously going to answer the question in the affirmative and say that Peter was established by Christ as the first pope in church history, and that Peter’s office, the office that was established, has been handed down from Peter to his successor and on all the way down to our current pope, Leo the 14th. Before we go any further with the discussion, we should establish a definition for this word Pope that we’re going to be using. So let’s answer the question, what is the Pope? What is the Pope? And I’m going to present this as the definition for the sake of this discussion, and you can agree or disagree with this definition, but I think it’s reliable and helpful for us as a guide, or at least as a source of some limits as we get into this discussion. The Pope is the visible Head of the Church on earth. The Pope is the visible Head of the Church on earth, appointed by Christ, possessing a unique pastoral authority over the whole church and serving as the principle of unity among the apostles and their successors. And I’ll repeat that the Pope is the visible Head of the Church on earth. He is appointed by Christ. He possesses a unique pastoral authority over the whole church, and serves as the principle of unity among the apostles and their successors. And we have got to make sure that as we go through this discussion, we keep all of the details of that definition in view. It needs to be made very clear that Catholics are not confused and think that the Pope is somehow Christ, or that he replaces Christ in any way. That’s not true. He is the visible Head of the Church on earth, appointed by Christ. We don’t believe that the Pope is divine in any way. There’s no sort of divinity or deity ascribed to the Pope. He is a human being. He is a sinner who is saved by grace and who is established in this office in God’s providence by the governance of the church. And he is a successor to the first pope, who I will argue was St. Peter. But the Pope is not divine in any way. The Pope is not sinless. When we talk about things like indefectibility and infallibility in the Catholic Church, in the papacy, we in no way suggest that the Pope is sinless, nor do we believe that it’s necessary for a pope to be sinless. So if we do find examples in history, or if we do find examples, even in the life of Peter, where he sins, that is in no way disqualifying to his place as the visible head of the church appointed by Christ and so on. It’s a human office established by Christ that can handle the imperfections of a human office holder. So the Pope is not imagined to be sinless or somehow perfect as an individual. We also need to clarify that the Pope is a shepherd, and even if you think of a shepherd in history, the shepherd is rarely the owner of the sheep. He’s a steward of the sheep. The Pope is a shepherd appointed by Christ to exercise governance as a pastor, which just means Shepherd within the church. So the Pope has the role of pastor or Shepherd, Chief Shepherd of the visible church. So considering how we’ve defined the Pope, and having made a few clarifications to avoid any false accusations, because the Catholic Church does not teach any of these exaggerated things about the Pope, I’d like to show that if the New Testament presents one of the apostles, if the New Testament shows us that one of the apostles was singled out by Christ, that was given some special attention, special privilege by Christ, given unique authority by Christ, made the foundation of the church by Christ, exercised leadership over the other apostles and continued that leadership beyond Jerusalem into the church’s quote, unquote, Catholic or universal reach, then all of the qualities of the Pope would be present in that individual. And the name Pope was simply a label for that office that developed over time. So if we can show in the New Testament that there was an individual singled out by Christ, given unique authority made the foundation of ecclesiastical unity, who exercised leadership over the apostles and continued that leadership, or showed that that leadership extended beyond Jerusalem, then we would have qualities that would establish the office of the papacy. And what I would like to argue is that all of these qualities can be demonstrated from Scripture to be true of St. Peter. We can show that all of these qualities are true of St. Peter, and this is important of no other disciple of Christ. Not only does Peter possess these qualities, but it’s not just accidental. We can’t find someone else who happens to have the same privileges that Peter has. And I’d like to show you this and make the case for this thesis, that Peter was, in fact, the first pope from the content of Sacred Scripture. Because I think it’s undeniable when we put all of the different passages together and paint a full picture with full detail that scripture presents us with of Peter. So to get more specific here, I made a list of different qualities that we should look for in the scriptures, and the list that I came up with actually numbered 11. So I took some time to think through these things and ask, what should we look for as we go through the New Testament? If we would like to prove that St. Peter has all of the qualities that would make him to be the holder of this office, which is later named the papacy, what qualities or privileges would he possess? And as I said, I came up with 11 of them. And what I’m going to do is first present these 11 qualities and then go through the scriptures and show where each of them can be found in the New Testament. Again, one of the things that I mentioned before is that Protestant prejudice leads them. I think I mentioned this. Protestant prejudice leads Protestants to go into the Scriptures with their mind already made up. They’ve already got an idea that they are interested in holding on to. They already are rejecting any notion that the Catholic Church is the true Church. They’re already rejecting any notion that the papacy is real, that Christ established the papacy, and so on and so that prejudice really causes them to just read over and ignore many very obvious passages that contradict their positions. So I’d like to ask you, as we get into this, whether you’re a Catholic looking to strengthen your convictions on this issue, or whether you’re a non-Catholic who is interested in thinking about this, I’d like to ask you to please try to set aside those prejudices and examine the Scriptures with an open mind and give this a chance. Because what I notice when I discuss this with Protestants is that it’s very clear that they’re not even interested in giving this a chance. They will ignore clear explanations and proofs, they’ll bounce on to other topics, change the subject, when their position