Matthew 16:18 controversy

[theCardinalbird]

The Apocryphal Letter of St. Clement of Rome to St. James (C. 221 A.D.)

“Be it known to you, my lord, that Simon [Peter], who, for the sake of the
true faith, and the most sure foundation of his doctrine, was set apart to be
the foundation of the Church, and for this end was by Jesus Himself, with His
truthful mouth, named Peter” (Letter of Clement to James 2 [A.D. 221])

 

[theCardinalbird]

St. Cyprian (246 A.D.):

“For first to Peter, upon whom He built the Church, and from whom He
appointed and showed that unity should spring …” (Cyprian, Ep. lxxiiii ad
Fubaian).

“God is one, and Christ is one, and the Church is one, and the Chair (of
Peter) is one, by the Lord’s word, upon a Rock …” (Cyprian, Ep. xl. ad
Pleb).

“Peter, also to whom the Lord commends His sheep to be fed and guarded, on
whom He laid the foundation of the Church …” (Cyprian, De Habitu Virg).

 

[Gorgias]

my point is, that Peter forgot to mention that he would be Bishop of the entire world. He forgot to call an Apostle meeting and set everyone straight. He forgot to explain the new office called papacy where only he, (and his successors) could decree new revelation in each generation of time all that God continues to say.

Umm… how do you know that this is the case?

It wasn’t that Peter had a bad memory. These kind of ideas were never in his head and the evidence is in the fact that the New Testament goes silent on all of it. This is a huge red flag for any serious student of Christianity.

Please read up on the “argument from silence” logical fallacy. The Bible also doesn’t mention a wide variety of things that exist. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t real.

(Incidentally, Peter wasn’t the “bishop of the entire world” – he was first among the bishops.)

yeah sure but will it matter? Most, if not all of you, on this site don’t really care about a real example.

Try me.

 

[tgGodsway]

I don’t have a long time here, but should be back on Saturday.

But you guys have built a large and impressive structure called the Roman Catholic Church. But the problem is, it’s foundation is lacking real substance. You call upon voices far removed from it’s base. Why? because the base is in some cases diametrically opposed.

The Bible also doesn’t mention a wide variety of things that exist. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t real.

Okay… name one. Jesus said upon the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established. Some information can be gathered by simply collecting it in each context directly or indirectly. You can gather things such as the fact that Mary showed up at one of Jesus’ meeting with her four sons. There is no doctrine about those sons. But it became a historical fact none the less. On another day, someone said, "isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother called Mary and his brothers are James, Jose, Simon, and Judas. And His sisters, are they not all with us?

There is no Church doctrine on Jesus immediate family. The Apostle Paul didn’t give us a chapter in one of his epistles, yet we have this historical information and can draw conclusions from it. Especially when a pope, centuries later, makes the decision that Mary remained a virgin after the birth of Christ.
I’ve got to go to work now.

 

[Gorgias]

Gorgias:

The Bible also doesn’t mention a wide variety of things that exist. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t real.

Okay… name one.

Jesus doesn’t say “pray the sinner’s prayer and you will be saved.”

He doesn’t say “respond to an altar call and you will be saved.”

Jesus said upon the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established.

2 Corinthians 13:1? You realize that Paul was quoting Jewish legal theory, right?

You can gather things such as the fact that Mary showed up at one of Jesus’ meeting with her four sons. There is no doctrine about those sons. But it became a historical fact none the less. On another day, someone said, "isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother called Mary and his brothers are James, Jose, Simon, and Judas. And His sisters, are they not all with us?

There is no Church doctrine on Jesus immediate family. The Apostle Paul didn’t give us a chapter in one of his epistles, yet we have this historical information and can draw conclusions from it. Especially when a pope, centuries later, makes the decision that Mary remained a virgin after the birth of Christ.

Here’s the funny thing: the Catholic position on Mary’s perpetual virginity is based in Scripture! Yep, you heard me right: that’s a doctrine supported by the Bible!

