Are you infallible?

One Fold ^ | December 10, 2013 | Brian Culliton

[boatbums]

It appears we have many Martignoni fans on these OPEN Religion Forum threads - the reasoning he advises sounds awfully familiar. ;o)

[metmom]

Well, it happened, because I am not what I’d consider a Protestant in the way it is used today, nor do I believe that the other born again posters who post here are.

[metmom]

Read the Bible yourself and see where Paul and Peter CLEARLY tell us who the rock is....

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.

Also, here, Paul identifies who petra is, and that is Christ. This link takes you to the Greek.

http://biblehub.com/text/1_corinthians/10-4.htm

1 Corinthians 10:1-4 For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock (petra) that followed them, and the Rock (petra) was Christ.

http://biblehub.com/text/romans/9-33.htm

Romans 9:30-33 What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written,“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock (petra) of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

http://biblehub.com/text/1_peter/2-8.htm

1 Peter 2:1-8 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,

“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,”

and

“A stone of stumbling, and a rock (petra) of offense.”

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

All occurrences of *petra* in the Greek.

http://biblehub.com/greek/strongs_4073.htm

[metmom]

The church kicked them out.

The RCC ex-communicated Luther and at Trent, pronounced all kinds of anathemas against those who disagree with it.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

What doctrines do ALL Protestants agree on?

[Terry L Smith]

dear desertrhino,

There was a time in my employment history, where within the same organization, I was receiving phone calls from local law enforcement, concerning the bounced checks, written by the wife of the OTHER Terry L Smith, also within that organization!!!

(We had a wall-to-wall counseling session.)

The phone calls stopped.

[FourtySeven]

I could be wrong but I believe 1 Cor was written after the letter to the Romans.

At any rate its traditional knowledge that records both Sts Peter and Paul established the Church in Rome, and indeed the two worked together to establish the Church Universal in all the locations they visited either physically together or apart.

So this passage from the first letter to the Corinthians is not all that surprising nor is it harmful to Catholic dogma for the reasons described above and also for the fact that the direct answer to your direct question is: No, he was not given the keys as St Peter was.

This fact actually bolsters the Catholic claim instead of injuring it. No man but St. Peter was given the keys, keys which again had a powerful symbolic meaning (cf Is 22:21) that most certainly St Peter understood.

A king or his chosen steward would have many who would help build the kingdom,(so the fact that St Paul helped build the early church is irrelevant as far as a question of authority goes) but only the king or his chosen steward would have the authority to rule over the kingdom.

[Terry L Smith]

dear reset,

“My remarks were directed at your crappy personal attack towards another FReeper of good standing.”

In the world of individual commentaries, there is no such thing as a ‘sheepdog’.

The individual, that YOU feel was impugned, should be ADULT enough, to write their own replies ... unless you theoretically are either on their payroll, or .... infused upon THAT person’s SIX!!

There is no Constitutional legality against being offended!!!

[FourtySeven]

With all due respect you don’t seem to understand the point being made here. You can claim all you want that any commentary you (or others) give after citing Scripture is “just Scripture) but it’s not. It’s your opinion OF Scripture and therefore:

It (your opinion) is infallible itself if YOU are infallible or...

It (your opinion) is NOT infallible UNLESS you are given, by the Holy Spirit, the charism of infallibility.

Again, put another way, unless you literally only post Scripture and NOTHING else, no commentary or conclusion by you or others, then you can’t claim “I’m only giving Scripture”. You’re not. You’re giving your INTERPRETATION of Scripture which is, itself, either fallible or infallible as described above.

[CynicalBear]

We never get answers to those questions. They sure do put a lot of faith in fallible men telling stories over thousands of years.

[CynicalBear]

When confronted with scripture you simply run off?

[CynicalBear]

Jesus called Peter and unstable movable rock. He then distinctly said the ekklesia was to be built on unmovable bedrock rather than on that moveable unstable rock. And Peter surely did prove he was a movable unstable rock when he denied Christ three times.

[CynicalBear]

By that analysis you must think you are infallible.

