Posted on 05/01/2015 2:36:22 PM PDT by NYer
There is ample evidence in the New Testament that Peter was first in authority among the apostles. Whenever they were named, Peter headed the list (Matt. 10:1-4, Mark 3:16-19, Luke 6:14-16, Acts 1:13); sometimes the apostles were referred to as "Peter and those who were with him" (Luke 9:32). Peter was the one who generally spoke for the apostles (Matt. 18:21, Mark 8:29, Luke 12:41, John 6:68-69), and he figured in many of the most dramatic scenes (Matt. 14:28-32, Matt. 17:24-27, Mark 10:23-28). On Pentecost it was Peter who first preached to the crowds (Acts 2:14-40), and he worked the first healing in the Church age (Acts 3:6-7). It is Peters faith that will strengthen his brethren (Luke 22:32) and Peter is given Christs flock to shepherd (John 21:17). An angel was sent to announce the resurrection to Peter (Mark 16:7), and the risen Christ first appeared to Peter (Luke 24:34). He headed the meeting that elected Matthias to replace Judas (Acts 1:13-26), and he received the first converts (Acts 2:41). He inflicted the first punishment (Acts 5:1-11), and excommunicated the first heretic (Acts 8:18-23). He led the first council in Jerusalem (Acts 15), and announced the first dogmatic decision (Acts 15:7-11). It was to Peter that the revelation came that Gentiles were to be baptized and accepted as Christians (Acts 10:46-48).
Peter the Rock
Peters preeminent position among the apostles was symbolized at the very beginning of his relationship with Christ. At their first meeting, Christ told Simon that his name would thereafter be Peter, which translates as "Rock" (John 1:42). The startling thing was thataside from the single time that Abraham is called a "rock" (Hebrew: Tsur; Aramaic: Kepha) in Isaiah 51:1-2in the Old Testament only God was called a rock. The word rock was not used as a proper name in the ancient world. If you were to turn to a companion and say, "From now on your name is Asparagus," people would wonder: Why Asparagus? What is the meaning of it? What does it signify? Indeed, why call Simon the fisherman "Rock"? Christ was not given to meaningless gestures, and neither were the Jews as a whole when it came to names. Giving a new name meant that the status of the person was changed, as when Abrams name was changed to Abraham (Gen.17:5), Jacobs to Israel (Gen. 32:28), Eliakims to Joakim (2 Kgs. 23:34), or the names of the four Hebrew youthsDaniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah to Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Dan. 1:6-7). But no Jew had ever been called "Rock." The Jews would give other names taken from nature, such as Deborah ("bee," Gen. 35:8), and Rachel ("ewe," Gen. 29:16), but never "Rock." In the New Testament James and John were nicknamed Boanerges, meaning "Sons of Thunder," by Christ, but that was never regularly used in place of their original names, and it certainly was not given as a new name. But in the case of Simon-bar-Jonah, his new name Kephas (Greek: Petros) definitely replaced the old.
Look at the scene
Not only was there significance in Simon being given a new and unusual name, but the place where Jesus solemnly conferred it upon Peter was also important. It happened when "Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi" (Matt. 16:13), a city that Philip the Tetrarch built and named in honor of Caesar Augustus, who had died in A.D. 14. The city lay near cascades in the Jordan River and near a gigantic wall of rock, a wall about 200 feet high and 500 feet long, which is part of the southern foothills of Mount Hermon. The city no longer exists, but its ruins are near the small Arab town of Banias; and at the base of the rock wall may be found what is left of one of the springs that fed the Jordan. It was here that Jesus pointed to Simon and said, "You are Peter" (Matt. 16:18).
The significance of the event must have been clear to the other apostles. As devout Jews they knew at once that the location was meant to emphasize the importance of what was being done. None complained of Simon being singled out for this honor; and in the rest of the New Testament he is called by his new name, while James and John remain just James and John, not Boanerges.
