The Jesus Itinerary

[Godscreated]

Now, to turn to your new batch of rationalizations:

1. John is baptizing. Andrew is an early follower. Both behold the Lamb of God.

2. Andrew wants to tell his brother who earns his living as a professional fishing business about Jesus. Leaves John the Baptist. Jn 1:40

3. Time passes. Andrew and Peter do fishing stuff etc etc. They don't IMMEDIATELY drop everything and run off to find Jesus.

Once again, your rationalized version of the story doesn't fit the narrative in the Gospels.

I do not see where this is different, it's the same as I introduced.

John 1:41-2 He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.

So we have Andrew quite excited, running to tell his brother of the discovery of the long-awaited messiah. By the way, just for historical context, the Jews were chaffing under Roman rule and desperately looking for said messiah to lead them back to glory. The discovery of the messiah should have been met with the same enthusiasm that we might react with if someone were to announce "we've discovered cold fusion".

But what does this "stone" reference mean?

The acceptance of Christ at the time was accepted the same way as people today have reacted to people shouting they have discovered cold fusion. DP you're trying to look at Christ's story without taking the whole story into consideration. This is not a science experiment, it's the life (ministry) of Christ. Jesus ministry never meet the expectations of the Jews because they were not paying attention to the prophecies written about Him, the same attitude that always got them into trouble with God in the OT.

Christ meant that Peter would be an early leader of the church, He never meant that Peter would be the foundation, that would undermine His ministry and who He was and is.

This has some very important meaning in early Christian theology. In Matthew 16:16, Jesus quizzes Peter, asking, "whom say ye that I am?" When Peter gives the correct answer, "the Christ" (or messiah), Jesus gives his reward to Peter as follows:

Matt 16:18-19 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

And so Peter is the "rock" upon which the church shall be built. In other words, he's going to be JC's successor and be the first pope. Protestants hate this verse, I should imagine.

No,no,no and no. Jesus is saying He is the foundation on which the church will be built, why would Christ make Peter a very flawed individual, the foundation. Peter was never intended to be Christ's successor and scripture never says Peter will be, nor pope, only one of the early leaders in the church.

[quote='DP']Now the story goes differently in Matthew than in John. In Matthew, Peter's only knowledge that Jesus is the Christ came from the Heavenly Father (Matt 16:17). However, in John, Peter learns this information from his brother Andrew. So either Jesus didn't know that Andrew had told Peter (which means he isn't very godly) or we again have a continuity gaffe as we should expect to find with so many authors working independently.

You are jumping to your own conclusions, you're not taking the scriptures as they are. Peter heard from Andrew that Jesus was the Messiah, Peter never acknowledges Jesus as the Son of God. However in Matthew Peter does acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God. Jesus knew what Andrew said to Peter and there is no continuity gaffe, except in your unbelieving mind (not trying to put you down, only that you are letting bias into your conclusions).

What both stories have in common is that Peter is quickly given the title of "the Rock" right after learning that Jesus is the Christ. So how does this relate to your alternate interpretation? Jesus is appointing Peter as The Rock and his successor, having the keys to Heaven and the right to lead the church on earth. This is not something we'd expect JC to giveaway to someone who was not already in his fold. Ergo, your obtuse reading of scripture isn't supported by the narrative.

Jesus does call Peter the rock or stone, He never says Peter will be His successor ( to be a successor one must be gone or out of power, Christ was never either of those). In actuality Jesus says He will always be with them through the Holy Spirit. Only when Peter acknowledged Jesus as the Son of God (Matthew's gospel) did Jesus say those things to Peter. Remember when Andrew introduced Peter to Jesus he did not acknowledge Jesus as God's Son. So again it's your misunderstanding of scripture that is incorrect.

GC