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Where is the office of the "priest" found in the New Testament??? It's not there, just like holy water and purgatory are not there.

So? Round and round we go! You guys think that the promise of Christ to his Church expired sometime between, say 65 A.D. and 110 A.D. We don't. And yet you say WE don't trust Christ, and exchange high fives as you declare that someting we do isn't in Scripture. I don't see ice cream socials and churches with indoor pools, or even pulpits in Scripture, but my knickers remain in their original and comfortable untwisted condition. (Well, maybe pulpits ...)

I see no way to settle this. We continually and openly talk about a development, refinement, adumbration, and all like that there of doctrine beyond the seminal declarations of Scripture. Then y'all rear back, gasping in shocked outrage, and declare that after much research you have discovered that we do exactly what we say we do! Well bust my buttons!

Yep. We trust in God's guidance of the extremely sinful, froward, wayward, "perverse and foolish", etc. people redeemed in and through the ministrations of his Church. We are guilty as charged, and we throw ourselves on the mercy of the Father, but not of the Protestants.

Haul out your analytical concordance and check out presbyteros. We would say that, yes, there was some definition and distinction between presbyter and bishop, and a development and articulation of their roles and of the relationship of those roles to the hieratic ministry of our Lord. If you do another word study on apostolos then it is not beyond reason that there would be a kind of sharing of hieratic ministry with the elders of the Church.

I fear that was too muddy, but I did my best.

Where is the office of the "priest" found in the New Testament??? Oh yes, that's right. You have an abridged Bible that has completely eliminated the Old Testament. I'd be interested in knowing what portions of the New have been lopped off in your version of Scripture. That's really taking Martin Luther's sins further. He also formed his own doctrine and cut out the Bible passages that he didn't agree with. Priest. The word derives ultimately from the Greek presbuteros meaning "elder," along with the term bishop (episkopos). We see the priesthood as both a reflection of the ancient Temple priesthood of the Jews and the person of Jesus. The liturgy of ordination recalls the Old Testament priesthood and the priesthood of Christ. In the words of Thomas Aquinas, "Christ is the source of all priesthood: the priest of the old law was a prefiguration of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ." Oh, but that's right. The Old Testament is the merest printed trash, not fit to wrap fish, and because it differs from your perspective, in this case Thomas Aquinas is either a doddering fool, or an evil con man.