Promises to Peter
When he first saw Simon, "Jesus looked at him, and said, So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas (which means Peter)" (John 1:42). The word Cephas is merely the transliteration of the Aramaic Kepha into Greek. Later, after Peter and the other disciples had been with Christ for some time, they went to Caesarea Philippi, where Peter made his profession of faith: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16). Jesus told him that this truth was specially revealed to him, and then he solemnly reiterated: "And I tell you, you are Peter" (Matt. 16:18). To this was added the promise that the Church would be founded, in some way, on Peter (Matt. 16:18).
Then two important things were told the apostle. "Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt. 16:19). Here Peter was singled out for the authority that provides for the forgiveness of sins and the making of disciplinary rules. Later the apostles as a whole would be given similar power [Matt.18:18], but here Peter received it in a special sense.
Peter alone was promised something else also: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 16:19). In ancient times, keys were the hallmark of authority. A walled city might have one great gate; and that gate had one great lock, worked by one great key. To be given the key to the cityan honor that exists even today, though its import is lostmeant to be given free access to and authority over the city. The city to which Peter was given the keys was the heavenly city itself. This symbolism for authority is used elsewhere in the Bible (Is. 22:22, Rev. 1:18).
Finally, after the resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples and asked Peter three times, "Do you love me?" (John 21:15-17). In repentance for his threefold denial, Peter gave a threefold affirmation of love. Then Christ, the Good Shepherd (John 10:11, 14), gave Peter the authority he earlier had promised: "Feed my sheep" (John 21:17). This specifically included the other apostles, since Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me more than these?" (John 21:15), the word "these" referring to the other apostles who were present (John 21:2). Thus was completed the prediction made just before Jesus and his followers went for the last time to the Mount of Olives.
Immediately before his denials were predicted, Peter was told, "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 turned again [after the denials], strengthen your brethren" (Luke 22:31-32). It was Peter who Christ prayed would have faith that would not fail and that would be a guide for the others; and his prayer, being perfectly efficacious, was sure to be fulfilled.
Who is the rock?
Now take a closer look at the key verse: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church" (Matt. 16:18). Disputes about this passage have always been related to the meaning of the term "rock." To whom, or to what, does it refer? Since Simons new name of Peter itself means rock, the sentence could be rewritten as: "You are Rock and upon this rock I will build my Church." The play on words seems obvious, but commentators wishing to avoid what follows from thisnamely the establishment of the papacyhave suggested that the word rock could not refer to Peter but must refer to his profession of faith or to Christ.
From the grammatical point of view, the phrase "this rock" must relate back to the closest noun. Peters profession of faith ("You are the Christ, the Son of the living God") is two verses earlier, while his name, a proper noun, is in the immediately preceding clause.
As an analogy, consider this artificial sentence: "I have a car and a truck, and it is blue." Which is blue? The truck, because that is the noun closest to the pronoun "it." This is all the more clear if the reference to the car is two sentences earlier, as the reference to Peters profession is two sentences earlier than the term rock.
Another alternative
The previous argument also settles the question of whether the word refers to Christ himself, since he is mentioned within the profession of faith. The fact that he is elsewhere, by a different metaphor, called the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20, 1 Pet. 2:4-8) does not disprove that here Peter is the foundation. Christ is naturally the principal and, since he will be returning to heaven, the invisible foundation of the Church that he will establish; but Peter is named by him as the secondary and, because he and his successors will remain on earth, the visible foundation. Peter can be a foundation only because Christ is the cornerstone.
In fact, the New Testament contains five different metaphors for the foundation of the Church (Matt. 16:18, 1 Cor. 3:11, Eph. 2:20, 1 Pet. 2:5-6, Rev. 21:14). One cannot take a single metaphor from a single passage and use it to twist the plain meaning of other passages. Rather, one must respect and harmonize the different passages, for the Church can be described as having different foundations since the word foundation can be used in different senses.
