Transcription
Does every Protestant pastor get to be his own pope? A common critique of Catholics by Protestants is that Catholics have to do whatever the pope tells them to do, right? Uh, they don't have the freedom to, uh, just read the Bible for themselves and get the word right from scripture. They have to get it through the magisterium of the Catholic Church. Uh, and Protestants would feel like their position is superior because they just get to go right to scripture.
Um, and never mind the ex cathedra statements about the papacy and all that. I'm I'm not trying to get into the, you know, the misconceptions about that right now. But it raises an interesting question because, uh, if as a Protestant I am to believe that that that's a weak point for Catholicism, it raises an interesting question, uh, about Protestantism, which is: as a Protestant, what do you do when you disagree with the way that your pastor interprets scripture? Right? Uh, do you have to submit to his authority? Uh, do you get to correct him, or do you just leave that church and go to a different one?
All right, this is an issue that I don't really hear a lot of Protestants talk about. And so, uh, I wanted to get into that today. And I wanted to do it, um, by telling you two stories. And I want these stories to illustrate kind of the journey that I've been on the last year or so and help illustrate, um, my thinking of where my mindset was when I was firmly in the Protestant camp, uh, kind of how it shifted through this discovery of church history over the past year or so, and where I am now. Still Protestant, but really in my mind thinking more and more that Catholicism seems to make more sense. And so I'm constantly asking myself these questions like, okay, if I'm going to stay Protestant, it has to make sense to me. Um, and every time I ask myself these questions, I just don't really have any good answers. And so I want to bring you guys into into my thinking, my thought process on this whole thing.
So the first story is about, uh, when I was going to a church maybe six or seven years ago. Uh, and I was still firmly in the Protestant camp back then. I hadn't discovered church history or, uh, anything about Catholicism really. Um, back then I would say I believed in biblical Christianity. Uh, biblical Christianity is more the conservative tilt. It's, um, let's not try and read new things back into scripture; let's just read it for what it is. And it sounds funny me saying that knowing what I know now because a lot of Catholics say that all Protestants read things back into scripture. Um, but that just kind of shows you where my mind was back then, right? Like it just, that's just what I thought.
And so, uh, but the church I was going to back then was very traditional. Uh, at least I thought. The the pastor was was super cool. He's a super good guy. Um, he seemed really old school. It it didn't seem like the church was really that different from many of the other churches I had been to. Um, it seemed pretty standard, uh, for all intents and purposes. And we went there for several years, and, um, nothing nothing out of the ordinary ever happened.
Well, after going there for a few years, uh, the pastor announced that he was stepping down. And so they went through the process for a few weeks of having to elect, uh, a replacement. And then when the news came out, it was announced that a female would be the new pastor of the church. And I remember feeling so surprised by hearing that because that did not align with where I thought we were going to church. You know, I I thought, hey, this is this is a biblically Christian church. The pastor's old school, you know, we do things the old way here. Um, and I was just shocked, you know, and I I couldn't I couldn't really believe it.
And, uh, so I remember thinking, there's there's no way that the old pastor was involved in this. They must have, you know, done this without him. Uh, something must be going on here. And so I reached out to him to try and figure this out. And, uh, thinking that, man, he's going to agree with me. He's going to be surprised and he's going to be like, "Oh man, I I had no idea they did this." Um, but that's not how it turned out. That's not the case. Um, he agreed with everything, and in fact, he was heavily involved in the decision, which makes sense. I mean, I I probably should have known, but, uh, I just couldn't, the way the way that I I saw him and the church at the time. I just couldn't see. It was like a total 180 to me that this would happen. And so I thought there must have been some sort of coup, you know, like something something happened behind the scenes to make this, uh, to carry this whole thing out, but it wasn't the case. You know, everything was done the right way, and he was involved, and they took their time, and that's the decision that they came to.
And so, um, you know, I knew him pretty well, and so I thought, well, you know, let's I want to talk to him a little bit about this and try and present my case for why I just I don't see this in scripture. You know, I to me scripture is pretty obvious. Um, how are you getting from scripture that this makes sense or this is the right thing to do? Uh, I'm throwing out verses like 1 Timothy chapter 2 where it talks about, um, a bishop, uh, being the husband of one wife, right? Uh, the other one that is often quoted is, um, you know, in chapter 2 he's talking about, "I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man." Uh, that kind of stuff. And, uh, so I'm throwing out these verses, and I'm like, "Hey, it seems pretty clear."
