Was Peter the "Rock"?

Cornerstone Church ^

[Sir Gawain]

Was Peter the "Rock"?

Question: Was Peter the "rock" on which Jesus will build His church?

Answer: Here is the passage that you are referring to:

Matthew 16:13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He began asking His disciples, saying, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"

Matthew 16:14 And they said, "Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets."

Matthew 16:15 He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"

Matthew 16:16 And Simon Peter answered and said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Matthew 16:17 And Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 16:18 "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it."

The Greek word for Peter is petros, meaning "a pebble." The Greek word for rock is petra, meaning "a massive rock" such as bedrock. Jesus is the Rock, petra. Everyone who receives this revelation from the Father like Peter received it—that Jesus is the Son of God (Lord and Savior)—becomes a part of His Church.

Christ used the word petra when He told the parable of the man building a house upon a rock to illustrate its size.

Matthew 7:24-25 "Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man, who built his house upon the rock (petra). And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock (petra)."

Jesus was talking about building upon bedrock, not a pebble.

The apostle Paul tells us that Jesus is the foundation upon which we build our lives:

1 Cor. 3:11 For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

The apostle Peter also informed up that every believer is a "stone" and that Jesus Christ is the "cornerstone" or foundation.

1 Peter 2:4-6 And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For this is contained in Scripture: "Behold I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone, and he who believes in Him shall not be disappointed."

Every believer is a stone in Christ’s Church. Peter was not the rock, but just one of many who are a part of this spiritual house of worship.

[Paulus Invictus]

Ah, language! How do you know that Jesus and Peter spoke in Aramaic? Aramiac was the lingua franca of the common people of the time. Hebrew was not. Greek was spoken everywhere, even in Jerusalem. Latin was spoken by everyone that wanted to get ahead with the Procurator, the Centurians and the lawyers. Iv'e always wondered about what language was used by Pilate and Christ during their fateful meeting? Was there an interpreter? Did Christ speak Latin? Did Pilate speak Aramaic? He did apparently speak Greek. Did Christ speak Greek? Aren't these good questions?

For anyone who has attempted to translate from one language to another or worse, to interpret a foreign language simultaneously while someone is speaking knows how easy it is to mess it up. I personally think that Christ dominated all languages at the time. He spoke Hebew in the synagogue, Aramaic with his disciples and Greek when he had to do so. The recently discovered tomb of a family called Caiaphas (sound familiar?) had the family names engraved in Greek and in Hebrew.

[firewalk]

Thanks for the ping. Good to see you back.

[la$tminutepardon]

Yes, good points. Edersheim's classic The Life and Times of Jesus, the Messiah removes the notion that Christ grew up in a backwater village. The area was rather more of a place like our modern cities, with people coming and going from everywhere. The people were very sophisticated, not the ignorant rustics that so many today believe that they were.

[RnMomof7]

2 Samuel 22
1 And David spake unto the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul:
2 And he said, The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;
3 The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence.

There is only one Rock....and that Rock is Jesus Christ ! The cornerstone that the builders rejected!

[Prodigal Daughter]

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter (Petros), and upon this rock (petra, Peter's namesake) I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

4074 Peter 161, stone 1; 162
Peter = "a rock or a stone"
1) one of the twelve disciples of Jesus

4073 petra
1) a rock, cliff or ledge
1a) a projecting rock, crag, rocky ground
1b) a rock, a large stone
1c) metaph. a man like a rock, by reason of his firmness and strength of soul

[la$tminutepardon]

The Rock that we meet first in the desert, from which living waters flow. The Rock that the Lord described to the woman at the well, the first Samarian Christian! And here's one for you: Moses didn't get to go into the promised land, not just for killing the Egyptian. More serious was that he lost his temper and struck the rock! (From a Jewish commentary)

[FormerLib]

Most of the beliefs ascribed to Jesus were tacked on hundreds of years later by scribes or plotters.

Boy, talk about your bold-faced lies!

[FormerLib]

This'un will go to 500 replies and will plow the same ground, repeat the same arguments, flame the same flames, ignore the same evidence as a hundred other religious threads.

Plus, it seems to bring out the worst of the anti-Christian bigots on the forum.

[Isaiah_61]

As the bride of Christ, wouldn't the church have been referred to in the feminine gender in the greek?

[PFKEY]

I beleive the Rock the Jesus mentions is Peter's faith. The church is built on faith, not on a man named Peter.

