From Athens to Antioch

Reading Scripture and History slowly. Understanding the faith as the Christians saw it in the Apostolic Church. BA History 2022, MA Religion 2026 UGA-Go Dawgs

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

@MikeWingerii Great perspective

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

@Emma506131772 True.

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

@Xtopher_Uzo Both can be true

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

@Nick_The_Hat @bigger_bread I don’t respond to derailment. Still waiting on your response.

Do I need to reframe the question?

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

@Nick_The_Hat @bigger_bread Ball’s in your court. Has been the whole day. The whole X verse sees your fallacy. Look through your history. Hard to have substance in under 20 syllables.

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

Lots of that I have already addressed or you mischaracterize. No need to go through it again.

On development vs material change. I clearly laid out why I think it’s material change in an earlier post. Did you miss it? You never addressed it.

Here is is again.

1. Rome
Tighter legal language is development. A different scope or kind of jurisdiction is a material change.

I call it a material change when the bishop of Rome moved from exercising a unique primacy within the universal episcopal Church to possessing a substantially different kind of authority: immediate jurisdiction, unilateral authority over other bishops, and an authority understood as necessary to the constitution of every local church.

2. Bishops
Greater organization, clearer territorial structures, and increased administrative responsibility are development. A different kind of power attached to the office is material change.

I call it a material change when bishops moved from primarily pastoral, teaching, sacramental, and disciplinary authority within the Church to exercising civil, judicial, political, or coercive authority backed by the state, especially when those powers became regular/normal features of the episcopal office (not just isolated incidents).

3. Rule of Faith
Clarifying language around an already-public belief is development. Making a genuinely new belief universally binding is material change.

I call it a material change when a doctrine or obligation becomes necessary for full communion even though it cannot be shown to have been part of the earlier public apostolic faith, and earlier Christians could have lived and died in good standing without knowing or affirming it.

4. Exercise of Church Authority
Using existing spiritual authority more formally is development. Expanding the kinds of authority the Church claims is material change.

I call it a material change when spiritual authority becomes coercive civil authority ; i.e. when the Church goes from teaching and disciplining believers to using the state to punish dissent and enforce belief.

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

@wcmclaa To uneducated to understand sola scripture. Spend 15 miln with google next time before you post.

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

@Nick_The_Hat @wcmclaa 1 words, 1 acronym and 3 emojis. We are regressing.

Your thread stills waits for you Mr. Hat

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

Welcome back my friend. I think we’re done here.

I gave you my specific test for development vs. material change, identified exactly where I believe Rome crossed that line, and explicitly gave you the last word to tell me where that analysis was wrong. That thread is still wanting a response

Instead, you returned to arguments about the visible Church, continuing ministry, the canon, and “book plus readers” that I had already answered (and in several cases explicitly agreed with.)

We’re now going in circles.

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

@Nick_The_Hat A double post - and still no substantive response. I am getting cold and lonely waiting on you to actually do something more than 5 words and 3 eojis.

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

@Nick_The_Hat @bigger_bread My position is still sitting there waiting for you to engage it. So far you’ve done a lot of chirping and very little arguing. At some point, use those few remaining brain cells and address the actual point.

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

You gave me a well-written and what seems tobe on a quick read a fairly well-positioned response here, and I appreciate the effort you put into it. I suspect we may ultimately agree to disagree, but this is at least substantive theology and from someone who knows their position, I would expect nothing less.

Before I spend time responding point by point, I want to make sure I am representing your argument fairly and see if we can pick 1 or 2 (this is kind of a gishgallop).

I think I see 10 points you make:

1) My position assumes a Protestant ecclesiology

2) My position frames Rome’s authority too narrowly around institutional succession.

3) My standard puts the individual interpreter over the Church, whereas Scripture presents the Church as the continuing authority to teach, judge disputes, and preserve apostolic tradition.

4) Peter received a distinctive office and authority that continued in the Church of Rome.

5) Clement, Ignatius, Irenaeus, and early episcopal succession provide historical evidence for Rome’s unique position and continuing authority.

6) Corrupt or sinful popes do not invalidate the legitimacy of the papal office or the authority properly attached to it.

7) Catholic justification can be defended from Scripture, so I cannot simply assume a Protestant definition of justification and use it to declare Trent a departure from apostolic Christianity.

8) Doctrinal development is legitimate, so later formulations are not necessarily inventions simply because they do not appear verbatim in the apostolic writings.

9) The canon creates a problem for my position because Christians depend on the historical Church to identify the apostolic Scriptures while I deny that the same Church possesses divinely protected authority to adjudicate their meaning.

