Biblical scholar and Holy Land pilgrimage leader Steve Ray delves into the Jewish roots of the papacy, namely “the keys”, “the rock”, and “the chair”. Ray, a former Baptist, draws from his trips to the Holy Land to bring to life the commissioning of Peter as the first pope using vivid historical and contextual highlights.
Why should we go deep in history? As generations before us have learned, history is the laboratory for thinking about the issues that matter most to us as human beings. By placing ourselves back into another time, we are able to look at our own time with more objectivity; we see its strengths and weaknesses. For Christians, there is the additional truth that ours is a historical faith. Christianity is rooted in the historical facts of Jesus’s life. The Church which is his body has lived, grown, and matured in space and time. The surest way to know Jesus and his Church is through the study of history, both biblical and post-biblical.
