Matthew 16:13-20

Matthew 16:13-20 Peter recognizes Jesus as the Messiah and is given the keys to the kingdom

This happens in the region of Caesarea Philippi, which is 20-25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee and inhabited mainly by Gentiles.

Jesus first asks the disciples who the people say the Son of Man (i.e., Jesus) is.  How do they answer?

Why might the people have thought that Jesus was a return of one or another of these figures that preceded him?

Jesus then asks them: Who do you say I am?  Simon Peter speaks, and speaks accurately.  Who does Simon Peter say Jesus is (verse 16)?

Some translations use the word “Christ”; some use the word “Messiah.”  Peter would have used the Hebrew word Messiah, but the biblical text was written in Greek and the actual word in the biblical text is the Greek word Christos, from which we get our word “Christ.”  Both mean “Anointed One.”

Peter adds that Jesus is “the Son of the living God.”  (That is not in Mark 8:29.)  Matthew has previously identified Jesus as God’s Son in 2:15 and 3:17.  Including the term here helps clarify that Jesus is not the kind of military messiah the Jews were hoping for.  (For those who might be troubled that Matthew might be adding something, many scholars think Peter might have declared Jesus to be the Son of the living God when Jesus appeared to him after the resurrection, and Matthew may simply be combining the two declarations to keep things tidy.)

What does the “Anointed One” mean to you personally?

Why is it so important that Jesus is the Messiah?

Matthew builds the case that Jesus is the Son of God slowly throughout his entire Gospel.  In 2:15, Matthew applies to Jesus an Old Testament passage where God refers to his son.  In 3:17, God calls Jesus his Son.  In 14:34, the disciples say Jesus is the Son of God after he walks on the water.  Here, Peter identifies Jesus as the Son of God.  In 27:54, the centurion calls Jesus the Son of God.  Why is it so important that Jesus is the Son of God?

Jesus asks all of us: Who do you say I am?  We can’t let someone else answer this question for us.  If you didn’t feel bound to use the particular term Messiah or Christ, how would you answer the question: Who do you say I am?

People experience Jesus in so many different ways: as their savior, hope, healer, teacher, model, purpose for living, strength, the one they can share anything with, and more.

In verse 17, Jesus says to Peter, “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you,” but God the Father.  In what ways could you say about your faith that it has not been revealed to you by humans but by God himself?

“this rock”

Until verse 18, Peter has been known as Simon.  Here, Jesus gives him a new name in Aramaic which was the language spoken by the Jews in Jesus’s time (a distinct language but related to the Hebrew language).  The new name means “rock,” and that name has been passed on to us as Peter (Petros in Greek in the New Testament).  Jesus immediately continues by saying, “upon this rock [petra, which also means “rock”] I will build my church.”  When Jesus says, upon “this rock,” what does he mean?  Throughout history, the scholars have not agreed.  Is he saying that Peter is the rock, or that Peter’s faith is the rock, or that the truth that Peter professed is the rock, or that Peter’s confession of faith is the rock, or that the Messiah Peter proclaimed (Jesus) is the rock?

The Roman Catholic Church has leaned heavily on the first interpretation, while Protestant preachers have ranged widely while rejecting the first interpretation.

What do you think Jesus means when he talks about “this rock” in verse 18?

“church”

There was no “church” yet in Jesus’s time.  The Greek word for “church” that appears here appear only twice in the Gospels: here and in Matthew 18:17 (the NRSV in two other verses refers to a “member of the church” but the Greek in those places is “brother”).  What did “the church” mean to Matthew and his community?  They had to translate into Greek what Jesus said in Aramaic.  The Greek word for “church” is ekklesia.  The corresponding Hebrew word is qahal, and translators generally used the Greek word ekklesia for the Hebrew word qahal.  This Hebrew word was used for the assembly or congregation of the people of Israel, and that sometimes meant the entire people of Israel and sometimes a local gathering.  So when Jesus refers to the “church,” he could mean the universal church – the whole body of Christians.  But he could also mean the local manifestation of the church –  what we would call a parish or congregation – and that is clearly what Matthew has in mind in 18:15-20.  The word is also used in the New Testament in chapter 2 of the Book of Revelation, which addresses the “church” of Ephesus, the “church” of Smyrna, etc., and there it probably means the group of local assemblies that met in those cities.

The Catholic Church interprets this passage in light of the development of the papacy, a different view than evangelical churches, which reject the hierarchical superstructure of the Catholic Church.  Mainline Christian denominations and the Orthodox church reject the papacy but have hierarchies.

What do you think Jesus means when he says that upon this rock “I will build my church”?

