Matthew 16:18 Peter, rock, and church

[Guest]

....The Catholic Church is the true Church established by Jesus Christ. You must become part of His Church to be saved....

Jesus Saves

Verily, verily, I say unto you,

He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. John 6:47

Denominations Don't

The children gather wood,

and the fathers kindle the fire,

and the women knead their dough,

to make cakes to the queen of heaven,

and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods,

that they may provoke me to anger. Do they provoke me to anger?

saith the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces? Jeremiah 7:18-19

Beloved Trust In God Alone

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:

That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,

that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,

but have everlasting life. John 3:14-16

Love, Joe

[UncleAbee]

Rachel89 quotes -

"The Catholic Church is the true Church established by Jesus Christ." - If you mean the "Roman Catholic" church then I disagree with you. "Catholic" means universal so I could technically agree with you there. Christ did establish his church universally. The RC church is another denomination. Christ's church began on the day of Pentecost in AD 33. The RC church was established hundreds of years later.

"You must become part of His Church to be saved." - 100% agree.

"It is Christ who instituted the priesthood." - 100% agree. The problem though is that the RC's believe the priesthood is a certain sect of christians while the bible teaches the priesthood is "all" christians (1 Peter 2:9).

"Confession to a priest is taught in the Bible." - 1 Peter 2:9 describes the priesthood as all christians. James 5:16 commands us to confess our sins to one another. In that sense we are to confess to the priests because we all are priests. This confession is not for forgiveness of sins. It is for spiritual support. We confess to one another so that others may pray for us. There may be times when we are incapable of praying for ourselves. God can heal you through another person's prayer. Only God can forgive sins though. Each person has to go to God individually about their own sins.

"The Church does not worship idols. Holy Mary is not an idol, nor is she worshiped by the Church. Furthermore, the Bible proves these things." - I assume when you say church you mean the RC church. There is no mention of the RC church in the scriptures. You have to biblically prove the RC church 1st before making any further statements.

"It's very sad to see such blunt ignorance of the Catholic Faith.The salvation of souls depends upon knowledge of the truth a taught by Jesus Christ through His Church. We should discuss this further, Parker1." - I agree that we need the knowledge of Christ. The problem is that biblically salvation has nothing to do with the RC church. Salvation is between each individual and Jesus.

Edited September 2, 2010 by UncleAbee

[Arthur Durnan]

Peter would have been a very poor example for a universal head of, let us say, the Roman church as he was a married man who possessed severe failings including warming himself at the wrong (worldly) fire and lying about his relationship with the Nazarene. He was also rebuked by the Apostle Paul as well as by the apostles & brethren from Judea in Acts 11. Bottom Line: the New Trestament says nothing about Peter as a Roman "pope" of any sort; Petros (little pebble) is the Greek for Peter, and petra (huge rock-mass as in the Rose-red city of the dead, Petra) the description of a little pebble. Peter wasn't a rock; he was but a pebble. The real rock was Peter's confession of a living faith in God's dear Son. Amen & Amen!

[fromIslam2Christ]

whoa . . . what in the world is Sedevacantism ???

Am wondering the same thing...

[nebula]

whoa . . . what in the world is Sedevacantism ???

Am wondering the same thing...

I did, too. So I googled it.

It has something to do with believing that the past whatever number of popes weren't the "true" popes or something like that. I didn't have time to read in depth. But for some reason they don't consider them to who should have been there.

[rachel89]

First of all there are a lot of questions being asked here along with some serious issues being raised. I’m not ignoring yours if you don’t see an answer by me – I just think it would be fairer to settle the more important one first. Also, I would be happy to discuss these other issues separately in another thread or soap box, if you wish? I know you said you don’t have the time, Dave, but please consider making the time.

Peter would have been a very poor example for a universal head of, let us say, the Roman church as he was a married man who possessed severe failings including warming himself at the wrong (worldly) fire and lying about his relationship with the Nazarene. He was also rebuked by the Apostle Paul as well as by the apostles & brethren from Judea in Acts 11.

Arthur,

John chapter 21:15-17 provides more proof that Jesus entrusted all the members of His Church to Saint Peter. We see in John 21 that Jesus entrusts all of His sheep to Peter. The dogmatic First Vatican Council of the Catholic Church said that this moment in John 21, after the Resurrection of Jesus, was the moment that Jesus actually gave to Saint Peter the keys and the authority of His church which He had promised him in Matthew 16.

It’s important to emphasize that this moment after the resurrection, in John 21, was the point at which Jesus made Peter the first pope. Arthur Durnan, this is significant when considering how you bring up Peter’s three-fold denial of Christ in John 18:25 and following. When Peter denied Christ it was before the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Jesus had not yet given Peter the authority as pope. The words in Matthew 16:18-20 promise the keys of the kingdom to St. Peter. They promise that Jesus would build His Church upon Him and make him the prime minister of His Church, but that office was not conferred upon Peter until after the Resurrection, by these words in John 21:15-17. Therefore, St. Peter’s denial of Christ poses no problem at all for Catholic teaching on the papacy.