Now, I don’t expect you to believe in it, but here’s the rub: if the Church says “this is the interpretation that the Holy Spirit has led us to understand” and you, saying the exact opposite, assert, “but this is the interpretation that the Spirit has led me to”… well, who are we to believe? Two completely divergent and mutually exclusive interpretations, given by the same one Spirit? Hmm…

 

[tgGodsway]

Gorgias, you said, … Jesus doesn’t say “pray the sinner’s prayer and you will be saved.”
No, you’re right. There is no such thing as a "sinner’s prayer. A post-protestant movement made it up. It was wrong.

But Jesus did say "… everyone who sees the Son and BELIEVES in Him has everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day. Jn. 6:40.

He doesn’t say “respond to an altar call and you will be saved.” No. you’re right again. Alter calls are not necessary to be saved, but Luke said, " whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Acts 2:21.

As far as the Jewish legal theory. There was no theory. Jesus was quoting Moses and the Law. But the principle is used throughout the New Testament and binding.

You went on to say, "

Here’s the funny thing: the Catholic position on Mary’s perpetual virginity is based in Scripture! Yep, you heard me right: that’s a doctrine supported by the Bible!

Now, I don’t expect you to believe in it, but here’s the rub: if the Church says “this is the interpretation that the Holy Spirit has led us to understand” and you, saying the exact opposite, assert, “but this is the interpretation that the Spirit has led me to”… well, who are we to believe? Two completely divergent and mutually exclusive interpretations, given by the same one Spirit? Hmm…

You said that the position on Mary’s perpetual virginity is based on scripture, but you never quoted the scripture. You said, “if the church says “this is the interpretation that the holy Spirit has led us to understand” and you saying the exact opposite…” WHAT INTERPRETATION of WHAT SCRIPTURE??? What scripture did the Church interpret to show the perpetual virginity of Mary?

The only scripture I know is the one who list her children.

 

[tgGodsway]

I can agree to the fact that God is one and Christ is one with God. As far as Peter being the foundation of the Church, this is simply false teaching, found nowhere in the apostle’s doctrine, but to the contrary: Paul said Jesus was the foundation, Eph. 2:20. the very chief cornerstone.

 

[tgGodsway]

Again, these people were not inspired by the holy Spirit and contradict the earliest apostles. Clement and James were simply wrong.

 

[tgGodsway]

Tertullian got it wrong too. He was not inspired by the holy Spirit and his conclusions were wrong on this matter.

 

[tgGodsway]

This was painful to read steve-b I’m not sure what translation you are using here but the Greek counterparts do not match. You may want to check your translation.

31**“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you (plural) as wheat. 32But I have prayed for you,(singular) Simon, that your faith may not fail.** And when you have turned back, strengthen στήρισον your brothers.”

The phrase, “all of you as wheat.” is someone’s invention. It is wishful thinking. the Greek counterpart there is the word, hymas, pronounced hoomas’. it’s root word is translated, “You, yourself.” It was only Peter in this case.
Isn’t it better to just except what is in the bible and be at peace rather than hang on to someone’s invention of wishful thinking. In this case, it borders on absolute deception. Be careful with your source.

The rest of the passage is a good one. Jesus said that because they were to continue with Him in His trials, that He would bestow upon them a kingdom where they could eat and drink at His table and judge the twelve tribes of Israel. Awesome stuff.

 

[tgGodsway]

Vonsalza.

This is not hard to understand. RC’s believe that the process of choosing and collecting the books is an infallible process. Infallible people by an infallible process collected infallible books, it is believed.

Protestants, on the other hand, do NOT believe the choosing or the collecting of the books was infallible, but we do believe the outcome we have today is infallible by way of the Holy Spirit. So we believe it is a fallible collection of infallible books. The books that were chosen are regarded as individually infallible. But there certainly is room to believe some choices of books, especially as time went on, were more prone to fallibility.

