I see it like this. He is explaining how to enter the kingdom of heaven, and he's giving us something to focus on. He's saying that if you being outside the kingdom, are trying to look into the kingdom, from outside the kingdom, here is how you know you're seeing into the kingdom correctly. You ought to see those who are as little children in there, and that they are the greatest in the kingdom. If you don't see it this way, then you are not seeing accurately.
I think that this was a key teaching, fraught with mystery for many people, many preachers and teachers are baffled by this teaching, though they try to use it to justify whatever it is that they think, there is only one correct meaning, and it is the Lord Himself explaining Himself, so we can trust His words to be accurate. I think that the context of His ministry being Israel among the Jews, as a Jew Himself, He was teaching those who were familiar with the temple priesthood, and how those guys acted (and they were acting, which is why He kept calling them actors/hypocrites), and nobody would say that they acted like children, but in the kingdom of heaven, only those who act like children, who are as little children, are considered great, or can even enter into the kingdom.
When you couple this with faith that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead (Ro10:9KJV), the entire Christian faith, both its object, and the efficient means of achieving it, are neatly contained. Everything beyond this is detail, and there are correct positions on all those details, but none of the details can ever nullify the central and crowning truth that the Lord Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, and that believing this constitutes the entirety of the Christian faith, which can be easily accomplished in being converted and becoming as little children.
There is plenty of hard evidence that His resurrection is an historical nonfiction fact, but all that's needed to believe in it is to be converted and to become as little children.
Yes, by Joshua, and Joshua's name and Jesus's name is the same in "the Greek," which is a point that most people don't recognize because of the how these names translated into English. Jesus is Joshua, Joshua was a type of Christ, and the Lord Jesus is the true Joshua, Who replaced Moses, as prophet, Aaron as priest, and David as king. "The Lord Joshua Christ."
Yes, the law exists even if it is not written down.
The law identifies all the different ways to flip the LORD God the bird. Thou shalt not covet, for instance.
I agree with this. The popes are not the greatest they are just pastors, they happen to be the literal successors of Peter's pastorship of the church which is at Rome. Catholics believe the successors of Peter are "first among equals" wrt all the other pastors/bishops, all of whom are successors of one Apostle, since all bishops ordained by the Apostles themselves, through the imposition of the Apostles' own hands, then ordained successors to those Apostles themselves, and so on, so all bishops even today are the successors of one of the Apostles.
But even Orthodox bishops, who are not in full communion with the Roman church, as they all were before AD 1054, are still valid successors of the Apostles, and they teach the centrality of the Lord's resurrection, and the importance of being in communion with the Church, not as salvific, but as ideal for all believers.
They teach that Christ is the Head of the Church/Body of Christ. They, when teaching infallibly, are teaching on His behalf. I know that's a huge bone of contention between those who hold the Catholic faith and Protestants, but this does not mean or imply that any bishops are greater than anybody else in the Body, but it does mean that the responsibility of the bishops is greater. That's more of a curse than a blessing, IMO.
My two cents.