Father, thank you for this Lord's Day. Thank you for the gift of your church. Thank you that we get to gather together as the body of Christ week in and week out. We have the opportunity to hear your word, to praise your name. And Lord, we thank you for our time this morning, even before we gather together corporately, in which we can see your hand at work throughout history. We can learn from the errors of the past in light of the truth of your word. And pray that as we Look at the topic of the rise of the papacy, that that would better help us to understand church government as you've ordained it, and the problems when we go astray from it. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen. So this will be our last week for early church history. There's definitely more that we could talk about, but this seems like a good breaking point. Last week we looked at the fall of the Roman Empire, which definitely marks a transitionary point into the Middle Ages. And then this week we're looking at the rise of the papacy. Again, another very important transitionary thing that happens between the early church and the church of the Middle Ages. And so the question we're going to be seeking to answer today is how did the church government change from a plurality of elders, which we see in the New Testament, that's what is commanded, and we actually even see in early church historical documents, that's what happened. How did it go from that to plurality of elders all every elder being equally authoritative to the Pope, where you have one man who is authoritative over the church. How did we get there? Not we, but how did that happen? We've course corrected since then, amen? Well, originally, as I mentioned, church officers were just originally the elders, the presbyters, the bishops. Those are all words that are interchangeable in the New Testament. Overseers would be bishops. And then you have the deacons. So just two types of church officers. Elders, presbyters, bishops, and the deacons. And all of the presbyters, I don't want to have to keep repeating all those words, but do we understand that these are, I forgot I have a laser pointer this week. These words are all interchangeable. Do we understand that? Pastors we could include in there too. All interchangeable. All of the presbyters, or we would say elders, were equals in the early church. There wasn't one that was more authoritative than the next. But over time, what you have, and let's actually draw a little, draw some diagrams. So you have local churches. Obviously there's many. Some maybe have more elders than the other. Over time what happens is you have one of these presbyters or elders become set apart. So what you have develop over time is you have one man, one of these presbyters, becomes what is referred to as the bishop. Even though those words are interchangeable in the New Testament, the bishop is seen as a position that has a higher authority than the rest of the presbyters. And this happens throughout. So you have one man being set apart from the presbyters. And well, why is that? Why does this bishop arise? Why does this one man in the local church become in a position of higher authority than the rest of the elders? Well, there are many factors. One of them probably is the fact that Roman culture was very hierarchical, where you have a hierarchy of where the top, you know, you imagine a pyramid, the top is the Roman emperor, he holds all authority, and then going down, that authority diminishes over time. So you have this sort of culture where that's expected, whereas this would be very different than that. Right? And really, if you think about it, the way that the New Testament ordains church authority, there's not really a structure that's quite like it anywhere else. Where you have a group of men, all equally authoritative and authoritative over each other. ruling together. You know, we live in a democratic republic where we have representatives. Senators, for instance, each have, are equally authoritative, but is one senator authoritative over the next? No. You know, do they rule together in the same way that elders ought to? No. There's a very unique power structure, authority structure, if you think about it. And you see the church over time being influenced by the authority structure of its culture, the Roman culture. Could also be that over time you have these heresies pop up, you have Gnosticism, which we've talked about, which had this dualistic view in which the physical was always evil, the spiritual was always good, and you have two different gods because the true God couldn't have created physical things, and all that weirdness that we talked about. And so the church is having to face that. Well, how do we find unity in the midst of all this division? and what they ended up looking to was the bishops. To these singular men, in an effort to establish unity, they tried to find that unity in the bishops. Let's let the bishops, whatever they say, will kind of rule the day. You have this quote here from Cyprian in your handout, in the mid-second century. The church is based on the unity of the bishops. The bishop is in the church, and the church is in the bishop. If anyone is not with the bishop, he is not in the church. So in the face of all that the early church was going through, you have these, the structure of the bishops being formed, and Cyprian here says we need to find the unity in the church is established through what these bishops teach. Another reason why this sort of structure could have developed over time was relations between churches. How do we communicate with one another? They're separated by great distance, all these churches. There's not cars or airplanes or cell phones. And so perhaps you have the emergence of one man who can represent the whole church in communications between the