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The TRUE CHURCH is based on what Christ said to Peter...

Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church..

The word petros for Peter in the Greek is in the masculine gender and the word petra for the rock is in the feminine gender.

Petros and petra are two distinct words in the Greek. Petros is a shifting, rolling, or insecure stone, while petra is a solid, immovable rock.

This is why CHRIST is referred as the *Bridgegroom* coming for his *BRIDE* the *CHURCH* the rock (petra, feminine gender)

The word petros for Peter in the Greek is in the masculine gender and the word petra for the rock is in the feminine gender.

Just a hint ... do you suppose that the masculine gender of petros might have had something to do with Peter being a man ... ???

I mean, did you expect Jesus to give him his new name, "Petra" ... why not "Roberta" or "Juliette" or "Danielle"? The gender difference between "Petros" and "petra" simply reflects Jesus' conversion of "petra" into a masculine proper name. Nothing more.

Petros and petra are two distinct words in the Greek. Petros is a shifting, rolling, or insecure stone, while petra is a solid, immovable rock.

Wrong. Petros is used in a couple of places in classical Greek poetry to mean "pebble". It's not used that way in Scripture or any other Koine Greek literature.

This is why CHRIST is referred as the *Bridgegroom* coming for his *BRIDE* the *CHURCH* the rock (petra, feminine gender)

The Bible doesn't call the church a "rock" anywhere to my knowledge.

I'm sorry Tara, but your statement (petra, feminine gender) is wrong Jesus never called Peter “Petros,” or “Petra.” He called him Cephas, a name which Paul also calls him. Biblical Greek, including throughout the Old Testament Greek, always uses “Petra” for rock; when he translated “Cephas” into Greek, however, Matthew chose “Petros,” the male form of the word.

“Petros” is not a diminuitive of “Petra,” and occurs as such in no Christian writing. The word used for a smaller rock or a hewn rock is “Lithos.”

the writer or translator of the Greek text knows better than to give a man a proper name with feminine gender. To make petra into a man's proper name, you have to switch it to a masculine declension, so it becomes "Petros". Jesus could not have named Simon "Petra" if he'd wanted to, so the argument that there's some significance in him not naming him "Petra" is completely moot.

"Petros" is not used to mean "little rock" or "pebble" in Koine. The only examples of that usage are from classical Greek poetry, written centuries before Matthew.

You can refer Herman Ridderbos, Oscar Cullman, D.A. Carson, and many other Protestant scholars...