In the keys promised to +Peter (Mat 16:19) and the Apostles (18:18) as the elders of the Church, the body of believers, with apostoles and appointed elders at the helm.
The church is the “Bride of Christ” given to Him by the Father
The Church is also His Body, of which He is the Head. So He is the bride of His own Body? After He left on the Pentecost the Church, the body of believers was entrusted to the Apostles.
Well, Luke 24:33-50 and Acts 1 say that there many more than the eleven, including women
But +Matthew (a witness) and +Mark (a follower of +Peter, a witness) say otherwise. +Luke was a follower of +Paul; neither were witnesses. Even if there were women included , this is contradicted by +Paul himself when he preaches that women shold remain silent in the church.
The point is that those who were entrusted to teach and baptize were not the laity, but the elders of the Church.
Nowhere in those verses does it say that the church was given to anyone. He says “the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven” and that is not the church. Nowhere do the scriptures say that the church was entrusted to the Apostles alone or only those who succeeded the Apostles. The church at Antioch is a prime example of a church not run by Apostles. In fact it was run by laymen “prophets and teachers” who moved by the Holy Spirit, singled out Paul and Barnabas to go on the first missionary journey. If the church was under the direction of an Apostle, why was it necessary for the lay people to authorize two Apostles to go out preaching?
“But +Matthew (a witness) and +Mark (a follower of +Peter, a witness)” Mark does not include the “Great Commission” in his Gospel. It ends at chapter 16:8, the rest was added sometime later by an unknown. Luke, however, researched his material from many sources, Luke 1:1-3, “Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,”
“The point is that those who were entrusted to teach and baptize were not the laity, but the elders of the Church.”
In Acts 18:24-28, it is Aquilla and his wife Priscilla, tent makers, who teach Apollos the way and then he becomes a powerful teacher in Ephesus and Corinth, so much so, his following almost splits the church at Corinth. Nowhere is it said that Priscilla , Aquilla or Apollos, all laity, were empowered by the Apostles to teach or were answerable to the Apostles, yet they were carrying out the “Great Commission”.