begins to look shaky. And I’d like to ask you to try and make a conscious commitment to not do that, but to think honestly and simply about this. Think of how Christ says that unless you have the mind of a child or the heart of a child, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Come into this discussion with childlike simplicity, and just listen to the scriptures and let the scriptures paint the picture of this man, Peter and his role in the early church, and be very careful not to allow any prejudices coming from a commitment to Protestantism to blind you to what the Scriptures actually contain because, as I said, I’ve listened to and watched Protestants simply ignore whole passages of Scripture because the passages didn’t fit into their system, and they just didn’t want to deal with them. I’d like to beg you to try to not do that. So let’s look at these 11 characteristics that we should look for in the scriptures, if we would prove or see that Peter was in fact established in the office that would later be called the papacy, if he was, in fact, set as the visible head of the church by Christ Himself, and given special authority and privileges over all other followers of Christ. 11 qualities here they are, number one, if there was such a leader in the church, if there was such an office, it would need to be personally appointed by Christ himself. This position, this office holder, would need to be personally appointed by Christ. Christ would have to appoint his vicar or His representative, his shepherd, his visible head to lead his church. So that’s the first quality he would have to be personally appointed to this office by Christ Himself. Second, since all popes through history have taken or received a new name when they entered into the office, we would expect to see something similar in the life of this first pope. We would expect that the first pope, like all popes, would receive a new name that signified or represented his office. Third, we would expect that if this pope, if this leader, was singled out by Christ and established as the authority, was protected by the grace of infallibility and so on. In times of great confusion or controversy, we would expect that this individual would receive special revelation concerning Christ and whatever doctrine was necessary for the right governance of the church. We would expect that there would be some special revelation given to this individual. Fourth, we would expect that this individual was designated as foundational to the church, that Christ Himself would articulate this and clarify that this man whom he would appoint to lead the church would be as the first leader, foundational to the church. Fifth, we would expect that he would be formally and clearly given some kind of token of authority, some sign of true authority, that he would be given by Christ Himself directly. It wouldn’t merely be a claim. There wouldn’t be some, you know, might makes right sort of approach. There wouldn’t be any kind of struggle, and any seizing of this position by some kind of force, Christ Himself would both appoint and give some kind of token of authority to this individual. Sixth, this individual, if he was established as the shepherd of the church, he would be entrusted with the duty of strengthening others. He would be charged with the duty as a pastor of caring for and strengthening the others. Seventh, because we mentioned before that this would be a position of supreme authority in the visible church, and that it would be held by a man, by a human being, there would need to be some kind of evidence that his effectiveness in governing the church would not be canceled, or that he would be disqualified by any faith failures by any sin, and so we would need some kind of confidence or clear revelation that if this individual holding this great office did fall into some kind of scandal or sin, that he would be restored and would retain his position. That would need to be evident in Scripture. Number eight, we would need to see evidence in Scripture that this individual acted as the chief spokesman of the church, the chief spokesman, even of the other apostles, there would have to be demonstration of the exercise of this role as chief spokesman. Number nine, we would have to see some kind of evidence that this individual did, in fact, make decisive doctrinal judgments. There would need to be evidence that this office, this role, given to this man, included examples of historical judgments on doctrinal issues, doctrinal controversies and so on that revealed his primacy or authority. Number 10, when we read the scriptures, we would need to see in the scriptures that this individual did, in fact, serve as a visible center of unity in the church, that the church was effectively organized around this individual, that he was the actual center of the church and principle of unity, sign of unity in the church. And lastly, number 11, we would have to see that if the church expanded beyond Jerusalem, where it started, if it expanded into other places, into other countries and even to the ends of the earth, we would have to see that this individual’s authority extended with it, that he was, in fact, the head, not just of the disciples in Jerusalem where things started, but as the church spread, that he preserved this role of primacy, even on a global scale, that he was, in fact, the head of the capital C Catholic Church. So these 11 things, and you can pause this or rewind it if you’d like to listen back through them, I’ll read through them one more time quickly. In case you want to jot them down, because we’re going to go through them one by one and look at scriptures that should satisfy all of these requirements. Let’s go through them one more time quickly. Number one, he needs to be personally appointed by Christ. Number two, he should receive a new name, signifying his office as all popes do. Number three, he should receive special revelation concerning Christ and His Church. Number four, he should be designated as a foundational individual in the church. Number five, he should be given authority that bears some token from Christ Himself. Number six, he should be entrusted with strengthening and shepherding others. Number seven, he should be shown to be able to be restored after he fails that he doesn’t need to be impeccable in order to hold and fulfill this office. He can be a human office holder. Number eight, he needs to act as the chief spokesman for the church. Number nine, he needs to make decisive doctrinal judgments. Number 10, he needs to serve as the visible center of unity in the church. And lastly, number 11, he would need to show that his authority extends beyond the local church at Jerusalem, but indeed