Lonestar read this quote again about Matthew.
Begin quote-"He claims that this proves that the mere fact that the Catholic Church drives out Satan doesn't prove that she is of divine origin. But
here he is presupposing that the people who claim that they drove out demons in Jesus' name really did so. But the text does not make this clear. It
only says that they claimed that. Jesus never confirms their claim, however. So we do not know whether they actually really did cast out demons or
only engaged in pseudo-exorcisms.
Another possibility is that these folks really did do all those authentic and miraculous things at one point in their lives, but failed to endure to
the end. Here we do well to remember Ezechiel 18:26: "When the just turneth himself away from his justice, and comitteth iniquity, he shall die
therein: in the injustice that he hath wrought he shall die."
It seems, though, that the first interpretation is correct, as Christ specifically says, "I never knew you."-End quote.
Pretty straight forward, now for your challenge about the Pope, here is a good essay for you, hoepfully you'll see the truth:
Begin quote-"There is ample evidence in the New Testament that Peter was first in authority among the apostles. Whenever they were named, Peter
headed the list (Matt. 10:1-4, Mark 3:16-19, Luke 6:14-16, Acts 1:13); sometimes the apostles were referred to as "Peter and those who were with
him" (Luke 9:32). Peter was the one who generally spoke for the apostles (Matt. 18:21, Mark 8:29, Luke 12:41, John 6:68-69), and he figured in many
of the most dramatic scenes (Matt. 14:28-32, Matt. 17:24-27, Mark 10:23-28). On Pentecost it was Peter who first preached to the crowds (Acts
2:14-40), and he worked the first healing in the Church age (Acts 3:6-7). It is Peter�s faith that will strengthen his brethren (Luke 22:32) and Peter
is given Christ�s flock to shepherd (John 21:17). An angel was sent to announce the resurrection to Peter (Mark 16:7), and the risen Christ first
appeared to Peter (Luke 24:34). He headed the meeting that elected Matthias to replace Judas (Acts 1:13-26), and he received the first converts (Acts
2:41). He inflicted the first punishment (Acts 5:1-11), and excommunicated the first heretic (Acts 8:18-23). He led the first council in Jerusalem
(Acts 15), and announced the first dogmatic decision (Acts 15:7-11). It was to Peter that the revelation came that Gentiles were to be baptized and
accepted as Christians (Acts 10:46-48).
Peter the Rock
Peter�s preeminent position among the apostles was symbolized at the very beginning of his relationship with Christ. At their first meeting, Christ
told Simon that his name would thereafter be Peter, which translates as "Rock" (John 1:42). The startling thing was that�aside from the single time
that Abraham is called a "rock" (Hebrew: Tsur; Aramaic: Kepha) in Isaiah 51:1-2�in the Old Testament only God was called a rock. The word rock was
not used as a proper name in the ancient world. If you were to turn to a companion and say, "From now on your name is Asparagus," people would
wonder: Why Asparagus? What is the meaning of it? What does it signify? Indeed, why call Simon the fisherman "Rock"? Christ was not given to
meaningless gestures, and neither were the Jews as a whole when it came to names. Giving a new name meant that the status of the person was changed,
as when Abram�s name was changed to Abraham (Gen.17:5), Jacob�s to Israel (Gen. 32:28), Eliakim�s to Joakim (2 Kgs. 23:34), or the names of the four
Hebrew youths�Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah to Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Dan. 1:6-7). But no Jew had ever been called
"Rock." The Jews would give other names taken from nature, such as Barak "lightning," (Judg. 4:6), Deborah ("bee," Gen. 35:8), and Rachel
("ewe," Gen. 29:16), but never "Rock." In the New Testament James and John were nicknamed Boanerges, meaning "Sons of Thunder," by Christ, but
that was never regularly used in place of their original names, and it certainly was not given as a new name. But in the case of Simon-bar-Jonah, his
new name Kephas (Greek: Petros) definitely replaced the old.
Look at the scene
Not only was there significance in Simon being given a new and unusual name, but the place where Jesus solemnly conferred it upon Peter was also
important. It happened when "Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi" (Matt. 16:13), a city that Philip the Tetrarch built and named in
honor of Caesar Augustus, who had died in A.D. 14. The city lay near cascades in the Jordan River and near a gigantic wall of rock, a wall about 200
feet high and 500 feet long, which is part of the southern foothills of Mount Hermon. The city no longer exists, but its ruins are near the small Arab
town of Banias; and at the base of the rock wall may be found what is left of one of the springs that fed the Jordan. It was here that Jesus pointed
to Simon and said, "You are Peter" (Matt. 16:18).
The significance of the event must have been clear to the other apostles. As devout Jews they knew at once that the location was meant to emphasize
the importance of what was being done. None complained of Simon being singled out for this honor; and in the rest of the New Testament he is called by
his new name, while James and John remain just James and John, not Boanerges.
