It is claimed by many that Peter (formerly Simon) was the first Pope, but it is stated plainly in the Bible (Mark 1:30) that he had a mother-in-law, and that he had (per 1 Corinthians 9:5) spoken of a “believing wife”; so it would then have been impossible for him, as a married man, to have been the first Pope, given the prohibitions within the Catholic Church forbidding its leaders to marry.
It is also important to note that, when Jesus said that He was to build His Church upon “this rock,” this translation of “rock” (“Petra”) appears throughout the Bible expressly where He is referring to Himself — using distinctly different language (“Petra,” meaning “large foundational rock”) from the name Peter (“Petros,” meaning “small stone”). As it is written in Ephesians 2:20, “Jesus Christ Himself [is the] chief cornerstone.” Additionally, in Luke 6:48, Jesus describes a wise man who, while building a house, “dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock [petra],” enabling the house to withstand floods and storms: “When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.” The use of the term “petra” is a recurring theme further reinforcing Christ as the source of strength and stability for the believer and the unshakeable and indispensable foundation of the Church.
Thus, the argument that Peter alone was the foundational “rock” of the Church is linguistically and theologically flawed. Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:18 — “You are Peter [Petros], and on this rock [Petra] I will build my Church” — hinge on two different Greek terms. “Petros” refers to a small stone, while “Petra” means a large, foundational rock and is used elsewhere in the Bible to refer to Christ Himself, as in Ephesians 2:20: “Jesus Christ Himself [is the] chief cornerstone.” This verse also affirms that the Church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,” clearly indicating that Peter was not singularly elevated above the others, but was one among many foundational figures — with Christ as the “chief cornerstone.” Taken together, these passages demonstrate that the foundation of the Church rests first and foremost on Christ, and secondarily on the collective witness of the apostles — not on Peter as an individual nor on a papal office said by mortal men to have derived from him; an office termed ‘divine’ (yet assumed by mortal men) operating from the false assumption of ‘papal succession’ and ‘divine appointment’.
Furthermore, 1 Timothy 3:5 underscores the necessity of leadership experience as the head of a family for those who aspire to lead God’s Church: “If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?”
Indeed, a careful consideration unravels any argument which insists that a complete understanding of the rules, the players, and the field of play can come ahead of one’s personal participation in the game. An apt analogy is this: In the game of chess, one of the fundamentals of strategic play is to achieve control of the center of the board. Likewise, a true chess grandmaster would understand and appreciate this most fundamental aspect of the game. In the event that one meets a professed grandmaster who neglects to employ this strategy, or more importantly who cannot accurately articulate its function or purpose or advantage, then it is not only unlikely that the individual is a grandmaster; it is also likely that he doesn’t understand the game as a whole, and that he lacks the insight necessary for a complete appreciation of the game. The same extends to any chess grandmaster’s appreciation for the various factors affecting play during the various formats — only the chess grandmasters who have competed at a high level, and who have experienced the pressure, fatigue, and time constraints, can accurately speak to the toll and total demands of the game, and the wisdom to be gleaned from those experiences — hard-earned wisdom that can be shared with others in order to give caution and better prepare them for success; and hard-earned wisdom that can be shared with genuine sympathy, humility, and empathy.
This analogy applies neatly to pastoral or priestly duties, which in their highest worldly forms deal with the matters of marriage and child-raising — matters not strictly understandable or navigable through mere observation or academic study. Remember, those shepherds are meant to guide their flocks much in the same way that “professionals” and “experts” have filled various similar roles in modern society; the primary modifying distinction, however, is that the “professionals” and the “experts” have limited purviews and limited liability. However, just as a coach or a fitness instructor must have personal familiarity with exercise in order to appreciate the mental load associated with the work (or with competition), so too must a spiritual leader have gained a personal appreciation of the real demands attending virtuous living, among which are the imperative and the necessity of raising productive families and sustaining healthy marriages. Just as there are no faithful substitutes for sound money like gold and silver, there is no perfect substitute for real-world experience in the domain of the highest expressions of love — marriage and child-raising.
Therefore, leaders lacking such experience are decidedly unqualified by both biblical and logical standards. Should Scripture itself fail to satisfy the reader, then leave it to proper historical context to fill in the blanks: this context not only implies that men are assumed to be (or to eventually become) fathers and husbands, but it also includes an expectation that all men are to become leaders of their families; thus, just as every man is expected to breathe, so too is every Church leader expected to have already proven himself as the leader of his family.
Given this necessity, the Latin Rite’s requirement of celibacy and the mandate from the Second Council of the Lateran (1139) are not just extra-biblical but impractical. The requirement, whether de jure or de facto, is also in disagreement with Scripture from the First Epistle to Timothy, which, in 1 Timothy 4:3, cautions believers to be wary of the sinister influences of those who “forbid people to marry,” and which, in 1 Timothy 3:2, commands that “A bishop must then be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach…” and (per 1 Timothy 3:4) “one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence.”
