Subject: What do you base your belief on? |
Bible Note: Please note in Acts 8:14 that Peter is "sent" by the apostles along with John to Samaria. Peter is not doing the sending; somebody else is. Also note in Acts 15:14-21 that at the Jerusalem conference, after Peter made his speech and Paul and Barnabas made their speeches, it is James who delivers the final verdict. Peter wasn't in "charge" of the church even then. And in 1Peter 5:1, he warns against ANYONE trying to "lord" themselves over the church. And in that verse he also recognizes that he is an elder just as those he's speaking to. Not a "special elder" mind you, just an elder. There is no hint in scripture that the words Jesus spoke to Simon Peter made him ruler and head of the church. I'm going to include some quotes from "The Bones of Peter" by Dr. W.A. Criswell. If there are no quotation marks, then it's my comments. "In the Greek there is a play upon his name --- "Thou art Petros (a stone) and upon thee petra (a stratum of stone) I will build my church." First Peter 2:5 says, "Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house." First Corinthians 3:11 says, "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Jesus." The meaning is self-evident. The foundation, "the petra", upon which Christ will build His church is His deity, which Simon Peter has just confessed upon a revelation from the Father. The stones out of which Christ will erect His church are believing disciples, one of whom is Peter himself." As to Peter being IN Rome, "Jerome (d. 240 A.D. declared that Peter, after being first bishop at Antioch, and after laboring in Pontus, Galatia, Asia, Cappadocia, and Bithynia, went to Rome in the second year of Claudius (about 42 A.D.) to oppose Simon Magus, and was bishop of that church for 25 years, finally being crucified head downward in the last year of Nero's reign (67 A.D.) and was buried on the Vatican hill." There is a problem with this account though. 1) It was written about the time that Calixtus I first made his claim based on Matthew 16:18, to be the current replacement of Peter; and 2) that account does not agree with scripture. "1. Paul was converted about 37 A.D. He says in the first chapter of Galatians (Gal. 1:13-18) that after his conversion he went into Arabia, "then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him 15 days." This takes us to 40 A.D., and Peter is still in Jerusalem." "2. Sometime during those days he made his missionary journey through the western part of Judea, to Lydda, to Joppa, to Caesarea, and back to Jerusalem (Acts 9, 10, 11). Then came the imprisonment under Herod Agrippa I and the miraculous deliverance by the angel of the Lord (Acts 12). Peter then "went down from Judea to Caesarea and there abode" (Acts 12:19). Herod Agrippa died not long after these events (Acts 12:20-23). Josephus says that the death of Agrippa occurred in the fourth year of the reign of Claudius. This would be about 45 A.D., and Peter is still in Palestine." "3. Paul writes in the second chapter of Galatians that fourteen years after his first visit to Jerusalem to visit Simon Peter he went again to see him. The first journey was 40 A.D.; fourteen years later brings us to 54 A.D., and Peter is still in Palestine." "4. Peter returns the visit and goes to Antioch where Paul is working. This occasioned the famous interview between the two recorded in Galatians 2:11-14. Peter is still in the Orient, not in Rome." "5. After 54 A.D., and after the Antioch visit, the Apostle Peter makes an extensive missionary journey or journeys throughout the Roman provinces of the East. On these missionary tours Peter takes his wife (1Cor. 9:5). They labor in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. So vast a work and so great a territory must have consumed several years. This would take us therefore, to at least 60 A.D., and Peter and his wife are still not in Rome but in the East." "6. In about 58 A.D. Paul wrote a letter to the church at Rome. In the last chapter of that epistle, Paul salutes twenty-seven persons, but he never mentions Simon Peter. If Peter were "governing" the church at Rome, it is most strange that Paul should never refer to him." "Romans 1:13 shows that the church at Rome was a Gentile church. At the Jerusalem conference (Gal. 2:9), it was agreed that Peter should go to the Jews and Paul to the Gentiles." |