Catholicism (Authority, Succession, and Baptism)

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Also, perhaps you missed the quote from Isaiah 28:16. The stone that he is referring to is Christ. He will be the cheif cornerstone. Not Peter, though he does play a vital role. As do all the apostles.
 
SoonerServant said:
No, that’s not what I was saying. Instead of," and on this rock I will build my church" Why didn’t he say" and on you I will build my church."
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Oh, I see. You are unaware of the fact that Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Greek. Okay…"When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:13-19)Simon Peter’s understanding that Jesus was the Son of God did not come from working it out on his own. Instead, God the Father infused this revelation into his mind thus imprinting His seal of approval upon this humble fisherman. Jesus recognized that Simon had already been anointed by His Father in this way and declared, “Blessed are you.” The Father had blessed Simon with knowledge of the Son.

Jesus gave him the name, “Kepha”, an Aramaic word that means “rock”. Thus, the passage above would read, “You are kepha, and on this kepha I will build my church.” Jesus also announces the establishment of His Church, an institution that did not exist prior to this time, and clearly delineates Kepha, as its leader. Although Jesus spoke Aramaic, the New Testament was written in Greek, and “Kepha” would have been translated into the Greek words for “rock” which are “petra” or “petros”. “Petra”, however, is the feminine form of the masculine word, “petros” which would have been more suitable for a man’s name. Therefore, from “petros” we derive the English name, “Peter”. For us modern readers then, Jesus’ pronouncement reads:

You are Kepha and upon this kepha I will build my church"
You are Petros and upon this petros I will build my church."
“You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church.”

Jesus play on words is lost in the English translation.

What is it about Peter’s character that caused Jesus to compare him to something as solid as rock. Isn’t this the same Peter who Jesus called “Satan” just a few verses later? (cf. Mt 16:23) Isn’t this the same Peter who would deny the Lord three times after his arrest? (cf. Lk 22:34) Surely this unstable character is anything but solid rock upon which a Church could be built; yet, Jesus sees something deeper in Peter’s character, and His choice would be vindicated when Peter ultimately received a martyr’s crown via crucifixion.

Hope this helps.
 
Ok, I see that you are unaare of the fact that almost the entire New Testament was written in Greek. Through the years all the original manuscripts have been lost or destroyed. The only remaining are the copies. IN GREEK.
 
So, if someones name was Summer and I said,“Summer is hot.” Is it possible that you might think I’m talking about the person Summer?
 
SoonerServant said:
Ok, I see that you are unaare of the fact that almost the entire New Testament was written in Greek. Through the years all the original manuscripts have been lost or destroyed. The only remaining are the copies. IN GREEK.
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Yes, although I thought this gospel was thought to not have been written first in Greek. Plus, I don’t care what language it was written in so much as was language Christ spoke in.
 
And why did Jesus use the word “this”? Wouldn’t that more likely be referring to a characteristic (faith) of a person than the person himself
 
SoonerServant said:
And why did Jesus use the word “this”? Wouldn’t that more likely be referring to a characteristic (faith) of a person than the person himself
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Please just explain to me the keys and the binding and loosing.
 
SoonerServant said:
Ok, I see that you are unaare of the fact that almost the entire New Testament was written in Greek. Through the years all the original manuscripts have been lost or destroyed. The only remaining are the copies. IN GREEK.
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No question.

However, we know that Jesus spoke Aramaic because some of his words are preserved for us in the Gospels. Look at Matthew 27:46, where he says from the cross, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ That isn’t Greek; it’s Aramaic, and it means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

What’s more,in Paul’s epistles—four times in Galatians and four times in 1 Corinthians—we have the Aramaic form of Simon’s new name preserved for us. In our English Bibles it comes out as Cephas. That isn’t Greek. That’s a transliteration of the Aramaic word Kepha (rendered as Kephas in its Hellenistic form).

And what does Kepha mean? It means a rock, the same as petra. (It doesn’t mean a little stone or a pebble. What Jesus said to Simon in Matthew 16:18 was this: ‘You are Kepha, and on this kepha I will build my Church.’

When you understand what the Aramaic says, you see that Jesus was equating Simon and the rock; he wasn’t contrasting them. We see this vividly in some modern English translations, which render the verse this way: ‘You are Rock, and upon this rock I will build my church.’ In French one word, pierre, has always been used both for Simon’s new name and for the rock.

👍
 
Saying,"…and on this rock I will build my church." implies that Peter is literally a rock. Surely you don’t think peter was a rock. Perhaps what He meant was that Peter had faith like a rock and on that faith he would establish his church. There isn’t more than one kind of faith. Faith is a universal characteristic. He wasn’t talking about Peter or “Peter’s faith”, but the faith of anyone who believes.
 
Jesus is the rock on which the church was established and the truth is the foundation. If the “truth” was a lie, then the foundation wouldn’t exsist.
 
We are the church. The ppl. Not a building. Not an organization like Catholicism. Not a majority. Not a pope and bishops. The church could exsist in one person. The church is simply the belief in Jesus Christ as the one true son of God and the obedience of those who believe.
 
Nebuchadnezzar said:
Please just explain to me the keys and the binding and loosing.
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Sure thing…
“Jesus replied, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’” (Matthew 16:17-19)
Here we see that Simon Peter was blessed by God the Father with extraordinary revelation about Jesus the Son. Jesus in turn indicated that Peter would be given the keys to the kingdom of heaven and have the authority to bind and loose in heaven. Are you familiar with reference to the keys from the Old Testament? It’s found in the book of Isaiah:
“I will clothe him with your robe and fasten your sash around him and hand your authority over to him. He will be a father to those who live in Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.” (Isaiah 22:21-22)
The steward of the king wore a key that indicated the office that he held. Peter has been given a symbol of the authority that he is to exercise in place of the King.

