Posted on 06/02/2018 6:34:56 AM PDT by Salvation
Taking the Scriptures to mean what they say is not parsing. The passage contains the feminine word, “petra.” It’s not parsing to note that fact.
Please reread my post. It answers your question. I.e.: I believe the Holy Spirit was able, and in fact did, preserve inerrant mss of the divinely inspired words of Scripture.
Nowhere does Scripture suggest that God chose a sin-prone and fallible foundation upon which to build His church.
It was Peter’s confession, not Peter.
The term applied to Peter was petros.
The petra, the rock on which the Church would be built, is not just the feminine form of the word but has a different meaning,
As for the keys, I would put it to you that this would be a prophesy of something(s) Peter would participate in which I would say can be satisfied on account of these two occasions: opened when Peter and the disciples with him (as witnesses) were sent to Cornileus; closed when Peter and James orchestrated and decided the Jerusalem conference so that circumcision would not be demanded of Gentile believers (Paul and Barnabas’ presentation was not one of theology, but describing the works, it was Peter who gave the theology and decision and after Paul and Barnabas had spoken it was James who reiterated the decision Peter had previously given).
In both cases though, what was being built upon was not Peter but was something in accord with his confession: the Gospel and its application. In the first he was proclaiming the Gospel to Cornelius and his family and friends and the Holy Spirit fell on them without them being baptized first. In the second the decision he provided made it clear that the Gospel, as the context in which the works that Paul and Barnabas subsequently described, was not subject to the Law.
You may also note that in neither instance did Peter act alone.
In Caesarea he went with witnesses and he did not go of his own accord but was sent for by name. What he did himself is twofold and relates to him accepting alternately what the Holy Spirit was telling him, so that he agreed to go with the men sent to fetch him, and that he (and the witnesses he’d brought with him) agreed with the clear witness of the presence of the Holy Spirit indwelling the Gentiles he’d been sent to when they began to speak in tongues and to praise God.
You may note, though, what Peter said about the other who went with him, why they were there. He said: “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.” and not “I’m a witness”. So the Gospel he gave was not one predicated on his own witness, but their collective witness since they were there with him in one accord. Which is just to say they were NOT there to witness something happen BUT to be witnesses for the Gospel. Peter came prepared to give an account of the Gospel and that meant bringing folks who could back him up on their own.
As I said, he didn’t act alone.
In the Jerusalem conference I would put it to you that the very structure of that event shows that Peter had learned the lesson of when Jesus said when he said that if people couldn’t believe on account of the teaching then they could on account of the works, and not just that Peter had learned this lesson but — since he had prepared statement ready when he stood up at the end agreeing with Peter — James too. I believe it reasonable therefore to assert that Peter and James were together in orchestrating the outcome of Jerusalem conference.
Look at the order of events:
Paul and Barnabas gave an account of all that God had done with them to 1) apostles, 2) elders and 3) the Church and THEN others came forward who were of the party that had been teaching circumcision of Gentiles whose teaching had prompted Paul and Barnabas to come to Jerusalem in the first place. This isn’t some different group but they would have been, at a minimum, those who had sent folks “to Antioch from Judea” in the first place. Or they may well have been those same folks returned to Judea from Antioch, coming with Paul and Barnabas. All this just underscores that the Church had on that occasion come together for this very purpose and to decide this very matter.
After this it says “The apostles and the elders gathered to consider this problem.” If this is a subsequent meeting or if they just took their places to hold a formal conference doesn’t much matter, so much as now they are formally gathered to discuss this topic.
Now everyone got a chance to say their peace, the “long debate”, to present their views. When they had all done so Peter stood up and said: “Brothers, you know that in the early days God chose me from among you to preach the Good News to the nations. They heard the Good News from me, and they believed. God, who knows the thoughts of everyone, accepted them. He showed this to us by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. To God, those people are not different from us. When they believed, he made their hearts pure. So now why are you testing God by putting a heavy load around the necks of the non-Jewish believers? It is a load that neither we nor our ancestors were able to carry. But we believe that we and they too will be saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus.”
Now, I’m assuming you all know Paul, that he is not one to shy away from theology, right?
But Paul and Barnabas do not give theology at this point. They talk miracles and signs. They don’t have to say what sort of Gospel they’d been teaching because that Gospel, given to Gentiles, was the very reason why they were there and everyone knew it.
Peter had already given the decision and Paul and Barnabas were silencing opposition to that decision (the men teaching circumcision of Gentile believers might not yet accept the teaching but they had to accept the miraculous works that bore witness of the teaching).
Which do you imagine to be more reasonable: that Paul and Barnabas simply forego trying to give more reasonings or that Peter had told them the sort of things they should say at this point?
In the same manner we should judge James’ giving an amen to the decision that Peter had already proclaimed. That’s why I say they obviously were in cohoots.
Again, Peter is not acting alone.
And again, what is being built upon, the Gospel, is in line with Peter’s confession and not Peter himself.
You gave an answer, but not one that addresses my questions. I can see why you didn’t. Are there no differences between the manuscripts? Are they translations?
Respectfully, who are you to accuse people of not answering questions? I asked you if ‘petra,’ was an error and you have yet to answer.
My answer is it is not an error.
Your turn. Are there no differences between the manuscripts? Are they translations?
The presumption of the RCC that Peter is the first pope is read back into history. Eusebius notes this. I will dig up the info when I’m not on my phone.