Bottom Line: the New Trestament says nothing about Peter as a Roman "pope" of any sort; Petros (little pebble) is the Greek for Peter, and petra (huge rock-mass as in the Rose-red city of the dead, Petra) the description of a little pebble. Peter wasn't a rock; he was but a pebble. The real rock was Peter's confession of a living faith in God's dear Son. Amen & Amen!

“And I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church…”

Arthur,

The Greek word for “this” – as in this rock – is the demonstrative pronoun taute. It means “this very” rock or “this same” rock. Taute is used when “it is desired to call attention with special emphasis to a designated object, whether in the physical vicinity of the speaker or the literary context of the writer” (H.E. Dana and J.R. Mantey, A Manual Grammer of the Greek New Testament, 127). In the King James Version, taute is translated as “the same” in 1 Corinthians and “the same” in 2 Corinthians 9:4.

Therefore Jesus’ statement to Peter has this meaning: thou art Peter and upon THIS VERY ROCK I will build my Church. From the context given, “this rock” naturally refers to Peter. It just so happens that Jesus also changes his name from Simon to a name which means rock.

What about Petros Vs. Petra in the Greek?

Protestants argue that Jesus couldn’t have been saying that Peter was the rock because of the differences in the Greek words. They point out that in the original Greek of Matthew 16:18 that, Peter’s name is petros which means “small stone”, while the word to denote rock is petra, which means “large rock”; but that slight distinction has already disappeared by the time Matthews Gospel was written in Greek.

The minor distinction between petros and petra only exists in Attic Greek, not Koine Greek. The Gospel was written in Kione Greek, in which both petros and petra meant “rock.” Moreover, there was a word for stone which Jesus could have used. It is lithos. If Jesus wanted to call Peter a stone, but not the rock (petros), then He could have used lithos. But He did not. He used petros, which means rock. But if there is an equation between Peter and the rock, why, then, are two different Greek words used (petros and petra)? The answer is found in the very important fact that Jesus spoke in Aramaic, not in Greek.

In Aramaic, Matthew 16:18 would say this: “You are Kepha and on this kepha I will build my Church.”

Notice that in Aramaic the same word Kepha is used in both places. There is absolutely no difference between the two. Jesus was equating Simon and the rock upon which the Church would be built.

The Protestant misunderstanding at this point comes in because when one translates the Aramaic which Jesus spoke into the Greek, the Aramaic word kepha becomes petra. Petra is the normal word for rock in Greek and it’s feminine. The fact that petra is feminine is no problem for the second part of the passage: upon this kepha (upon this rock): but petra obviously cannot be used for Peter’s new name because Peter is a man.

Thus, in the Greek, Peter’s name is simply changed to Petros, a synonym for petra, but one which has a masculine ending. That’s the only reason there is any difference at all between the two words. There is no doubt that Jesus is declaring that Peter is the rock.

In the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, a Protestant work edited by Protestants Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, there is an article by well-known Protestant Oscar Cullman which states:

“But what does Jesus mean when He says: ‘On this rock I will build my Church’? The idea of the reformers that he is referring to the faith of Peter is quite inconceivable in view of the probably different setting of the story. For there is no reference here to the faith of Peter. Rather, the parallelism of “thou art Rock” and “on this Rock I will build” shows that the second rock is referring to the first. It is thus evident that Jesus is referring to Peter, to whom he is given the name Rock. He appoints Peter… to be the foundation of his Ecclesia. To this extent Roman Catholic exegesis and all attempts to evade this are to be rejected.”

Most Holy Family Monastery

Edited September 2, 2010 by rachel89

[rachel89]

In light of these facts, have you settled on the truth that Jesus made Peter the rock?

Most Holy Family Monastery

Edited September 2, 2010 by rachel89

[OneLight]

In light of these facts, have you settled on the truth that Jesus made Peter the rock?

Most Holy Family Monastery

Peter only spoke what Christ would build His church upon, and that is "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Without that statement of truth, there would be no church, but there would still of been a Peter. Peter is not the rock. The words he spoke are.

[nebula]

In light of these facts, have you settled on the truth that Jesus made Peter the rock?

Most Holy Family Monastery

These are not facts, they are interpretations of Scripture that need to be re-evaluated.

When I asked you a question, you threw out a passage as if that answered it. I challenged back that you were misinterpreting the Scripture and why. You never responded.

Is it because your "Most Holy Family Monastery" website does not answer these challenges?

Really, you should learn to present your own case in your own words, not rely solely on someone else's apologetics.

[rachel89]

OneLight,

You have totally passed over all the points explaining why Peter is the rock. In all fairness, I ask you to disprove point by point the reasons given in my post above. At the very least, please explain your reasons (in light of what I posted) for denying those points.

Nebula,

I invite you to visit the web site and enrich your mind in the truths of Christ's teachings.

You asked me where in Scripture. I gave you the passage.