10) And finally your conclusion, as I understand it, is that the burden is on me to establish my own account of authority, show that the Petrine office did not continue in the way Rome claims, and demonstrate that later Catholic doctrines represent material changes rather than legitimate developments.

Is that a fair summary of your argument?

I want to make sure we agree on the what the postiions are before either of us spends more time responding to positions the other person does not actually hold.

If I’ve captured your arguments fairly (I think I have), are any of these more foundational or important to your case than the others? Ten parallel arguments is a lot to untangle at once. I’m happy to work through all of them, but I’d rather have a discussion on one or two of them first (starting with the points you think are strongest or most foundational) instead of trying to argue all 10 at once.

Fair?

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

@bigger_bread Thanks. Finally someone with some with a brain, not just a mout. I look forward to digging into this.

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

@hdpayens I don’t think you understand sola scriptura if this is your understanding

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

@UcheMaryOkoli

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

@SoliDeoGloria_X

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

It took like 15 paragraphs to try prove this sentence is not the plain reading.

Matthew 13:55 “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?

Mark 6:3 Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph,[a] Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

How many paragraphs will antiquity require? Josephus, writing in the first century: ... " so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned (Josephus, Antiquities, 20.9.1)

Scripture calls James Jesus’ brother. Josephus calls James Jesus’ brother. At some point, the MOST plain reading is just the plain reading.

I understand that later Catholic tradition came to place significant weight on the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, but that seems to require an increasingly complicated reading of what these texts naturally say.

That looks more like a tradition problem than a Scripture problem.

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

@SoliDeoGloria_X So does contemporaneous non-scripture history.

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

@Un2TheBreach @PrayTheRosary @Un2TheBreach - wanted to tag you to make sure this didn't get lost in your notifications.

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

This got lost in my notifications over the long weekend. I am back!

I think we have enough agreement on the definitions now, so I’ll just say where I see material change.

1. Rome
Tighter legal language is development. A different scope or kind of jurisdiction is a material change.

I would call it a material change when the bishop of Rome moved from exercising a unique primacy within the universal episcopal Church to possessing a substantially different kind of authority: immediate jurisdiction, unilateral authority over other bishops, and an authority understood as necessary to the constitution of every local church.

2. Bishops
Greater organization, clearer territorial structures, and increased administrative responsibility are development. A different kind of power attached to the office is material change.
I would call it a material change when bishops moved from primarily pastoral, teaching, sacramental, and disciplinary authority within the Church to exercising civil, judicial, political, or coercive authority backed by the state, especially when those powers became regular/normal features of the episcopal office (not just isolated incidents).

3. Rule of Faith
Clarifying language around an already-public belief is development. Making a genuinely new belief universally binding is material change.

I would call it a material change when a doctrine or obligation becomes necessary for full communion even though it cannot be shown to have been part of the earlier public apostolic faith, and earlier Christians could have lived and died in good standing without knowing or affirming it.

4. Exercise of Church Authority
Using existing spiritual authority more formally is development. Expanding the kinds of authority the Church claims is material change.

I would call it a material change when spiritual authority becomes coercive civil authority ; i.e. when the Church goes from teaching and disciplining believers to using the state to punish dissent and enforce belief.

____________________________________________

I’ll give you the last word on this one. I think we’ve gone round and round enough. I’m sure you disagree, so let me know where you think I’m wrong.

I see a separate thread asking about my church, so that’s fair. I’ll give it a look.

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

@Un2TheBreach @PrayTheRosary @Un2TheBreach - wanted to tag you to make sure this didn't get lost in your notifications.

[From Athens to Antioch @YHWH_echad]

1) Where does its authority come from? Not from a line of bishops back to the apostles. Reformed churches don’t even claim that. Authority is supposed to come from Scripture.

1A) The church’s (the entirety of the visible Church) authority ultimately comes from Christ. While the apostles were alive, they were the authoritative witnesses and teachers of the faith and could settle disputes with apostolic authority. With that generation gone, the Church still had bishops, elders, teachers, councils, and tradition, but no living apostles. Catholicism claims that comparable authority continued through the episcopate and especially Rome; I don’t think that was a universally held assumption in the earliest Church. The Fathers clearly believed in succession of ministry, but that is not the same thing as saying the apostles’ unique authority (or Peter’s unique authority) was inherited intact by later bishops. That is why Scripture becomes the final rule when later authorities or interpretations conflict: it is the surviving, public apostolic witness against which every later authority can be tested. That does not mean every legitimate Christian belief or practice must be explicitly spelled out in the Bible. Tradition, the early Fathers, historic practice, councils, and reason all matter, especially where Scripture does not directly settle a question. The rule is not, “It must be in the Bible.” The rule is, “It must be consistent with the apostolic faith preserved in Scripture and cannot override or contradict it.”Pastors, elders, councils, and confessions therefore have real authority, but they remain fallible and accountable to that final standard.

