Does This Defense Work?

[Byzantine]

Or is it full of holes or just plain wrong/incompetent?

Regarding membership in the Church:

Jesus said "Whoever rejects you rejects Me..." Thus He identified in a special way with his Apostles. These Apostles, as shown in the Bible, chose their successors and so on. In the modern day, those successors are the leaders of the Catholic Church. So we've got to accept 'em, right?

Now of course, this works for Protestants (I think) but not necessarily for Orthodox. It's mainly aimed at Protestants anyway.

I don't want a debate; I just want to know if this is a decent defense.

[eagle_eye222001]

Luke 10:16 where Jesus is talking to the 72.

It works to an extent, however they will likely disagree on who the true successors are. The passage is good for pointing out that Jesus is not limiting His teaching to words written down (i.e. the Bible), and that certain people are authorized to speak in His name, but you'll be hard pressed to prove anything beyond that.

Some people will argue that it was only those 72, but then counter with the point that the mission would fail when they all died. So it would not be ridiculous to think they could appoint successors....at this point use other passages for help.

It's a good passage to make them think about the idea of someone having an authority to speak in Christ's name (i.e. His Church).

[Papist]

The first Christians had no doubts about how to determine which was the true Church and which doctrines the true teachings of Christ. The test was simple: Just trace the apostolic succession of the claimants.

Apostolic succession is the line of bishops stretching back to the apostles. All over the world, all Catholic bishops are part of a lineage that goes back to the time of the apostles, something that is impossible in Protestant denominations (most of which do not even claim to have bishops).

The role of apostolic succession in preserving true doctrine is illustrated in the Bible. To make sure that the apostles’ teachings would be passed down after the deaths of the apostles, Paul told Timothy, "[W]hat you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (2 Tim. 2:2). In this passage he refers to the first three generations of apostolic succession - his own generation, Timothy’s generation, and the generation Timothy will teach.

The Church Fathers, who were links in that chain of succession, regularly appealed to apostolic succession as a test for whether Catholics or heretics had correct doctrine. This was necessary because heretics simply put their own interpretations, even bizarre ones, on Scripture. Clearly, something other than Scripture had to be used as an ultimate test of doctrine in these cases.