““Peter, you are rock, and upon this rock I will build my Church””
Hey Kansas, are you deliberately misquoting what Jesus said in Matthew 16:18 to make your point?
Peter means ‘stone’ (think pebble). Jesus Himself is the Rock on which He built/is building His church.
And lest someone say I am quoting below from a ‘Protestant’ Bible, this is from the 1899 Douay-Rheims Bible...
Matthew 16:13-19 DRB “And Jesus came into the quarters of Cesarea Philippi: and he asked his disciples, saying: Whom do men say that the Son of man is? (14) But they said: Some John the Baptist, and other some Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets. (15) Jesus saith to them: But whom do you say that I am? (16) Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. (17) And Jesus answering said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. (18) And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (19) And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.”
Peter = rock?
Matthew 16:18 - http://bible.cc/matthew/16-18.htm
Jesus said that Peter was *petros*(masculine) and that on this *petra*(feminine) He would build His church.
Greek: 4074 Pétros (a masculine noun) – properly, a stone (pebble), such as a small rock found along a pathway. 4074 /Pétros (”small stone”) then stands in contrast to 4073 /pétra (”cliff, boulder,” Abbott-Smith).
“4074 (Pétros) is an isolated rock and 4073 (pétra) is a cliff” (TDNT, 3, 100). “4074 (Pétros) always means a stone . . . such as a man may throw, . . . versus 4073 (pétra), a projecting rock, cliff” (S. Zodhiates, Dict).
4073 pétra (a feminine noun) – “a mass of connected rock,” which is distinct from 4074 (Pétros) which is “a detached stone or boulder” (A-S). 4073 (pétra) is a “solid or native rock, rising up through the earth” (Souter) – a huge mass of rock (a boulder), such as a projecting cliff.
4073 (petra) is “a projecting rock, cliff (feminine noun) . . . 4074 (petros, the masculine form) however is a stone . . . such as a man might throw” (S. Zodhiates, Dict).
It’s also a strange way to word the sentence that He would call Peter a rock and say that on this I will build my church instead of *on you* as would be grammatically correct in talking to a person.
There is no support from the original Greek that Peter was to be the rock on which Jesus said he would build His church. The nouns are not the same, one being masculine and the other being feminine. They denote different objects.
HUH?
You have actually supported my position.
Peter is given authority by Jesus, in Heaven and on Earth.
Part of that authority was to set up the Papal succession.
Peter was the first Pope.