Highlights from "Rome's Audacious Claim" - Chapter 4

[Kindle Location 572]

(On Matthew 16:15-19) If Jesus were talking about supreme authority over the whole church, he could have said that Peter would sit on a throne ruling the churches. It would not have been strange for Jesus to say such a thing. He told all the apostles that they would sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Luke 22:30). If Jesus meant for Peter to have supreme authority over all the churches, he could have expressed it much more clearly.

[Kindle Location 641]

Tertullian, a prolific writer from Carthage, is the earliest known writer to mention the keys of the kingdom, and he does not do so until around the year 205. That is at least 170 years after Jesus gave those promises to Peter. How important can those keys be when there are 170 years if silence regarding them?

[Kindle Location 646]

Tertullian says the keys were left to “the Church”. All martyrs (everyone who has been here to put the question, an also made confession) could use them to enter heaven.

[Kindle Location 649]

Tertullian did not say that Peter passed the keys individually to the bishop of Rome, but to the Church, and especially to the martyrs. He did not say the keys are for ruling, but for opening the door to heaven.

[Kindle Location 669]

Tertullian is telling the catholic churches that they do not have the right to claim the promises made to Peter. The Church taught all churches “akin to Peter” inherited the promises given to Peter.

[Kindle Location 679]

Today, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that Peter’s promises are passed to an individual: the bishop of Rome, whom we now call “the pope”. This was the position of the Montanists, rather than the position of the Church. Rome regards them as heretics.

[Kindle Location 710]

Origin taught that every Christian who confesses that Jesus is Christ and Son of God based on a revelation from the Father would receive all the promises of Peter and be a second Peter.

[Kindle Location 727]

The churches formed by the apostles knew nothing about the relation between Matthew 16 and Isaiah 22. They knew nothing about a dynasty of individuals descended from Peter, and they knew nothing about the “full, supreme, and universal power” of the bishop of Rome.

[Kindle Location 764]

Dr. Klaus Schatz, church history professor of a Jesuit college, writes:

If one had asked a Christian in the year 100, 200, or even 300 whether the bishop of Rome was the head of all Christians, or whether there was a supreme bishop over all the other bishops and having the last word in questions affecting the whole church, he or she would have certainly said no. (Schatz, 1996, Papal Primacy, p. 3)

You may purchase this book here.