2) Who says what Scripture means when Christians disagree?

2A) The local church, in communion with other churches, interprets and applies Scripture through its pastors, elders, teachers, councils, historic creeds, and the witness of the early Fathers. That is not individualism; it reflects the earliest Christian pattern of local churches governed by recognized leaders while remaining connected to the wider body. The historical connection matters because the first Church did not function as isolated congregations. Local churches taught, disciplined, exchanged letters, consulted one another, and worked toward common judgments, as we see in Acts, Clement, Ignatius, and Irenaeus. But those later leaders remained accountable to the apostolic faith they had received. So when Christians disagree, the local church does not decide in a vacuum. It reasons in communion with the wider Church and historic tradition, while Scripture remains the final standard because it is the surviving apostolic witness against which every later interpretation can be tested.

3) Elders? A confession? A local session? Those are later structures too. They are not sitting in Acts 2 in finished form.

3A) Elders are biblical, local church governance is biblical, and confessions are later summaries of the faith. None of that bothers me. I’m not arguing against development. I’m arguing against material change (corruption of nature). A session does not have to appear in Acts 2 in finished Presbyterian form to be continuous with apostolic church government.

4) What are its roots? The gospel is older. Your denomination is not. It is a 1500s reform of the medieval Latin Church, using Scripture and some fathers against Rome. That is historical descent from the same tree you say lost apostolic identity. If development plus later authority structures void Rome’s claim, they void yours.

4A) My roots are Pentecost too. I agree the medieval Western Church stood in historical descent from the visible Church Christ established through the apostles. My belief is that over time it accumulated material corruptions that compromised that apostolic inheritance. The Reformers did not claim to invent a new Church in the 1500s. They understood themselves to be part of Christ’s visible Church and were trying to recover the earlier apostolic faith from the same historical tree as the original trunk was now corrupted. So yes, same root. But historical descent alone does not prove that the original trunk remained healthy or faithful to the original root. The Reformation was an attempt to cut away corruption and recover what was intended from the beginning. So yes, we come from the same tree. That is not a problem for my argument. Historical descent is not the same thing as doctrinal and functional continuity. And again, I am not saying development or later structures void Rome’s claim. I am saying material change has.

5) You didn’t restore AD 33.
5A) Agreed. Nor was that the goal. The goal was not to recreate every first-century circumstance or structure, but to recover the apostolic faith and remove later material corruptions. Development is not the problem; material change is.

6) You allow development for yourselves: Trinity language, the canon as a received list, Sunday worship, infant baptism in a lot of Reformed churches, later confessions spelling out justification. Then you call our later clarity a different office. That’s two tests.

6A) I don’t think that’s two tests. I’m using the same test for both: development is legitimate when it clarifies, organizes, or names something already present in the apostolic faith; material change is when the substance, authority, function, or obligation itself becomes different. Trinitarian language is later terminology for biblical teaching, the canon is a later recognized list of apostolic writings, Sunday worship is already early, and confessions are fallible summaries rather than new revelation or infallible authority. Infant baptism is one I’m perfectly willing to test by the same standard. My question in every case is the same: did the later form preserve the earlier substance, or materially change it?

7) What must stay true for Reformed authority to remain apostolic and not just a 16th-century reading?
7A) For Reformed authority to remain apostolic, the authority has to stay ministerial rather than sovereign: Christ remains the head of the Church, Scripture remains the final standard in disputes, and pastors, elders, councils, and confessions serve that apostolic faith rather than becoming an independent source of binding truth. So the key continuity test is not “does it look exactly like AD 33?” It is: does the later structure still teach, shepherd, discipline, and guard the Gospel under the authority of Christ and His Word, or has it claimed a materially different kind of authority for itself?

