Peter as rock

Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 05-30-18 | Msgr, Charles Pope

[Salvation]

Go back and read the article again with other biblical references to the word “rock” and foundation.

[Fantasywriter]

Would it be convenient for you to cite the best one or two examples? I have cited ~half a dozen.

Tyia.

[MHGinTN]

Perhaps there is another more obvious answer that ...(we) are missing. We need only look at the preceding verses to find it:
15 Jesus saith to them: But whom do you say that I am? 16 Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. 17 And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:15-18 Douay- Rheims)

When Jesus talks about "this rock" he is not referring to Peter, but instead Peter's confession of faith in the preceding verses. Jesus isn't jumping from one subject (that He is the Christ) to another (primacy of Peter). It is a continuation of the same subject - who do people believe that Christ is. If you look at the following verse 20 you can see that Jesus has not changed subject because he is commanding them not to reveal that He is the Christ.

> Jesus thus does not declare the primacy of Peter, but rather declares that his church will be built upon the foundation of the revelation of and confession of faith of Jesus as the Christ. The "rock" gentlemen is our faith in Christ. (posted by Between the Lines) ...

After you read the above, look at the following list ...

[MHGinTN]

The only conclusion that one can come to unless you are predisposed to believe in man's tradition over the Holy Word of G-d is that Y'shua was speaking of himself as the "Rock " e.g.

Genesis 49:24 But his bow remained steady, his strong arms stayed [Or archers will attack...will shoot...will remain...will stay] supple, because of the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob, because of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,

Deuteronomy 32:3 I will proclaim the name of the LORD. Oh, praise the greatness of our God!

Deuteronomy 32:4 He is the Rock , his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.

Deuteronomy 32:15 ..... He abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock his Saviour.

Deuteronomy 32:30 How could one man chase a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the LORD had given them up?

Deuteronomy 32:31 For their rock is not like our Rock , as even our enemies concede

Deuteronomy 32:32 Their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are filled with poison, and their clusters with bitterness.

1 Samuel 2:2 "There is no-one holy [Or no Holy One] like the LORD; there is no-one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.

2 Samuel 22:2 He said: "The LORD is my Rock , my fortress and my deliverer;

2 Samuel 22:3 my God is my Rock , in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn [Horn here symbolises strength.] of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my saviour — from violent men you save me.

2 Samuel 22:32 For who is God besides the LORD? And who is the Rock except our God?

2 Samuel 22:47 "The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock ! Exalted be God, the Rock , my Saviour!

2 Samuel 23:3 The God of Israel spoke, the Rock of Israel said to me: 'When one rules over men in righteousness, when he rules in the fear of God,

Psalm 18:31 For who is God besides the LORD? And who is the Rock except our God?

Psalm 18:46 The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock ! Exalted be God my Saviour!

Psalm 19:14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Psalm 42:9 I say to God my Rock , "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?"

Psalm 78:35 They remembered that God was their Rock , that God Most High was their Redeemer.

Psalm 89:26 He will call out to me, `You are my Father, my God, the Rock my Saviour.'

Psalm 92:15 ..... "YHvH is upright; he is my Rock , and there is no wickedness in him."

Psalm 95:1 Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.

Psalm 144:1 Praise be to the LORD my Rock , who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.

Habakkuk 1:12 O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock , you have ordained them to punish.

shalom b'shem Yah'shua (posted by XeniaSt)

[Luircin]

The writer actually gets that part correct in the first part of his article.

It’s a good start. But then turning Peter into the foundation of the ekklesia, when at best the argument can only be made that all believers are, as Peter put it, ‘living stones,’ is where things fall down.

[MHGinTN]

Even Augustine taught that the foundation of the Ekklesia is the profession Peter mouthed, not Peter.

[imardmd1]

Your analysis of linguistics and grammar are not very deep, and you have some conclusions that are simply not acceptable.Jesus gave Simon the sobriquet of Kepha the first time Simon met Him, a few days after His baptism by Cousin John, and this was about two years before the time of the Matthew 16 passage. So Simon was called Peter long before the moment The Father revealed to him that Jesus, the country rabbi lad, was the Messiah. Of course, the rest of Simon's fellow fishermen were already using that nickname for him, and themselves had already admitted that Jesus was the Messiah, a conclusion it took Simon a long time to accept also.

< The reason Jesus settled the nickname Kepha on Simon was, in his foresight, to make sure no one ever confused Peter the pathologically determined vacillating seeker of dominance, with Himself, called "Selah" and "Tsoor" in the Scriptures, and referred to as Petra in the Apostles' writings. Some references to these definitions are Jesus Himself (Mt. 7:24-25, Lk. 6:48), Isaiah/Paul (Is. 48:21, 1 Cor. 10:4), and finally Isaiah/Peter (Is. 8:14, 1 Pet. 2:8), thus differentiating Himself from any other source of steadfast reliability for the trusting human.

It was the precision of the Greek that The Spirit used, through the grammar, to equate Jesus/Messiah/Jehovah/El with the figurative solidity of a countrywide geological formation of continuous massive rock (Petra/Tsoor/Selah), in comparison to one of many boulders or moveable large stones (Petros/Kepha) broken out or hewn and separated apart from that massive base, which were figuratively to be used for the construction of His organization consisting of all humans consecrated to Him and His Kingdom.