Promises to Peter
When he first saw Simon, "Jesus looked at him, and said, �So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas (which means Peter)�" (John
1:42). The word Cephas is merely the transliteration of the Aramaic Kepha into Greek. Later, after Peter and the other disciples had been with Christ
for some time, they went to Caesarea Philippi, where Peter made his profession of faith: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt.
16:16). Jesus told him that this truth was specially revealed to him, and then he solemnly reiterated: "And I tell you, you are Peter" (Matt.
16:18). To this was added the promise that the Church would be founded, in some way, on Peter (Matt. 16:18).
Then two important things were told the apostle. "Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be
loosed in heaven" (Matt. 16:19). Here Peter was singled out for the authority that provides for the forgiveness of sins and the making of
disciplinary rules. Later the apostles as a whole would be given similar power [Matt.18:18], but here Peter received it in a special sense.
Peter alone was promised something else also: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 16:19). In ancient times, keys were the
hallmark of authority. A walled city might have one great gate; and that gate had one great lock, worked by one great key. To be given the key to the
city�an honor that exists even today, though its import is lost�meant to be given free access to and authority over the city. The city to which Peter
was given the keys was the heavenly city itself. This symbolism for authority is used elsewhere in the Bible (Is. 22:22, Rev. 1:18).
Finally, after the resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples and asked Peter three times, "Do you love me?" (John 21:15-17). In repentance for
his threefold denial, Peter gave a threefold affirmation of love. Then Christ, the Good Shepherd (John 10:11, 14), gave Peter the authority he earlier
had promised: "Feed my sheep" (John 21:17). This specifically included the other apostles, since Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me more than
these?" (John 21:15), the word "these" referring to the other apostles who were present (John 21:2). Thus was completed the prediction made just
before Jesus and his followers went for the last time to the Mount of Olives.
Immediately before his denials were predicted, Peter was told, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat,
but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again [after the denials], strengthen your brethren" (Luke
22:31-32). It was Peter who Christ prayed would have faith that would not fail and that would be a guide for the others; and his prayer, being
perfectly efficacious, was sure to be fulfilled.
Who is the rock?
Now take a closer look at the key verse: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church" (Matt. 16:18). Disputes about this passage have
always been related to the meaning of the term "rock." To whom, or to what, does it refer? Since Simon�s new name of Peter itself means rock, the
sentence could be rewritten as: "You are Rock and upon this rock I will build my Church." The play on words seems obvious, but commentators wishing
to avoid what follows from this�namely the establishment of the papacy�have suggested that the word rock could not refer to Peter but must refer to
his profession of faith or to Christ.
From the grammatical point of view, the phrase "this rock" must relate back to the closest noun. Peter�s profession of faith ("You are the Christ,
the Son of the living God") is two verses earlier, while his name, a proper noun, is in the immediately preceding clause.
As an analogy, consider this artificial sentence: "I have a car and a truck, and it is blue." Which is blue? The truck, because that is the noun
closest to the pronoun "it." This is all the more clear if the reference to the car is two sentences earlier, as the reference to Peter�s profession
is two sentences earlier than the term rock.
Another alternative
The previous argument also settles the question of whether the word refers to Christ himself, since he is mentioned within the profession of faith.
The fact that he is elsewhere, by a different metaphor, called the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20, 1 Pet. 2:4-8) does not disprove that here Peter is the
foundation. Christ is naturally the principal and, since he will be returning to heaven, the invisible foundation of the Church that he will
establish; but Peter is named by him as the secondary and, because he and his successors will remain on earth, the visible foundation. Peter can be a
foundation only because Christ is the first one.
In fact, the New Testament contains five different metaphors for the foundation of the Church (Matt. 16:18, 1 Cor. 3:11, Eph. 2:20, 1 Pet. 2:5-6, Rev.
21:14). One cannot take a single metaphor from a single passage and use it to twist the plain meaning of other passages. Rather, one must respect and
harmonize the different passages, for the Church can be described as having different foundations since the word foundation can be used in different
senses.
Look at the Aramaic
Opponents of the Catholic interpretation of Matthew 16:18 sometimes argue that in the Greek text the name of the apostle is Petros, while "rock" is
rendered as petra. They claim that the former refers to a small stone, while the latter refers to a massive rock; so, if Peter was meant to be the
massive rock, why isn�t his name Petra?
Note that Christ did not speak to the disciples in Greek. He spoke Aramaic, the common language of Palestine at that time. In that language the word
for rock is kepha, which is what Jesus called him in everyday speech (note that in John 1:42 he was told, "You will be called Cephas"). What Jesus
said in Matthew 16:18 was: "You are Kepha, and upon this kepha I will build my Church."