continues over the church to the ends of the earth. So these are the 11 characteristics that I listed, you may be able to think of some more or object to some of these, but these are the 11 that I’d like to examine as we take a look at the scriptures and see what they actually have to say about Peter. So let’s go through these. The first quality is that Peter would need to be personally appointed by Christ to this office that has this primacy in the church. And this first point really is a summary of all of the other points. So what I’d like to say about this first quality is that it appears that Christ does, in fact, appoint Peter. And again, this is going to be demonstrated by all of these qualities, not just by one exclusive appointment. But I don’t think that there’s any question that Christ makes a distinction between Peter and the other apostles, and we’re going to see this as we go through all these points. It’s important to note, you know, sometimes when we talk about the fact that Jesus referred to Simon as Peter, he gave him this name, and said, You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. It’s common for Protestants to respond to that and say, this actually isn’t about Peter. What Jesus is saying is that this confession, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, is the foundation of the church. And so they make this case that it’s the confession that Jesus is talking about and not Peter. The problem with that, the obvious refutation of that interpretation, is that that is not the place or time when Peter is named by Christ. In fact, Jesus names Peter the first time he ever meets him, the place where Jesus gives Peter this name is not in Matthew 16, but in John chapter one. In John Chapter One, Jesus first meets Simon, the brother of Andrew, and that’s where he names him, Peter. It’s in John chapter one, verse 42. Andrew, who was a disciple of John the Baptist, and was told by John the Baptist to follow Jesus, does so. He follows Jesus. And he then goes and gets his brother Simon, and says to him, We have found the Messiah. And he brings Simon to meet Jesus. This is John chapter one, when Jesus sees Peter, when Andrew brings Peter to meet Jesus, Jesus looks at Simon and says, You are Simon, son of Jonah, you shall be called Cephas or Peter. The Scripture actually says Cephas, which interpreted means Peter. So Jesus gives Peter this name, gives Simon this name, Peter. The first time he meets him, it’s given in almost or obviously a prophetic way. He says to Simon, you shall be called Peter. So this is very strange. Peter is the only one of the apostles that Jesus does this to. He’s the only one of the apostles that Scripture teaches us Jesus gave him a name the first time he met him, Jesus gave Peter a new name and obviously made a distinction that he made for no other disciple. And I’m not even talking about the details of the name yet, but just the distinction itself. Jesus distinguished Peter and treated him in a way that was different from all of the other apostles, and he did it right from the beginning, when he first met Peter. So that’s in John chapter one. You can read that for yourself. He says you shall be called Cephas, or Cephas, which means Peter. It’s also worth noting that any time the disciples are listed and their names are listed again and again in the New Testament. Anytime that the disciples names are listed, Peter is listed first. And some would argue that that’s just coincidental. He just happens to be listed first. Well that’s not a very convincing argument, considering there’s no reason why he would always be listed first, unless he was, in fact, the first of the apostles. And we know that chronologically, he was not the first. I just explained that he was brought to Jesus by Andrew. He was not the first disciple to join Jesus. He was at least the second or third, some say even the fifth, disciple to actually follow Jesus. So we would have to give an account for why. Every time the disciples are listed, the list always begins with Peter. He’s always listed as the first apostle. He was not the chronologically first disciple. So that’s either completely accidental, or there is some other principle that would lead the writers plural to always list Peter first. So we’ll see as we go through these other points, that there is certainly evidence that Jesus made a distinction among his disciples and seems to have given special attention to Peter. And we can see this in the fact that he sets Peter apart by naming him, which he does to none of the other disciples. And that leads us to the second point, which was that as we look through history, we see that all of the popes have taken a papal name that is used to refer to them as they hold the office. So, for example, the current pope, if you’re not aware of this, his name is Robert Prevost. He’s an American, in fact, and that was his name until the moment that he was appointed to be the successor to Pope Francis, and he took upon himself the name of Pope Leo the 14th and we see this all through church history, the taking on of Papal names. I’m not sure if it’s true of every single Pope who has ever held the office, but it’s clearly a tradition that relates to the office of the papacy. And we would expect to see something like that in the scriptures. Either the Catholics are just crazy and make that stuff up, or we should see something in the Scriptures. And we do see this in the scriptures. We see this in Jesus giving to Peter this unique name, this new name, when he makes this distinction between Peter and the other disciples, Jesus doesn’t do it to any others. He doesn’t do it to any others, even though, for example, the disciple Levi, we’re told that he is also called Matthew. We are not told that Jesus gave him that name we see in the New Testament later that Saul is given the name Paul. But again, that name, there’s no evidence that that name came from Jesus in the way that Peter’s name came from Jesus. So Jesus certainly does appear to give Peter a name that signifies this distinction, that signifies this unique place among the disciples. And not only does he give him a name, he doesn’t just, you know, make up a name, he gives him a name that has a meaning. And we’re going to see the significance of this later. He gives him the name Cephas, which means rock in English. He names him the rock. And that would be an ideal name, if we consider that the office which he was being prepared for and appointed to would be a foundational position in the establishment of the church. He was a foundation stone. He was the rock, humanly speaking, on which the church was to be built. So he does, in fact, receive a name. He seems to receive this name because Christ is making a distinction between him and the other apostles, and that name has significance, which makes perfect sense in light of this office, which we’re arguing that he was given. So all of those check boxes are checked here for the name given to Peter.