If ‘petra,’ is not an error then it is as divinely inspired as the rest of the God-breathed words of Scripture. It is there to underscore the fact that God’s church/assembly is not built upon a fallible and sin-prone human being but upon Christ and the timeless truth that He is the Son of the living God.
There are some irrelevant, negligible differences in the oldest mss. Not one of them involves even a minor Christian doctrine; they make zero difference in the Gospel message.
I’m 100% unconcerned with whether the oldest mss are translations or not. What matters is the promise of God. Either the promise re the divine inspiration of Scripture is true or it isn’t. If it’s true, then it covers translations IF a translated mss is the oldest and best form of Scripture in existence.
I.e.: either the Holy Spirit preserved accurate and trustworthy copies of the divinely inspired Scriptures or He didn’t. If He did, then the words of the oldest translations—if they are the best we have—are as inerrant as the originals.
Look up the words in the original Aramaic or Greek, then decide whether Jesus called Peter ( Cephas) a rock or “the ROCK). I read it as “Peter you are a stone and upon this rock, I will build my church”, “this rock” being the truth that Peter had just spoken (Mt 16:16- You are the Messiah, the Son of God).
One most important policy to understanding scripture is to let scripture interpret scripture.
Then, we can look to historical truths as well, Peter while a key Apostle, was never looked upon “the supreme Leader” by early the church as in the way many folks do since about 300 AD ( Constantine is a key to this question and he has a motive).
Then just find a fragment to compare with many thousands of Greek manuscripts...
Reports that aren’t inspired and are not falsifiable nor provable have no authority - especially when they are not contemporaneous accounts, as you cited source was not.
I would say God chose 12 fallible and sinful men upon which to build His church, telling them before He ascended to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that He commanded them, as reinforced by the power of the Holy Spirit which came down
upon them at Pentecost.
There were twelve disciples but only one foundation.
1 Corinthians 3:11
For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
So you say, but it doesn't make sense. Here is are some arguments against what you're claiming:
"According to standard anti-Catholic interpretation, Petros means "a small stone" while petra means "a large mass of rock," and the statement "You are Peter" (petros), should be interpreted as something that stresses Peter's insignificance. Evangelicals picture Christ as having meant, "You are a small stone, Peter, but I will build my Church on this great mass of rock which is the revelation of my identity."
"One problem with this interpretation, which many Protestant Bible scholars admit, is that while Petros and petra did have these meanings in some ancient Greek poetry, the distinction was gone by the first century, when Matthew's Gospel was written. At that time the two words meant the same thing: rock. Another problem is that when he addressed Peter, Jesus was not speaking Greek, but Aramaic, a cousin language of Hebrew. In Aramaic there is no difference between the two words which in Greek are rendered as "petros" and "petra." They are both "kepha"; that's why Paul often refers to Peter as Cephas (1 Cor. 15:5, Gal. 2:9). What Christ actually said was "You are Kepha and on this kepha I will build my Church." But even if the words "Petros" and "petra" did have different meanings, the Protestant reading of two different "rocks" would not fit the context.
"The second statement to Peter would be something which minimized or diminished him, pointing out his insignificance, with the result that Jesus would be saying, "Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah! You are "an insignificant little pebble." Here are the keys to the kingdom of heaven!" Such an incongruous sequence of statements would have been not merely odd, but inexplicable. (Many Protestant commentators recognize this and do their best to deny the obvious sense of this passage, however implausible their explanations may be.)"
Yes, Christ is the foundation. He commissioned the 11 to build on it before He ascended. I was in error to say 12. Judas of course was no longer with them.
‘Petros and petra did have these meanings in some ancient Greek poetry, the distinction was gone by the first century, when Matthew’s Gospel was written.’
A bald assertion with zero backup. Some reliable, scholarly-objective links are in order.
‘Another problem is that when he addressed Peter, Jesus was not speaking Greek, but Aramaic, a cousin language of Hebrew.’
The author has evidently never heard of divine providence. God could have caused the text to be preserved in Aramaic or, did He prefer it, Hebrew. But in His divine wisdom and determination, God chose to give us this passage in Greek. Either that was willy nilly/a mistake, or God *intended* to preserve the passage in Greek.
It doesn’t take a theologian to figure this out. God gave us this text in Greek For A Reason. It was His will to preserve the Greek version. So rather than second guessing God, tut tutting and suggesting we ought to go by the version God *didn’t* preserve, let us give thanks for the crystal clarity of the language God in fact, in His wisdom, grace and mercy, did choose.
‘Yes, Christ is the foundation.’
+1
My thought is that this is fundamentally dishonest.
Cephas means rock in both Hebrew and Aramaic, what it meas in Greek means nothing.
The Bible was written in Greek but most scholars agree that Jesus spoke in Aramaic.
John 1:42
And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.
The interpretation stone is Greek but if you look in the dictionary you will see that Cephas means rock.
So i will repeat myself, what it means in Greek means nothing.
See post 56.
My thought is that this is fundamentally dishonest.
Cephas means rock in both Hebrew and Aramaic, what it meas in Greek means nothing.
The Bible was written in Greek but most scholars agree that Jesus spoke in Aramaic.
John 1:42
And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.
The interpretation stone is Greek but if you look in the dictionary you will see that Cephas means rock.
So i will repeat myself, what it means in Greek means nothing.
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