What It Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church

by Gavin Ortlund

Usually, even those scholars who affirm apostolic succession acknowledge that the distinction between bishop and presbyter—and the notion that the bishop functions in succession to the apostles—itself lacks apostolic authority. The Roman Catholic scholar Francis Sullivan, for example, opens his book on the topic as follows: The question whether the episcopate is of divine institution continues to divide the churches, even though Christian scholars from both sides agree that one does not find the threefold structure of ministry, with a bishop in each local church assisted by presbyters and deacons, in the New Testament. They agree, rather, that the historic episcopate was the result of a development in the post-New Testament period, from the local leadership of a college of presbyters, who were sometimes called bishops (episkopoi), to the leadership of a single bishop. . . . Scholars differ on details, such as how soon the church of Rome was led by a single bishop, but hardly any doubt that the church of Rome was still led by a group of presbyters for at least a part of the second century.