Who was the Rock in Matthew 16:18?

[Lib_Christian]

Dear friend, like a great many non -catholics, you lack understading. Maybe I can help?

PJM, thank you for trying to help me understand. Peace and God bless you as well my friend. But you’re assuming I’m not Catholic. I may dissent. Perhaps non practicing. Perhaps nominal. Perhaps my faith is more open, mainstream - liberal. But baptized and confirmed.

 

[tweetymom]

PJM, thank you for trying to help me understand. Peace and God bless you as well my friend. But you’re assuming I’m not Catholic. I may dissent. Perhaps non practicing. Perhaps nominal. Perhaps my faith is more open, mainstream - liberal. But baptized and confirmed.

God Bless you . and I agree

 

[Lib_Christian]

Thank you and sometimes all it takes to start a fire storm is to disagree. God Bless

I guess. Sigh, I’m not really into debate because I know faith is faith. I guess in God’s time we’ll all work it out. You brought a smile to my face though. Peace and blessings to you too.

 

[tweetymom]

I guess. Sigh, I’m not really into debate because I know faith is faith. I guess in God’s time we’ll all work it out. You brought a smile to my face though. Peace and blessings to you too.

Yes faith is faith and in faith we find Gods ever lasting love for us. They will know we are Christians by our love is to me the greatest thing there is. I know that you love Jesus with all you heart, soul. So do not ever be discouraged because of what others think or say, Christ is in your corner and I am too praying for you. May God Bless you in your journey with Jesus.

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

Jesus is the cornerstone of His Church. Peter is the rock foundation that Jesus built upon. A building does not stand without a cornerstone.

Someone referenced Christ saying, the least shall be first and the first shall be the least. It’s all about serving and the Pope serves. The Pope lives a dedicated life to caring for the flock. He is not elected and does not nominate himself. It’s not a choice of seeking a power position as some seem to think.

As for the comments about women in the Church and the times, it seems to me that you might be saying, even though the Bible says one thing, the times have changed. If that is the case, it means the Bible has an err in it, in that it cannot be used for all generations. Or, it means there are parts of the Bible that we don’t have to pay attention too anymore, because it’s outdated. Now, who should we turn too, to decide what parts of the Bible we don’t have to pay attention too anymore. That’s just my thoughts on the subject.

I work in EMS and am on duty today (24 hour shift). I’ll check in as possible and apologize for the quick post.

 

[tweetymom]

Jesus is the cornerstone of His Church. Peter is the rock foundation that Jesus built upon. A building does not stand without a cornerstone.

Someone referenced Christ saying, the least shall be first and the first shall be the least. It’s all about serving and the Pope serves. The Pope lives a dedicated life to caring for the flock. He is not elected and does not nominate himself. It’s not a choice of seeking a power position as some seem to think.

As for the comments about women in the Church and the times, it seems to me that you might be saying, even though the Bible says one thing, the times have changed. If that is the case, it means the Bible has an err in it, in that it cannot be used for all generations. Or, it means there are parts of the Bible that we don’t have to pay attention too anymore, because it’s outdated. Now, who should we turn too, to decide what parts of the Bible we don’t have to pay attention too anymore. That’s just my thoughts on the subject.

I work in EMS and am on duty today (24 hour shift). I’ll check in as possible and apologize for the quick post.

The Pope is elected by the Cardinals.

 

[Lib_Christian]

Yes faith is faith and in faith we find Gods ever lasting love for us. They will know we are Christians by our love is to me the greatest thing there is. I know that you love Jesus with all you heart, soul. So do not ever be discouraged because of what others think or say, Christ is in your corner and I am too praying for you. May God Bless you in your journey with Jesus.

tweetymom, it is a struggle and discouraging at times, especially as I’ve watched the Catholic Church seemingly drift to an even more conservative, hardline bend. But I’ll try. Thanks so much for your kind words. Your loving soul clearly presents itself by your posts. Do have a most blessed, healthy new year.

 

[tweetymom]

tweetymom, it is a struggle and discouraging at times, especially as I’ve watched the Catholic Church seemingly drift to an even more conservative, hardline bend. But I’ll try. Thanks so much for your kind words. Your loving soul clearly presents itself by your posts. Do have a most blessed, healthy new year.

Please keep in touch I will be praying for you everyday.You have made me cry.

Please send me a pm so I can give you my email address if you would care to.

