Prophets in the New Testament Mormonism's concept of a Prophet—or President—at the head of the Church is foreign to the New Testament. Admittedly, the Roman Catholic Church produced the Pope, but that is not derived from a model found in the New Testament. The idea of the Catholic papacy grew up over a period of centuries and is based on tradition, not scripture. There is noindication of such an office in the New Testament. On the contrary, the clear teaching of scripture is that Jesus Christ is the head of the Church and no one else stands in that position. We do not see any one of the Apostles—Peter or Paul or James—standing in such a position. There is found the notion of certain leaders within the Church meeting (as in the Council of Jerusalem about AD 50) to discuss matters of importance. So adamant, in fact, was the Apostle Paul on this account that he publicly withstood Peter "to his face because he was wrong" in Antioch. (Gal. 2.11) And Paul made it clear that his "Apostleship" wasn't given to him by a man or even a group of men, but rather it came from God Himself. (Gal 1:1) During the first three years of his ministry he claims he did not bother to seek out any of the other Apostles and then he met only Peter and James. (Gal 1:18-19) Fourteen years after that he went up to Jerusalem to talk to the brethren and have them examine his doctrine to see if there was anything (in their opinion) wrong with how he was ministering. He went to those who "seemed to be leaders." (Gal. 2.2) Revealingly he says, "As for those who seemed to be important—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not judge by external appearance—those men added nothing to my message." (Gal. 2:6)