No...but I take your word for it...because it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean their testimony was that of a leader. Many leaders were followers, not of Christ, but of men. I suspect that is the case even with yourself. For me, it's not.
But that is not the point...only the apostles can say they personally followed Christ alone - and even one of them was a devil, and Jesus called Peter Satan while in His presence. As I said, you are assuming an airtight perfection of the men who lead the church down through the ages...and they weren't even perfect from the start, nor in the first century, nor now. Your position is full of holes...just as it was for Israel, His chosen. You don't have to feel bad about it - it just is what it is. The reason is...it is made up of men, a temple made with hands.
"As I said, you are assuming an airtight perfection of the men who lead the church down through the ages." ANOTHER LIE FROM THE PIT OF HELL. That's why you don't quote directly. No one said popes and bishops had airtight perfection. No one has ever assumed any pope or bishop was impeccable. That is another one of your BIG FAT STRAW MAN FALLACIES.
You like yapping off about Peter as if Jesus changed his name a second time. There are 70+ verses in the NT about Peter's leadership and you can only find 3 negative ones, and flag them as if that's all the Bible says about Peter. Your agenda is obvious.
You’re trying to set the Bible against the Church, which is typical Protestant methodology, and ultra-unbiblical. The Bible never does that. I’ve already given the example of the Jerusalem Council, which plainly shows the infallibility of the Church.
The Bible repeatedly teaches that the Church is indefectible; therefore, the hypothetical of rejecting the (one true, historic) Church, as supposedly going against the Bible, is impossible according to the Bible. It is not a situation that would ever come up, because of God’s promised protection. (that you deny)
What the Bible says is to reject those who cause divisions,
which is the very essence of the onset of Protestantism: schism, sectarianism, and division. It is Protestantism that departed from the historic Church, which is indefectible and infallible (see also 1 Tim 3:15).
The one true Church is and always will be in harmony with God’s inspired revelation, the Bible. Thus, we reject any form of Protestantism,
because they fail this test.
...and the historical pedigree that the fathers always taught was necessary.
Every heretic in the history of the world thumbed their nose at the institutional Church and went by Scripture alone. It is the heretical worldview to do so, precisely because they know they can’t prove that their views were passed down through history in an unbroken succession.
(this is why you dismiss the ECF, none of them taught your man made innovations)
Therefore, heresies and Protestantism either had to play games with history (which you constantly) in order to pretend that it fits with their views, or ignore it altogether.
Paul was under Church authority, in various ways. Of course, all authority ultimately comes from God (Paul was called before he was born: Gal 1:15). It is the pitting of the ultimate source against the secondary, human source (the Church) which is the problem in your approach and that of Protestantism in general. You guys don’t like human, institutional authority and don’t have enough faith to believe that God can and does preserve it,
so you try to undermine it by fallacious arguments, as presently.
No doubt you aren’t even aware that you are doing it. To do this is automatic in Protestantism; it’s like breathing. It’s like the fish that doesn’t know it’s in water. It all comes from the rejection of the infallibility of the Church (which is one thing that
sola Scriptura always entails).
AGAIN, SCOTT, INFALLIBILTY OF THE CHURCH DOES NOT MEAN LEADERS DON'T SIN, GET IT YET???
In Galatians 1-2 Paul is referring to his initial conversion. But even then God made sure there was someone else around, to urge him to get baptized (Ananias: Acts 22:12-16). He received the revelation initially and then sought to have it confirmed by Church authority (Gal 2:1-2); then his authority was accepted or verified by James, Peter, and John (Gal 2:9). So we see that the Bible doesn’t pit the divine call directly from God, against Church authority, as you do.
You do it because it is Protestant man-made tradition to do so; period, and because the Protestant has to always undermine the authority of the Church, and the Catholic Church, in order to bolster his own anti-system, that was set up against the historic Church in the first place.
Protestants don’t have enough faith to believe that God could preserve an infallible Church, even though they can muster up even more faith than that, which is required to believe in an infallible Bible written by a bunch of sinners and hypocrites.
We simply have more faith than you guys do. It’s a supernatural gift. We believe that the authoritative Church is also a key part of God’s plan to save the souls of men. We follow the model of the Jerusalem Council,
whereas you guys reject that or ignore it, because it doesn’t fit in with the man-made tradition of Protestantism and a supposedly non-infallible Church.
Dialogue with a Calvinist: Was Paul a "Lone Ranger"?
