Replying to Avatar Daniel Wigton

I don't think it daft. I think it is half the picture.

"I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other God beside me." Are about the greatest words in any language. It makes us invunerable to all kinds of silly or evil movements and trends.

The two sides of the coin are how you reconcile "Christ is king." With "Submit to those in authority over you." It is actually quite easy. Christ delegates authority to his church and we submit ourselves to it in turn.

The state, in turn, is valid if it submits itself to Christ and to his Church. All throughout the Old testament God promises the restoration of the Davidic Kingdom. At no point does He promise a return to the time of Judges.

The mistake that the Jews made was in thinking that it was going to just go back to the way it was. A human king and Kingdom. But God had other plans. He did give us a human king, but it was himself. But now if we have a king we need a Kingdom. He delegates his authority to his ministers.

Look at Matthew 16:19 "I will give you the keys of the kingdom.."

That is a king handing authority to his representative.

You can complain about his choice but you cannot deny that he did it. He gave Simon a new name just like he did for Abraham and Israel when he confirmed that they would be Fathers of his nation. He gave him his authority.

The part you miss about Catholics is that we don't remotely think of the Pope as a king. He is the successor of Peter, the chief Steward of the king. The other bishops are in a similar position. This is why the Orthodox still have some authority. But the rock is Peter and those bishops that remain with him have a unique position in the kingdom.

That is how God guaranteed that we would be able to find the appropriate authorities to submit to. You can claim to follow Christ alone, but to reject the Kingdom is to reject the King.
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The Beave 8mo ago

I want to contrast what Jesus said to Peter vs. what God said to Abraham and others.

Jesus gave PETER the keys to the kingdom. To my knowledge, He NEVER stated that there would ever be anyone else to receive those keys, so it is exceedingly dumb to try to turn that into some kind of patrilineal thing that was never stated. God was explicitly clear about Abraham being the father of many nations, so if God wanted a "poppa" for His Church, he would have said so. The entirety of the office of the Pope is a falsehood. Point blank. Full stop. Do not pass go, and in many cases hopefully go straight to jail.

There is NOTHING in scripture that points to ANYTHING resembling modern Christian Denominations and paid clergy (though the Levite priests can be seen as a mostly comparable facsimile of that, but . . . ARE NOT NEEDED NOW THAT WE CAN INTERACT WITH GO THROUGH THE GRACE OF JESUS' DEATH AND RESURRECTION!)

Back to the point of Peter . . .

He's doing his thing with Jesus in the heavenly realm. He is not here. Therefore, the keys to the kingdom are NOT HERE since Jesus hasn't returned yet to establish his kingdom. Nothing in the New Testament (again, to my knowledge) points to any divinely appointed successorship of that position. The concept of the pope is a human political thing that is NOT the preference of God. (IMO)

So . . . back to human authority: I submit myself all the time. I listen to my supervisors at work. I tend to obey most traffic laws. I don't steal. I do not initiate violence without very good reason. I will not bear false witness, etc.

But . . . show me what government on this planet is aligned with Christ, in fruit that is plainly visible. Sure, God will harmonize everything to His Will as only he can, but, that is not the same thing as if there was a kingdom here that was subordinate to Christ as king from top to bottom. IMO, the only way that it is possible for that to exist is for each man to build that in his own home/family/tribe. That would be more appropriate and much more devastating to all of the Evil in the world.

To sum up: I see no proper human authority to which I must submit myself. The whole foundation of the Catholic Church is based on statecraft, not God's Word. I've yet to see anything good from the upper echelons of the Catholic Church even if some local parishes do good for their communities. This whole concept is wrong, and is holding back God's goodness, mercy, and love, which is contemptible to me.

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