Well, he comes back and he cites Galatians 3:28 where he talks about, "There is neither male nor female, uh, for we are all one in Christ Jesus." And when he quoted that, my first thought was, that's not applicable here, right? That's not what this is talking about. That's talking about something more broad. This is we're talking about the very specific process of electing a pastor, which is what I thought Timothy, you know, it's referring to that. And so, um, I couldn't understand how he was trying to use Galatians. It seemed like he was trying to twist it. You know, I'm not saying he was, I don't I don't think he was trying to do that, but that kind of gets to the point, right? Like we both were presenting our case for these verses that we thought were, um, that were supporting our position, and I'm thinking that First Timothy is very clear and that he's misrepresenting Galatians 3:28. Well, he's thinking that Galatians 3:28 is really clear and that I'm mis I'm misrepresenting First Timothy, right?
And so, uh, I just remember thinking like, how do you not see what I see? Like I, it's so obvious in scripture. I can see it right there. How do you not see the words on the page as they are? Right? But he's thinking the same thing about Galatians. And so at the end of the day, we were just two individuals reading the same scripture but coming up with completely different interpretations of it.
And so how do you reconcile that like as a Protestant? You know, your pastor, who you thought was biblically Christian, you know, is as they say, uh, and is on your side, suddenly has an interpretation that you don't agree with. Well, now what do you do? Well, Protestants would say, "Well, scripture is the final authority." Okay, fair enough. But we're both reading the scripture, but we're coming up with two different interpretations. Who among us gets to be the final authority on the final interpretation, right? It's kind of a rock and a hard place situation.
So, at that point, you just either you're not going to change his mind. So, do you just submit and continue in that church and just admit that you're wrong or just, you know, go along with it, or do you leave and go to a different one? Um, it's an interesting question, and that's kind of at that time, being firmly in the Protestant camp, that was the first time I really felt like I was kind of presented with this, man, I don't know what to do here kind of scenario. Um, so that's that's kind of where my mindset was at that time when I was firmly in the Protestant camp.
Well, fast forward, maybe this is this is last year. So, it was about January, early February, I had my my big, um, kind of revelation, I guess, about church history and Catholicism. And, uh, started getting really reading reading about that a lot, just all the time, spending all my free time reading about that. And I started texting my friend who was Catholic a lot about this, um, asking him questions about Catholicism, all this kind of stuff.
And I remember him telling me at the time that he felt like Protestant pastors often kind of took shots at Catholics, um, kind of quietly and indirectly in their sermons. And I remember thinking like, I don't remember ever hearing that, you know, 'cause that's I've been to a lot of Protestant sermons, and I don't remember them ever saying anything about Catholicism. Um, but it wasn't maybe two or three weeks later that I was listening to, uh, a sermon from a different pastor from a different church, unrelated to the first story, but I had listened to a lot, you know, um, listened to a lot of their sermons. Same type of scenario. They seem like a very, um, conservative biblically Christian church.
And so I'm listening to this sermon, and this time the issue that my friend raised about Protestant pastors critiquing Catholicism implicitly wasn't so implicit. Okay? He came out and explicitly called out the church by name. And the way he did it, I never would have caught. I don't think it never I probably would have just been, um, just another it probably would have been nothing to me beforehand if I was strongly in the Protestant camp. But being, you know, just last year with my mindset now being open and aware of church history and Catholicism, I immediately knew what the the issue was. It was much bigger than what he said.
So, um, so basically throughout this sermon, he's talking about Matthew. And he gets to Matthew 16, and he talks about, um, Matthew 16:18 where Christ says, "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." Right? And he goes on to talk about he he mentions, "I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven." And the whole thing. Um, and then after he gets done quoting the verse, he says, uh, he says, "And now for a long time, Christians misunderstood what that verse meant. They thought that the rock was Peter, but the rock is actually Peter's confession." That's what he said.
And if if I had heard that just even a few years ago, I would have thought, okay, yeah, I mean, I, you know, Christianity has been around for a long time. I'm sure Christians over the years have misunderstood some stuff. I mean, that makes sense. We can't get it right all the time, right? That's how I would have seen it back then. And it it would have just been nothing to me. I just go on, you know, what's for lunch.
