If the Roman Catholic Church is so bad...

The funny thing is that when Constantinople fell to the Muslims many Eastern Orthodox scholars fled to Europe. These scholars brought with them all the great writings of "western" thinkers (Plato, Aristotle, etc.). It was the monasteries in Ireland that preserved these documents. Some time if you get the chance read the book How the Irish Saved Western Civilization.

 

RC is still praying everywhere in the world, which means that they believe Mary is Omni-Present. Who is Omni-Present other than God?

It is absolutely heretic pagan religion despite any excuses and Inquisition and many murderous acts prove that RCC is not founded on the Words of God.

 

Well thank goodness for Eliyahu for clarifying that despite the fact that Jesus Christ established His church on Earth on the shoulders of Peter and that being his Catholic Church...it is somehow a pagan abomination.....however I shall follow my Deliverer in His Church unto Death. Amen!

 

B-G,
Thanks for your post any way.
1. The church which is the body of Christ (Eph 1:23)
was not established on the basis of any human being which is corruptable. His church was established on the Truth that Jesus is Christ, The Son of Living God ( Mt 16:16)
Petros ( Πετροσ) is male gender, while Petra(Πετρα) is female gender .

2. This female Petra was mentioned in Mt 7:24 as the Rock for the foundation of the church and for the believers.
Also, Peter himself mentioned this female gender Petra as the basis in 1 Peter 2:8 ( Rock of Offence) which indicates Jesus Christ.

3. Therefore we must accept that Jesus was talking about Himself as the foundation for the church.
We can also confirm this truth in 1 Corinthian 3:11

For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ .

4. Peter himself never claimed that he is the first Pope, but he confirmed that he is one of the elders as we read in 1 Peter 5:1.

The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder , and a witness of the sufferings of Christ


He was rebuked by Paul as we see in Gal 2:11-14.

5. Peter called Paul "beloved Brother" (2 Peter 3:15). I believe Paul called Peter as Brother too.

6. Peter may be one of the important men of God,like Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Isaiah, Paul, John, but it doesn't mean that our church is based on Peter who is dead and is waiting for the resurrection from the sleep.


7. If you believe that you have to go to Purgatory, your destiny may be worse than the Robber at the Cross because he went to the Paradise directly by believing in Jesus, while RC claims that only the exceptional saints can go to heaven directly without passing thru Purgatory.

8. Therefore, as you have to pay good attention to the alternatives when you buy a house, you have to check everything as much as possible when you choose the eternal house and eternal life. Where will you spend your eternity? Are you sure about your belief ?

 

The rock is Peter.

Petra/petros has nothing to do with it.

For one why would Jesus have spoken Greek to Peter sitting around one on one? Aramaic and Hebrew have only single words for "rock" - kepha and tsur.

Interestingly petra has been found in significant use as a loanword in Hebrew.

There is also an old midrashic tradition of God telling Abraham he was the "rock", and on that "rock" (petra!!) He (God) would build a nation.

Thus the use of petra here poses no problem.

And Jesus is clearly talking to Peter, after He has just said, "Blessed are you Simon..."

The only reason to deny that Peter is the rock is the fear that accepting this interpretation would bolster the case for the papacy.

 

WRONG! 1Co 10:4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.

 

Explain it any way you want.

Jesus Called Peter the rock. If you have a problem with that then take it up with Jesus.

 

Charles Meadows is correct. Jesus called Peter the rock. Now, we can argue and debate and discuss what that meant, but we cannot deny that Jesus called Peter the rock.

 

Gender in language does not usually indicate sex. It is only a means of classifying word forms. This especially true of nouns, just because it has a specific grammatical gender does not indicate anything about the sex or even if it could be referring to another word. So basing any argument solely on this will go no where.

I do not think that Jesus was refering to Peter. Why would he lay the foundation of the church on a man?

 

I don't agree. By "rock", Jesus was talking about Peter's true confession that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. Jesus was not referring to Peter as the "rock", as Christ is the Cornerstone.

 

Christ is also the "Builder" and in this sense cannot be the rock...he says, "I will build..." There is no textual difficulty in accepting Peter as the symbolic "rock", the firm faith, and not the man himself. I find it a better understanding to be referring to the faith of Peter's confession, rather than to either Christ Himself, which is hard pressed grammatically, or to Peter the man.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Webdog, you're referring to what Jesus was talking about, and/or what Jesus meant. I actually lean towards your opinion on that.

However, it's indesputable that Jesus called Peter the rock: "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it."

Petros, translated Peter, means "rock".

 

Petros means a stone like lithos and it is a male gender.
Petra means a big Rock which is female gender.
They are totally different.

I think Jesus spoke to Peter in Hebrew at that time.

Jesus called Peter "Kefa" but the Rock which Jesus was talking about ( Petra in Greek) was either Selah(5554) or Tsur (6697). I believe Selah is more possible than Tsur.It is mentioned in Isaiah 16:1.

You can find this at Crosswalk.com, in the foot notes:

http://bible.crosswalk.com/OnlineStudyBible/bible.cgi?new=1&word=Isaiah+16&section=0&version=kjv&language=en#F85


Therefore Rock should be considered totally different from small stones (on the seaside.) which was kefa.


The Rock which has been the basis of the Church was not any corruptable human being, but the Truth which is actually Jesus Christ.

Look at these:
1 Cor 3:11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.


Peter also mentioned Petra once again:
1 Peter 2:8
8 And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.

Here you can notice Peter use Petra of Offence indicating Jesus.