Now, the third quality that I mentioned before, and these aren’t in any kind of order, as I said, I just made a list, and I’m just going through each one of them here, but the third quality in the list was that he would receive some special revelation that if he was to be the chief teacher and the authority in the church, in this new church that had to understand the mystery of the gospel and articulate it and teach it to others, there would have to be some sign that he was, in fact, led by the Holy Spirit and given revelation necessary to fulfill this role. And we certainly see this in the New Testament. And that may sound surprising, but there are clear examples of Peter being given special revelation from God that perfectly aligns with this expectation we might have. For example, in Matthew chapter 16, Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter famously answers and says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That seems significant. It seems that Peter is the first to understand and confess that Jesus is the Christ, that Jesus is the Son of God. So the first confession, the first confession of this full Christology, this full understanding of the person of Christ, and the identification of Jesus of Nazareth as this Christ, as the Messiah, as the Son of God, that is first confessed by Peter. That can’t be another coincidence. But this passage is more significant than just that. It would be significant if Peter happened to be the first of the disciples to confess Christ. And Protestants will grant this. They will grant that Peter was the first to confess Christ. But that’s not what this passage in the Scriptures teaches. This passage in the Scriptures teaches more than that. When Peter makes that confession in Matthew 16, Jesus goes out of his way to make it very clear that this isn’t just some good guess. Jesus says to Peter in the presence of all of the disciples, “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in Heaven has revealed this to you.” All of the disciples standing there listening to Jesus heard him say that God was revealing things to Peter. And so it’s not enough to say that Peter was the first to confess Christ. We have to go beyond that, to include all of the content in the passage. And we have to say, more accurately, that Peter was the first to whom this true Christology was revealed by God. The truth about Christ was revealed by God first to Peter. So God the Father here makes a distinction between Peter and the other apostles. Peter does not merely confess that Jesus is the Christ. First, it is revealed to Peter that Jesus is the Christ. Everyone else standing there learned that from Peter, and they were taught by Christ that that was revealed by God the Father to Peter. Again, this is an example, just like the passage in John one. This is an example of something very significant revealed by Christ about Peter that distinguishes him from all of the other disciples and shows him to possess some quality that would be expected if he were, in fact, the Pope, as it were, and we find that in the scriptures, and this is the kind of thing that Protestants simply ignore. They act as if there’s no significance to that revelation from Jesus about the source of Peter’s knowledge. Obviously, that’s the most important part of the passage: Jesus explaining that Peter, at that time, was already receiving special privileges and special revelation from God concerning Jesus. And as we go on in the scriptures, we’re going to see that it doesn’t stop there. We can say that understanding the nature of Christ is the first great mystery of the Christian faith, and Peter confesses it fully. “You are the Christ. You are the Son of God.” So Peter has true Christology revealed to him. Well, the second other great truth that would need to be known is the nature of the church itself. If Peter was appointed, if Peter was being prepared and guided to lead the church, the truth of the church also would need to be revealed. And if we read the book of Acts, we find that in the early years of the church, when everything was in Israel, it was pretty simple. When all of the believers were Jews and they were already accustomed to Jewish religion, they already had shared ideas about the traditions and customs of the Mosaic Covenant and so on. Things were pretty simple, but all of a sudden it became clear that when the gospel was preached, that Gentiles—non-Jews—would believe. And this was a real monkey wrench in the system for the Jewish Christians. Remember, all of the disciples were Jews, including Saint Paul. This was, this appeared to be a Jewish religion. John the Baptist was a Jew. Mary and Joseph were Jews. Jesus, obviously a Jew. All the disciples were Jews. St. Paul was a Jew. This looked like a Jewish religion until Gentiles began to believe in the gospel and want to become Christians. And so the question that arose was: if Christ is the fulfillment of the law, and if the law’s purpose was to lead us to Christ, and now we have come to Christ, is there any need for the Jewish law, for Jewish customs and so on? And the Gentiles coming in obviously faced a real dilemma. For example, does a Gentile man, if a Greek man becomes a Christian, does he need to be circumcised? A Roman man? Would he need to be circumcised and go through all of the Jewish traditions and customs before he became a Christian? Or could he go straight to Christianity? And this was a great dilemma, and we see this not only in the book of Acts, but all through the epistles of the New Testament. This was a great dilemma in the early church. We can imagine that it was confusing and difficult to figure out all the logistics of how this was going to work. Well, Peter was as Jewish as anyone. And we read in the book of Acts that Peter, one day, is staying at a place, and he goes up onto the roof, as is normal in the Mediterranean area, as in Israel and the Near East, and he’s on the roof, and he receives a vision that is—God, again, is revealing things to Peter. And there’s this vision that Peter sees where all of these foods, different meats, that were forbidden in the Old Testament, which Jews were not allowed to eat, they all appeared on this blanket like a picnic blanket. And a voice was heard by Peter, and it said, “Rise Peter, kill and eat. Eat these unclean foods, these foods that Jews are not allowed to eat.” And Peter responds to this voice in this vision, and he says, “No, you know, I will not eat what is unclean.” And then the voice