When do you claim that the Catholic Church began

[GregoryPalamas]

Jesus meant you are Peter (or petros, a small stone), and upon this (Jesus himself) Rock (Petra, a large rock) I will build my church.
He is the Chief Cornerstone, and we are the living stones.

You can’t build a church on a flawed man, it will fail. Jesus builds the church (those that are saved, whatever the denom) on Himself, and the confession of Peter.

Prove it? Which group/s does your group claim as your connection to Christ? The Cathars? The Gnostics? The Arians? Which one or ones?

Making lame and baseless boasts is easy. Now back them up.

CDL

 

[VoiceofOne]

Prove it? Which group/s does your group claim as your connection to Christ? The Cathars? The Gnostics? The Arians? Which one or ones?

Making lame and baseless boasts is easy. Now back them up.

CDL

Just a Christian, no need to get all nasty. These aren’t baseless claims, this is common knowledge for anyone who has been to bible camp as a kid.

Sure the view is different than the traditional catholic, but it makes sense with sentence structure and linguistics. It is bad grammar to believe that Christ meant Peter.

 

[GregoryPalamas]

Just a Christian, no need to get all nasty. These aren’t baseless claims, this is common knowledge for anyone who has been to bible camp as a kid.

Sure the view is different than the traditional catholic, but it makes sense with sentence structure and linguistics. It is bad grammar to believe that Christ meant Peter.

It’s not our grammar that is off. Besides what is your group’s connection to the Church? Demonstrate it.

CDL

 

[c_truelove]

I’m sorry if this has already been covered (I didn’t read the replies), but you neglected to mention in your poll that the Church could have started before Pentecost, so I had to answer “other”. The Catholic Church may have been “born” at Pentecost, but she was “conceived” at Jesus’ promise in Matthew 16:18. So, technically, the correct answer to your poll is that the Catholic Church “began” with Jesus’ words: “You are ‘Rock’ [Peter] and upon this Rock, I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.”

 

[VoiceofOne]

It’s not our grammar that is off. Besides what is your group’s connection to the Church? Demonstrate it.

CDL

I apologize. Your anger masks your inquiry. What do you mean group? Connection to Christ?

My church has no connection to the catholic church, and it never has. We celebrate full immersion baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and we teach, heal, comfort, house and feed those who need all over the world in the name of Jesus Christ. We profess the good news as Jesus commanded of us.

My personal connection is that Jesus Christ saved my life, and my immortal soul, He put salve in my eyes because I was blind.
You should ask the same of Him.

Thanks for asking.

 

[Church_Militant]

Just a Christian, no need to get all nasty. These aren’t baseless claims, this is common knowledge for anyone who has been to bible camp as a kid.

Sure the view is different than the traditional catholic, but it makes sense with sentence structure and linguistics. **It is bad grammar to believe that Christ meant Peter.**So you went to some kind of infallible Bible camp?

I’d get my money back if I was you, since they didn’t even get history and math right…how could they get Christian belief right?

I’ve already refuted two chunks of your propaganda without a single fact of response from you.

Bad grammar? How 'bout just plain bad hearts that refuse to admit what the Word of God actually says.

I think that is called sin isn’t it?

 

[Church_Militant]

Jesus meant you are Peter (or petros, a small stone), and upon this (Jesus himself) Rock (Petra, a large rock) I will build my church.
He is the Chief Cornerstone, and we are the living stones.

You can’t build a church on a flawed man, it will fail. Jesus builds the church (those that are saved, whatever the denom) on Himself, and the confession of Peter.

You are basing your beliefs on something that someone has told you…and they are in error.

Peter the Rock

“Yes,” he said. “In Greek, the word for rock is petra, which means a large, massive stone. The word used for Simon’s new name is different; it’s Petros, which means a little stone, a pebble.”

In reality, what the missionary was telling me at this point was false. As Greek scholars—even non-Catholic ones—admit, the words petros and petra were synonyms in first century Greek. They meant “small stone” and “large rock” in some ancient Greek poetry, centuries before the time of Christ, but that distinction had disappeared from the language by the time Matthew’s Gospel was rendered in Greek. The difference in meaning can only be found in Attic Greek, but the New Testament was written in Koine Greek—an entirely different dialect. In Koine Greek, both petros and petra simply meant “rock.” If Jesus had wanted to call Simon a small stone, the Greek lithos would have been used. The missionary’s argument didn’t work and showed a faulty knowledge of Greek. (For an Evangelical Protestant Greek scholar’s admission of this, see D. A. Carson, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984], Frank E. Gaebelein, ed., 8:368).