different churches. But whatever the cause is, or multiple causes were, by the mid-2nd century, almost all the churches had this sort of structure, where it changed from a plurality of elders to having a bishopric, where one man, the bishop, is authoritative over the whole church. You also have over time the development of the diocese. Churches started in cities, in urban centers, and rural converts would actually travel to the cities to go to church. There weren't rural churches. Just as a side note, the word pagan actually has to do with those who lived in rural areas, because those in rural areas typically were not Christian. Christianity started in the cities, and so that word pagan ends up getting associated with those who aren't Christian. So, you know, are we pagans because we live in Fallon? I don't know. You know, I tend to think of other places as more pagan than others in Nevada. but be that as it may, you have folks going into the city and what ends up happening over time is the area around the city is known to be called the diocese or the area of authority for the bishop. So the bishop now not only is ruling over the local church, they're ruling over the region that they're in. You have a map here. I tried to find a map of different diocese in the early church. I couldn't find one. This is a map of England right before the Reformation. You see all these different areas. You have York. So the Bishop of York would have authority over this whole region. The Bishop of Lincoln, the Bishop of Canterbury, which probably many of you have heard that. This is his region to rule over. And so the rule extends beyond the local church into the whole region. And part of that is, initially, there's just one church in the region anyways, right? There's not a whole bunch of churches around. Well, that doesn't stop there. Over time, not only do you have the development of these bishops over the local church, you have some of these bishops actually being set apart from the others, to where you have the patriarchs. I'm running out of room here. So, let's say this. Patriarch. So you have these, you know, one bishop being set apart as the patriarch over multiple churches, over multiple bishops. And at least initially this had to do with the cities that were more influential than others. The bishops from these cities had more power, more prestige, more influence, so they're set apart as the patriarchs. The original five, one was Jerusalem. Jerusalem, of course, was the mother church. It was where Christianity started, and so it had a position of prestige. It does become weakened over time, particularly after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 and subsequent destructions from Rome. So Jerusalem's right here. You also have the church in Antioch. This is where converts are first known as Christians. It's really the seedbed of missionary work amongst the Gentiles. And so over time Jerusalem kind of becomes known as the grandmother of the church, Antioch the mother of the church. Then you have Alexandria down here, modern-day Egypt, is a very influential city in the Roman Empire. It's the seat of culture and learning. So that bishop becomes a patriarch, a more prestigious position. And then you have Constantinople. up here. If you remember, that's where Constantine moves the capital city of the Roman Empire. He moves it from Rome to Constantinople. It seems like he wanted to name it after himself, just like all of his kids. So, you know, Constantinople. That over time becomes the capital city of the Eastern Roman Empire. And then Rome is the capital of the Western Roman Empire. Rome is just a prestigious city because, I mean, what is the Roman Empire named after? Rome, right? It's a very important city. And so Rome's there. Paul is said to labor there. Tradition says that Peter founded the church there, though that doesn't seem like that's actually the case. That's what tradition says. And it's a very important city. And so you have the development. of these patriarchs, these bishops who are set apart from the other bishops. And you have this chalkboard that is being obstinate. We don't have to erase the timeline quite yet. Where's my? So you have these five bishops that become the patriarchs of the church, rulers over the other, or influential over the other bishops. So you have Rome, Constantinople, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem. These being the patriarchs, the most influential bishops. Before we get on to this, over time it's important to mention that these bishops end up gradually becoming in a position of civil authority as well, where they don't just have authority over their local church or the region, they're actually entrusted with some civil power over the government, things that are going on in the region. But what ends up setting apart Rome from these others? Because the Pope is the Bishop of Rome. In the Roman Catholic Church, he's the head of the church. Well, how does it develop that this one, the Bishop of Rome, becomes more important or in a position of higher authority than the others? Well, early on, you do see seeds of the Bishop of Rome intervening in different matters. We actually read portions of 1 Clement a while ago. This is Clement of Rome, the Bishop of Rome. who's writing to the Corinthian church. He's trying to settle this matter because the Corinthian church didn't get it figured out after 2 Corinthians. Continues to have problems. And so he tries to intervene in that matter to help solve the matter. You also have the Easter controversy early on in the church. The question being, when do we celebrate Easter? Do we celebrate Easter in relation to the Jewish calendar? Or do we celebrate Easter always on Sunday? Well, the Bishop of Rome helped decide the matter. Victor was his name. He was Bishop of Rome from 189 to 199. He said the