[Gophack]

Had He meant Peter, there are so many ways He could have expressed the idea more clearly in Greek.

The Gospel of Matthew was written in Aramaic, not Greek, and it was quite clear, if you will read my previous post.

God bless.

[ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton]

Well said.

Basically, these Rascally Proddies would have you believe 2000 years of error was refuted by their unusually keen and perceptive minds.

But as someone once said: "AntiCatholic Biogtry is the last acceptable Prejudice".

[Gophack]

How do you know that Jesus and Peter spoke in Aramaic?

According to Karl Keating, a theologian, we know that Jesus spoke Aramaic for a variety of reasons, amoung which:

"We know that Jesus spoke Aramaic because some of his words are preserved for us in the Gospels. Look at Matthew 27:46, where he says from the cross, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ That isn’t Greek; it’s Aramaic, and it means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

What’s more in Paul’s epistles—four times in Galatians and four times in 1 Corinthians—we have the Aramaic form of Simon’s new name preserved for us. In our English Bibles it comes out as Cephas. That isn’t Greek. That’s a transliteration of the Aramaic word Kepha (rendered as Kephas in its Hellenistic form).

Matthew’s Gospel was written by him in Aramaic or Hebrew—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/Hebrew original is lost (as are all the originals of the New Testament books), so all we have today is the Greek.

[RnMomof7]

The ONLY reason you are making an issue of this is because .. IF Peter WAS the rock .. it would prove that he was the founder of the Catholic Church.

Irrevelant,the church soon drifted into error and the keys were taken away..

[RnMomof7]

The ONLY reason you are making an issue of this is because .. IF Peter WAS the rock .. it would prove that he was the founder of the Catholic Church.

Irrevelant,the church soon drifted into error and the keys were taken away..

[BibChr]

Actually, I've studied the issue for decades. Yours is pretty much a dead position. What we have is a Greek Gospel of Matthew. That is the only canonical version, and it does not read for the most part like "translation" Greek. And certainly, for the Christian, no exegesis can be based on a putative text or a hypothetical original (what Jesus supposedly "would have said in Aramaic), when the God-breathed and authoritative version we have is in Greek.

Glad I could help.

Dan

[Gophack]

I beleive the Rock the Jesus mentions is Peter's faith.

But this isn't what it SAYS, this is your interpretation of what Matthew 16:18 says.

To me, it says very clearly "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church."

Because I am Catholic, if I didn't understand what the scripture says, I go to the Magisterum -- the teaching authority of the Church. All Protestants have the same thing: if an individual doesn't understand something, they go to their Pastor. But different Protestant pastors will often render different interpretations ... even within the same denomination.

Catholicism is based on Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Many Protestants do not understand what Catholics really believe. Protestants don't like what they mistakening THINK is the Catholic faith. A little honest research might bring us closer together in Faith. One book I particularly like is Catholic and Christian, An Explanation of Commonly Misunderstood Catholic Beliefs.

I have many Protestant friends who I love dearly. One thing I noticed is that some of the best Catholic apologists are former Protestant ministers. They know their Bible, and they know more about the Catholic Church than I do, even though I was ostensibly raised in the Church. Catholics can and should learn more about their Faith. It is required of us, but many don't go past basic doctrine.

[Gophack]

Where does the doctrine of "intercession" through Mary used by Catholics come from?

I'm glad you asked that. Intercession comes from Scripture.

The apostle Paul frequently asked other fellow believers in Jesus to pray for him.

Col 4:3
At the same time, pray for us, too, that God may open a door to us for the word, to speak of the mystery of Christ, for which I am in prison.

Rom 15:30
... join me in the struggle by your prayers to God on my behalf,

James asks presbyter believers to pray over other believers.

Jam 5:14
Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters of the church, and they should pray over him and anoint (him) with oil in the name of the Lord

"you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundations of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone." (Eph 2:19-20

Catholic Christians believe that as we can ask a fellow Christian -a saint- to pray for us, we should be able to ask prayers from the saints already united to the Lord in heaven. If the prayers of certain Christians here on earth seem to possess special power because of their great faith witness or holiness, how much more powerful and effective might not the prayers of those of the communion of saints in heaven who are fully united to God.

There are many other references to saints, praying for each other, and offering prayers to God through those already in Heaven. I would be happy to cite them.

God bless.

[Paulus Invictus]

If his work was lost, how can he be cited as a source?