“You Catholics,” the missionary continued, “because you don’t know Greek, imagine that Jesus was equating Simon and the rock. Actually, of course, it was just the opposite. He was contrasting them. On the one side, the rock on which the Church would be built, Jesus himself; on the other, this mere pebble. Jesus was really saying that he himself would be the foundation, and he was emphasizing that Simon wasn’t remotely qualified to be it.”

“Case closed,” he thought.

It was the missionary’s turn to pause and smile broadly. He had followed the training he had been given. He had been told that a rare Catholic might have heard of Matthew 16:18 and might argue that it proved the establishment of the papacy. He knew what he was supposed to say to prove otherwise, and he had said it.

“Well,” I replied, beginning to use that nugget of information I had come across, “I agree with you that we must get behind the English to the Greek.” He smiled some more and nodded. “But I’m sure you’ll agree with me that we must get behind the Greek to the Aramaic.”

“The what?” he asked.

“The Aramaic,” I said. “As you know, Aramaic was the language Jesus and the apostles and all the Jews in Palestine spoke. It was the common language of the place.”

“I thought Greek was.”

“No,” I answered. "Many, if not most of them, knew Greek, of course, because Greek was the lingua franca of the Mediterranean world. It was the language of culture and commerce; and most of the books of the New Testament were written in it, because they were written not just for Christians in Palestine but also for Christians in places such as Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, places where Aramaic wasn’t the spoken language.

“I say most of the New Testament was written in Greek, but not all. Many hold that Matthew was written in Aramaic—we know this from records kept by Eusebius of Caesarea—but it was translated into Greek early on, perhaps by Matthew himself. In any case the Aramaic original is lost (as are all the originals of the New Testament books), so all we have today is the Greek.”

Too bad you have been misled…on so many issues.
Better do your own homework.

 

[Eileen_T]

The Apostles were the first Catholic Bishops that formed the Magisterium of the Church Christ founded.

In Matthew 16 He appointed Peter to be the Head of the Church and lead the others. He promised the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church.

The Church was a visible one, with a hierarchy, and sacraments. It didn’t cease to exist after the death of John and then suddenly become resurrected by Luther. However, we know that heretical offshoots were springing up right from the beginning, which is the reason for some of Paul’s Letters to the various churches.

The churches established in other cities came under the authority of Peter and the other Apostles - the Magisterium

 

[adrift]

Jesus meant you are Peter (or petros, a small stone), and upon this (Jesus himself) Rock (Petra, a large rock) I will build my church.
He is the Chief Cornerstone, and we are the living stones.

You can’t build a church on a flawed man, it will fail. Jesus builds the church (those that are saved, whatever the denom) on Himself, and the confession of Peter.

In Greek there is no such word as petros so there is no way that it means small stone. The word was petra which is rock which is feminine no way to call a man so they made it masculine. To repeat there is no word in the Greek as petros and if you put it into an online translator you will only get the name Peter. What Jesus said was your name is Rock and on this rock I will build my Church.

 

[adrift]

Just a Christian, no need to get all nasty. These aren’t baseless claims, this is common knowledge for anyone who has been to bible camp as a kid.

Sure the view is different than the traditional catholic, but it makes sense with sentence structure and linguistics. It is bad grammar to believe that Christ meant Peter.

Actually, you have to contort the sentence structure to interpret it your way.

16
11 Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
17
Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood 12 has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
18
And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, 13 and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

Upon this rock is a prepositional phrase that modifies Peter. There is no other sentence structure that allows for it to modify anything else without slight of hand.

 

[GregoryPalamas]

I apologize. Your anger masks your inquiry. What do you mean group? Connection to Christ?

My church has no connection to the catholic church, and it never has. We celebrate full immersion baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and we teach, heal, comfort, house and feed those who need all over the world in the name of Jesus Christ. We profess the good news as Jesus commanded of us.

My personal connection is that Jesus Christ saved my life, and my immortal soul, He put salve in my eyes because I was blind.
You should ask the same of Him.