 

[Lib_Christian]

The Pope is elected by the Cardinals.

And I know the faith is the Cardinals are led by the Holy Spirit in their selection. But it’s not exactly like in Acts where the believers met and drew lots. It can take several ballots to elect a Pope. Then of course the Pope chooses the Cardinals. But again I know the faith is he chooses whom God wants as a Cardinal.

 

[Kantaram88]

Christ intended to have a hierarchical church with an earthly head. The papacy, then and now, is the head of the Church on earth, and has no more or less spiritual authority than Christ first gave to Peter.

Just read the first chapter of The Acts of the Apostles. Somebody needed to replace Judas, so they found a replacement…Of course as the Church grew it was necessary to expand the number from 12 to whatever was necessary to govern the Church.

Up until the time of Christ’s crucifixion, the Lord maintained that the people still obey the legitimate authority as established by God, aka the Pharisees, did he not? The phrase was basically “do as they say, but not as they do”. In matters of faith, the Pharisees still had the authority, regardless of how weak and evil an example many of them undoubtedly were.

As an aside…Considering that the child sexual abuse in public schools has been and still is far, far worse than in the Church, do teachers cease to be educational representatives of school districs? Should students then ignore what the teachers are actually teaching them in class???

Wonderful topic, I needed this very much.

Thank you

God Bless
And soon it will be a New Year so wish all readers a Happy New year 2010 too.

 

[PJM]

=Lib Christian;6111822]PJM, thank you for trying to help me understand. Peace and God bless you as well my friend. But you’re assuming I’m not Catholic. I may dissent. Perhaps non practicing. Perhaps nominal. Perhaps my faith is more open, mainstream - liberal. But baptized and confirmed.

Friend,

Please help me in Christian charity to understand.

You are a fallen away, uninformed, lapsed [and seemingly bitter] “catholic” who has put forth a great many, as of this post, unsupported by facts or evidence, positions [OSAS, Eucharist, Marian Dogmas] and yet you’d like us to hold your views as somehow valid?

***What am I missing? ***Did Christ simply allow one to hold any position without debate or rebuke? Is that your idea of Christian charity?

And your desire for “a less conserative Church” seems to me to mean, less Obedient to the Divine Will of God? Where is the charity in such a position?

Please help me out here?

Love and prayers,
Pat

 

[NDfan]

Christ chose a specific location to announce He was building His Church, Caesarea Philippi.

Originally, Caesarea Philippi was named Panion, which is the City of Pan. Pan was the Greek God of shepherds and flocks, among other things.

Below is something a friend of mine wrote on another forum and it articulates it much better than I can.

The Petros issue, my friend brings up, has been discussed by Protestants who claim Petros means ‘little rock’, and it does. Petra in Greek means mass of rock. They argue that if Christ had meant to build His Church upon Peter, He would have named Him Petra. The problem here lays with the times and gender nouns. That is Matthew chose Petros, which is in the masculine and Petra is feminine. It’s similar to the Spanish language where you have gender nouns, for example el gato is masculine for cat and la gata is feminine for cat. Matthew could not have referred to Peter as feminine, especially in those times. But going beyond the gender nouns, as my friend points out, Christ spoke primarily Aramaic, where there is one word for rock and that is ‘Kepha’.

I hope I have provided enough foundation for a discussion. I have scriptures and writings of the early Church fathers that support the Catholic view of Peter being the rock on which Christ built His Church, and will share those as the discussion progresses.

It’s interesting how this topic re-appears every once in a while and the discussion usually goes no where. Be that as it may the argument of Petra vs Petros and the whole gender justification for Peter being the Rock holds no water at all. Christ may have spoken in Aramaic although we don’t know for sure given the Helenization of Jews in that area. But let’s assume Jesus did speak Aramaic, the simple fact is the Gospels are written in Greek so we only have those versions to try and interpret what Matthew was writing.

If Matthew had intended on communicating to us that Jesus was founding his church on Peter the Rock then Jesus simply would have stated “you are Petros and on this Petros or on you Petros I will build my church”. This doesn’t happen and in fact the Greek is not structured in a way to reveal Peter as the Rock. The emphasis of the conversation is in the question Christ poses to the Apostles that of “who do you say that I am”. In answering that Jesus is the Messiah the Son of GOD, Jesus then states that this is the rock upon which the church will be built. Not on Peter the person but what Peter stated.

