Thursday, August 24, 2006

Matthew 16:18a

And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church

Obviously, this is where we see great variety of interpretation. There are 4 leading views of what Jesus was communicating when he said this:

1) "This Rock" was Peter
This is the Roman Catholic interpretation and. I'll admit, if this were the only verse in the Bible, I'd take this view. It has 17 supportive citations in the Patristic writings. But I reject this for the following reasons. First, moments later Jesus called Peter 'satan'. Second, soon after the disciples continued to argue about who would be the greatest. Third, Peter himself didn't seem to take this view (1 Peter 1:10, 5:1). Fourth, the other Apostles didn't seem to take this view (especially Paul/James). Fifth, the early church didn't either.

2) "This Rock" was Peter's Confession
This seems to have been the majority view in the early church. It has 44 citations in the Patristic writings. Personally, I am not overly persuaded by the arguments for this view. Actually, I don't know many arguments for this view. I simply know a lot of people believe it.

3) "This Rock" was the Apostles
This view doesn't have many followers, but it seems legitimate to me. I think Peter was speaking as a spokemen, so when Jesus spoke back to Peter he was really speaking to all the Apostles. This interpretation has 8 supporting citations in the patristic writings. And Ephesians 4:11-13 might lend it some support as well.

4) "This Rock" was Jesus
This view seems to fit best with the rest of Scripture (ie. 1 Cor. 3:11, 1 Peter 2:10). It has 16 supporting citations in the Patristics. It seems to me that Peter interpreted 'this' this way. After all, it was Jesus' identity that was the subject of the passage.

What do you think?

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