Easter should always be celebrated on Sunday. That ends up helping to carry the day for that matter. You also have this dispute in the mid third century between Stephen and Cyprian. Stephen was the Bishop of Rome. There's a picture of him. I appreciate, you know, I don't know when they did this depiction of him, probably much later than he was alive, but he is the only one from the early church who I've seen has a mustache. Just a little side note there, very important stuff. But anyways, Bishop of Rome, Stephen, he says, he basically claims papal supremacy, and Cyprian, who we actually read a quote earlier, says no, actually each bishop controls his own territory. So you see the beginnings of this squabble. You have Cyprian saying each bishop controls his own territory, whereas Stephen, the bishop of Rome, says no, actually Rome has supremacy. Well, things really start to develop with Damasus. He is Pope, or not Pope, he's the Bishop of Rome from 366 to 384, and he really gets to this position in not the best way. There's this violent conflict between him and another man named Yersinus, and he seizes the position. It's a violent conflict, and he emerges victorious. Actually, both pagans and Christians thought of him as one with deep worldly ambitions. It said the opulence of his entertainments was said to surpass imperial hospitality. He sought to influence the Roman upper class to Christianity. The way that he did this was he targeted upper class Roman women, and so over time he's actually known as the lady's ear tickler. Which is probably not a title that you want. It shows what the man is like. Alright. He wanted to increase authority and influence of the Bishop of Rome. And one of the ways that he does this is he claims Peter and Paul. He claims Peter and Paul from Rome. He says, there's a quote there in your handout, Whoever you may be that seek the names of Peter and Paul should know that here the saints once dwelt in Rome. The east sent the disciples, that we readily admit, but on the account of the merit of their blood, they died there in Rome, he says, they have followed Christ through the stars and attained to the ethereal bosom in the realms of the holy ones. Rome has gained a superior right to claim them as her citizens. So he says, because Peter and Paul died in Rome, Rome gets to claim Peter and Paul. I don't know how the logic, major premise, minor premise, I don't know that that quite follows, but regardless, Damasus claims to be the successor of Peter because of that. Because Peter and Paul died in Rome and he is the bishop, Damasus is the bishop of Rome, he claims to be the successor of Peter. Jerome, And 376 actually holds the same position. You see a quote there. This is in the midst of the Arian controversy, where the church is dealing with the question, is Jesus fully God or not? And the church is being rocked by the division over that controversy. Jerome says, since the East, shattered as it is by the longstanding feud, he's talking about the Arian controversy, subsisting between its peoples, is bit by bit tearing into shreds the seamless vest of the Lord, woven from the top throughout. Since the foxes are destroying the vineyard of Christ, and since among the broken cisterns that hold no water, it is hard to discover the sealed fountain and the garden enclosed." Reference to the church. I think it is my duty to consult the chair of Peter. This is a letter that he's writing to Damasus. He's saying Damasus holds the chair of Peter. and to turn to a church whose faith has been praised by Paul. The fruitful soil of Rome, when it receives the pure seed of the Lord, bears fruit a hundredfold. But here the seed grain is choked, that is in the east, in the furrows, and nothing grows but darnel or oats. In the west, the sun of righteousness is even now rising. In the east, Lucifer, who fell from heaven, has once more set his throne above the stars. My words are spoken to the successor of the fishermen. Who's that a reference to? Who's the fisherman? Peter. To the disciple of the cross. As I follow no leader save Christ, so I communicate with none but your blessedness, that is with the chair of Peter. For this I know is the rock on which the church is built. This is the house where alone the paschal lamb can be rightly eaten. This is the ark of Noah, and he who is not found in it shall perish when the flood prevails. Very strong language. You see clearly in Jerome's mind that the Bishop of Rome is the heir of Peter and he's seeking the unity of the church in the Bishop of Rome. He's saying in the East all this trouble is going on and all this controversy and all this division and yet we are to look to the Bishop of Rome because he says that is the chair of Peter. And then that last phrase he says is very strong. This is the Ark of Noah. Language that would seem to indicate that he thinks that salvation is found in here, in the Church of Rome, and what the Bishop of Rome says. Well, Damasus inevitably goes off the scene. His successor is a man named Cyricus. He succeeds Damasus as the bishop of Rome. He continues this sort of thought that the Roman bishop has primacy over the other bishops, gets to judge over church matters. He continues to teach that Peter lives on through the bishop of Rome. It's a quote there. He says, So again, he sees that the Bishop of Rome is the successor of Peter. And I forgot to mention, you see that in the language of Jerome, In his mind, what is the foundation of the church? It's Peter, right? Peter is the rock in which the church is built. And we'll talk about that passage later. But if that's the case, then the argument is if Peter is the rock, the foundation of the church, and the Bishop of Rome is the successor of Peter, And the Bishop of Rome is the foundation of the church. What he says, what he decides, rules the day. Another quote