8) When does an elder board plus a confession become a different church from the apostles?
8A) For Reformed authority to remain apostolic, the authority has to stay ministerial rather than sovereign: Christ remains the head of the Church, Scripture remains the final standard in disputes, and pastors, elders, councils, and confessions serve the apostolic faith rather than becoming an independent source of binding truth. That also fits the earliest Church reasonably well. The apostles and earliest Fathers show real teaching, pastoral, disciplinary, and sacramental authority, but always in service to the apostolic deposit rather than as a separate source of revelation. So the continuity test is not “does it look exactly like AD 33?” It is: does the later structure still teach, shepherd, discipline, and guard the Gospel under the authority of Christ and the apostolic faith, or has it claimed a materially different kind of authority for itself?

9) If Rome fails because it doesn’t look like your reconstruction of AD 33, neither do you.

9A) That’s not my test. Rome does not fail because it “doesn’t look like AD 33.” Neither does a Reformed church. The test is whether later development preserves the apostolic substance or materially changes the office, authority, doctrine, or function. I fully expect the Church to look different in later centuries. The question is whether those differences are legitimate development or a change in kind (corruption of the intent)

10) The difference is we claim a living body with succession. You claim a book plus later interpreters, and then deny that later interpreters can carry the Church.
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10A) That’s a caricature of my position. I do not claim “a book plus later interpreters,” and I do not deny that later teachers can faithfully carry the Church. But the Church’s own history proves that point: a living body can still be corrupted through man’s failures

11) And here’s the sharp edge. You trust that same historic Church enough to hand you the New Testament. Nobody in AD 33 was walking around with your bound canon. Councils, bishops, and the Church’s public life recognized those books and rejected others. Then you turn around and say that Church became too developed, too Roman, too institutional to be trusted with doctrine, office, or sacraments. So it was reliable enough to give you the table of contents, and unreliable the moment it used the same authority on anything else. That doesn’t work.

11A) I don’t think that follows. The Church did not create the New Testament; it recognized and preserved writings that were already apostolic. That historical act does not require me to believe every later doctrinal or institutional claim of the same Church is therefore infallible. I readily admit the earliest Catholic Church was the Church Christ intended. I love what that Church was. My argument is that later generations introduced material changes and corruptions into what they inherited. A body can faithfully preserve one thing and still later err in other areas. Recognition of the canon proves the Church had real authority and historical continuity. It does not prove that every later development in doctrine, office, jurisdiction, or sacramental theology remained materially continuous with the apostolic Church. So I’m not saying, “I trust the Church until the canon is closed and then stop.” I’m saying the same thing I’ve been saying all along: each later claim has to be tested for continuity with the apostolic deposit rather than assumed true simply because the institution making it has historical succession.

12) What must stay true for Reformed authority to remain apostolic and not just a 16th-century reading?

12A) I think your copy/paste button broke. See above

13)When does an elder board plus a confession become a different church from the apostles?

13A) An elder board plus a confession becomes materially different from the apostolic Church when it stops being a servant of the apostolic faith and starts acting as an independent source of binding truth or a materially different kind of authority. So the issue is not that elders or confessions are later developments. Elders are biblical, and confessions can simply summarize what the Church believes Scripture teaches. The line is crossed when that structure claims authority over the apostolic deposit rather than authority under it.

14) If Rome fails because it doesn’t look like your reconstruction of AD 33, neither do you. The difference is we claim a living body with succession. You claim a book that body preserved, then deny the body that preserved it.

14A) I think your copy/paste button broke. See above.

15) Also of importance would be the name of your Church. Which church are you a member of?

15A) I’m Methodist, but I don’t believe Methodism is “the one true Church.” The one true Church is Christ’s body of believers - those united to Him through the apostolic Gospel: faith in Christ, confession that He is Lord, belief in His death and resurrection, repentance, baptism, and obedience flowing from faith. Methodism is simply the tradition I worship within. I don’t claim it perfectly reproduces the first-century Church, but from my study of Scripture and history, it is the closest expression I have found.
The issue at hand is this: The unified visible Church Christ intended was progressively corrupted over many centuries. The later denominational splintering is the unfortunate consequence of Christians trying to recover apostolic Christianity after 1,500 years in which the historical connection to the earliest Church had become increasingly difficult to separate from the corrupted material changes we have discussed ad nauseum. So I don’t think Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, or other Protestants are each claiming to be the one true Church. We are imperfect communities trying to recover and live faithfully within Christ’s Church. Where I think Catholicism goes wrong is in assuming that institutional continuity proves fidelity. Obviously Revelation 2 is addressed to Ephesus, not Rome. But the principle matters: a historic church can preserve structure, endurance, doctrinal vigilance, and even apostolic testing, yet still hear Christ say, ‘You have left your first love.’ Institutional continuity is not the same thing as faithfulness.