responds and says, “Do not call anything unclean that I have cleansed.” And that’s the end of the vision. So Peter has this vision about these unclean—these ceremonially unclean meats—being presented to him, being told to eat them, him being a good Jewish boy, and saying, “No, I’m not going to eat these forbidden meats.” And the voice saying, “Don’t you call unclean what I have cleansed.” And Peter is left in the book of Acts in this scene, wondering what in the world the meaning of this vision is that was revealed to him, shown to him. As he’s thinking about this, there’s a knock on the door, and there are messengers from a Gentile man named Cornelius, who were sent to him because God had spoken to this man, Cornelius, and told him to go and get this man named Simon or Peter. So Peter doesn’t know exactly what’s going on, and he agrees to go with these men to the house of this Gentile named Cornelius. And Cornelius tells him his story. Cornelius tells him that he would like to become a Christian, that he believes in the Christian faith. And all of this is going on in Peter’s head. And Peter preaches the gospel as he would to anyone, to this Gentile. And in some perceivable way, this person receives the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Holy Spirit, just as the disciples did at Pentecost. And Peter says, in Acts, he says, “I can now—I now see I understand the vision that I received, and I see the message.” In any place, he says, “Anyone who fears God and believes is acceptable to him.” So this mystery of the gospel, as St. Paul calls it, that Jews and Gentiles are united in Christianity, this is revealed by a vision to Peter, and that’s important to remember. The answer to this dilemma, the answer to this question is revealed by God to Peter through both the vision and through the experience with this Gentile man, Cornelius. Now this controversy continues among all the Christians, between these Gentiles and Jews, as they’re trying to sort this out. It gets so serious that they actually call the first council of the church. It’s in Acts chapter 15, we have the council that gathers together all the apostles gathered together at Jerusalem to deliberate on this confusion, on this controversy. And when the church gathers and they recognize the problem and propose the question that needs to be answered, Peter stands up and answers the question. Peter solves the problem. Peter reveals the revelation that was given to him. Peter explains the event that he experienced and how the Gentiles received the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the problem in the church at this crucial time in the early years of the church, that crisis, that controversy, is solved by St. Peter. The solution to the controversy is revealed to Peter, who then communicates it to the whole church. After that, other apostles also share their thoughts and experiences, and then the apostles decide to actually publish a letter and have that letter, that authoritative letter from the apostles from the council at Jerusalem to be carried to other churches and delivered and read that the judgment of the apostles, led by St. Peter, might be set into place in every church. So we have there in the acts or in the Council of Jerusalem what is like the first Catholic encyclical, just like encyclicals that are issued to this day, the first council, just like the Second Vatican Council, was held in the 1960s and into 1970s. All of this is present in the book of Acts and Peter clearly is receiving in a privileged way, revelation that not only establishes the doctrine of Christ, but also explains and allows him to communicate and create the solutions to controversies in the church. So this third quality that he would receive special revelation concerning Christ is right in black and white in the scriptures. So we can check that one off. The fourth quality that I mentioned was that this individual, if he was the first pope, would have to be designated as a founder or foundational in some way. And we certainly find that taught of Peter in the New Testament, and again taught by Christ Himself in Matthew 16, he says, “You are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church,” literally giving him a name that identifies the nature of a founder or a foundation stone. And we’re going to see the Church and its people referred to as a church built of living stones. The first stone in the church is the man whom Jesus names the rock, or the stone Peter, so he is explicitly designated as foundational to the church. Next, number five, he would need to be given—that there would have to be some kind of event where Jesus gave authority to Peter, and that included some kind of token for all to see, some kind of sign of that authority. And it couldn’t just be, you know, the ability to work miracles, because that was given to a number of apostles, and not only apostles, but even to deacons. There were deacons with miraculous powers. But there would have to be some kind of sign or token of authority, of special authority, that was given to Peter in a unique way. And we certainly find that literally. Find that in the Gospel, again, in Matthew 16, same passage, Jesus says explicitly to Peter, “You are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church.” And then he says “to you,” and if you look at the Greek text, I know that some—well, all Protestants—they refer to what Jesus says in Matthew 18, which is a different event, where it appears that Jesus gives authority to all of the apostles. And they ignore the passage in Matthew 16, or they just read Matthew 18 back into Matthew 16, which is irrational. We can’t read Matthew 18 back into Matthew 16. Matthew 16 comes first. And in Matthew 16, Jesus says, “I will give to you,” and that “to you” is the personal pronoun in the singular number, he says, “You are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church and to you singular,” he doesn’t say “to you all.” He says “to you singular, I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven to you,” again, singular, “I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” So we find in the Scriptures a crystal clear place where Jesus does, in fact, give some sign of ultimate authority, of primacy to Peter. And again, there’s no problem if we keep Matthew 16 and Matthew 18 separate, and we recognize the order of them, that authority is given first to Peter, and then after Peter’s authority is established to the other apostles. We can see the teaching of the authority in the church, of the hierarchy of the Church, which is present in the church to this day that all of the apostles, all of the bishops, possess equal authority, and the Pope is one of the bishops, but beyond that, and