When Matthew�s Gospel was translated from the original Aramaic to Greek, there arose a problem which did not confront the evangelist when he first
composed his account of Christ�s life. In Aramaic the word kepha has the same ending whether it refers to a rock or is used as a man�s name. In Greek,
though, the word for rock, petra, is feminine in gender. The translator could use it for the second appearance of kepha in the sentence, but not for
the first because it would be inappropriate to give a man a feminine name. So he put a masculine ending on it, and hence Peter became Petros.
Furthermore, the premise of the argument against Peter being the rock is simply false. In first century Greek the words petros and petra were
synonyms. They had previously possessed the meanings of "small stone" and "large rock" in some early Greek poetry, but by the first century this
distinction was gone, as Protestant Bible scholars admit (see D. A. Carson�s remarks on this passage in the Expositor�s Bible Commentary, [Grand
Rapids: Zondervan Books]).
Some of the effect of Christ�s play on words was lost when his statement was translated from the Aramaic into Greek, but that was the best that could
be done in Greek. In English, like Aramaic, there is no problem with endings; so an English rendition could read: "You are Rock, and upon this rock I
will build my church."
Consider another point: If the rock really did refer to Christ (as some claim, based on 1 Cor. 10:4, "and the Rock was Christ" though the rock there
was a literal, physical rock), why did Matthew leave the passage as it was? In the original Aramaic, and in the English which is a closer parallel to
it than is the Greek, the passage is clear enough. Matthew must have realized that his readers would conclude the obvious from "Rock . . . rock."
If he meant Christ to be understood as the rock, why didn�t he say so? Why did he take a chance and leave it up to Paul to write a clarifying text?
This presumes, of course, that 1 Corinthians was written after Matthew�s Gospel; if it came first, it could not have been written to clarify it.
The reason, of course, is that Matthew knew full well that what the sentence seemed to say was just what it really was saying. It was Simon, weak as
he was, who was chosen to become the rock and thus the first link in the chain of the papacy."-end quote.
You see after Peter, power was transfered through the Holy Spirit to Linus and on down until the present Pope John Paul II. As you know Jesus doesn't
lie, and if the Church stopped at Peter and the apostles then the "gates of the netherworld prevailed" which clearly contradicted Jesus saying it
wouldn't. Jesus gave power to Peter and the apostles to help "make disciples over all nations." Here is another article for you, this ties into
Peter (because the Pope is the Bishop of Rome aswell):
Begin quote-"The first Christians had no doubts about how to determine which was the true Church and which doctrines the true teachings of Christ.
The test was simple: Just trace the apostolic succession of the claimants.
Apostolic succession is the line of bishops stretching back to the apostles. All over the world, all Catholic bishops can have their lineage of
predecessors traced back to the time of the apostles, something that is impossible in Protestant denominations (most of which do not even claim to
have bishops).
The role of apostolic succession in preserving true doctrine is illustrated in the Bible. To make sure that the apostles� teachings would be passed
down after the deaths of the apostles, Paul told Timothy, "[W]hat you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be
able to teach others also" (2 Tim. 2:2). In this passage he refers to the first four generations of apostolic succession�his own generation,
Timothy�s generation, the generation Timothy will teach, and the generation they in turn will teach.
The Church Fathers, who were links in that chain of succession, regularly appealed to apostolic succession as a test for whether Catholics or heretics
had correct doctrine. This was necessary because heretics simply put their own interpretations, even bizarre ones, on Scripture. Clearly, something
other than Scripture had to be used as an ultimate test of doctrine in these cases.
Thus the early Church historian J. N. D. Kelly, a Protestant, writes, "[W]here in practice was [the] apostolic testimony or tradition to be found? .
. . The most obvious answer was that the apostles had committed it orally to the Church, where it had been handed down from generation to generation.
. . . Unlike the alleged secret tradition of the Gnostics, it was entirely public and open, having been entrusted by the apostles to their successors,
and by these in turn to those who followed them, and was visible in the Church for all who cared to look for it" (Early Christian Doctrines, 37).
For the early Fathers, "the identity of the oral tradition with the original revelation is guaranteed by the unbroken succession of bishops in the
great sees going back lineally to the apostles. . . . [A]n additional safeguard is supplied by the Holy Spirit, for the message committed was to the
Church, and the Church is the home of the Spirit. Indeed, the Church�s bishops are . . . Spirit-endowed men who have been vouchsafed �an infallible
charism of truth�"
Thus on the basis of experience the Fathers could be "profoundly convinced of the futility of arguing with heretics merely on the basis of Scripture.
The skill and success with which they twisted its plain meaning made it impossible to reach any decisive conclusion in that field."-end quote.
For further reading on succession:
www.newadvent.org...
Hopefully this clears up some stuff for you Lonestar.
[Edited on 3-10-2003 by Cearbhall]