Are you saved if you only believe but don't live according to your faith? That's where even Protestants disagree among themselves.

"Protestants (or more specifically, the Reformed churches) believe that presbuteros, episkopos, shepherd(pastor from latin pasteur) are all interchangable." presbyteros and episkopos are definitely different. That's not even in accord with what the older Christian churches (older than Protestantism) believes in (e.g. the Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox).

Your last question is a theoretical one but Catholics will see as never happening in their lifetime unless it is the end of the world and Christ returns .

prophetjul is closer to Catholic teaching on this compared to UW.

The RCC does not teach that works itself saves.

Well God told His apostles, "he who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me". Thus apostolic succession is a very important, something lacking in Protestantism.

You are correct for the first 2 parts. However you and other Calvinists forget are that humans are not robots. We have something called free will. We have to cooperate with the graces necessary for salvation which God will certainly give to those who ask Him. A mortal sin is a deliberate rejection of God. What did the scriptures say when one has fallen from grace? See the life of King David, the parable of the pharisee and the publican and you will get your answer.

That's why only the graces given by God can nudge that person back to life. This could be repeated admonitions and good advice from our pastors, our parents, etc, but if we are too proud to even accept those graces, to confess our fault, and receive the sacraments which are fountains of grace from Christ Himself, then we have no one to blame but ourselves if we are damned, not because God predestined us to be damned. Even Judas could be saved if he like Peter, repented and seeked His forgiveness instead of adding on to his sins by taking his ow life.

It doesn't matter, the 70 were bishops or deacons of the early Church anyway. He told that to the 70 to prepare the cities He would visit. In other parts of Scripture, the 12 apostles were Christ's closest collaborators and it was Peter who was the head the apostles.

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.

We know that Christ established His Church and called the Apostles, devoting three years to their training. These Apostles He appointed as constitutional officials in His Church, giving them the threefold power to teach, rule and sanctify others in His name. But it is to be noted that He commissioned them, as the appointed officials of His Church, to "teach all nations" and promised to be with them "all days till the end of the world." Now it is clear that the Apostles themselves could not "teach all nations;" nor could they personally live "all days till the end of the world." Yet the Church had to continue, and with the constitution Christ had given it. It follows that the power and the authority of the Apostles must have been transmitted to their official successors. For evidence that this did happen we can scarcely look to the New Testament itself, which was written whilst the Apostles were still alive; but documents from the earliest days of the Church record the fact. Thus St. Clement of Rome, writing before the end of the 1st century, tells us that the Apostles appointed others to succeed them St. Clement knew the Apostles personally, and is himself mentioned by name in the New Testament, Philip, IV, 3. In the 2nd century St Irenaeus in his controversy with the Gnostics who claimed to possess secret doctrines derived from the Apostles, pointed out the publicly known succession of the Bishops in the Church from the Apostles, enumerating particularly the Bishops of Rome as successors of St. Peter, and declaring that no authority could belong to the teachings of those not in union with these official successors of the Apostles.

Absolutely not, Tradition came first before the NT was written down. Tradition and the beliefs of the early Christians interprets Scripture, not the new interpretations by Protestants that came more than 1500 years later. On what basis do you accept Scripture alone? Does scripture interprets itself? If yes, how does that explain the myriad interpretations causing the sprouting of sects like mushrooms as time goes by?

This post has been edited by yeeck: Sep 13 2019, 11:10 AM

Absolutely not. Even each and every Protestant group has their own 'tradition' to interpret Scripture, e.g. of Penance, the Eucharist, salvation by faith, “independence” or Bible-only. When a Baptist reads of baptism in the NT, they automatically interpret it as being adult baptism. When a Methodist reads of the Church in scripture, they interpret it as the entire believing community. They may use different parts of Scripture to allude to their interpretation, but not all of Scripture, and certainly not in harmony with the early Christians.