Ah the protestors again! Perhaps they only accept the Bad news!
Did everyone accept this as good news? No. Some, indeed many, were offended and sought to convict Christians as “disturbers of the peace.” Some don’t like to have their sin and bondage called out as such. They prefer bondage, sin, and darkness to light, holiness, and freedom.
Question http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/where-in-the-new-testament-are-priests-mentioned
The New Testament mentions three categories of Church leaders: bishops, presbyters, and deacons. So how can the Catholic Church justify its office of “priest”? The New Testament writers seem to understand “bishop” and “presbyter” to be synonymous terms for the same office (Acts 20:17-38).
Answer
The English word “priest” is derived from the Greek word presbuteros, which is commonly rendered into Bible English as “elder” or “presbyter.” The ministry of Catholic priests is that of the presbyters mentioned in the New Testament (Acts 15:6, 23). The Bible says little about the duties of presbyters, but it does reveal they functioned in a priestly capacity.
They were ordained by the laying on of hands (1 Tm 4:14, 5:22), they preached and taught the flock (1 Tm 5:17), and they administered sacraments (Jas 5:13-15). These are the essential functions of the priestly office, so wherever the various forms of presbuteros appear—except, of course, in instances which pertain to the Jewish elders (Mt 21:23, Acts 4:23)—the word may rightly be translated as “priest” instead of “elder” or “presbyter.”
There is more if you care to read it.
Which doesn't make the Office that of the Catholic understanding of "priest", which entered later in history. All that matters is what the office meant in the exact words - in Greek - that God inspired in Scripture. He did not write Scripture in English.
The ministry of Catholic priests is that of the presbyters mentioned in the New Testament (Acts 15:6, 23).
No. The Scriptures referring to the Church record the actions of bishops and elders and deacons and apostles. Not priests - except Jewish and pagan.
The Bible says little about the duties of presbyters, but it does reveal they functioned in a priestly capacity.
It defines their duties in two passages and none describe "priests."
Which is simply lying sophistry, which "Catholic Answers" specializes in, for in reality what "derived" means is that is this is where its etymology evolution leads, but which does not mean the end result is a valid representation of its original meaning (examples: cute used to mean bow-legged; bully originally meant darling or sweetheart; Nice originally meant stupid or foolish; ), and in the case of "priest" for presbyter it is certainly a different one.
Due to her erroneous understanding of the Lord's Supper (“Eucharist”), Catholicism (by the end of the 2nd century or later) came to consider NT pastors to be a distinctive sacerdotal class of clergy, distinctively called “priests” (which the RC Douay Rheims Bible inconsistently calls them: Acts 20:17; Titus 1:5), and sometimes “episkopos,”), but which the Holy Spirit never does. For the word which the Holy Spirit distinctively uses for priests *, is “hiereus” or “archiereus (over 280 times total, mainly as the latter).” (Heb. 4:15; 10:11) is never used for NT pastors. Nor do the words presbuteros (senior/elder) or episkopos (superintendent/overseer) - which He does use for NT pastors (over 60 times) - mean "priest." Neither the Hebrew word, "ko^he^n," nor the Greek word "hiereus," or the Latin word "sacerdotes" for priest have any essential connection to the Greek word presbyteros. It follows that the Latin word "sacerdos" which corresponds to priest has no morphological or lingual relationship with the Latin word for “presbyter” (for which statements and certain others I rely on the knowledge of others, by God's grace). Nor are presbuteros or episkopos described as having a unique sacrificial function, and hiereus (as archiereus=chief priests) is used in distinction to elders in such places as Lk. 22:66; Acts 22:5.
Jewish elders (Hebrew "zaqen") as a body existed before the priesthood of Levitical priests (Hebrew "kohen"), most likely as heads of household or clans, and being an elder did not necessarily make one a Levitical priest (Ex. 3:16,18, 18:12; 19:7; 24:1; Num. 11:6; Dt. 21:2; 22:5-7; 31:9,28; 32:7; Josh. 23:2; 2Chron. 5:4; Lam. 1:9; cf. Mt. 21:13; 26:47) or a high priest, offering both gifts and sacrifices for sins. (Heb. 5:1) While elders exercise could some priestly functions such as praying and laying hands on sacrifices, yet unlike presbuteros and episkopos, elders and priest were not the same in language or in distinctive function. Like very young Samuel, one could be a kohen/priest without being an zaqen/elder, and one could be a elder without formally being a priest, whose primary function was to offer expiatory sacrifices for the people.
The Catholic use of "priest" for what Scripture calls presbyteros/elder is defended by the use of an etymological fallacy since "priest" evolved from "presbyteros, if with uncertainty," with presbyteros being considered and called priests early on, based on Latin biblical and ecclesiastical language, and who were later referred to in old English (around 700 to 1000 AD) as "preostas" or "preost," and finally resulting in the modern English "priest," thereby losing the distinction the Holy Spirit provided by never using the distinctive term of hiereus for NT presbuteros, or describing as them as a distinctive sacerdotal class of believers.
However, etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and evolving changes in form and meaning. over time, but etymologies are not definitions. The etymological fallacy here is that of erroneously holding that the present-day meaning of a word or phrase should necessarily essentially be the same as its original or historical meaning. Since presbyteros incorrectly evolved into priest (and were assigned an imposed unique sacerdotal function) therefore it is erroneously considered to be valid to distinctively use the same title for OT priests as for NT pastors, despite the Holy Spirit never doing so and the lack of unique sacerdotal distinction for NT presbyteros. All believers are called to sacrifice (Rm. 12:1; 15:16; Phil. 2:17; 4:18; Heb. 13:15,16; cf. 9:9) and all constitute the only priesthood (hieráteuma) in the NT church, that of all believers, (1Pt. 2:5,9; Re 1:6; 5:10; 20:6). But nowhere are NT pastors distinctively titled hiereus, and the idea of the NT presbuteros being a distintive class titled "hiereus" was a later development, with an imposed functional equivalence, supposing NT presbyteros engaged in a unique sacrificial ministry as their primary function. Catholic writer Greg Dues in "Catholic Customs & Traditions, a popular guide," states, "Priesthood as we know it in the Catholic church was unheard of during the first generation of Christianity, because at that time priesthood was still associated with animal sacrifices in both the Jewish and pagan religions." "When the Eucharist came to be regarded as a sacrifice [after Rome's theology], the role of the bishop took on a priestly dimension. By the third century bishops were considered priests. Presbyters or elders sometimes substituted for the bishop at the Eucharist. By the end of the third century people all over were using the title 'priest' (hierus in Greek and sacerdos in Latin) for whoever presided at the Eucharist." (http://books.google.com/books?id=ajZ_aR-VXn8C&source=gbs_navlinks_s) And R. J. Grigaitis (O.F.S.) (while yet trying to defend the use of priest), reveals, "The Greek word for this office is ‘?e?e?? (hiereus), which can be literally translated into Latin as sacerdos. First century Christians [such as the inspired writers] felt that their special type of hiereus (sacerdos) was so removed from the original that they gave it a new name, presbuteros (presbyter). Unfortunately, sacerdos didn't evolve into an English word, but the word priest [from old English "preost"] took on its definition." (http://grigaitis.net/weekly/2007/2007-04-27.html) Titus 1:5-7: Bishops and elders were one: the former (episkopos=superintendent or “overseer,”[from “epi” and “skopos” (“watch”) in the sense of “episkopeō,” to oversee, — Strong's) refers to function; the latter (presbuteros=senior) to seniority (in age, implying maturity, or position). Titus was to “set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders [presbuteros] in every city, as I had appointed thee: “If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. For a bishop [episkopos] must be blameless...” (Titus 1:5-7) Paul also "sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church," (Acts 20:17) who are said to be episkopos in v. 28. Elders are also what were ordained for every church in Acts 14:23, and bishops along with deacons are the only two classes of clergy whom Paul addresses in writing to the church in Phil. 1:1. This does not exclude that there could have been “archbishops/elders” in the New Testament church who were head pastors over others, but there is no titular distinctions in Scripture denoting such, and which distinctions are part of the hierarchical class distinctions which came later, and foster love of titles and position which the Lord warned about. (Mk. 10:42-44; Mt. 23:8-10). Even the fourth century Roman Catholic scholar Jerome (347-420), confirms, “The presbyter is the same as the bishop, and before parties had been raised up in religion by the provocations of Satan, the churches were governed by the Senate of the presbyters. But as each one sought to appropriate to himself those whom he had baptised, instead of leaving them to Christ, it was appointed that one of the presbyters, elected by his colleagues, should be set over all the others, and have chief supervision over the general well-being of the community. And this is not my private opinion, it is that of Scripture. If you doubt that bishop and presbyter are the same, that the first word is one of function, and the second one of age, read the epistle of the Apostle to the Philippians. Without doubt it is the duty of the presbyters to bear in mind that by the discipline of the Church they are subordinated to him who has been given them as their head, but it is fitting that the bishops, on their side, do not forget that if they are set over the presbyters, it is the result of tradition, and not by the fact of a particular institution of the Lord. (Commentary on Tit. 1.7, quoted. in “Religions of authority and the religion of the spirit," pp. 77,78. 1904, by AUGUSTE SABATIER. A similar translated version of this is provided by "Catholic World," Volume 32, by the Paulist Fathers, 1881, pp. 73,74). There is more if you care to read itby God's grace. They were ordained by the laying on of hands (1 Tm 4:14, 5:22), they preached and taught the flock (1 Tm 5:17), and they administered sacraments (Jas 5:13-15). These are the essential functions of the priestly office, so wherever the various forms of presbuteros appear—except, of course, in instances which pertain to the Jewish elders (Mt 21:23, Acts 4:23)—the word may rightly be translated as “priest” instead of “elder” or “presbyter.” Wrong, and which presumes the Catholic church is smarter than the Holy Spirit who refrains from ever using "priest" for NT pastors. Priests were not the only ones to lay hands on souls, which "a certain disciple named Ananias" did on Paul, (Acts 9:1-18) and deacons also could teach the flock, and perform healing, (Acts 8:5-7) and "certain prophets and teachers" sent Paul and Barnabas on their mission (Acts 13:1) while the distinctive and essential active duty of a priest is to offer sacrifice for sins, (Heb. 10;11) which for Catholics means the Eucharist, which NT pastors are never described as doing.
James 5: Prayer of faith13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.
You cannot help yourself, can you! Deception is at the heart of the religion called catholiciism. It must gave deception in order to squelch The Scriptural Truths and allow for the heresies that have inveigled over the centuries. The above citation of James, WITH THE FALSE CHANGE TO SUPPORT A PRISTHOOD is an average example of how deception reigns in that 'other religion'.
Ah the Catholics again! Perhaps they only accept the news that Rome says is acceptable.
Even in CATHOLIC bibles??
But...
...is it?