PEACE

 

[tweetymom]

It’s interesting how this topic re-appears every once in a while and the discussion usually goes no where. Be that as it may the argument of Petra vs Petros and the whole gender justification for Peter being the Rock holds no water at all. Christ may have spoken in Aramaic although we don’t know for sure given the Helenization of Jews in that area. But let’s assume Jesus did speak Aramaic, the simple fact is the Gospels are written in Greek so we only have those versions to try and interpret what Matthew was writing.

If Matthew had intended on communicating to us that Jesus was founding his church on Peter the Rock then Jesus simply would have stated “you are Petros and on this Petros or on you Petros I will build my church”. This doesn’t happen and in fact the Greek is not structured in a way to reveal Peter as the Rock. The emphasis of the conversation is in the question Christ poses to the Apostles that of “who do you say that I am”. In answering that Jesus is the Messiah the Son of GOD, Jesus then states that this is the rock upon which the church will be built. Not on Peter the person but what Peter stated.

PEACE

Peter’s faith in who Jesus was, Faith= rock not Peter.Jesus’s church is built on faith of who Jesus is.

 

[NDfan]

John 10:16

John 21:15-17

One who tends and feeds sheep is by definition their shepherd.

So what’s your point here Joe?? Peter may be a shepherd but let’s look carefully at what Peter himself states in his first letter:

5:1 So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: 2 shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, [1] not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; [2] not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the **chief Shepherd **appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. 5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

So Peter never identifies himself as being any supreme leader, just a fellow Elder. He then exhorts other Elders to shepherd their flock. So it stands to reason that Peter is calling other Elders sheherds but then identifies Christ as the Chief Shepherd. Where in this text do we see Peter at all exercising authority?

 

[NDfan]

Peter’s faith in who Jesus was, Faith= rock not Peter.Jesus’s church is built on faith of who Jesus is.

Couldn’t have said it any better

 

[AmateurPianist]

AP -

The English language has very little to do with this issue. It only matters what could have transpired, or probably transpired on that day. How does a conclusion come to be, but by tradition. Paul spoke many times of “what was passed on to him”. He was not speaking of scripture alone.

Sacred tradition and scripture match if you put it in context. T

(omitted to get down to limit)

There is still dispute as to the language that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written. There are manuscripts of the same age written both Aramaic and Greek.

The original post is claiming (if I understand correctly) that the Bible clearly teaches that “this rock” is Peter. If that is the contention, then I shouldn’t have to turn to tradition to arbitrate this issue. You should be able to demonstrate this is true from Scripture.

If you need to turn to tradition to arbitrate this issue, you first must demonstrate that the Catholic church and the Catholic church alone is exclusively the church of Jesus Christ (since tradition must have an arbitrator to determine which tradition comes from the apostles and what tradition is the tradition of men).,

I agree that proof texting can be dangerous, especially when you go into a task to prove something wrong, like tradition. The reason I say this is because you go into the process of research with a preconceived notion that tradition means nothing, and Paul’s writings say otherwise. There are many places in scripture that demonstrate the primacy of Peter, but if you go into the study of these scriptures with the notion that this is not what is meant, then guess what, you will find proof to back up your misguided work.

Again, I am sort of missing the point. The original post is claiming that the Bible teaches that Peter is the rock. If that is the case, then this should be an issue like the resurrrection of Jesus Christ where I don’t need to turn to tradition to make this determination.

Now if you are claiming that this Scripture alone is insufficient to determine that Peter is the rock, then stand up and say so.

I guess I am getting mixed messages here.

Lapey –
I choose to believe the ones that agree with the tradition that has been handed down with apostolic succession. The Word of God is not only written scripture, but also tradition.

(text omitted to get to limit)

The Pharisees were teaching the “traditions of men” and the apostles taught and passed on through the centuries the traditions of God.

Again, I am getting mixed messages. Is the teaching in Matthew 16 on Peter being the rock so clear that I should be able to make this determination from the text or not.

The leap comes when you choose not to believe this. History is on the side of the Church. But your use of the word “exclusively” implies that Roman Catholic Church members are the only heirs to salvation through Jesus Christ, that is not the truth nor does the Church teach this. In this scripture that the OP brought up originally, Jesus hands the Keys to Peter, and tells him the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail means that Jesus has entrusted the free gift of salvation to flow through Peter and the Church that Christ is establishing. All are offered this free gift that Jesus provides us, but He dictated that His saving Grace flows through His Church; the Catholic Church, all Rites in communion with Rome.

