In our last entry, we demonstrated that the entire exchange between Jesus and Peter in Matthew 16 was centered on the Word of God that Jesus had come to preach, a ministry He would shortly confer on the apostles.  Jesus had been commissioned to “bind up the brokenhearted” and “to proclaim … the opening of the prison to them that are bound” through the preaching of Good Tidings (Isaiah 61:1, Luke 4:18), and had come as the Good Shepherd to “bind up that which was broken” and to loose “the bands of their yoke” (Ezekiel 34:16,27). His preaching ministry was nothing other than a ministry of binding and loosing—binding the wounded and loosing the captives—by delivering the Good Tidings from His Father. He commissioned the disciples to do the same after Him: “as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you” (John 20:21). The disciples, too, therefore received a ministry of binding and loosing — that is, preaching the Good Tidings — and so Jesus sent Peter and the rest off to “bind” and to “loose” (Matthew 16:19, 18:18), just as He had been.

Continue reading Last to Know, Part 6 →

When Peter, the last of the apostles to believe, finally confessed that he knew and believed that Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus responded that the information had been revealed to him by His Father. In view of the harmonized Loaves Narrative we compiled in Part 1, Jesus had identified Peter’s response as a fulfillment of Isaiah 54:13 — “all thy children shall be taught of the LORD” — just as his followers throughout the Loaves miracles had also fulfilled that same prophecy (John 6:45). As we noted in Part 3, Jesus’ promise to “build My church” upon “this rock” was plainly a reference to the “stone” foundation of His own Father’s Word, the solid foundation He had identified in Isaiah 54. His next statement — “the gates of hell shall not prevail” — as we showed in Part 4, was just one of many restatements of Jesus’ promise that people who believe His Father’s words would not perish: “He that heareth my word, and believeth … is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). We also showed that His promise to give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven—Knowledge and Faith—was a simple reference to the ministry of preaching that Jesus would confer upon the apostles after bestowing the Spirit. In sum, the entire conversation with Peter occurred in the context of Jesus completing His task to preach His Father’s Words, and His plan to commission His disciples to do the same. It is therefore no surprise that Jesus’ next words carried the same meaning: “and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:19). Roman Catholicism has long desired to apply the power to bind and loose to a carnal, administrative ecclesiastical power to enslave the souls of men. But Jesus’ words mean nothing other than this: that He had received a task from His Father to preach the Good News, and had commissioned His disciples to preach that Good News after Him.

Continue reading Last to Know, Part 5 →

As we noted in our previous entry, it is assumed by Roman Catholics that Jesus promised to build His Church upon “this rock,” Peter. When that invalid assumption is allowed, Jesus’ next words — “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” — are infused with Petrine significance, as if the perseverance of the Church rested upon the shoulders of Peter and his successors.  And when that assumption is allowed, His next words about “the keys of the kingdom” and binding and loosing, are infused with Magisterial authority. However, as we demonstrated in our harmonization of the Loaves Narratives, Jesus’ response to Peter’s confession was made in the context of Isaiah 54, a context established by the Johannine account: “It is written in the prophets [Isaiah 54:13), ‘And they shall be all taught of God'” (John 6:45). In Matthew, Jesus confirms that context, explaining that Peter had converted because the Father had taught him (Matthew 16:17). The benefit of harmonizing the Loaves Narratives is that we need not wonder what Jesus was thinking when He responded to Peter’s confession. He was thinking about the preaching ministry described Isaiah 54. Isaiah 54 not only identifies upon which “rock” Jesus  would build His church, but also why the the gates of hell would not prevail against it. And when we see that the Apostles were commissioned, as Jesus had been, to preach the Word of the Father, we see plainly what Jesus meant by the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Continue reading Last to Know, Part 4 →

It is commonly assumed by Roman Catholics that Jesus changed Simon’s name to “Peter” because He planned to build His Church upon “this rock.” Catholic Answers, for example, says Jesus did this to assign to him “a particular powerful role” as “the foundation stone of the Church.” And yet, the Scriptures nowhere say why Jesus changed his name. Where the Scriptures do give reasons for assigning or changing names, we safely grasp the meanings. Where the Scriptures do not give the reason, we are not at liberty to assign a meaning on our own. The fact is, as with several other name changes and assignments in the Bible, the Scriptures provide no explicit reason for calling Simon “Peter.” Context, however, provides the information we need.

Continue reading Last to Know, Part 3 →

We left off last time with a harmonized account of the loaves narratives, in which the Feeding of the 5,000 and the Feeding of the 4,000 were integrated into a single harmonized narrative using information from all four Gospels, beginning with the death of John the Baptist and ending with Peter’s confession of faith. That confession is typically taken to mean Peter was the first to believe, but in reality he was clearly the last. Jesus’ response to him should be understood in that context. From this harmonized account we understand statements that have confounded Roman Catholics, but are clear in the light of God’s revelation to us in the Scriptures. We understand what it means to eat “the true bread from heaven”, to “eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood”, why the loaves miracles were the antidote to the leaven of the Pharisees, upon which “rock” Jesus promised to “build My church,” why “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”; and what it means to receive the keys of the kingdom and the power to bind and loose on earth that which has been bound or loosed in heaven.

Continue reading Last to Know, Part 2 →

The scriptural argument that Jesus built His Church upon Peter is itself built upon a single Bible verse without context: “And I say also unto 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 16:18). What is lost in the argument, whether from Patristic writers in antiquity or medieval theologians or modern Roman apologists—and yes, even some Protestants—is that Jesus said this to Peter in the aftermath of the two miracles of the loaves: the Feeding of the 5,000 and the Feeding of the 4,000. The events immediately following those miracles concluded with Jesus posing two different but related questions to the apostles: “Whom do men say that I am?” and “Will ye also go away?” Peter’s answers to those questions revealed that he had finally believed Who Jesus was, and in fact was the last of the apostles to do so. Only then did Jesus utter those famous words, “and upon this rock I will build my church.” By studying and harmonizing the loaves narratives, it becomes clear that the two questions Jesus asked arose concurrently and were answered at once. By understanding those questions, Peter’s answers, and Jesus’ response, we may also understand that “the rock” upon which Jesus would build His church was neither Peter, nor his confession, but something else entirely.

Continue reading Last to Know, Part 1 →