Mat 16:17–19 “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Who is the rock on which the church is built? Roman Catholics believe Peter was that rock, and therefore the first pope, and the current pope is always the current head of the church. If this is true, we are all in trouble, because Eph 5:23 states emphatically that Christ is the head of the church.
Matthew Slick explains. “…Jesus said that the rock he would build his church on was not the masculine “petros” but the feminine “petra.” Let me illustrate by using the words “actor” and “actress:” “You are the actor; and with this actress, I will make my movie.” Gender influences how a sentence is understood? Jesus was not saying that the church will be built upon Peter but upon something else. What, then, does petra, the feminine noun, refer to?
Eph 2:20 tells us that the Church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,” It wasn’t their names, personalities, professions, but their words on which the church was the foundation of the church. And why is that? Their words were Scripture as recorded in the Bible. Hence it was the revelation Peter was given that Jesus was the messiah, that was the rock, and not Peter himself. Peter spoke and acted sometimes with God’s blessings, and sometimes to his detriment.
Yet Christ, the head of the Church chooses him and displays that He makes straight lines with crooked sticks, just like us!
Soli Deo Gloria: Thank God Christ is the head of His church, and that He spoke His Word through chosen men. May we read and live those words as God still uses crooked sticks to draw the straight line of the Gospel to sinners and saints for His glory alone!