Look at the Aramaic
Opponents of the Catholic interpretation of Matthew 16:18 sometimes argue that in the Greek text the name of the apostle is Petros, while "rock" is rendered as petra. They claim that the former refers to a small stone, while the latter refers to a massive rock; so, if Peter was meant to be the massive rock, why isnt his name Petra?
Note that Christ did not speak to the disciples in Greek. He spoke Aramaic, the common language of Palestine at that time. In that language the word for rock is kepha, which is what Jesus called him in everyday speech (note that in John 1:42 he was told, "You will be called Cephas"). What Jesus said in Matthew 16:18 was: "You are Kepha, and upon this kepha I will build my Church."
When Matthews Gospel was translated from the original Aramaic to Greek, there arose a problem which did not confront the evangelist when he first composed his account of Christs life. In Aramaic the word kepha has the same ending whether it refers to a rock or is used as a mans name. In Greek, though, the word for rock, petra, is feminine in gender. The translator could use it for the second appearance of kepha in the sentence, but not for the first because it would be inappropriate to give a man a feminine name. So he put a masculine ending on it, and hence Peter became Petros.
Furthermore, the premise of the argument against Peter being the rock is simply false. In first century Greek the words petros and petra were synonyms. They had previously possessed the meanings of "small stone" and "large rock" in some early Greek poetry, but by the first century this distinction was gone, as Protestant Bible scholars admit (see D. A. Carsons remarks on this passage in the Expositors Bible Commentary, [Grand Rapids: Zondervan Books]).
Some of the effect of Christs play on words was lost when his statement was translated from the Aramaic into Greek, but that was the best that could be done in Greek. In English, like Aramaic, there is no problem with endings; so an English rendition could read: "You are Rock, and upon this rock I will build my church."
Consider another point: If the rock really did refer to Christ (as some claim, based on 1 Cor. 10:4, "and the Rock was Christ" though the rock there was a literal, physical rock), why did Matthew leave the passage as it was? In the original Aramaic, and in the English which is a closer parallel to it than is the Greek, the passage is clear enough. Matthew must have realized that his readers would conclude the obvious from "Rock . . . rock."
If he meant Christ to be understood as the rock, why didnt he say so? Why did he take a chance and leave it up to Paul to write a clarifying text? This presumes, of course, that 1 Corinthians was written after Matthews Gospel; if it came first, it could not have been written to clarify it.
The reason, of course, is that Matthew knew full well that what the sentence seemed to say was just what it really was saying. It was Simon, weak as he was, who was chosen to become the rock and thus the first link in the chain of the papacy.
Can you show me how the following verses do not show that Mary is the mother of God?
The verses you cite show Mary is the mother of Jesus. They reveal the second person of the trinity who is Jesus.
Now, you show where, using the Bible, we are to told to pray to Mary, bow down to her, rely upon her intervention for our salvation.
I'll go paint my house while you dig those up.
Wrong. Mary is NOT the mother of God and it is no where found or implied..
Mary IS the mother of Jesus and THAT is stated so, explicitly, in Scripture, by the inspiration of the HOLY SPIRIT.
The Holy Spirit is clear in Scripture in calling Mary *the mother of Jesus*.
John 2:1 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.
John 2:3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, They have no wine.
Acts 1:14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
Sin is not the only condition in which people obtain grace. Jesus is also described as being "full of grace" (John 1:14) and He did not sin. So your rule does not work with Mary OR Jesus. Besides, it is not credible to suggest that God's messenger called her "full of grace" in order to indicate that she was full of sin. Sheesh. "Where there is no sin, there is no grace because the person is getting what they deserve, not getting what they don't deserve. Grace is only operative when the person doesn't deserve what they are getting."
Not so. Grace doesn't ONLY mean something unmerited. A beautiful Messianic Psalm 45:2-3 describes the Messiah (we know this is Jesus) as having had grace poured upon His lips:
You are fairer than the sons of men;
Grace is poured upon Your lips;
Therefore God has blessed You forever.
Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O Mighty One,
With Your glory and Your majesty.