OK. Now I can make clear what I mean by exclusively. When I say "The Catholic church is exclusively the church of Jesus Christ and is in a superior–>inferior relationship to everybody else, I am not saying that that the only folks in heaven are card carrying Catholics. What I am saying is this:

• When Jesus looks at His bride, the church, He is looking at the segment of Christianity today known as “The Catholic Church”. The Lutherans, Orthodox, Presbyterians are outside of this organization. To the effect that individual Lutherans, Orthodox, Presbyterians have eternal life with Christ is because they are imperfectly joined (via baptism to “the Catholic Church”.
• There are certain graces (benefits from God) that are provided only to members of the Catholic church. For example only the Catholic church is protected from error through the benefit of papal infallability. Everybody else is on their own.
• It would be to the Spiritual benefit of every Christian who is not Catholic today to become Catholic because of these graces that are provided only through the Catholic church.

To use your words, here is the problem, when studying anything scriptural you cannot discount tradition. Scripture alone, “sola-scriptura” is a false teaching because it removes part of the Word of God. Read the scripture about wolves in sheep’s clothing, Matthew 7:13-16;

(more text omitted to get to limit)

Since when did I talk about “Sola Scriptura” (whatever that is). If anything it was the original post that is claiming (if I understand correctly) that the meaning of this passage is so clear that my Bible alone is sufficient for me to get that Peter is the rock. If that is not the claim, then I am misunderstanding.

Anyway, your clain about “Sola Scriptura” is interesting. A while back I started a thread on “What is Sola Scriptura”. I came across 7-8 different definitions.

The point is that only 2-4 of the most restrictive definitions attempt to remove completely the role of history and tradition. So once you get to “The Bible is Self Interpreting” or “Scripture interprets Scripture” (or “If it is not in the Bible then it should not be done”) then you have a point.

But that leaves about 4 definitions of Sola Scriptura that are so general that your little diatribe against it just is not applicable.

 

[Robert_in_SD]

Amen and there are a lot of ways people kill Christians. I am glad that Jesus is ny rock

Jesus is my rock too. But in the context of Mt., the question is not who OUR rock is, but what Peter is to Jesus. Jesus tells Peter he is Rock, and on this Rock Jesus will build His Church. He is defining Peter’s mission, his calling to a life of ministry and the building up of the Church. The fact that this passage describes Peter as the rock on which Jesus will build His Church does nothing to remove Christ as the rock described elsewhere in scripture. I see no dichotomy, no reason to choose Peter over Jesus. Rather, the passage can by understood clearly in context.

Peace,
Robert

 

[tweetymom]

Jesus is my rock too. But in the context of Mt., the question is not who OUR rock is, but what Peter is to Jesus. Jesus tells Peter he is Rock, and on this Rock Jesus will build His Church. He is defining Peter’s mission, his calling to a life of ministry and the building up of the Church. The fact that this passage describes Peter as the rock on which Jesus will build His Church does nothing to remove Christ as the rock described elsewhere in scripture. I see no dichotomy, no reason to choose Peter over Jesus. Rather, the passage can by understood clearly in context.

Peace,
Robert

thank you never said it did. I believe jesus is the rock and Peters faith is the rock not Peter.

 

[Carlan]

Sorry but Peters faith in Jesus is the rock. Jesus is my rock, not peter

So far throughout this thread your Protestant indoctrination is showing again, and you wonder why the Catholics on Answers are always calling you out. When are you going to start defending the faith you claim to be part of.???Discussion is good, but we do not confirm error. You put forth your own understanding not Church teaching and it causes scandal coming from the mouth of a Catholic.Carlan

 

[Javl]

thank you never said it did. I believe jesus is the rock and Peters faith is the rock not Peter.

So, then, what you are in effect saying is that for 1500 years all the emminent Church theologians and scholars down through the ages were all mistaken and wrong in their understanding of Christ calling Peter Kephas ( rock )? If this is so, then what was the reason for Jesus to change Simon Bar-Johnah’s name to Kephas? He didn’t have to if He meant only Peter’s faith to be the rock. Jesus could have said " Peter your faith is the rock on which I will build my Church" instead of saying to Peter “YOU are rock”.

PAX DOMINI

Shalom Aleichem