in addition to that, he has unique authority given to him for his office as the head of the church. So both of those passages, Matthew 16 and Matthew 18. Both of them can be seen if you want to know what that would look like in the church, you can actually look at the Catholic Church and see how the church is arranged, and see both the keys given to Peter exclusively in Matthew 16 and the authority to bind and loose given to all of the apostles with all of the bishops in the Catholic Church today. So there is no problem for Catholics in explaining both of those passages, but the Protestant interpretation of Matthew 18 cannot be reconciled with Matthew 16, and that proves it to be false. The Protestant interpretation of Matthew 18 cannot be reconciled with the Greek text of Matthew 16. So he is given the keys of the kingdom, Peter, that is in Matthew 16, verse 19. So we have a sign of this supreme authority in the church, the keys, whatever you lock or unlock, no one else can change. Let’s move on here. Number six. Number six, if he was to be appointed as this chief shepherd over the whole church, there would need to be clear commissioning from Christ, where he was told that this was going to be his responsibility. And we find that. We find that in Luke, chapter 22 towards the end of the Gospel of Luke, we find actually a number of places. First, in Luke 22 this is where Jesus foretells Peter’s coming denial. And he says this. He adds this detail in the Gospel of Luke, we read “Simon. Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat.” Pay attention to all the details. This is Jesus talking to Peter, referring to him by his original name, Simon, “Simon, Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail, And once you have turned back,” that is that you will fall and you will be restored. “Once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers.” Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed that your own faith may not fail, and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers. So Jesus here makes it clear, Satan has asked to sift you all plural, but I have prayed for you singular, and when you have turned back you, Peter, must strengthen all your brothers so we can see that Peter is being charged with a duty of being the instrument by which the other Christians are strengthened and kept safe from Satan. We see that that ministry of the shepherd is being given to Peter alone. Christ promises to give Peter the grace to turn back after he has been sifted by the devil, as it were, and then to strengthen his brothers this ministry, you know, Protestants like to say we believe that Jesus is the mediator, and there is no other mediator. What they ignore is that Jesus, in his role as mediator, has appointed Peter to this unique role, and it’s Jesus, the capital M mediator, saying to Peter, “you must strengthen your brothers.” Jesus establishes this mediatorial ministry, this instrumental ministry in the church. Jesus establishes that ministry. So there’s no contradiction. No conflict between saying that Christ is the only mediator between God and man, and then saying that Peter is a priest or vicar who stands in the place of Jesus with respect to the visible church. After Jesus ascends into heaven. There’s no contradiction in that. Both of those things can be true. Let’s look at another passage in John, chapter 21 this is afterwards, after the resurrection. Jesus appears to His disciples, and He comes to Simon Peter. Remember, this is a different gospel. This is the Gospel of John. Jesus warned Peter what would happen in Luke. We now have Jesus coming to Peter after the resurrection, after his fall, Remember Jesus said, “When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” Here we find Jesus coming to Peter and speaking privately to Peter and saying, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” And he says, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” And Jesus says to him, to Peter, “Feed my lambs.” Now, who is it that feeds lambs? The shepherd “Feed my lambs.” He says to him a second time, “Simon, do you love me?” And Peter says, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus says to him, “Tend my sheep.” Jesus then said to him, a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was distressed that he said to him a third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to Jesus, “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.” And Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” And he goes on and says prophetically, “amen, amen. I say to you, Peter, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you where you don’t want to go.” And Jesus said this signifying what kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. And when he said this, he then said to him, “Follow me.” So in these two separate passages, we have this crystal clear entrusting of Peter with the responsibility to shepherd the others, this unique call to strengthen his brothers and Christ even assures Peter of his success by telling him that he’s going to suffer and die for Christ at the end of his life. So clearly, Peter is entrusted with this task of strengthening the others. Number seven, after he falls, we just saw this after Peter falls, after he goes through this trial and denies Christ publicly, which Christ told him he was going to do? We see Peter fall and fall into this sorrow and regret. And we see Christ before—before this ends. We see Christ come to Peter, seek Peter out and restore him into his place, into his place as the shepherd in the presence of the other disciples, so that fall from his previous place with Christ falling into This state of denial, he wasn’t left in that condition, but before Christ ascended, he was restored and reconciled to Christ, and His authority in the church was confirmed, and he was set over his brothers and told to tend Christ’s sheep and feed Christ’s lambs, so Peter was restored after he fell, which shows us that this role, being the chief Shepherd in the church. It’s a role for a man, and that man does not need to be perfect. He does not need to be impeccable. We see the nature of the papacy present in the office that Jesus entrusts to Peter, so he is restored publicly after his fall, and commissioned as the chief Shepherd. Number eight. I said that if there was a person appointed to this role as the visible head of the church, he would have to be seen acting as the chief spokesperson. And we see this of Peter very clearly. I don’t think any Protestants would deny this in the book of Acts, it’s crystal clear that Peter speaks as the chief. Spokesperson—not the only spokesperson, but as the chief spokesperson in the church. In fact, when at the opening of the book of