Additionally, 1 Timothy 6:3–5 warns against those who promote doctrines betraying godliness, stating, “Anyone who teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wrangling of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain”; believers are urged to avoid these kinds of men. This passage calls into question any theory that places unquestionable Divine Authority on fallible mortal men. Indeed, history decrees that the Pope of the Catholic Church — having often failed morally and doctrinally, and having been consistently unmarried and childless and tending toward clerical mismanagement, wars of destruction, and extra-biblical politics and political participation that undermines Christian teachings and interferes in the deeply spiritual and personal connections between man, Scripture, and Christ — is thereby devoid of any biblical or moral basis for authority in the Church.
Ultimately, when Jesus handed Peter “the keys” to the Church, it was in appointing him as the man in the flesh to guide and influence in the name of Christ; it was in granting the Church power to declare forgiveness or retain sin, each exercised through preaching, absolution, and church discipline; it was not to give Peter or anybody else sole authority over the Gospel or the world’s believers, nor to secure for one man the sole authority to subvert or distort the Word of God, or the absolute power to corrupt absolutely or singlehandedly destroy the Church — and it was most assuredly not to grant any office or Pope sole and unquestioned authority over the worldwide church of believers who, through the mass distribution of the Bible, have themselves taken possession of the true “key.” The “keys”, as they are referenced in Matthew 16:19, represent a high responsibility rather than unquestioned centralized authority over the Gospel; and, likewise, the limits attending the appointment of Church leaders are much the same — that Christ alone is the true head of the Church and the ultimate authority in matters of faith.
Author’s Note
So far as there is any real authority in the Christian religion (which is debatable as a whole), it comes exclusively through the Scripture, not the loosely-maintained edifices or bureaucracies of any of man’s institutions, nor any of the tenuous interpretations and explanations seeking to expound upon the original source material.
If it were true that only one church is the true and holy one, and that it is the one which asserts, controls and carries sole and unquestioned authority over the written Word (by mere station and interpretation), then this no doubt would threaten not just to corrupt but to destroy man’s personal “relationship” with Christ and thereby the means by which accountability is even theoretically achievable. The corruption and destruction of the religion would, in this way, be a foregone conclusion, whether through incompetence and fallibility or by temptations of the flesh and the matter of authority being subject to the ambitions of power-seekers who are most likely, and arrogant enough, to seek this power — whether through “divine appointment” as pope or through the “divine right of kings” over subjects stripped of their sovereignty.
If it were truly intended for a singular church to control and carry authority over the written Word, it would have been codified into Scripture for man to govern, dictate, and adjudicate the Divine rather than for fellow men to humbly guide, preach, and shepherd fellow souls. However, 1 Timothy 2:5-6 states, "For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time."
If it were true that man’s bureaucracies by the brick or man’s own judgment in the flesh stood between each man and God, or were it true that the institutions maintained by mortal men were necessary for the faithful execution of the faith, then the religion as a whole would be predestined to its own destruction through the very demerits and weaknesses of man which, in the first place, make the Scripture indispensable as the one true source of divine ‘Truth’. It would, in this way, contradict the very purpose served in having God’s Word in physical form, and it would then stand to reason that any such record would be superfluous to the faithful and obedient Christian; for he could then singularly focus his attention on maintaining good standing within the institution — the one which asserts sole authority and thereby obviates the need for any such relationship as asserted in the Book of Timothy.
It is clear, however, that this arrangement would hollow out the faith and free will of the individual believer, replacing his personal faith in Christ with his faithful obedience to the institutions which, by brick and flesh, claim the true meaning and interpretation, and with it the authority to mediate between man and God. The gowns and gilded tapestries are perhaps all that keep the laymen from seeing this for what it is: blasphemy.
Ultimately, Scripture informs us that the physical church and its figureheads are superfluous to man's bare worship and glorification of God in spirit and truth. As it is written in the Book of John (John 4:21, 23): "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father... But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him."
With these words, Jesus proclaimed that worship would no longer be centered on a particular sacred location and that access to God would not depend upon physical presence at a temple. According to Jesus, true worship is based upon an individual's personal relationship with God through the Spirit and grounded in truth.
This anticipated the New Covenant, wherein God's presence would dwell with and within His people rather than being associated primarily with a building.
This theme appears elsewhere in the New Testament. For example, Paul the Apostle wrote that believers themselves are God's temple (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19), and the Book of Revelation describes the future kingdom in which there is no temple because God's presence fills all things (Revelation 21:22).
Finally, with the advent of the printing press and the widespread translation and dissemination of the Bible, the Word has become accessible to all who seek it—all who seek to worship God, cultivate a relationship with Him, and glorify Him in spirit and truth.
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