“the gates of Hades”

In verse 18, Jesus uses the phrase “the gates of Hades.”  He does not say “the gates of hell.”  In Greek mythology, Hades was the god of the underworld where souls went when they died, and the name came to be used for the place where they resided: the abode of the dead, the netherworld.  “Hades” was the word used to translate the Hebrew word Sheol, which was the place of the dead.  There was no joy in Sheol, but it was not a place of torment.  It was merely the place where the souls of the dead went.

Jesus says that the place of death will not prevail over the Church: the people of God will not end up in the grip of (in the gates of, in the location of) death.  The power of death cannot overcome the Church.  We will end with God, not in the place of death.

When Jesus says in verse 19 that the gates of Hades will not prevail over the Church, he is saying that death is not our final destination.  What does Jesus’s promise that death will not prevail in the end mean to you?

“the keys of the kingdom” and the power “to bind” and “to loose”

In verse 19, Jesus two things that have been controversial through much of the Church’s existence.  He is still speaking specifically and singly to Peter.  He says he will give to Peter “the keys to the kingdom” and the power “to bind” and “to loose.”

Scholars have debated the meaning of “the keys of the kingdom.” The phrase is often interpreted in light of Isaiah 22:22, where God says that Hilkiah will become the master or chief steward of King Hezekiah’s royal household.  He will have the key to the House of David – “key” being a symbol of authority – and he will have control over whether the doors are open or closed.

Scholars also have debated the meaning of the power to bind and loose.  Father Daniel Harrington says, “The content of that power is not completely clear.  It may involve laying down rules and giving exemptions, imposing or lifting excommunications, forgiving or not forgiving sins, or even performing exorcisms” (Harrington, p. 68).

In Jesus’s time, rabbis might have interpreted these terms in reference to their teaching authority.  They would have been seen as having the power of excommunication (and Jesus was once expelled from a synagogue by rabbis who thought they had that authority).  The leading rabbis also made rulings on how to interpret the Scriptures.

The early church saw this teaching authority as being held by the apostles.  As time went on, this teaching authority passed from bishop to bishop.

In Matthew 18:18, the power to bind and loose is extended to all of the disciples in cases of disciplinary action in the local church community.  But only Peter is described as receiving the revelation from the Father that Jesus is the Messiah (Matt. 18:17), and only Peter is given the keys of the kingdom.

The Roman Catholic Church has develop a whole theology of the papacy, and this verse is part of that theology: that the Church is built on Peter, that Jesus instituted Peter in a unique role, that Peter has primacy in the teaching authority of the Church, and that his teaching authority is passed on to his successors (the popes) as the visible head of the Church.

Protestants reject this whole theology of the papacy and do not see any hint of papacy in this passage.  They see Peter as the leader of the apostles in Jesus’s time, but they generally see “this rock” as Peter’s confession of faith or the truth he professed or Jesus himself, not Peter, and they see the power to bind and loose as broadly shared by all Church leaders or the Church as a whole.

Note, however, that this is partly a disagreement over who has authority and how much authority, not over whether there is a teaching authority.  Protestants believe that their denominations have the power to determine who is and is not a member of the denomination and the power to decide what is and is not official doctrine.  That leads to a series of questions for people of any denomination:

In verse 19, Jesus is still speaking specifically and singly to Peter when he gives Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven and the power to bind and loose.  What do these statements about Peter mean to you?

How important was Peter’s role in the early Church?

In what ways does the binding and loosing authority of the Church benefit us (the authority to establish doctrine and to decide who is a member of the church or not)?

How can this authority be used wisely so that it is not abused?

Jesus ends this exchange in verse 20 by telling the disciples not to tell people that he is the Messiah.  This restriction was obviously only meant for a time; after his resurrection, they were called to tell the world all about him.  But why do you think he told them not to tell people he was the Messiah at this time?

Take a step back and consider this:

The arguments over the papacy have taken attention away from Jesus’s metaphor.  He says that the Church – which is the entire people of God from every Christian denomination – is like a building made of rock and built out of individual stones.

In Matthew 21:42, Jesus identifies himself as the cornerstone, quoting Psalm 118:22 (“the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone”).  Peter builds on that image when he writes, “Come to him, a living stone,” adding that “you, as living stones, are being built into a spiritual house . . .” (1 Pet. 2:4-5).   Jesus is a living stone, the cornerstone of God’s house, and we are living stones who help form that house of God.

This is a metaphor for the Church.  Each one of us is a living stone in God’s enormous spiritual building.  Each of us have our own, specific place in the Church that God is building.

How important is it for the stones that make up the Church God is building to fit together well?  How important is it for each stone to be fitted to the stone next to it, for each row of stones to be aligned properly upon the row before it, as part of God’s overall plan? 

In what ways are you a living stone in the Church that God is building?  Where do you fit in the construction of God’s spiritual house?