Peter the First Pope

God's holy people, have always had a leader of some sort. In the Old Testament there were figures such as Noah, Abraham, Elijah, Elisha and Moses just to name a few. In the New Testament people followed John the Baptizer and then later Jesus Christ. Since Jesus could not live on Earth forever, and die for our sins at the same time who did He left us a successor. The New Testament had not even begun to be written until 70 A.D. not to mention that it wasn't compiled and combined with the Old Testament and called the Bible until 397 A.D. So who did the early Christians turn to for guidance? The answer is of course the apostles.

IF the Apostles were to be the new authority for morality and faith the final arbiter of truth would then be the head apostle. In many places it is made clear that Simon Peter outranked all of the new apostles that were ordained such as Timothy, and he outranked all of the other eleven. In Acts 5:29 the high priest questioned the apostles before the Sanhedrin and when they responded Scripture records the response as being, "But Peter and the Apostles said in reply, 'We must obey God rather than men.". The fact that the verse says "Peter and the apostles " implies that Peter led the group's response in at least that situation. In Matthew 10:2 Scripture starts off by saying "The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew; " .The next few verses go on to list the others, but the important point to note here is how it starts off saying "FIRST, Simon called Peter" ranking him as first among the group of apostles.

In Luke 22:32 Jesus tells Peter that Satan is coming after him. Jesus also tells him that He has prayed for Peter that his faith will not fail, but that it will strengthen the faith of his brothers. It is clear from this verse that Peter is to be the backbone of the early Church after Christ dies, but there is still more. In John 21:15 Jesus asked Peter "Do you love me more than these?" And after Peter told him yes, Jesus commanded him to "Feed my lambs." That is to say Christ wished for Peter to nurture the people spiritually. Peter was to provide them with the guidance that they would need for salvation. Again in verse 16 Christ asks Peter "Do you love me?". And after Peter responds with a yes again Christ once more instructs him to "Tend my sheep". And finally, After asking a third time " do you love me?" Peter once more responded with a positive answer and once more Christ commanded him to"Feed my sheep". The fact that sheep is a metaphor for God's people is obvious because it takes place all throughout the entire Bible, yet here Christ is placing Peter in charge of leading the early Christians to heaven after the crucifixion and almost no one outside of the Catholic Church ever notices it. Furthermore, Peter's affirmation of his love for Christ being threefold in this passage is somewhat symbollic of his repentance for having previously denied Christ 3 times. It is easy tp ick on Peter for that denial but besides having three times reaffirmed his love for Christ he is also the one who took to physical violence against the Romans in order to prevent harm from coming to our Blessed Lord and he is also the only one to have had enough faith to even attempt to walk on water towards Jesus during the miraculaous calming of the sea.

And finally the most illuminating passage showing the primacy of Peter is Matthew Chapter 16. In verse 15-17 Christ asks "..."But who do you say that I am? "Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father." Here in verse 17 Christ has just told Peter, along with the audience of the apostles, that God the Father directly reveals things to Peter that He does not reveal to other men. In other words God placed thoughts in Peter's mind that others were not privileged to receive. Next in verse 18 Jesus says "And so I say to you, you are Peter (The name means rock), and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." In the Greek the verse reads thou art Petros and upon this petra I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not stand against it. There is a play on words that is lost in the English between Peter and rock. In the Greek the word petra is used because it is the massive metaphorical rock on which the Church is to be built. (Petra means large rock.) Many ask if Peter is the rock on which the Church was to be built why is the word Petros used in the Greek to name him, and the answer is simple. Words in the Greek language have inherent gender meanings such as male, female, and neuter. Petros is masculine for rock and petra is feminine for rock, but petra is used because it usually means large rock. Petros can sometimes mean small rock and some make the claim that Jesus was calling Peter a small rock unfit for building the Church upon. However, the common word for small rock or pebble was lithos, not petros. If Christ wanted to be clear on the subject he would have called Peter lithos if that was what was meant.

Another important point is that in the Greek, there is no other easy way to say that Peter is the large rock upon which Christ would found the Church. Another key point about this passage is that the common language of the land was not Greek but Aramaic and certain manuscripts contained the Aramaic version which reads "Thou art kepha, and upon this kepha I will build my Church...". There the same Aramaic word for rock is used twice leaving absolutely no doubt in the Aramaic as to what had been said. Furthermore, in verse 19 Christ tells Peter "And I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Almost all Protestants make the claim that Jesus, in this whole passage, is promising to found the Church on Peter's profession of faith which even in English would not make sense. For example Jesus would be saying something resembling the terribly inconsistent following phrases, "Bless you Peter for God secretly guides your thoughts, and I say to you; You are a small rock unfit for founding my Church upon, but again I bless you and I give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth (even though you are unfit to found my Church upon) I will still bind in heaven.

It is ridiculous to believe that Jesus blessed Peter cursed him and then again blessed him all in the space of three sentences. Also, if Peter is not the rock upon which Christ's Church was to be founded, then why does Christ give him the authority to bind and loose things on earth, so that Christ will bind and loose Peter's laws in heaven? The passage becomes much more consistent and sensible if one believes that in those three sentences Jesus says something like the following: "Blessed are you Simon, for the only reason you know who I am is that God secretly reveals thoughts to you that he reveals to no other. As a sign of your new position I will change your name to Peter, which means rock, and I will found my body of followers, the Church, upon you. God will reveal His plans to you after my death, and you will teach others these plans and what you teach them on earth I will judge them by in heaven. "

Another thing that often goes overlooked in this passage is the symbolism of the keys. The man who held the keys in other parts of the Bible was the man in charge and when he died he handed them down to his sons or successors. Again in this passage Jesus this time is saying symbolically that Peter would be his successor, the one who would be in charge after his death. It makes perfect sense that Christ would change Simon's name to rock just as he changed Abram's name to Abraham. Many of his prophet's names were changed when they took up new responsibilities for God. There can be of course only one rock on which the Church is truly founded, and that is Jesus (1 Corinthians 3:11). But that makes it that much more important that Jesus would give Simon the name Rock. Jesus is grafting Simon onto himself and making him the leader of the Church after his death. As was mentioned earlier there has always been a leader of God's holy people, and with Jesus dying for our sins he would have had to have left someone in charge. If no one was left in charge then people could pick and choose their morality by rationalizing away their favorite vices. For the Bible to mean anything their must be an authoritative interpreter. Elsewise, anyone could turn verses around to mean whatever tehir heart desires and this would lead to divisions, factions and eventually a split in the Christian Church.

The New Testament of the Bible had not been written at the time of Peter's appointment, and no other apostle received as much recognition in the matter of authority as did Peter. The apostles were not all exposed to Christ equally; take for example the transfiguration. Christ only carried with him Peter, James and John. (Matt 17:1-13 Mark 9:1-12 Luke 9:28- 36). Often Christ would be away from some of the apostles but if any of them were with him it was always Peter. The Catholic Church has claimed Peter as her first pope for one-thousand nine hundred and seventy five years now (33A.D.-2008A.D.). The Catholic church also has an unbroken list of who held the office of pope in every generation from the death of Christ until present. The word pope translated from Greek into English means papa, because he is a spiritual father to all Christians in the same sense that St. Paul claims to be our spiritual father ( 1 Corinthians 4:15).