The apostle Peter vs. your Preacher!
Mt 16:15-20 15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
17 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.
18 And I say also unto 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 unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
20 Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ (Messiah).
Parallel passages Mark 8:29 and Luke 9:20,21
Mark 8:29,30 - 29 And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ. 30 And he charged them that they should tell no man of him.
The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769 Luke 9:20,21 - 20 He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Peter answering said, The Christ of God. 21 And he straitly charged them, and commanded them to tell no man that thing;
The King James Version, (Cambridge: Cambridge) 1769. Lots of stuff in these verses!
First, if there was ever a time for Yahshua to clarify exactly who and what he was this was the time! Yet he gave no hint that he is YHVH (God), neither did he chastise Peter's failure to acknowledge him as God. This is one of the clearest, most precise statements as to exactly who Yahshua is that we can find in the entire Bible! Yahshua asked a simple direct question, "Who do you say that I am?" Peter gave a simple, direct answer, "Thou art the MESSIAH, the SON OF the Living God." Yahshua then agreed with Peter and said Peter's understanding was revealed to him from YHVH. Now, IF Yahshua is YHVH, why didn't he correct Peter? This would have been the perfect time to explain the "mystery" of the Trinity. It also gave Yahshua an excellent opportunity to delve into the alleged Kabbalistic mysticism behind his "divine" nature. Why didn't Yahshua take it upon himself to "correct" Peter's failure to grasp the fact that he is YHVH or to expound upon the "mystery" of his man-God essence?
Instead of "correcting" Peter's "ignorance" Yahshua blessed him - clearly inferring Peter was exactly right in his description! Would Yahshua "bless" Peter for giving an incorrect answer? The simple and inescapable fact is Peter was correct, and there was no need for Yahshua to add anything to Peter's understanding!
I suppose Trinitarians, counterfeit Messianics, and others that promote the concept that Yahshua is God like to fancy themselves with the following spurious account of the conversation between Yahshua and Peter. I will avail myself with the use of a pet phrase ("liar, lunatic, or God") common among those that promote Yahshua is God.
"Peter, who do you say that I am, a liar, a lunatic, or God?" Peter responds, "Well, Rabbi Yahshua you certainly are not a liar, and even though some may consider you a lunatic I most certainly do not. And, since even you worship the One True God of Israel and recite the Shema daily - "Here O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is ONE!" - I absolutely do not even allow myself to think the blasphemy that you are God. No. I always figured you were the promised Messiah prophesied by our fathers."
"Peter, you poor stupid fisherman. Do you not realize you are eternally damned for not recognizing that I am God just as the creeds say? Forget what the fathers said. Don't you know it is a mystery that can only be understood through mysticism? Stop basing your faith only on the written Holy Scriptures of our fathers! Only the ignorant limit themselves to such things."
"Creeds? What creeds? Our faith has no need for creeds. We have the Holy Scriptures, and in them the Holy One teaches us we are not to add to His eternal instructions. What creeds are you talking about my lord?"
"Never mind the creeds. They won't be here for a few hundred years. Inquisitors! Take him away to be tortured and burn him if he doesn't accept the creeds of those that are not so uncultured and stupid as he! Oh! And before he dies inform him I no longer wish to be called by my actual Hebrew name of Yahshua any longer. I think I'll change my name to Iesous (jesus) so that I can be more acceptable to those that worship 'other gods'."
Well, such was not the conversation, and Yahshua praised Peter for his YHVH-given insight.
Today very few Christian pastors, theologians, or "Messianics" agree with Peter and do not really know who Yahshua is. They are proclaiming a totally unscriptural "Christ!"
One of the primary reasons for Christian ignorance of the true Messiah is a gross misunderstanding of the true "gospel of the Kingdom" which promises a literal Kingdom with Yahshua reigning as King - THUS FULFILLING THE SURE PROMISES TO ABRAHAM, ISAAC, AND OTHERS THAT THEY WOULD LITERALLY INHERIT THE LAND! In order to do this they must be resurrected, which is the basis for Yahshua's answer to the Sadducees elsewhere in Matt. 22:29-32 and the ultimate basis for the hope of a resurrection.