Additionally, Jesus states that whatever Peter binds on earth is also bound in heaven, etc. Since it does not make sense that God would be put into the position of ratifying anything and everything that Peter would “bind or loose”, the passage must mean that Peter is led to declare only those things which are already true in heaven. This, coupled with the promises of Jesus to 1) remain with the Church to the end of the age and 2) to send the Holy Spirit who would lead the Church into all truth, forms the basis for the infallibility on matters of faith and morals of the Catholic Church.
 
SoonerServant,

To Who or What did Jesus hand the 'Keys" to.

Did He hand them to Himself? No, as Jesus is the posessor of the Keys, the very author of Heaven.

Did He hand the keys to a profession of faith? No. How can a profession of faith [or Peter’s faith] open the gates of heaven that no other [human, person] can shut or close the gates of heaven such that no other can open them?

Can a profssion of faith bind things on earth such that they are bound in heaven? Loose on earth what will then be loosed in heaven? No, that is non-sensical.

The only way to make sense of this passage is that Jesus entrusted the Keys to Peter, the physical head of the Church on earth. Peter is entrusted with the care and feeding of the sheep that belongs to Jesus. As in "Peter, do you love me…Feed my lambs.

Jesus handed the ‘Keys’ to Peter as the Prime Minister of the Davidic Kingdom, quoting Isaiah, and the people shall call him Abba, Father. He the Prime Minister, cares for the kingdom in the absence of the King, He opens what no one else may open and closes what no one else may close. Note in Isaiah, David is long dead along with the first prime minister, but the Kingdom lives on along with the office of prime minister. Jesus is the fullfillment of the Davidic Kingdom.

The first action of apostolic succession was the selection to replace Judas. As the Church grew [and time past] they proceeded to select and ordain [lay hands upon] prebyters. Creating, the position of deacon, etc… Even St. Paul had to journey up to Jerusalem to meet with Peter before his ministry was to be authoritative. You can not ordain yourself, it must come through the church leadership. Scripture attests to this and so it is down through the ages…
 
It was not founded on a man. It was founded on the Truth, the Way and the Light. And THAT is Jesus Christ.
 
He was saying that by believing in Him and confessing Him as Christ, he had the keys to heaven. Is that not how we enter the kingdom of heaven? Anyone who does this has acqiured the keys to heaven.
 
SoonerServant said:
Saying,"…and on this rock I will build my church." implies that Peter is literally a rock. Surely you don’t think peter was a rock. Perhaps what He meant was that Peter had faith like a rock and on that faith he would establish his church. There isn’t more than one kind of faith. Faith is a universal characteristic. He wasn’t talking about Peter or “Peter’s faith”, but the faith of anyone who believes.
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Not so.

Protestants begrudgingly acknowledge that Peter is the “kepha” to which Jesus referred.

Protestant Greek scholars like D.A. Carson and Joseph Thayer admit there is no distinction in meaning between petros and petra in the Koine Greek of the New Testament. [Joseph H. Thayer, Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996), 507; D.A. Carson, “Matthew,” in Frank E. Gaebelein, ed., The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), vol. 8, 368.] Petra does mean ‘rock’, usually a ‘large rock.’ That is exactly what petros means. The Greek word for ‘pebble’ or ‘small stone’ is lithos, not petros, used numerous times in the Bible (Mt. 4:6, 7:9, 21:42, by quick count, 32 times in the New Testament).

David Hill, a Presbyterian minister at the University of Sheffield wrote, “It is on Peter himself, the confessor of his Messiahship, that Jesus will build the Church. Attempts to interpret the ‘rock’ as something other than Peter in person (e.g. his faith, Jesus, etc.) are due to Protestant bias, and introduce to the statement a degree of which is highly unlikely” (David Hill, The Gospel of Matthew, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972), 261)

We can search for additional “methods” to prove the primacy and authority of the Petrine office, but there is little doubt that Jesus’ own words are sufficient to establish this truth.
 
You have to read Matt 16:19 in conjunction with Isaiah 22:20-22:
On that day I will summon my servant Eliakim, son of Hilkiah; 21 I will clothe him with your robe, and gird him with your sash, and give over to him your authority. He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. 22 ** I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder; when he opens, no one shall shut, when he shuts, no one shall open.**
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Isaiah talks about laying the “key to the House of David” on Eliakim, son of Hilkiah. Is Eliakim of the House of David? No. Is he becoming King? No. His role is what would be called a prime minister in modern monarchies. In the same way, Jesus is giving the keys to Peter. Peter is not the King, but the “prime minister” of the Church- “He who hears you, hears me.”
 
Jesus didn’t give him literal keys. That wouldn’t have been left out. It would have continued with," …,then He handed Peter the keys." Belief, confession, repentence and baptism are the “keys” to heaven.
 
SoonerServant said:
We are the church. The ppl. Not a building. Not an organization like Catholicism. Not a majority. Not a pope and bishops. The church could exsist in one person. The church is simply the belief in Jesus Christ as the one true son of God and the obedience of those who believe.
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In order for this to be true, you must be willing to consider the following:

Today, there are more than 25,000 recognized Christian denominations throughout the world. Given this situation, we realize one of the following must be true:
A. Jesus established more than one church

B. Jesus established one, invisible, abstract, “spiritual” church in which all true believers, regardless of denomination, are members. In this church, either:
(1) Doctrine does not matter, or
(2) Conflicting and contradictory doctrines are acceptable.

C. Jesus established one, visible church in which doctrine matters and does not conflict. This church contains the fullness of truth as revealed by God; all others have partial truth, at best.

Which is it, do you think?
 
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