WORD PICTURE; "ROCK"

Good day to all who read this blog and I pray it finds you doing well as our new year continues. I want to share some thoughts with you today from a well-loved and Godly professor of Greek I had while in college. This man has gone to be with The Lord in the past few years and some of us who remain are blessed to have his mind in the writings and studies he put together from years of searching The Holy Word of God. The following is from his book "Problem Passages Probed", copyright 1985, Mr. Donald Nash. "When Peter made the good confession in Matthew 16:16, Jesus responded by saying, "You are Peter and upon this rock I will build My church." There is a play on words here in the Greek of Matthew's account, for the name Peter means rock. However, two different forms of the term rock are used here. Peter is a masculine word meaning a detachable movable rock, which he proved himself to be later when he denied The Lord (Matthew 26:69-75) and when he dissimulated toward the Gentiles in Antioch (Galatians 2:11-14). The other word for rock that Jesus used about the foundation of His church was a feminine noun (with a feminine article and pronoun-which could not possibly refer to Peter himself). The feminine noun has a completely different declension than the masculine, and means a large, unmovable mother lode like the rock of Gibraltar. It is interesting that this word is used of Christ in 1 Corinthians 10:4. So the church is not built on Peter, but upon The Deity of Jesus as The Christ, The Son of the living God, which confession Peter had just made. This is in harmony with other scripture which makes Christ the foundation of the church (1 Corinthians 3:11); the cornerstone of the church discarded by men and acceptable to God (Acts 4:11); the head of the church (Ephesians 1:22). Although Peter was granted the privilege of using the keys of the kingdom to open the doors of the church to the Jews on Pentecost (Acts 2) and to the Gentiles at the household of Cornelius (Acts 10), it is nowhere indicated that he had more authority than John, James or any other apostle. Some have said this distinction between the two words is unjustified because Jesus was speaking in Aramaic, and there would be no such play on words in that language. However, the only account we have of this is Mathew's account in Greek writing under inspiration of The Holy Spirit and this is the way He reported the incident and so understood what Jesus meant. There did not necessarily have to be a play on words in Jesus' language just because Matthew was able to express it in Greek with such a pun. The great lexicographer Thayer says, "Some interpreters regard the distinction between 'petra', the massive living rock, and 'petros', the detached but large fragment is important for a correct understanding of this passage; others explain the different genders as due first to the personal reference, then to the material reference." Note, Thayer does not deny the classical difference between the two words as the possibility. Also, if you take the second statement of his quotation, the first reference in Jesus' statement would have been to Peter (the personal reference), and the second to the fact of His deity (the material reference), and you would come out with the same conclusion in either case." The author of salvation took the time to put in His Word what HE wanted us to know through study. Let's appreciate that salvation with high regard and put time into making sure, doubly sure, we know what His word has to tell us. God bless until our next time...