Me and my cousin (non-denom) are going to discuss Mathew 16 concerning the rock arguement. I know he is going to bring up that the rock is the confession that Jesus is the Messiah. I understand that as Catholics we understand it as both Cephas and Cephas confession about who Jesus really is that will be “the rock upon…”. He will use the cornerstone arguement i.e Matthew 21;42 in otherwords that is what Jesus was really talking about. Aside from the fact that it is a longshot arguement somthing else ocured to me. Jesus said in Mt 21;43 that some other people accept the cornerstone i.e Jesus and by this I suppose He means the gentiles. Then it hit me the cornerstone is given to the gentiles and it was Peter that the mission to the gentiles was given. So that arguement still comes back to Peter. Fellow Catholics let me know if I am onto somthing if i am it was the Holy spirit if not then…DOH!!! It’s back to the drawing board:shrug:
Well, he will probably rebut with this Scripture passage:
*Galatians 2:7 but on the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised 2:8 (for he who worked through Peter for the mission to the circumcised worked through me also for the Gentiles), *
But then again, Peter was the one to go to the Gentiles first:
*Acts15:7 And after there had been much debate, Peter rose and said to them, "Brethren, you know that in the early days God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. *
I’d focus more on the fact that Jesus says YOU are rock and on this rock… Jesus identifies “rock” with a person (“you”), not with a spoken statement. There is absolutely nothing to indicate He is designating two things as rocks!! “This rock” is singular; if He meant both the statement and Peter were to be called rock, He would have said “these rocks”. If the rock on which the Church was to be built was not Peter, what would be the whole point of Our Lord’s changing His name?
There are only a couple of other times that I can recall God changing someone’s names (Abram & Sarai to Abraham and Sarah, and Jacob to Israel). In both cases it had to do with the foundations of the Old Covenant people/church. Here again, at the foundation of the New Covenant people/church, God makes a meaningful name change for the one who will be at the head.
As I said, I can only recall two other times off hand. There could be others, but regardless, it is VERY rare. Saul’s name was changed to Paul, but it wasn’t by God’s intervention.
Nita
