Ray, an interesting response. It seems you are using Roman Catholic dogma, the quotes from Matthew, to shot down the Scripture.

Where we might agree is that any institutional church, notably the 501C3 compliant ones in the US, are indeed corporations.

However, do you see the inconsistency of using the Scripture, in particular Matthew 16, to claim the authority of an institutional church, while claiming the Scripture is essentially not the authority by rejecting Sola Scriptura. This is the Roman Catholic position of Sola Ecclesia, or putting the institution, a group of men, above the Scripture.

You are also echoing a fundamental fallacy in stating that the “Holy Bible put together by the Catholic church in the 4th century”. The Scripture was defined by the Apostles in the first century, not an institution centuries later.

You alluded to 2Peter with your “personal interpretation” comment. In context it is showing how the Scripture was given to man by the Holy Spirit, not what we do with it, which is consistent with 2Tim3:16.

But the fundamental, the word “ekklēsia”, such as used in Matthew 16, is simply an assembly and not an institution, and the word is not exclusively religious as we seen in Acts 19. When Paul greets the “ekklēsia”, it is always a group that meets in someone’s home, as He himself went house to house (Acts 20:20).

If you are looking for a Davidic Kingdom, you are like those of the first century looking for political salvation from Christ, whose kingdom is not of this world. Christ came for our redemption, not for our political triumph.