But I heard that and I thought, "Wow, you know, knowing what I know now about church history, that is a bold claim, brother." Okay, that is a bold claim to say, uh, to a church of hundreds of people in all confidence, uh, that Christians for the first 1,500 years, uh, in the West just got it wrong, right? They just misinterpreted scripture. Uh, but then when you know Luther and you know the Protestants came around in the 16th century, they they solved it and it's it's been right ever since. That's a bold claim. And there was no qualifiers. There was no qualifiers. There was no, hey, here's a little bit of church history. Here's a little bit of the other side. It just he quoted the verse, said it like that, and then moved on.
And so it's just wild to hear that because that really gives you an insight, uh, into the Protestant mindset a little bit, right? Uh, when he said that, like if you disagree, what do you do? Right? Again, do you just capitulate and, you know, sit down and accept your place in that church and just go along with it? Do you try to correct him, um, or do you just leave and go to a different church? And I think historically the Protestant answer has been to leave.
You know, these two stories illustrate that that is an unfortunate fact about Protestantism is that we have no we have no universal authority within Protestantism. Every individual tradition gets to interpret scripture the way they want to see it. Every pastor in effect gets to be his own pope. You know, he gets to decide what the teaching is going to be for that particular church. And if you don't like it, good luck, you know, changing it. You just, you know, historically the Protestants just move and start a different church. That's why there's, you know, so many thousands of different denominations today.
And so, what do you do with that? You know, as someone who used to be firmly in the Protestant camp, who is now leaning towards Catholicism, but I'm trying to give Protestantism every chance to to see, um, every chance to make sense to me. You come across stuff like this, and well, what do you do? Because it seems like in the Bible, Christ started a church, not churches, right? He meant one. So, if we're supposed to be one church, we can't have thousands of different denominations. Uh, and Protestantism is a lot more divided now than it was in the beginning. So, it doesn't seem like we're trending in the right direction.
And, uh, when you get down to it, we have no one to settle these disputes. There there is no there is no overarching authority. We would say scripture is the final authority. Okay. But who gets to be the final interpreter of that scripture? Right? This is a this is a this is a question I see posed by Catholics to Protestants that I never really hear a good answer to.
And so, uh, and then you get and and then you read like the early church fathers, and I'm not an expert on the church fathers, so I'll tell you right now I don't know all the quotes, and I know you can quote mine and you can pick anecdotal evidence here there for your case. I understand that. But I found a quote that I thought was super interesting. And when you read the church fathers, it doesn't matter what your opinion is. You you understand that overall the broad consensus is that they believed in one church. They they they're not talking about it's okay if we disagree in all these other things. Everyone can just kind of go their own way as long as you believe in in Jesus. That's not how they were. They believed in one church, one institution, one final authority. Right? If they didn't, what was the point of the councils? Right?
And so I came across this quote by Irenaeus of Lyon, and I want to read that. It says, "Suppose there arises a dispute relative to some important question among us. Should we not have recourse to the most ancient churches with which the apostles held constant intercourse and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question?" So what he's saying is there there has to be some sort of recourse, some sort of method, uh, when disputes arise in the church, and in the first millennium they had the councils, right? They they held councils and made decisions, and the bishop of Rome often was referred to, you know, uh, to give the final say on these issues. Like where is that in Protestantism? Like where do we have that?
And I think that's the question a lot of people are waking up to right now. And that's why you see a lot of Protestants looking into Catholicism because they realize at the end of the day the problems between the different interpretations of all these churches are not going to be solved with the current with the current setting of Protestantism. There has to be a final authority, and you can't just keep saying, "well, scripture is the final authority," you know, because who gets to be the final interpreter of that scripture?
So anyway, these were, uh, these were all the ways I was thinking about this kind of thing, and, um, I wanted to bring you guys into my mindset a little bit and the journey I've been on from firmly in the Protestant camp, discovering church history, and now being, um, you know, still Protestant but really leaning towards Catholicism, although I'm trying to give Protestantism every chance. And so, um, I'm asking myself these questions and really trying to make sense of this because I, you know, I don't have any good answers for these questions.
So, uh, let me know in the comments what you guys think. Does every Protestant pastor get to be his own pope?