When Jesus said "On this rock, I build my church", what rock do you think he was talking about?

Answer 1

He was talking about St. Peter. All this stuff about Peter being the little rock "petros" and Jesus being the big rock "Petra" is the result of bad teaching. The reason for the minor difference in words has to do with the gender of the Greek words. It would have been awkward to call Simon Petra as it is a feminine noun in Greek. The Aramaic would have gone something like this: I say to you, you are Kepa, and on this Kepa I will build my Church. It was the same word in the Language that Jesus and Peter were speaking. It is also instructive to know that there was a perfectly good word for small stone available to Matthew if that is the message he wanted to get across "lithos" means little stone. Ask yourself, why would Christ bother to change Simon's name to Rock at the same time that he said he would build his Church on the Rock? What other reason could there have been? Peter is the Rock, like it or not.

Answer 2

Most people will answer "Peter," mainly because Jesus was talking to Peter at the time, and, in Greek the name Peter is 'petros,' which means rock. But, he was referring to himself. See Ephesians 2: 20 and Mark 12: 10, which both refer to Jesus as the chief cornerstone, or rock. Also, Colossians 1: 18--Jesus is the head of the congregation, or church.

Answer 3

The same one they built this city on. Rock and Roll. Actually if you read the gospel of Phillip, bound in the apocrypha, you will find that Jesus intended for the church to be left to his wife at the time, Mary Magdeline. However when the church cannonized the holy Bible, they excluded any inferences to Jesus' humanity, and the church changed the overall meaning to reflect Peter as the head of the new church.

Answer 4

This is a common eisegetical error by some Protestants with only a basic knowledge of Greek. Spoken in Aramaic the word is "Kepha", the Koine Greek word is "Petros" and it means a rock. "Petra" is the feminine form of the word "Petros". In Koine Greek there is no distinction between the feminine form and the masculine form of the word. In the Aramaic "Kepha" has no gender. It would have been very awkward for Jesus to have called St. Peter in a feminine gender when it was translated into the Koine Greek as it would imply that St. Peter was effeminate. Such was not Jesus' intent. So what Jesus was saying is thou art Peter (Petros=rock) and upon this Peter (Petra=rock) I will build my Church. God bless! In Christ Fr. Joseph NOTE: For those saying that Petros and Petra have different meanings, you are using an archaic definition from a dead language. The meaning you are using is the meaning in Attic Greek which had been deed for hundreds of years before Christ. In Koine Greek which was the language of the first century there was no difference in the meaning which meant rock in both the feminine and the masculine forms.

Answer 5

Jesus was speaking in Aramaic and the word is Cephas. He tells Simon "Thou are Peter (Cephas) and upon this rock(Cephas) I will build my church. After this Peter is always named first among the Apostles. So the Rock Jesus is talking about can only be Peter.

Some Protestants claim that since the Bible was written in Greek there are two words for rock, Petra (large rock) and Petros (small rock). Peter is Petros (small rock) and the Petra (large rock) must refer to something else. This is false thinking. In Greek you cannot use the word "Petra" for a man since the word is in the feminine form. Also Jesus wasn't speaking in Greek.

Answer 6

Don't you know that He meant Peter - in some way???
It's in the same sentence in the Bible. Peter was the first pope - so: the base of the church. It;s a metaphore, of course.

In Matthew 16:18, the word "rock" refers to Peter's confession of faith, and not to Peter himself, despite the fact that Peter/rock is a play on the word for rock in Aramaic [petros] and Greek [petra]. As we read in 1
Corinthians 10:4, "...they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ," Who alone is the very foundation, or true Rock, upon which stands the Church. It is on Jesus Christ, the Rock, that the Church's unchanging faith and confession is firmly rooted.

Answer 7

I would say it is ambiguous Jesus himself was refered to as the Rock. Many have concluded he was speaking of Peter who he was speaking to but the exact language had to do with Peters faith and he said on this rock I will build my church so the rock also could have been faith. I have noticed that at times Christ was intentionaly ambiguous to make a point perhaps it was all three Peter, Faith, and Christ himself.

Answer 8

Well, the word rock in Matthew 16:18 is written at petra (πετρα) which is the feminine case of the word "rock." Had Jesus been talking about Peter as he did in the first part of verse 18, he would have used the masculine form of this word petros (πετρος). Petra translated means "fixed rock." I would suggest that you look at verse 16-17 in Matthew 16 to interpret what petra is referring to.

"16Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ,[a] the Son of the living God."
17Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven."

Answer 9

Not Peter! Instead of the Little Rock, Jesus was talking about Himself!

Answer 10

Jesus is referring to Himself - the Word of God. In Matthew 7, at the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus states "Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock."

Peter had just said that Jesus is the Messiah - THE SON of the living GOD...! THAT testimony - that Jesus is LORD - is the rock of truth upon which HIS church is built...
Jesus (the Word of God) IS God translated to the language of man whereby we men, women, and children are enabled (by Him) to understand Him...