The Gospel of Luke speaks of the Child Jesus growing in grace:
Luke 2:40
"And the Child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him."
You can't say the Messiah was graced because He had sinned!
And look at Psalm 84:11
"For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
The Lord will give grace and glory;
No good thing will He withhold
From those who walk uprightly." Likewise Proverbs 3:34-- "Surely He scorns the scornful, But gives grace to the humble."
These make no mention of the "sin" of the recipient of grace, but focus on the fact thew God will not withhold His grace from "those who walk uprightly" and "the humble."
Happily take into account all of these passages, metmom, which will enrich your understanding of "grace."
Can you paint our barn while you’re at it?
And Jesus is full of grace, to be given out.
Believers are given the same grace as Mary. The same word is used in the Greek in Ephesians.
The word grace used in this passage in Luke is used in one other place in the Bible and that is Ephesians 1 where Paul is us that with this same grace, God has blessed us (believers) in the Beloved. IOW, we all have access to that grace and it has been bestowed on us all.
http://biblehub.com/greek/5487.htm
Luke 1:28 And he came to her and said, Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!
Ephesians 1:4-6 In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
Greek word grace
charitoó: to make graceful, endow with grace
Original Word: χαριτόω
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: charitoó
Phonetic Spelling: (khar-ee-to'-o)
Short Definition: I favor, bestow freely on
Definition: I favor, bestow freely on.
HELPS Word-studies
Cognate: 5487 xaritóō (from 5486 /xárisma, "grace," see there) properly, highly-favored because receptive to God's grace. 5487 (xaritóō) is used twice in the NT (Lk 1:28 and Eph 1:6), both times of God extending Himself to freely bestow grace (favor).
Word Origin: from charis
Definition: to make graceful, endow with grace
NASB Translation: favored (1), freely bestowed (1).
Sure....we could probably tear it down and rebuild it many times over before the catholic can produce the required verses.
In the same way, it cannot be shown where the Holy Spirit ever inspired anyone to write that Jesus is God. But we believe that Jesus is God.
“I and the Father are One (John 10:30 NASB).”
I tell you the truth before Abraham was born, I AM! (John 8:58)
Exactly so. Although it cannot be shown where the Holy Spirit ever inspired anyone to write that Jesus is God, we believe that Jesus is God because this essential truth is revealed in Scripture.
Don’t forget about me. I still want to know about the keys.
The verses you cite show Mary is the mother of Jesus. They reveal the second person of the trinity who is Jesus.
Now, you show where, using the Bible, we are to told to pray to Mary, bow down to her, rely upon her intervention for our salvation.
I am not concerned with showing those other things about Mary. The verses I cite all reveal that this holy child who was born of Mary and whom Mary is the mother of is the Son of God. You yourself agree that they show Mary is the mother of Jesus, who is the second person of the trinity. So how can Mary not also be the mother of God in the second person of the trinity.
Mary is NOT the mother of God and it is no where found or implied..
Please show me how the verses I have cited do not imply that Mary is the mother of God.
She is mother of Jesus, who is the Second person of the Trinity INCARNATED. She did not pre-exist Him to give Him His existence.
So how can Mary not also be the mother of God in the second person of the trinity.
Because she did not give him His deity.
That existed before He was incarnated.
Ping to post 211. Forgot to ping you.
Why is it so critical to either yourself or to Catholics to declare that Mary is the mother of GOD?
Why isn’t the God breathed, Holy Spirit inspired term, *mother of Jesus* good enough for Catholics?
Catholics claim that the Catholic church wrote the NT.
Why did they use the term and why DIDN’T they use the phrase *mother of God* if that was the better one?
So if such translates into a papacy:
51 Biblical Proofs Of A Pauline Papacy And Ephesian Primacy
Catholics can't object to my list by pointing to post-Biblical evidence for a Petrine papacy, since the issue under discussion is whether the Biblical evidence supports a papacy. Nobody denies that a Petrine papacy eventually developed in Rome. The question in this context is whether that papacy was just a later development or is a teaching of the scriptures as well. If Ephesus had been the capital of the Roman empire and had possessed other advantages the Roman church had, and the Ephesian church had gradually become more and more prominent, the bishops of Ephesus could have claimed that the Bible teaches a Pauline (or Johannine) primacy. In fact, in other places I've noted early patristic material that could be cited in support of an Ephesian primacy.