Thanks for asking.

You purposely evade the question. You know what this thread is. You pretend a bit of psychoanalysis on me. It won’t work. You have no answer so you don’t offer one. What you propose is a Gnostic type answer. So I will assume that you claim Gnostic connections. This is rather typical of many non-Catholics. They either don’t know their own theology or know it and refuse to admit it. Yet, from what you say, your group has no roots in the life of God in the Church and claim none. Gnostics aren’t Christian. While they do pop up from time to time and are rather strong now they have no real connection to Christ and His apostles. I invite you to do some serious study while you are with us. You may find your way to the Church. I pray that you do.

CDL

 

[Contarini]

Just a Christian, no need to get all nasty. These aren’t baseless claims, this is common knowledge for anyone who has been to bible camp as a kid.
.

Sure. Propaganda is easy to absorb.

Now, tell me this–what masculine word in Greek conveys exactly the same meaning as the feminine word Petra?

If Petros is not that word, then as far as I know there is no such word. And if there is no such word, then your argument against the Catholic position falls flat on its face. You are implicitly saying that the only way Jesus could have meant what Catholics think He meant would have been to give Simon a woman’s name–you are Petra!

Your argument is no argument at all. It could not possibly be created by anyone except a person who was already certain that the Catholic view was wrong and was seeking a clever way to rule out the Catholic interpretation without actually engaging it farely. It’s a mere smokescreen.

The Aramaic issue doesn’t come into it. I accept the divine inspiration of the Greek text and I’m sure the Catholics do as well.

But if you paid any money to that Bible camp, you need to ask for some of it back. Or perhaps you just need to grow beyond Bible camp. . . .

Edwin

 

[jmcrae]

With regard to the Petros/Petras question, it is, of course, very valuable to move back to the Aramaic, where we find that Peter’s name, “Kephas,” as he is referred to throughout the book of Acts and in many of St. Paul’s epistles, means “a large rock” - that is, “Petra” in Greek.

From this, along with the fact that the word “petros” was not in use in the Greek language at the time of Matthew, it is easy to see that Jesus’ new name for Simon, which we pronounce as “Peter” in English, means “a large rock” and that Jesus, indeed, intended to ordain Peter as head of His Church, as our Catholic Church history also confirms.

We can also quite profitably move forward to the English as it is used in modern times, by simply reversing the problem and asking ourselves, “What is the name given to little girls, when we wish to name them after the Apostle Peter?”

The name given to these little girls (at least, in larger towns and in cities) is “Petra.” Further, little Petra knows, usually by the time she is three years old, that the reason she is called “Petra” is that “Peter” is a boy’s name - this little three year old girl understands something very important here, which is that Petra is the girl’s name, and Peter is the boy’s name, but that both names are the same name, and that, when a boy or man is named after a Petra, he has to be called “Peter,” just as when a girl or woman is named after a Peter, she has to be called “Petra.”

 

[sterryfamily]

‘Catholic’ was first used around AD 90 by a disciple of the Apostle St John

I know I’m late in this, but wanted to comment. Your statement is not entirely accurate. You could say that the earliest recorded use of the term “Catholic Church” came from Irenaeus, but in his use, it hardly seems new - it appears to be a common term. It probably dates back much further.

 

[TSB]

I would assume it began at the start of the Great Apostasy with Theodosius, or maybe with the bishop of Rome who first changed his title from vicar of peter to vicar of Christ, or Rome in its modern form at Vatican 2. It seems to be a progressive state.

 

[Chancellare]

I don’t think the Catholic church began on any certain date…I would put it close to the time when the Roman Empire accepted Christianity as the state religion. Prior to that, regardless of the “mythic” story, Christianity did not operate as a single body under a single head universally…there was the largest group who sought to structure the various regional churches under one head…but as many congregations were isolated it just wasn’t possible.

Some of these groups were called “heretics” by the largest group who sought control of the “myth”…many groups vied for ascendency, but only the Roman church allied itself with the government for supremacy.

The church was never to be an 'organization", but was to exist in every nation as God’s people proclaiming the teaching of the Kingdom of God.

It is one of the oldest groups, to be sure…but the “truest”…no…IMO.

You are in effect changing the question to fit your answer.