When Christianity in the early centuries brutally and intentionally divested itself of the Hebraic mindset it lost virtually all truth, developed a largely false religion, and the anti-Messianic Beastly religion achieved dominance. THE major error that ensued was throwing out Peter's confession and creating a new "Christological creed". Anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism lie at the very core of Traditional Christian dogma. When the Hebraic foundations were (and still are) discarded, truth perished.
Secondly, regarding the Catholic teaching that Peter was the first Pope... Peter apparently didn't realize he was a "pope" since the first leader of the Messianic faith in Jerusalem was James - the brother of Yahshua. In fact, until the defeat of Israel by the Romans in 135CE, there were fifteen Jewish congregational leaders of the Jerusalem Messianic community - which was the headquarters of the Messianic faith, and Peter was not one of them! They were all relatives of Yahshua. Only after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and defeated Bar Kochva to end the war with the Jews did a non-Jewish leader arise, and he - Bishop Marcus - was "appointed" by the Roman Emperor Hadrian with a prime objective being to rid the faith of "Jewishness"! Hadrian was the same emperor than made circumcision a capital offense in 130CE; therefore, it doesn't take much imagination to figure out where he or his appointed church bishop stood with regard to Judiac truths. He even banned Jews from entering Jerusalem - a ban which lasted many years. Atop the ruins of our Holy Jerusalem, the Romans built their new pagan city of "Aelia Capitolina" - with their pagan Temple dedicated to their god Jupiter, also known as Zeus, Capitolinus.
Having crushed Israel in war, the Roman gentiles destroyed and paganized the Holy Capital, eradicated the last genealogy of the House of David (except that of Yahshua), and replaced the annual Temple tax with a higher tax to maintain their pagan temple of Jupiter (Zeus). It was then (135CE) that the true Body of Messiah was forced aside and the Beast began his expanding effort to "change times and laws". One of his first changes was to replace the One God with his pagan Trinity and to confuse the true nature and final mission of the Messiah. Oh, and of course he couldn't allow the Jewish name of the Messiah to remain; so, he changed that also into the false name "Jesus" - evidence of which exist to suggest is a name which gives honor to the pagan god, Zeus.
Peter was never the Pope of anything. The historical record proves without doubt Peter was never the leader of the "church". Thirdly, regarding the "keys to the Kingdom" and how "whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth..." The "keys" are a known metaphor denoting authority to "bind and loose". I will let the following excerpt from The Jewish New Testament Commentary speak for me. This is commentary of Matthew 18:18 which also mentions "binding and loosing":
The words rendered "prohibit" and "permit" (v. 18) are, literally, "bind" and "loose." These terms were used in first century Judaism to mean "prohibit" and "permit," as is clear from the article, "Binding and Loosing," in the Jewish Encyclopedia, 3:215: "BINDING AND LOOSING" ... Rabbinical term for 'forbidding and permitting.' ... "The power of binding and loosing was always claimed by the Pharisees. Under Queen Alexandra the Pharisees, says Josephus (Wars of the Jews 1:5:2), 'became the administrators of all public affairs so as to be empowered to banish and readmit whom they pleased, as well as to loose and to bind.' ... The various schools had the power 'to bind and to loose'; that is, to forbid and to permit (Talmud: Chagigah 3b); and they could bind any day by declaring it a fast-day ( ... Talmud: Ta'anit 12a ... ). This power and authority, vested in the rabbinical body of each age or in the Sanhedrin, received its ratification and final sanction from the celestial court of justice (Sifra, Emor, ix; Talmud: Makkot 23b).
"In this sense Jesus, when appointing his disciples to be his successors, used the familiar formula (Matt 16:19, 18:18). By these words he virtually invested them with the same authority as that which he found belonging to the scribes and Pharisees who 'bind heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, but will not move them with one of their fingers'; that is, 'loose them,' as they have the power to do (Matt 23:2-4)....
...a very different, non-Jewish interpretation, equating binding and loosing with remitting and retaining sins (John 20:23), was adopted by Tertullian and all the church fathers, thus investing the head of the Christian Church with the power to forgive sins, referred to on the basis of Mt 16:18 as the "key power of the Church." Needless to say, I reject this later understanding which bears no relationship to the Jewish context. The Jewish New Testament Commentary, (Clarksville, MD: Jewish New Testament Publications) 1996.