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NASB | Matthew 16:18 "I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Matthew 16:18 "And I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades (death) will not overpower it [by preventing the resurrection of the Christ]. [Eph 1:22; 4:15; 5:23; Col 1:18] |
Bible Question: In Matthew 16:18-19. Explain the phrase "upon this rock I will build my church". |
Bible Answer: angel eyes, 3 of 3 A few other passages that deal with Peter’s unique position among the Apostles are: Luke 22:31-32 “ And the Lord said unto Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat; But I have prayed for you, that your faith does not fail; and when you are converted, strengthen your brethren.” John 21:2, 15-17. In this passage Jesus questions Peter three times whether he loves Him. “Do you love me more than these?” Jesus tells Peter, “feed my lambs…, tend my sheep…, feed my sheep.” He is appointing Peter as the Shepherd of his flock. But he does not address the several other Apostles who are present. It is clear that Peter is to shepherd not only the flock of lambs but also the other sheep. This has been interpreted by some to refer to the laity as lambs, and the clergy as sheep. All including Peter himself are sheep of Christ’s flock with Jesus the ultimate shepherd. But again Jesus is here delegating His authority to Peter to be a shepherd of the flock and the other shepherds. Earlier Jesus had promised the special guidance of the Holy Spirit to guide the Apostles and the Church in all truth. John 14:16-18, 26 and John 16:12-13. It is the Holy Spirit who will preserve the Church and the successors of the Apostles from teaching error. There are too many passages of Scripture Old and New Testament to list indicating the imagery of the shepherd as ruler. But this is the image in which the Apostles are cast by Jesus, with Peter as the chief shepherd by Jesus’ delegation of authority. The other Apostles do have similar authority invested in them by Jesus, but Jesus never gives them the keys nor deals with them in the special individual manor He deals with Peter. Their authority is real but must be in unity with Peter, the guarantor of the unity of the Church on earth by Christ’s investiture. The other Apostles or bishops represent the diversity of the Church and Peter its essential unity. I will not go into all the early Church Fathers who support this general understanding. I will only mention one of the earliest, a successor of Peter who asserted his universal authority over another local Church. That is Clement of Rome whose Letter to the Corinthians some wanted o be included in the Canon of Scripture. In that letter, circa 80-98 A.D., Clement asserted his authority over the Corinthian Church as Peter’s successor. The letter is easily available on any number of web sites. I cite it only because it is so early in the apostolic succession and because some argue that papal authority was an invention of the fifth century. The outward dressing of that authority may have developed over the years but the inner essential has remained the same. In the original Aramaic, Cephas or Kephas has no difference in ending or meaning. Only when translated to the Greek do the endings change. Paul refers to Cephas or Kephas, which makes it dificcult to hold to the petro / petra argument. In the Greek a man's name has to have a masculine ending even if the root word ending like petra is feminine. We know the other apostles called Peter Kephas or Cephas, because Paul does it in his epistles. We know Jesus spoke Aramaic because he spoke it from the cross when he said: "Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani" which is the Aramaic, not Hebrew, version of Psalm 22:1 "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me." Emmaus |