from, I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time saying his name. Siricissus? Siricius, should have read more Harry Potter. It seems like a... He's writing this letter to other churches. He says, And to every case which you have referred, by our son Bassian the presbyter to the Roman church, as to the head of your body, we have, believe, returned adequate replies. Now listen to this. And now we urge the mind of your brotherhood more and more to observe the canons and keep the decretals which have been framed, so that what we have replied to your inquiries you may bring to the notice of all your fellow bishops, and not only of those who are in your diocese, So he says, what we have said, what the Roman church has said, communicate to others, follow what we have said. But not only in your area, in your diocese, but let what we have profitably ordained be sent with your letters also to all the Carthaginians, and the Batacans, and the Lusitanians, and the Gallicans, Galatians, and to those in the provinces adjoining your own. So he says, don't only follow what we say, not only you, but you tell other churches. They need to also follow what we have said in these other areas. And though no priest of the Lord is free to be ignorant of the statutes of the apostolic see, and we continue on, but you see there he claims that no church leaders should be ignorant of what the Bishop of Rome says. that what the Bishop of Rome says carries the day. So you see this idea of the Roman Bishop continuing to try to claim superiority. We get to a man named Innocent I next. He's the next Bishop of Rome that we'll look at. He's the Bishop of Rome from 402 to 417. And before we get to him, how do you think these patriarchs, what do you think these patriarchs think of these claims of the Bishop of Rome? Do you think they're like, oh yeah, we're gonna fall in line with that? No, no. Each one of these is very adverse to what the Bishop of Rome is claiming. They think that they have just as much authority as the Bishop of Rome. And we'll see how that ends up changing. It doesn't really change, but how it ends up changing in the Western Roman Empire. Innocent I, he desired uniformity in practice and teaching in the church. And who do you think he thought gets to decide that? Rome, right? The Bishop of Rome. There's a quote there. This is even more obvious when you realize that no church was ever founded in all of Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, Sicily, or any of the islands unless the venerable Apostle Peter or his successors appointed bishops for them. See if, in any of these provinces, there is any mention of another apostle teaching there or even being there. If they do not discover any, as indeed they cannot, then they must follow the practice of the Church of Rome, from which there is no doubt that they will receive their start. His argument is all of these churches are founded either by Peter or those who are successors of Peter. And as such, they need to be in line with what Peter says. And what does Peter say? It's whatever the Bishop of Rome says. Which is rather convenient, don't you think? Next up we have Zosimus from 417 to 418. He doesn't rule for very long. He is in the midst of the Pelagian controversy. If you remember, Pelagius taught basically a works-based salvation. Man completes his salvation from beginning to end instead of God. And Pelagius, he interacts with Zosimus. Zosimus sees that Pelagius lives a very holy life, at least on the surface. He seems to be a very godly man. And he actually sides with Pelagius in this controversy. He tells the African church, hey, you need to regard Pelagius as orthodox. Because remember, the Pelagian controversy, the hotbed of it is in the African church. That's where Augustine is. And so Zosimus tries to step in and the African church says, oh, yeah, we'll listen to you Bishop of Rome. No, they don't. They say basically no, we're not going to do that. They react very strongly against that because they see the very problematic stances of Pelagius. But you see here a quote from Zosimus. He says, the tradition of the fathers attributed so great an authority to the apostolic see Bishop of Rome, that no one would dare dispute its judgment and has preserved this for all time by canonical rules. Up to the present, through these laws, ecclesiastical discipline gives due honor to the name of Peter from whom it also derives. The ancient canons assign this great power to the apostle from the very promise of Christ our God so that he might loose what was bound and bind what has not been bound. A like condition of power has been given to those who have merited the inheritance of this sea with his ascent. So again, Semer point of argument, point of view in his argument that he says the Roman church can claim Peter and so whatever powers Christ gave to Peter belongs to the Bishop of Rome. And then very pointedly he says, you do know, dearest brothers and as bishops, you have an obligation to know this. So great is our authority that no one can reconsider our decision. Okay, so. Pretty strong claims. We have spoken, yes, that's right. Now, it's important to point out Zosimus was eventually forced to condemn Pelagius just from the pressure of those around him, so he does. Now, the last Bishop of Rome we're gonna look at is Leo. Leo is very important. He really marks the transition from the Bishop of Rome as it was in the early church to the Bishop of Rome as it developed in the Middle Ages, the Pope. Leo, he's Leo I. There's many popes who claim the name Leo after him. He was the Bishop of Rome from 440 to 461. We mentioned him last week. If you remember, he's the one that goes out and talks to the Huns and averts them from ransacking Rome. That's the same Leo. And he's the one that really sort of synthesizes the argument for