***I don’t believe anyone really knows but it certainly wasn’t to replace God.***
So, it was just some superfluous thing that Jesus threw out? He had nothing in mind by doing that? And it is just coincidence that the very next thing He says, in the same sentence, is “and upon this rock, I will build my church.”
The Church does not teach or hold that Peter was to “replace” God. Peter leads the Church on earth after Christ’s ascension and as there is no doubt that the Church still needs leading, his authority as given Him by Christ is handed down through the ages, along with the faith.
Well, at least you gave what seems an honest answer.
****Of course there were but the focus was no longer on the Jews as a whole because they had rejected Christ.****
There were some Jews who rejected Christ and some that did not. Just as there were some Gentiles who rejected Christ and some that did not.
The first disciples were Jews, the first martyr for Christ, a Jew and there were Jews throughout the known world who accepted the Gospel of Jesus Christ and who helped to build His Church with their lives and their deaths.
The Gospel is the same for all of us.
18. Christianity grew fastest among Hellenistic Jewry of the cities of Asia Minor.
“Consequently there was a substantial Jewish population in virtually every town of any size in the lands bordering the Mediterranean. Estimates run from 10 to 15 percent of the total population of a city—in the case of Alexandria, perhaps even higher.”[Meeks, The First Urban Christians(Yale):34]
“archeological evidence shows that the early Christian churches outside Palestine were concentrated in the Jewish sections of cities” [Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton):63]
“There is recent physical evidence suggesting that the Christian and Jewish communicates remained closely linked—intertwined, even—until far later than is consistent with claims about the early and absolute break between church and synagogue.” [Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton):68]
C. How Christians came in contact with others:
19. Living arrangements, by ethnicity and by trade groupings
“While we have no remains of private homes of Jews or Christians in Rome, it seems clear that the majority of Jews and Christians of necessity would have lived either in tiny apartments several stories above ground floor, in the homes of their masters or former masters, or in tabernae where their shops were located. Did Jewish and Christian families practice religious rituals in such homes? If so, what kinds of rituals did they practice and what did their neighbors think of them? Christian house congregations which met in the homes of believers probably met in the first-floor “deluxe” apartments. If Jews were able to congregate in buildings with other Jews, they would have found it easier to practice the dietary and exclusivity demands of their religion. Jews who converted to Christianity would have found their apartment building a natural place to proselytize.” [Donfried/Richardson, Judaism and Christianity in First-Century Rome (Eerdmans):133]
“The ground floors appear to have been occupied by shops, and the upper levels by prosperous families. The connection of these buildings with the social world of craftsmen and artisans is suggestive in the light of reference to the church in the house of Aquila and Priscilla (Rom. 16:5), whose property must have served as workshop, residence, and meeting place. As yet there has been no excavation of common housing from the days of the early empire in Rome, but the work of J. E. Packer and A. G. McKay on the insulae, or apartment buildings, points to the existence of amorphous blocks of tenements, one budding abutting another, that served the vast majority of people in the capital and other large cities of the Roman Empire…A typical insula contained a row of shops on the ground floor, facing the street, and provided living quarters for the owners and their families over the shops or in the rear. There would be space on the premises for the manufacture of goods sold in the shops, and accommodations for visiting clients, workers, servants, or slaves. The arrangement brought together a considerable cross section of a major group in society, consisting of manual workers and tradespeople. Such households were part of an intricate social network made up of other households to which they were tied by kinship, friendship, professional advantage, and other considerations. The strategy of situating the church in the home was sound, for it provided Christians with relative privacy; a setting where identity and intimacy could be experienced, a ready-made audience as well as a social network along which the influence of the Christian movement could spread. The conversion of households with their dependents helps to account for the growth of Roman Christianity.” [Donfried/Richardson, Judaism and Christianity in First-Century Rome (Eerdmans):209]
“Attention has recently been focused on the significance of the household and the workshop for Paul’s missionary activities. Households were not the private residences of today but were most likely to be large houses which provided shops at the front and living accommodations at the rear. There would also have been room for workshops and living quarters for dependents and visitors. Such an arrangement would have ideally suited Paul’s purposes by both enabling him to finance his mission through his work as a tentmaker (Acts 18:3; 20:34, 35; 1 Thess 2:9) and by providing him with a ready-made platform from which preaching and teaching could be conducted daily among the many who would have been around the workshop. The significance of the workshop has been brought into focus by research into the methods of other itinerant philosophers like the Cynics of Paul’s day. Rather than viewing manual labor as demeaning, the Cynics adopted it as an ideal way of life and as the means by which a teacher could model his philosophy to his disciples.” [Tidball, “Social Settings of Mission Churches”, in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (IVP)]
Organized settings, by ethnicity (synagogue) and by trade groupings (market)
“…Jews in most places were distributed through the whole range of statuses and occupations…The number of artisans who appear in inscriptions, papyri, and literary and legal texts is especially notable…”[Meeks, The First Urban Christians(Yale):39]
“In all the major centers of the empire were substantial settlements of diasporan Jews who were accustomed to receiving teachers from Jerusalem. Moreover, the missionaries were likely to have family and friendship connection within at least some of the diasporan communities.” [Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton):62]
unbelievers had free access to Christian meetings [Meeks, The First Urban Christians(Yale):106]
“…there is good reason to believe that Paul was initially accepted as a synagogue member in most locations. The thirty-nine lashes were discipline for a synagogue member, not quite the expulsion and ostracism which an officially designated apostate might receive.” [Esler, Modelling Early Christianity (Routledge):123]
http://christianthinktank.com/urbxctt.html
No it wasn’t a coincidence. Throughout scripture it is established that God is the only Rock. Peter has just confirmed that he believes Jesus is that Rock and Christ then says “upon this Rock I will build my church”. It’s the same Rock that God says "Is there any God besides Me, or is there any other Rock? I know of none." Once verse does not change what has been established throughout the rest of scripture.
>>Peter leads the Church on earth after Christ’s ascension<<
Only in the minds of Catholics. Even James was more the leader in Jerusalem. Paul wrote to the Romans and didn’t even mention Peter. There is no proof that Peter was even over the church in Rome nor that he was leader in any capacity other than to the Jews.
>>There were some Jews who rejected Christ and some that did not.<<
Romans 11:11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. 12 Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? 13 For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles
Through their fall is talking about the Jews. Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles, the church, not Peter as the RCC would like to portray.
Really...What is Peter's legacy??? What is revealed in scripture of the leadership of Peter that you are following???
What are the hallmarks of Peter's leadership that you are presenting to the world???
Peter was commissioned to preach to Jews, to convert them to become Christians...
Why is it not the focus of your religion to search out Jewish conclaves and to preach to the Jews, only???
Martyrs did not build any church...What if they were all martyrs??? There wouldn't have been any church...