But going back to the argument about Peter, on your end, this is still un-established. where are your witnesses?.. who will testify to Peter’s new and improved role?.. Not even Peter! You can fast forward hundreds of years past his life to find all kind of “tradition” supporting your view, but tradition is not equal to inspired scripture, even Jesus validated this rule with a sharp rebuke of those who fell into the trap of trusting tradition over scripture.

Please… please… please, … find one person in holy scripture who walked and talked with Peter and recognized this huge modification of doctrine called the papacy… Just one person in Paul’s circle…

Oh, yeah… none of them have even a slightest word to say about this so-called papacy. It was an invention hundreds of years later by people who isolated one verse of scripture out of its context, bloviated it, and then ran with it.

Enthroning a man as a king was a normal and accepted idea for citizens of the Roman Empire of the 1st. Century, but it was never the ways of God. You can find God’s way of doing things in the book of Judges.

Vonsalza, don’t be so gullible to these kind of arguments. Its weak and unconvincing to any honest and un-bias student of scripture.

 

[Mintaka]

Nooper dooper, you are mistaken.

The word “hymas” is 2nd person plural. Vosotros. Y’all. Ye. You.

In the next verse, “sou” is 2nd person singular. Tu. Vous. Thou. You.

Plenty of Protestant translations make this distinction clear.

Modern English is a little bit shaky on showing the difference between Jesus addressing particular people versus addressing groups. He shifts back and forth quite a lot, as does St. Paul. (So do the prophets.) It’s a very effective way to talk to groups, and it’s very common in colloquial speech in many Indo-European languages.

But if you can’t be sure whether it’s you-singular-modern, thou-singular-informal, you-singular-formal, or you-plural-modern, you are out of luck.

 

[tgGodsway]

Unconvincing and unbiblical. Maybe you take your cues from the Latin translation. I don’t know. But this verse came from the Greek.

 

[Mintaka]

I was looking at the Greek. There’s a very clear distinction between hymas and sou.

Go to Biblehub. Click on Interlinear Greek. See if it says “2P” (2nd person plural) or “2S” (2nd person singular).

I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but the Bible says it. In Greek.

UPDATE: Corrected my persons! See, now you’re getting me confused… Oh, the joys of Indo-European conjugations, when we could all be speaking Japanese and not worrying about that stuff.

Of course, we would get to learn 20 different pronouns for me and singular-you and a bunch of politeness levels of vocabulary words instead…

 

[tgGodsway]

Actually… no. Look at the difference in the contexts of the two chapters. Peter is given ‘the keys’ in the context of the Church in general; the apostles are given ‘keys’ in the context of making decisions about juridical matters (i.e., in the case of a person has lost fellowship with the Church).

But you don’t exactly connect the dots in Matt. 16. In other words, Peter received keys to the kingdom of God. Okay… what do the keys represent? and on what scripture bases do they represent that? … what are you looking at to draw the conclusions that these keys are some kind of spiritual authority in a position called a papacy where Peter alone will bind and loose.
Oh. yeah… bind and loose what? and to what degree? and on what scriptural bases?

From what I’ve read about this: is that Peter binds an looses souls into, or away from heaven. He’s the gatekeeper so to speak. Is that right? Wonderful! But please connect all of these theological dots with what you actually find in Matthew 16:18. I don’t see all that you SAY in this one verse of scripture. Someone has imposed a lot of “idea” into the simple but yet obscure metaphor we are calling KEYS.

Then there is the lack of repetition. These KEYS are not brought up by anyone anywhere in the entire bible. Please don’t use the King David Key. I will historically prove you wrong on that.

There is too much wrong with this view to sign off on it as if it is God’s holy word. It is not.

Then comes the “establishment” of doctrine issue. Upon the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be ESTABLISHED. Who else (from scripture as a witness ) is SAYING what the RCC is saying about this new office? These are huge hurdles of fragmented theology unsupported by Matt. 16 or any other passage. Please answer the specific questions from this post with specific answers.