Gen 1:1 In the beginning God
That's a pretty good place to start, right there...Bible readers and bible believers know that Mary is not the mother of God...Catechism readers and believers think Mary is the mother of God...
Bible,
or catechism...
No contest...
In other words, 'you can't...They don't exist...Never did...But take your word for it...
HaHaHa...
In Matthew 16:19, Jesus is specifically addressing Peter. We see in the book of Acts, Peter leads in the opening of doors to three different groups of people so they can enter the Kingdom.
This shows that different Apostles evidently had different roles--- James, the head of the Church in Jerusalem, convened the Council and formulated its decrees; Peter, who received the actual vision from Heaven, taught it and confirmed the brethren.
So Peter was "opening a door" here. But the power of the Keys also includes the power to "shut" the door.
That happened when Pete excommunicated that major troublemaker Simon Magus.
Actually Peter was a part of the problem and one of the factors in the Jerusalem Council being called ... That vision was to CORRECT HIM ...
Between iscool post #196 and this one, that Petrine chair is missing too many legs to sit in. Catholics try so so hard to make the Scripture to bend to fit their denominations beliefs that it is astonishing. That is energy best used elsewhere. I believe (but don’t have Scripture to use) that Peter wanted to be first at everything. He jumped up in the boat (he saw an opportunity) and asked if he too could walk on water. I can easily see him starting an argument over who was the greatest. He probably rubbed a few wrong in this effort to be first. Could it be that his listings as first on the Apostles was a gentle reminder of his trait? Again, this is just speculation but it fits as well as some of the Catholic logic, if not better.
Thank you or your attention to this fact.
(If I am repeating something I said before, please forgive me. I don't always read everything on the thread, and I assume that must be true for others as well. I'd never get outside into the beautiful May air if I did that!)
(Stick your head out the door and look at those Irises!)
This is how I understand it. Although the same or similar words, "full" or "filled" with grace, are used for three different people in the NT (Jesus, Mary, and the deacon Stephen), it does not mean exactly the same for all three. If it did, we'd be saying that the blessedness of Jesus, Mary, and Stephen are indistinguishable, identical -- which cannot be, as I'm sure you'll agree.
How can they be distinguished, then?
The Greek grammar shows how.
Kecharitomene used in Luke to refer to Marym is a Greek perfect, passive, participle, which could literally be translated "having been graced," since the root of the word is "charis", which means grace.
In contrast, Ephesians 1:6, where Paul refers to Jesus Christ, uses the aorist, active, indicative echaritosen, meaning "he graced."
See the difference? Mary, passive voice, she received grace; Jesus, active voice, "He graced." This is due to the fact that Jesus is a Divine person; on a far lower scale, Mary is a human person, a creature and handmaid.
In Luke 1:28 "Kecharitomene" is nominative or titular, since it follows the greeting "Chaire" ---"Hail [name or title] --- thus the name would ordinarily be capitalized in English translations, just as you would capitalize "Kate Middleton" or "Duchess of Windsor."
"Kecharitomene" is who or what Mary IS.
The unique feature of Kecharitomene is that it is in the Greek perfect tense, denoting that the state of grace began in past time, by a completed action (hence "fully" accomplished), whose results continue in the present. A suitable translation to denote all these features might be "Fully-Graced One." The Greek passive voice denotes that Mary received the title from an outside source, in this case, Almighty God.
The New Testament uses the Greek "pleres charitos" ("full of grace") to describe Jesus (John 1:14) and Stephen (Acts 6:8), but these usages are not as specific to time, agent and continuity as Kecharitomene. Again, a feature of Greek grammar.
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