the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. You have these other people before him who say these things, who make these claims, but Leo's really the one that gives a clear argument for it, that the Bishop of Rome is superior to the other bishops. And the way that he does this is he argues from Roman ideas of inheritance. how things are passed on from one to another when someone dies. And using this sort of cultural framework, he argues that the Bishop of Rome is the successor and heir of Peter, which means that he has the same position of Peter, with the same responsibilities, the same privileges, even if he does not have the same holiness as Peter. And so his position, his superiority is not based upon his character. It's based upon him being the heir of Peter, which again is rather convenient, don't you think? And this again is based upon Roman ideas of inheritance. And so the argument goes, again, similar to what we've already seen with others, that you have Christ, making Peter the rock of the church, which we'll see is not the case. Peter has the keys to the church, and Peter actually rules over the other apostles. So the argument goes, because of this, because the Bishop of Rome is the heir of Peter, of Christ, the Bishop of Rome, and the other bishops. That's the argument. And the argument depends, really, it's grounded in one, that Peter actually is authoritative over the other apostles. that he's the foundation of the church, which we'll examine later, and the argument depends on the fact that the bishop of Rome is Peter's successor. Do you see that anywhere in scripture? No. But that's how the argument goes. He also states a rather strong position. He says communion with Christ is founded in communion with Rome. So if you're out of communion, If you're out of step with the Bishop of Rome, you're out of step with Christ. The Pope gets to determine matters of faith and practice because of his relationship with Peter. He has the keys to the kingdom. He is the foundation of the church, the rock of the church. And so Leo really sets out these positions rather strongly and also rather clearly. He puts a lot of effort into developing these sorts of ideas. Whereas previous popes kind of say these things more offhand, Leo really develops this doctrine of the papal supremacy. Well, We're still dealing with the question, how is it that this bishop becomes more powerful than the other bishops? The way that that happens is not because these other bishops are in agreement. There's never a point where these bishops say, yes, yeah, okay, the bishop of Rome, he's the head honcho. That never happens. It still hasn't happened. What happens, if you look, let's go back to our map here. If you look at this map, Rome is here, okay? Rome is in the Western Roman Empire. Rome is a Latin speaking area, okay? All these other cities, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, these are all in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. So you have the Western Roman Empire that develops, and you have the Eastern Roman Empire that develops. Rome is the only one that's in the Western part. Rome is the only one that's Latin speaking. All these other ones are Greek speaking. And so you have this strong division, both politically, along political lines, they're different empires, but also culturally. These are different languages, Greek and Latin. And so what happens, when you have the collapse of the Roman Empire, and as you have more and more of the Western Empire being separated from the Eastern Roman Empire, you have more and more Rome's just able to kind of do its own thing. Rome is not as connected to these other bishops because the empires are not as connected. And as the Western Roman Empire falls, as we saw last week, the Pope really comes in to fill that power vacuum. Who's in charge here? Who's calling the shots? The Pope really takes on a lot of those roles. And Leo helps with that, especially the whole sort of legendary story of Pope Leo turning away the Huns, that helps give the Pope more power. Again, you have the growing separation of the Western and Eastern Roman Empire. Also, later on, North Africa is a very important part of the Roman Empire that ends up falling in the 600s. Carthage is a very important city for the church, but the North African church is overrun by Muslim invaders in the 600s, so they kind of are taken out of the picture. They're not competing with the Bishop of Rome. There's a schism that's developing between the two different empires, so these churches aren't so much vying for power, and Rome is just kind of left with power over all of this. as the supreme voice for Britain and for what will develop here, modern day Germany and France and Spain and obviously Italy. And so Rome really takes the position of power within Western Europe there. Just to let you know, these patriarchs continue on today more or less in the Eastern Orthodox Church. That's where the Eastern Orthodox Church comes from. It comes from the remaining bishops, and then you have the Roman Catholic Church that develops centered around Rome. Again, as a side note, it would be helpful to look a little bit more at Eastern Orthodoxy at some point. Surprisingly, it's becoming very appealing to a lot of young men who grew up in the church, but it has very serious problems. Often we talk about Roman Catholicism, but it would be helpful to talk about the problems with Eastern Orthodoxy as well at some point. Well, what do we think about all this? What do we think about church authority? The first question we should address is what is the rock that Jesus will build his church on? It's very foundational to the argument of the bishops of Rome. So let's turn to that passage, Matthew chapter 16. It's a key part of their argument, this passage. So Matthew 16, starting in verse 13. Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, blessed are you Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, Whatever you bind on earth you shall be shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ and so the argument That Rome has from this passage Is that they say that the this rock is Peter and So the foundation that Christ, according to Rome, foundation of the church is Peter. Everything is built on that. Look at that lovely church I drew, okay? Should probably put a door, huh? There we go. They say the foundation is Peter, And again, since the Bishop of Rome, they say is the successor of Peter, then the Bishop of Rome is the foundation that Christ is building his church upon. Well, however you think about this, is the this rock Peter? That's the question, right? What is the this rock? What rock is Christ talking about? Verse 16, so you're talking, yep. So before we get to that, It would be helpful, because there's possibilities here. It could be talking about Peter. It could be talking about what Peter said, right? His confession there that Christ, that Jesus is the Christ, it could be that. It's not necessarily super clear from the passage. So, how do we interpret scripture? With what? With other scripture, I'm glad no one said the Bishop of Rome. With other scripture, right? So we look at other scripture, where do these same concepts come about? The idea of foundation and Christ building his church and these sorts of things. Well, if you look at 1 Corinthians chapter three, nine through 11, you have some similar ideas. This is Paul speaking, for we are God's fellow workers, you are God's field, God's building. He's talking about the church. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other that which is laid, which is Peter." Which is what? Jesus Christ. Paul says the foundation of the church is Jesus Christ. Ephesians chapter two, verses 19 through 21. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, you Gentile Christians, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. Household of God, that's language talking about the church. Built on the foundation of Peter. Is that what it says? Built on the foundation of the apostles, plural, and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in which the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. So you see some similarity between those two passages. Both talk about Christ being the essential part of the foundation. In Ephesians, you also have the idea of the apostles and the prophets. Well, who are the apostles and the prophets talking about? Jesus. Where do we get the Apostles writing? How do we know what the Apostles say? The Word. The revelation of God about Jesus Christ through the work of the Apostles and the prophets is in here. This is the foundation of the church. Christ Jesus being the cornerstone of that. Matthew chapter 7. This is Jesus speaking. He says, And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. Now, this is not as much talking about the church corporately, but it's talking about individuals and still has these ideas of foundation, right? And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell and great was the fall of it. Continuing on. Oh, I'm sorry. So what is the foundation that Jesus says we should build our house upon? His words and applying them. Where do we find Jesus's words? Scripture. Matthew 18, if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. This is similar language to the passage, sorry, in Matthew 16. And yet in Matthew 18 here, is he just talking to Peter? No, he's talking to all the apostles there. And does this have ramifications for the church today? He's talking about church discipline? Yeah. And so the ideas of the keys only being in the hands of Peter does not hold ground. Certainly with the other apostles and it has application to church leadership today. Okay, and so this notion at the foundation of Peter, is Peter just doesn't really hold up in light of the rest of scripture. The Bible says, the foundation of the church, is really the revelation of Christ, who he is, what he says, which we have access today in scripture. And there is a particular emphasis on the apostles in that, the apostolic revelation of Christ in scripture. And so, in light of all of those passages, when we go back to Matthew 16, On this rock, I will build my church. It seems to be more, not talking about Peter as a man, but Peter's apostolic confession of Christ, which was revealed to him by God. Revelation of Christ given to Peter, the apostle. That is the rock in which Christ will build his church. Yeah, or stone. Little stone. Yeah, I'm not sure. But I think we do need to interpret this passage in light of the other clear passages that pronounce what the foundation is. I haven't looked into that specifically. Yeah, sure. I mean, is Peter a part of this apostolic foundation? Yeah, Peter's certainly a part of that. Yeah, I think it's because he was really into heavy metal. Yeah, yeah. Do you have any thoughts about that Brennan? Yeah, I haven't looked into that specifically enough to answer that. That's a good question though. But I think we do have to, these other passages are very clear of what the foundation is. Whereas this passage, that this rock, is not as clear. So we interpret the less clear in light of the more clear, as to what the foundation is. Secondly, what do we think about church authority? All authority comes from God, is limited by God, and exists for God's purposes. Colossians 1 16 for by him all things were created by Christ in heaven and on earth visible and invisible whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things were created through him and for him and so does Christ Establish the authority of elders Is that from Christ? Yes Do elders, bishops, so on and so forth, have unlimited authority? Does Christ give elders