Understanding The Scriptures

In this lesson, Carson divides the lesson into four parts. First, he discusses the historical meaning of the term catholic. While it literally means "according to the whole" or "universal," when the early Christians first used this term as an identifier for the Church, they used it specifically to denote the true visible empirical Church from heretical or schismatic congregations or followings. We look at the first appearance of "catholic" in Christian literature, which is by St. Ignatius of Antioch in his Epistle to the Church in Smyrna. We also look at its usage in the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem and two of St. Augustine's writings: The True Religion and Against the Fundamental Epistle of Manachaeus. Second, we build upon the previous discussion of Peter from prior sessions with a quick review of Peter's primacy throughout the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles. This is a fast-paced sketch of how the Gospels present Peter as the head and representative of the group of Jesus' apostoli