Acts, when the disciples are gathered together, remember Judas Iscariot is no longer with them because he went and killed himself. It’s Peter that leads the apostles to appoint a successor to Judas. Now that’s a very significant activity, because that makes it clear to us that this apostolic ministry was not a one-off thing. It was not this one time ministry, this special ministry for just these 12 guys, and then that would be the end of it. When Judas falls away, they understand that his successor is to be appointed, and who leads that appointment? Peter does. Peter takes leadership in the church. The greatest event in the church, outside of the resurrection and ascension of Christ, is clearly the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, where the promises of the gospel are fulfilled for the church, and the spirit is poured out by Christ from heaven. All hell breaks loose at Pentecost because there are miraculous signs taking place. There are visible signs of the Holy Spirit falling upon the apostles and those with the apostles the first Christians in the church. They’re speaking. And people are gathered in Jerusalem from all over the world, and the apostles are in some miraculous way, speaking, in a way where everyone can hear the gospel being preached in their own language, and there’s all of this confusion and chaos that people are asking, what’s going on? They accuse them of being drunk. All kinds of confusion. And who is it that brings all of that confusion to an end? It’s Peter. Peter stands up and delivers the first message ever spoken by the church to the world when he speaks and preaches the gospel after Pentecost and thousands of believers are added to the church Acts, chapter two, and again, we see that again and again through the book of Acts, as I mentioned earlier at the council at Jerusalem, In Acts chapter 15, Peter takes the lead. Peter settles the issue. Peter answers the question, and so on. So there’s no question, no question that in the book of Acts, Peter is clearly established as the chief spokesperson, the one who speaks first in the church after Christ ascends into heaven and pours out the Holy Spirit we’ve already talked about. I had another note here about receiving revelation, but I mentioned it earlier that Peter received the revelation concerning the joining together of Jews and Gentiles under the gospel in the Christian church, that problem was solved by God’s revelation to Peter. Another point, the 10th point that I mentioned earlier, was that we would have to see some example of this leader, if there was such a leader established by Christ in the church, we would have to see him exercising Pope-like leadership, decisive leadership in the church. And we do see that. We saw that in the first chapter of Acts where Peter leads the appointing of Judas’ successor. But much more. Certainly we see it in Acts chapter 15 at the Council of Jerusalem, where we have the problem presented all of the Christians, Jews and Gentiles, everyone involved in this controversy gathered together in Jerusalem, and we simply read. Peter rose and said, and Peter solves the dilemma and reveals what God revealed to him. Peter fulfills the ministry Jesus gave him. He stands up, He strengthens his brothers, he feeds Christ’s lambs, he tends Christ’s sheep. We see this at the Council of Jerusalem when Peter finishes speaking to all of the believers at the Council of Jerusalem, and remember, this is a hot, controversial, very heatedly debated topic, when Peter finishes speaking Saint Luke, who records this, says all the assembly fell silent. Peter finished speaking. All the assembly fell silent. The problem was solved. So we do see Peter exercising decisive leadership in the early church. And lastly, and I think most interestingly, this came to me later, and I think it’s significant, but if we saw Peter in the scriptures, if we saw Peter leading in Jerusalem or in Israel, we might say, well, it’s clear that Peter was significant in his homeland. He was one of the first to follow Jesus. He was from Israel. But when the church starts to spread, and is in all different lands, getting into Asia Minor and all through Greece and even into Italy. If Peter was established as the head of the church, we would need to see evidence, and maybe we don’t see this in Scripture, because the account of Luke in Acts, comes to a close quite early. But there would have to be some sign that Peter’s authority would extend over that extending international, that universal church, that Peter would in fact be seen as the head of the uppercase C Catholic Church. And we find that in the scriptures, we find that in the history of the church, we find this taught very, very plainly, it’s taught, you know, outside of the Bible, I’m going to, I’ll talk about the Bible in just a second. But outside of the Bible, it was taught by Eusebius, who wrote in the three hundreds that Peter was established as the Bishop of Rome. And that’s why, when, that’s why Peter was martyred in Rome. You know, if you think that while Peter was in Jerusalem in Israel, he was a local Christian Jew in Israel, well, then how did he end up getting martyred in Rome? So we see that there’s historical evidence that Peter was, in fact, in Rome. But significantly, in Peter’s epistle, in his first epistle, in the New Testament, He reveals, in a kind of cryptic way, he reveals that he is actually ministering as bishop in Rome. He says, At the end of First Peter in first Peter five, I’ll actually grab a verse real quick. In first Peter five, just one second here. Sorry about this. First Peter five, at the end of the epistle, he says, “I write this briefly through Silvanus, whom I consider a faithful brother, exhorting you and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Remain firm in it” again Peter, strengthening his brothers. And then in the next verse, he says, “The Chosen One at Babylon sends you greeting, as does Mark my son.” So we’ve got this one verse first, Peter, 5:13, where we’ve got reference to Babylon, which is interpreted by every Bible interpreter that I know to refer to Rome that it was sort of a cryptic way of referring to Rome that he’s writing from this city Babylon. He sends greeting with Mark, the author of the gospel of Mark, and even among Protestants, if you ask, Well, where did Mark live? Where did Mark write the gospel? They’ll tell you. He wrote it in Rome. So there’s evidence in the New Testament that Peter, not only is he in this prime place as the head of the visible church, not only is he given all of these distinctive privileges by Christ, but his place of ministry has extended to the Eternal City itself, to Rome. Peter is ministering in Rome. Peter with Mark is in Rome.