 

[tgGodsway]

remind me of what we’re arguing here. I’ve got several things going on.

 

[Nelka]

http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id34.html

 

[steve-b]

This was painful to read steve-b I’m not sure what translation you are using here but the Greek counterparts do not match. You may want to check your translation.

steve-b:

31**“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you (plural) as wheat. 32But I have prayed for you,(singular) Simon, that your faith may not fail.** And when you have turned back, strengthen στήρισον your brothers.”

The phrase, “all of you as wheat.” is someone’s invention. It is wishful thinking. the Greek counterpart there is the word, hymas, pronounced hoomas’. it’s root word is translated, “You, yourself.” It was only Peter in this case.
Isn’t it better to just except what is in the bible and be at peace rather than hang on to someone’s invention of wishful thinking. In this case, it borders on absolute deception. Be careful with your source.

My source is correct. Plural is mentioned first, for “you” http://bibleapps.com/greek/5209.htm as in all of the apostles, the word comes from http://bibleapps.com/greek/5210.htm. Then the word “you” is changed to singular for Peter alone.

tgGodsway:

The rest of the passage is a good one. Jesus said that because they were to continue with Him in His trials, that He would bestow upon them a kingdom where they could eat and drink at His table and judge the twelve tribes of Israel. Awesome stuff.

That’s NOT what was said . Jesus said Satan would sift all of them but Jesus prayed especially for Peter that Peter’s faith would not fail, and Peter would be the one to strengthen the apostles after THEY were sifted by Satan. That’s because Peter is their leader, the greatest among THEM. That was what the whole argument was over, and Jesus settled their argument.

Those who Keep that argument going are being sifted by Satan.

 

[tgGodsway]

Steve-b. I have looked at the verse closer and realize I am wrong. I own you an apology. Please forgive me. You are right, the root of the word is in the plural. I didn’t see it at first glance.

Okay… so Jesus said, Simon Simon, look out! Satan has asked to sift YOU, (with the root in the plural) suggesting that the temptation could apply to any or all of the disciples. v32 But I have prayed for you (different Greek word here in the singular) that your faith may not fail.
And you (singular) when you (singular) have turned back strengthen your brothers."

So what you are saying is, because Peter was given an assignment to strengthen his brothers, this makes him of higher authority than them? Thus it becomes evidence that he was to become the pope? Is that what you mean?

Firstly, I do not know of a “sifting” that took place by the other disciples to the degree that Peter experienced. But let’s just say they all denied Christ to that degree, We know they all forsook Him at the cross but not sure they all “denied” him at the cross. But for argument’s sake, lets just say they all denied him in a verbal exchange.

But because Peter did this first, he surely knows the anguish of such a sin and would be the prime candidate to strengthen the others because he directly denied Christ.
But again, this doesn’t connect the theological dots you insist that it connects. It doesn’t go far enough. Only by reading into the text your personal bias can you extract such a conclusion. It just doesn’t suggest this

But EVEN if it did, there still must be much more real and tangible evidence to make the claim you are trying to make. This is a problem because the New Testament record doesn’t even yield the residue of such conclusions about Peter.

 

[sainteriksrose]

It ISN’T “hear-say”…

I’ve heard some (not all) Protestants for DECADES put down Catholicism. One recently to my face “Are you a good Catholic, or a good Christian?”

It being rather odd that the religion of Protestantism - which is only 500 years old - thinking for some reason it is authorized to state what Christianity is, which includes what the contents of the Bible should be. While ignoring the fact that rude arrogance is not of the Holy Spirit, and that Christ founded His Church 2000 years ago, and IS that through which God gave us the complete Holy Book for Christians and has kept it intact ever since. (1 Corinthians 13; Matthew 16)

And yes…Catholicism preaches EVERYTHING Jesus taught, just as He commanded. AND is with us until the end of time as we know it…again, just like He said. (Matthew 28)