[CynicalBear]

>>You quote the words and ignore the meaning.<<

So you have interpreted scripture and have determined what the meaning is? Was that an infallible interpretation? >>If you don’t hear from me, I am poraying for you and the rest of the lost.<<

Did you use your infallibility to determine that I am lost?

[CynicalBear]

Pleas show where I have interpreted scripture.

[FourtySeven]

How so?

[RnMomof7]

What doctrines do Protestants here agree on?

Faith alone, Christ alone ,scripture alone, to the glory of God alone

[paladinan]

What a catholic would call a “reputable” protestant scholar has to be the true joke of the millennium.

:) Well... since you have no one "final authority" by which you can say which Protestant interpretation of Scripture is *correct* (and there are thousands of contradictory ones, so please excuse me if I missed a few), I'm afraid I had to default to scholars who have high credentials and better scholarly pedigrees (rather than more modern, polemical, fly-by-night "scholars" in the style of James White, etc.). But feel free to loathe my choices; it's all one, to me.

You probably forgot that we have 28 strains of the gospel of Matthew in the original Hebrew, and they all show Peter as his life-long nickname ‘pebble,’ not rock.

Er... you do realize that there are NO existing texts of Matthew in "the original Hebrew" (which could well have been Aramaic, anyway), WHATSOEVER? Where on earth are you getting these ideas?

Beyond that, are you not aware that there is one, and only one, Aramaic word used for rock, when applied to Peter (i.e. "kepha", transliterated "cephas")? See John 1:42, 1 Corinthians 1:12, Galatians 1:18 and 2:9 and 2:11 and 2:14. Kepha means "rock"--no more, no less. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus (Who was most likely speaking Aramaic, and not Greek) said, "You are KEPHA, and on this KEPHA I will build My Church."

I'd be stunned if you hadn't already heard of the explanation for the "petra/petros" ending--that (as a study of basic Greek would show) "-a" is a feminine ending, and "-os" is a masculine ending, above and beyond any other considerations. Simon, being a man, would not have been named with a feminine word (unlike the sexually confused practices of today); thus, "petra" was altered to "petros" to accommodate his masculine gender.

Anyway, it would have been difficult for Yeshua to base his already existing assembly on the same weak mortal that denied him thrice at the home of the high priest.

Forgive me, but you're sounding rather confused, here.

First, Jesus said that "on this rock I *will build* (Gk: oikodomEsO, future tense) My Church"... which sets up a distinction between any already-existing assembly vs. the "Ekklesia" which Jesus had in mind.

Second, you're obviously stating your raw opinion, here--and a bizarre one, at that: are you seriously saying that anything is "difficult" for the omnipotent God?! What, would it be more difficult than redeeming the entire fallen world? Creating it in the first place? Have some sense.

Third: does your Bible not have John 21 in it (where Jesus reconciles Peter's threefold denial with a chance to express his threefold lone and devotion)? Does your Bible not have Jesus saying, on that occasion (over a week after Peter's betrayal), "Feed my sheep, tend my sheep, feed my lambs"? Does your Bible not have Luke 22:31-32, when Jesus says to Peter, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have repented, strengthen your brethren"? Jesus knew, full well, that Peter would betray Him... and Jesus chose to entrust the care fo His flock to Peter ANYWAY. Welcome to salvation history, where God writes straight with crooked lines.

The growth of the assembly began with Abraham anyway.

Of course, it did, in one sense (though I'd say that it began with Adam and Eve)... but Jesus makes plain in Matthew 16:18 (and Matthew 18) that His Church will be qualitatively different, albeit in continuity with the old. It fulfills, rather than abolishes (cf. Matthew 5:17).

Why don’t catholics “know stuff?”

:) One might as easily ask: "why is it so common for internet commenters to make arrogant and nonsensical comments like that, only to fall on their faces and fail even by their own standards? Why does pride seem so often to come before a fall? (Proverbs 16:18)"

[FourtySeven]

“Pleas show where I have interpreted scripture.”

This post is an excellent example of you interpreting Scripture. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3284198/posts?page=27#27

You’ll note in that post that you not only posted Scripture but you also wrote what you think those passages say. That’s the definition of “interpretation.”