authority over civil matters? No. Does Christ give the elders of this church authority over another church? No. So the authority does come from Christ, but it is also limited by Christ, limited by God, and that authority exists for God's purposes. what God has revealed. And so, as elders, we're limited by that. We can't go beyond that scope. Just like as a father, do I have a sphere of authority? Yes, I do. Whether or not I'm wielding it appropriately is a different question, but regardless, I have that authority. Does that authority as a father give me the right to go into someone else's house and exercise authority there in the same way? No. Does the authority that I have as a father give me the right to go into the oval office and start signing executive orders? No, right? It's a limited authority. Elders have authority, but it is a limited authority. It's determined by God what that sphere is. What does that authority involve? Church authority serves by leading, overseeing, and teaching over a particular local church. 2 Corinthians 4-5, this is Paul speaking as an apostle, which is greater than an elder, greater authority. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. So that authority as an apostle, he's saying, is tied to service, to being a servant. He's serving the body in his leading. And it's the same with elders, with overseers. We lead the body, we have authority over the body, but ultimately we're servants. How do we serve the body? By leading. Right? And so this whole idea of a pope that just has authority for the sake of authority, to do whatever he wishes and wants to for his own sake, is totally foreign to scripture. The authority has a purpose. The authority is to serve the body of Christ. Acts 20, verse 28. Be careful, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Before we move on, who makes the elders the elders? Holy Spirit, God. God institutes that authority, but for a purpose. We continue to read on. To care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. The elders are given authority for the purpose to care for the church of God entrusted to them. Again, not just to wield authority for authority's sake, not to wield authority over civil matters, anything like that. Next passage there, and he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers for a purpose. to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. God gives the church pastors so that the church will be equipped for the ministry, equipped through the sound teaching of God's word that is to protect them from every wind of doctrine, be tossed to and fro. I think we see that. Churches that don't have pastors for a long period of time are going to be tossed to and fro. Individuals who remove themselves from the authority of elders and the teaching ministry of the elders are gonna be tossed to and fro. Again, it's an authority for a purpose. Next, the apostles are the authority over elders. If we wanna create a hierarchical model, it's the apostles that are over all the elders. It's not one elder that is above others. The apostles continue to rule through the scripture, with Christ ruling over and through them. The authority of the elders is grounded in and restricted by the apostolic constitution. Where is the apostolic constitution for the church? In a word, okay, we see Paul wielding his apostolic authority, 1 Corinthians 7, 17, only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. Paul as an apostle has the authority to make a decision that impacts all of the churches because of his position. Furthermore, elders have authority over one local body. Local bodies are to have a plurality of elders. We see this is the model in Titus chapter one, verse five, Paul tells Titus that he is to appoint elders in every town as I directed you. Again, at that point, these are one church towns, as it were, and so there's to be a plurality of elders at each local body, and those elders don't have authority over other local bodies. And then lastly on there, elder, presbyter, overseer, bishop, paship, pastor are all used interchangeably in scripture. You can look at those references there in Titus 1 in which elders and overseers or bishops, those words are used interchangeably. It's talking about the same position. They're not bishops and elders. Elders are bishops. Bishops are elders. Same thing. Well, what are we to take away from all this? First of all, We should be cautious about letting the culture determine our church practice and values. That's what happened in the early church. The early church, the Roman context, had a culture that was hierarchical. And so, church government ended up, over time, becoming hierarchical. There was a value of the influence of prominent cities. So, over time, the churches in those prominent cities end up having more influence over others. It's from Roman culture. And I think you see also from Roman culture this desire for a visible, unified kingdom, how that ends up impacting the church, that they want so badly to have this visible unity for the church to look strong, so much so that they give more power to certain individuals to try to maintain the facade of unity, okay? In our modern culture, we also have values. We need to be cautious about allowing into the church. Our culture is not very hierarchical, but it is very anti-authoritarian. Marxism teaches that if you're a person in power, you are an oppressor. And those sorts of ideas have creeped into the church, where that if a pastor is trying to wield his authority, he must be an oppressor. Right? That's an idea from our culture. Also have, you know, we don't really care about the influence of prominent cities as much, but I think we are influencer crazy. What does the, you know, what does the popular guy on TikTok say? Or what does the, you know, the podcast pastor say about this? You know, well