Isn the Church both spiritual and hierarchiacl?

Question

I see a lot of people who only affirm the spiritual "invisible" aspect of Christ's church, but deny the fact that it is also a visible institution.

In the book of Acts, these three offices are described:
Deacon (greek - diakonos / διάκονος )
Priest (greek - presbyteros / πρεσβυτερος )
Bishop (greek - episkopos / επίσκοπος )

This is the hierarchy already described in "Acts" in the Bible. And, those are the offices in the Catholic Church too. (Other titles are honorary. For example, Cardinals are just bishops, and the pope is actually a bishop too, but since his diocese is Rome, where Peter last ministered, he is the successor of Peter, and therefore "pope".)

Isnt it therefore correct that the 2000 year old Catholic Church, with Peter's successor as its earthly head, most closely resembles the Biblical Church?

Answer 1

Absolutely.
The Catholic church is the best example.
There is a basically an almost feudal structure that is easy to compare to other 'realms" just by reading some history.
There are orthodox sects that follow similar structure without allediance to "Rome"
The early "biblical" church just followed the top to bottom rank order found in the other hierarchies of the time without having
bloodline succession.

Answer 2

right you are my friend.
http://www.scripturecatholic.com/index.html
this has more for those intersted, however many will still argue against the first church and the first christians. no one disputed catholic christianity untill 1500 years after christ had already firmly established and guided his church, it wasn't even untill the late 18th century that the idea of the church simply being one body and that all its members were part of the "invisble church", this theory denied the existence of an already visible church, the bible is a catholic book whether these people like it or not and it is only in the roman catohlic church both visible and invisible can one find the fullness of truth, not watered down to suit yourself truth but THE TRUTH.

Answer 3

HI ! The pope says:


Jesus promised, "I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18). This means that his Church will never be destroyed and will never fall away from him. His Church will survive until his return.

Among the Christian churches, only the Catholic Church has existed since the time of Jesus. Every other Christian church is an offshoot of the Catholic Church. The Eastern Orthodox churches broke away from unity with the pope in 1054. The Protestant churches were established during the Reformation, which began in 1517. (Most of today’s Protestant churches are actually offshoots of the original Protestant offshoots.) Only the Catholic Church existed in the tenth century, in the fifth century, and in the first century, faithfully teaching the doctrines given by Christ to the apostles, omitting nothing.

Jesus’ Church is called catholic ("universal" in Greek) because it is his gift to all people. He told his apostles to go throughout the world and make disciples of "all nations" (Matt. 28:19–20). For 2,000 years the Catholic Church has carried out this mission, preaching the good news that Christ died for all men and that he wants all of us to be members of his universal family (Gal. 3:28). Nowadays the Catholic Church is found in every country of the world and is still sending out missionaries to "make disciples of all nations" (Matt. 28:19). The Church Jesus established was known by its most common title, "the Catholic Church," at least as early as the year 107, when Ignatius of Antioch used that title to describe the one Church Jesus founded. The title apparently was old in Ignatius’s time, which means it went all the way back to the time of the apostles.

http://www.catholic.com/library/Pillar.asp

Answer 4

~If any kind of rank exists, it is a hierarchy. The Catholic Church has a hierarchy because there are ranking officials moving down from Pope to Cardinal to Priest to Deacon, to Nun... (with many in between). It is spiritual because it centers around God, religion, and prayer. So yes, you are correct.

Answer 5

Not really. There's no scriptural evidence that Peter had any primacy among the apostles or that he was the first Pope in Rome. He was also married. There is a clear interpretation of Scripture but the Roman church, by obfuscation and obtuse argument, convinced people otherwise - until Martin Luther came along and successfully argued against the monstrous heretical basis for the Roman religion.

Answer 6

If you only knew which Peter is buried there, hint, read the book of acts, ya his name was peter too. They even made some movie about it in the early60's or 70's. I can't remember its name.

Answer 7

Your observation is very persuasive. I do agree.