So we have evidence in the New Testament and certainly in church history, that Peter’s authority extended with the church from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth. And again, the nature of his office was not that he was some local leader, one of many in Jerusalem as a Jew, but when the church expanded and reached Italy, to the capital of the world, as it were, Peter was there ministering and leading the church there at Rome, as the head of not just the church in Jerusalem, but of the church universal, the capital C Catholic Church. So all of the 11 characteristics that I listed can all be shown to be true of Peter in the New Testament. And all of those characteristics are papal characteristics. So it’s very clear in Scripture. And I think it would be surprising for most Protestants to go through that list and realize how clearly those things are taught in the scriptures, and there’s no way to explain them away and hold to the Protestant position that Peter is just one of the 11, that he has no special privileges, that there’s nothing distinctive about Peter. There’s nothing that separates him from the other 11 apostles. That’s ridiculous. You would be saying, as a Protestant, that Bartholomew had the same exact role in the early church that Peter did. Read the book of Acts and tell yourself Bartholomew has the same role as Peter. Tell me you can do that and be serious. And this is why I say Protestants hold this view of Peter purely by prejudice. There is no way that anyone can suggest that that is what the Scriptures actually reveal about Peter and all of these passages which reveal all of these distinctive marks that are given by Christ to Peter. They’re just ignored by Protestants. They’re ignored as if they have no significance. The fact that Peter receives his name from Jesus the first time they meet in John chapter one, that’s ignored by Protestants. The fact that Jesus says to Peter, “You are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church. To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” And the Greek pronoun for “you” is singular there, they ignore that and jump to Matthew 18 and pretend that’s the only passage that exists. And their interpretation of Matthew 18 that Jesus gives equal power to all of the apostles contradicts what is clearly shown in Matthew chapter 16. All of these characteristics that we would expect to find in Peter, if he was, in fact, the first to hold the office that would later be called the papacy. All of those marks are clearly present in the New Testament. So there’s, for anyone who is not just hard-hearted and stubbornly prejudiced against Catholic teaching, anyone who can actually look at the content of Scripture and let the content of Scripture establish the doctrine, rather than coming with your doctrine to the Scripture and just reading what you want to read and ignoring whatever doesn’t fit into your little system can clearly see that Peter bears all of the marks of the office holder that would later be identified as the Pope, as the Bishop of Rome, as the head of the visible church. And let me go back to the beginning, where I defined the pope real quick. Let me just go back in my note here. When I defined the Pope, I said the following. I said that the Pope is the visible Head of the Church on earth, appointed by Christ, possessing a unique pastoral authority over the whole church, serving as the principle of unity among the apostles and their successors. Every detail of that definition of the Pope is true of Peter in the New Testament, every detail of that definition: the visible Head of the Church on earth, appointed by Christ, possessing a unique pastoral authority over the whole church, serving as the principle of unity among the apostles and their successors. All of those characteristics are present in Peter in the New Testament. He was appointed by Christ. He was distinctively named by Christ. He received special revelation to serve him in his office and to serve Him in His responsibility. He was identified as the foundation of the church, the first of the Popes. He was given a token of his authority in the keys of the kingdom of heaven. He was told that he would be the instrument through which God would strengthen the other apostles and Christians. He was commissioned to act as a shepherd. He manifests clear leadership in the church in the book of Acts. Revelation is given to him, as I mentioned before. He has authority in the church at the Jerusalem Council and at the appointing of Judas’ successor, we see him take leadership in the church, in the actual direction and conduct of the church. And when the church extends from Jerusalem through Israel and out to the ends of the earth, we find Peter leading the church, not in some obscure place, but from the capital city of the empire in Rome itself. Every mark of the papacy is present in Peter in the New Testament. So that’s my case for Peter fulfilling this office, this role as the first pope. Now, of course, the Office of the papacy is more clearly defined. It is obviously given this name of papacy, and the head of the church is named the Pope or the father of the church and so on. But all of this, I would argue, is clearly demonstrated from the content of the New Testament. And I’m going to wrap this talk up here. If there’s any of these points you’d like to object to, and if you object, object to one point, so we can discuss it. Don’t write an essay with 57 points. That’s—I just ignore that. That’s not how to make an objection. If, when you make an objection, you object to just—what if you want to object to 50 points? That’s great. That’s fine. Object to one at a time. So start with one point, and we can work to a resolution of that one point, and then we can move to a second and third, as many more as you’d like. But an objection is not a separate response. An objection is one specific objection to something that was said. If you’d like to object, please either write to me, send me an email, or write in the comments on the YouTube channel, that’d be fine. If there’s anything you’d like to add, I’d love to read any other arguments, any other passages of Scripture that you think are significant, that should be added to an explanation like this. I’d love to have your help. So I hope that’s helpful. That’s what I would like to share tonight, and I think it’s clear, unless you come with prejudiced, preconceived opinions about Peter, it’s pretty clear that the New Testament shows that he’s not one of the 12. He is the chief of the apostles, the head, the visible Head of the Church on earth and the first of the popes in the Roman Catholic Church. I hope that’s helpful.
Mr. William C. Michael, O.P.
Headmaster
Classical Liberal Arts Academy