The Greek genitive thing has nothing to do with maleness of the individuals under consideration, but rather the differences in their substantiality. The words for "rock" in the Hebrew/Aramaic are masculine in gender, and there the differences have to be inferred from the context, not the grammar.

[nobamanomore]

I’m trying to figure out why any of this matters to protestants. After all, the only thing you need is faith alone, and once saved you’re always saved. I would think none of this would matter.

[MHGinTN]

PROTESTANTS are commanded to ‘contend for the faith once delivered’. So we do ...

[metmom]

Doesn’t matter what the Aramaic would say.

We have the Scriptures in GREEK, not Aramaic.

It’s what the Greek would say and those who would reject Jesus as the Rock on which HIS church is built would, of course, want to find ANY excuse to be able to explain it away as Peter.

[metmom]

I believe the author has enough education to think Jesus was not speaking Greek. What you are referencing is a translation.

OK, so now you can go and try to prove that your opinion is fact.

Prove to us that the Greek is a translation.

[imardmd1]

I find it interesting that those who insist that the Holy Spirit inspired the NT in Greek also insist that the Holy Spirit did not inspire some of the OT books written in Greek.

Your supposition is not factual.

The OT Bible was not revealed to gentiles except Job, and it was written by the authors to whom God progressively revealed His Will/Testament/Covenant. No Greeks were involved in the thousand-year-long process.

The Greek version of the OT books is a translation, however well or poorly it was done, and therefore cannot be God-breathed, or "inspired" by the Holy Ghost. So please don't continue to presume that the Greek translations of the Old Testament Scriptures are inerrant.

Actually, the Septuagint (LXX in Roman numerals) is full of errors, and is to be taken with a grain of salt, so to speak. It is as bad a translation as some of the newer English translations of the Bible are.

However, it can be used as a dictionary-in-place to estimate of Greek word equivalents of Hebrew words and phrases, and the meanings assumed to be in the mind of the Hebrew reader.

[wardaddy]

Foodfight

[metmom]

Jesus is the Rock on which His church is being built.

He never said to Peter, YOU are the rock on which I will build my church, nor did He say to the other disciples, HE is the rock on which I will build my church.

One does not build on a pebble, but on bedrock.

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

Paul himself here identifies just who the petra, that the church is built on, and it's JESUS, NOT Peter.

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.

[metmom]

1 Corinthians 1:11-17For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Paul and the Holy Spirit certainly blew the perfect opportunity here to establish Peter as the final authority of the church and settle the issue once for all, didn’t they?

[imardmd1]

There's more to a Christian life and employment as a reliable servant of God than receiving salvation. That moment of salvation/justification is just the first step in a life of discipleship, getting to know the Savior, His Father and ours, and living a repentant, committed life.

When one is aware of having been saved, you no longer have to camp out on that experience. One takes up his/her cross of witnessing the Gospel in word and deed, and moves ahead. Apparently the Romanists have no confidence as to the outcome until life passes from the physical body. Even then, they exist an unspecified time under condemnation in purgatorial penance, under their false doctrine. So they can never begin the abundant life in Christ now.

How sad. Non-Catholic servants of Christ do make unintended errors, but have an advocate with the Father, can have their errors instantly forgiven by Him (although not necessarily by men), and go on to fulfill their commission in this life, with more and better to come in the next.

Something to consider, FRiend.

[metmom]

What matters is that Catholics claim that their pope is the head of the church when Scripture clearly says it’s Jesus, and with that try to claim he is the head of ALL Christendom.

If Catholics stopped claiming that they thereby have authority over Protestans and speak for them, then it would be less of an issue.

There is also the need then for Catholics to stop using the term *Catholic* and *Christian* interchangeably as Catholics follow Peter and state that their church is built on him, while born again believers follow Jesus and are part of the real church that is built on HIM.

Conflating the terms is not accurate.

[rwa265]

I corrected my error in post 55.

[boatbums]

The Protestant to whom you refer fails to see the context and metaphorical sense of the texts and terms. He also fails to see that Jesus, while not abandoning his Church as her true head and foundation, does assign Peter a unique status to be the visible and identifiable rock on which the Church will be built. Peter (and his successors) is the rock, but he does not stand in midair. He is supported by Christ and his grace and affirmed by him as the visible rock and head of the Church. The Protestant approach is to see the Church as invisible. But Jesus did not establish an invisible Church. It is visible and with a visible rock and head: Peter and his successors.

Mr. Pope makes far too many presumptions about what Protestants believe or fail to understand. On the other hand, he makes many assumptions about things that are based on Catholic presumptions and not Biblical evidence.

Are you being intentionally provocative towards non-Caths again, Sal? How many times as this topic been rehashed and what could you possibly NOT know about our "thoughts" on it???

[boatbums]

What we have in such attestations is the application of a metaphor. Scripture, like any lengthy document uses many metaphors, similes and analogies. Such things can be true in different ways.

Ironical how Catholicism can attribute to "metaphor", "similes" and "analogies" certain things but then NOT be able to do so on others (i.e., "this is my body/blood").