The fact that Jesus was mentioning female gender word, while indicating male gender for Peter, it means He separated two concepts.
How come Jesus condemn quickly Peter by saying " Get thee behind, Satan!" if Peter is the real foundation of the church?

Many people are trapped there because:

2 Thessalonian 2: 10-

because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

 

I reject the following belief:
The most of the true believers reject the followings:

- Idol making for Mary or Joseph or Jesus
- Idol worshipping for those statues
- calling Mary Mother of God, meaning God the Son of Mary.
- Immaculate Conception
- Compulsory Celibacy
- Papacy
- Papal infallibility
- Inquisition
- Whory Tradition of so-called holy tradition
- Infant Baptism
- No Salvation outside Roman Catholic Church
- Excuse on Crusade
- Purgatory
- Limbo
- Clergy system
- Mass which is ever asking forgiveness of the sins
- Confession to priests
- Transubstantiation ( Magic performance by Catholic Priests)
- Extreme unction
- Assumption of Mary
- Prayer to the dead
- Prayer to Mary
- calling Mary the Mother of the church
- all the signs of pagan origin such as ankh cross, mark of IHS, threefold hats for the pope, etc.


If I had lived the DArk Age under Holy Roman Catholic, could my belief be correctly recorded by RC's and be delievered to the people at that time, or recorded exactly as I said?

Could anyone have a chance to read what I believed at that time?

RC catholic tortured not only the human bodies but also the thoughts and beliefs so that they may distort what the true believers said and believed.

Simply speaking, if I said in the Dark Age under Roman Catholic that Prayer to Mary is Heretic, because Mary is not Omni-Present, then wouldn't RC condemn me as Heretic? They would have tortured and killed me !

What if I denied Peter is not the foundation of the Church, but Jesus Christ is the foundation as in 1 Cor 3:11 and Jesus Christ Himself is the Cornerstone as in Ephesians 2:20, could I still survive there under Roman Catholic?
What a horrible, whory, heretic Roman Cult !

 

Regardless what you think, it is recorded in Greek so why waste our time with your guessing games.

It still doesn't negate the fact that you are misusing grammatical rules. Gender in grammar does not indicate sex, it is only a means of classification of word forms.

 

Jesus cannot be the Rock?!?
To paraphrase what I think Jesus was saying...'You are Peter, Cephas, a stone...and upon your admittance that I am the Messiah, the True Rock and Cornerstone... because of this fact, upon this Rock, (Cornerstone, Measuring Stone) I will build My Church.'

 

My argument is still that the main reason for not seeing Peter as the rock is to avoid the appearance of supporting the papacy.

The petra/petros as it appears syntactically is a non issue -especially since they likely spoke Aramaic.

One could guess that the Aramaic would have said something like,

"anta hu kefa w'al kefa denah ebneh".

What matters is context!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

James Barr, D A Carson and others have taught us the fallacy of "word studies". The fact that petra is used in a good way some where else in the Bible, or the fact that "petros" is used as a stumbling block elsewhere in the Bible is IRRELEVANT.

What matters is how the words are used in context. Jesus has just congratulated Peter and said he was the "rock". Why on earth would he completely shift gears and chastize Peter? It doesn't fit. Now if this verse only featured Jesus speaking about building His church on the rock, not having called Peter a rock then this would be different. But He JUST finished said Peter was the rock.

Another issue to examine is idiomatic context.

We have examples of "petra" being used in Hebrew as a loanword. The midrashic example I gave shows a nice paradigm that Jesus may even have been thinking about when He called Peter the rock. Jewish tradition ( the yalqut sh'moni midrash) speaks of God telling Abraham, "you are rock and on this rock I'll build a nation."

Like I said - there is no reason to see the rock as anything other than Peter. That doesn't mean I or anyone else has to be supporting the papacy. But let's be honest and scholarly in our exposition.

Webdog. Why do you posit that Jesus was saying something different than, "You're the rock, and on that rock I'll build my church..."? That is clearly the most likely translation! What reason do you have for LOOKING for a different sense than that?

Like I said - I think you are TRYING to hard to avoid anything that would seem to support the RCC.

 

It was quite natural process of logic.
Otherwise, if one interprets the Rock as other than Jesus Christ, it contradicts 1 Cor 3:11, 1Cor 10:4, Eph 2:20, 1 Peter 2:8

Let them read those verses before anyone refute my points.

 

Except that this process of logic is inconsistent with the verse. It requires adding to this verse to come up with that conclusion.

Anyhoo, the whole premise of "Peter cannot be the rock, because Jesus is the rock" is wrong in the first place. One might as well say "We cannot be the light of the world, because Jesus is the light of the world". Yet, in once verse, Jesus says he is the light of the world, and in another, he says we are the light of the world. The premise set forth above requires that Jesus is either lying, or mistaken.

 

The mistake is made when you look ONLY at that one verse. The text in context...

Mat 16:13 (HCSB) When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"
Mat 16:14 And they said, "Some say John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
Mat 16:15 "But you," He asked them, "who do you say that I am?"
Mat 16:16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!"
Mat 16:17 And Jesus responded, "Simon son of Jonah, you are blessed because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father in heaven.
Mat 16:18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the forces of Hades will not overpower it.
Mat 16:19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth is already bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth is already loosed in heaven."
Mat 16:20 And He gave the disciples orders to tell no one that He was the Messiah.

The fact is, if Jesus were telling Peter that HE was the rock upon which the church would be built, How could Christ be the "measuring stone", or rather the "cornerstone"? Peter would then have to be the "cornerstone", which would contradict Scripture. Comparing Bible to Bible is key!