if they said it, it must be true. We value influencers. And then postmodernism definitely has creeped into the church that says what's true for you is true for you, is true for me is true for me. And so you have people trying to develop unity based upon what? Sweeping the truth under the rug. We want a visible unity so bad that we're not willing to take stances on what scripture says. Where does that come from? It comes from our culture. This postmodernism creeping into the church. What about the Bible? What does the Bible say in terms of our church practice and values? The Bible teaches the blessings of a godly authority. It teaches the evils of an evil authority, but there are blessings tied to godly authority. The Bible teaches the ordinary means of grace ministry. that a pastor could be completely uninfluential in the eyes of the world, not be very talented or whatever, but if he's committed to teaching God's Word, to the Lord's Supper, to baptism, to prayer, those are the means that God uses, even if the guy doesn't have a million likes on YouTube. That's the focus in Scripture. And the Bible certainly is very truth-centric. in distinction to post-modernism. Truth claims matter to God. The Bible is full of truth claims. And so, those should be important to us. Connected to those things, we want to be careful not to elevate nor diminish the authority of elders. Those dangers on either side. We can recognize that some pastors are more gifted in certain areas and more influential in others. If I want to learn about family life from a biblical perspective, I'm probably gonna go to a guy like Votie Bauckham. because he spent a lot of time thinking through that stuff in ways that I haven't. I recently went to a conference with Carl Truman, who's devoted a lot of energy thinking about the LGBTQ plus movement and how we've arrived to transgenderism. He spent years thinking through this topic. Should I listen to him? Yes, right? So we want to value. We don't want to diminish where some pastors are more skilled than others. And yet at the same time, we want to be careful and cautious about celebrityism. We will probably in our context not elevate one man to a position of bishop formally, but we certainly in many ways do so informally. What does this pastor say about the topic? Whatever he says must go. Why? Because he's a very influential man. He's very talented. We gotta be careful about celebrityism. Our culture loves celebrities, cares what celebrities say. We wanna be careful about that danger. You see in the church, there is a typical correlation. The more someone is enamored with celebrity pastors, the podcast guy or whatever, the less they value local church authority. We wanna be mindful of that. Next, we should not pursue visible unity at the cost of biblical truth. That's what the Roman church did, though in many ways they were trying to do both, pursue the truth and pursue unity, but they centered it around certain men and the bishops. Visible unity is to be found in the bishops. And the Middle Ages, that continues on where visible unity increasingly is based upon the Pope, the Church of Rome. Modern day, as we mentioned, visible unity is based upon sweeping biblical truth under the rug. How are we to think of unity? Are we to find it in certain men? Are we to find it by ignoring truth? Unity is found in Christ. All Christians are already united in Christ Jesus. It doesn't look like it. It's not very visible all the time. And yet, if someone has put their faith in Christ, is united to Christ, they are united with one another in a way that can never be taken away. Well how are we to, it's clear that we don't fully enjoy that unity in this life. Right? We have it, but we don't fully enjoy it. Well how are we to enjoy it more? Do we ignore truth? No. We enjoy the unity more as our minds, as our thoughts, and our actions are in line with what Scripture says. We don't find unity by ignoring the Bible. We find the enjoyment of that unity by pursuing the Bible. What does God say? And then lastly, perfect enjoyment of unity will only be found in glory. It's not in this life. And so we wanna be careful about trying to create something that will only be found in glory by either undercutting the truths of God's word or trying to find visible unity in a man or an organization or something like that. Well, that's what I got. That really marks these two things, mark the transition to the Middle Ages. Encourage you to look more into it. Next week we're gonna be starting our new Sunday school session. Hey Brennan, we confirmed on what you're doing? Okay, we're gonna be doing it on, we're gonna be going through a book. It's a Puritan book called The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. So we ordered a bunch of these books. If you'd like to order it yourself, you can. It's an excellent book. I'm sure many of us, if not all of us, have struggled with the area of contentment. So I'd encourage you guys to come. There's a lot of sound wisdom from Jeremiah Burroughs, the author of that book. Let's go ahead and pray together. Father, we thank you that we can learn from the mistakes of the past. No, really, we should. We thank you that we have the development of the papacy and see the consequences of it. We can see all of this happen in history, and that serves as a warning sign to us. Help us to be committed to the biblical view of church authority, what it is, what it looks like. Help us to be committed to a plurality of elders. Help us to be committed to pursuing biblical truth. And help us to be those who value authority in different spheres, in the government, in church, at home, that there are indeed dangers to the evil use of authority, but help us not to neglect the fact that godly authority is a blessing. And help us to enjoy that. And pray this all in Christ's name, amen.