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Matthew 16:1-20
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This week Dr. Tim Gray and Dr. Michael Barber continue their study of the Gospel of Matthew by diving into 16:1-20.
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to form. Now, I'm Tim Gray, president of the Augustine Institute. And Joining me is Dr. Michael Barber, a professor of scripture here at the Augusta Institute. And we're going to continue our wonderful walk through the Gospel of Matthew. We are in Matthew chapter 16. So whether you've been with us through chapters one through 15 or you're joining us today, there's always a lot to learn in the Gospel of Matthew. He's the catechism for the early church, and he really gives us a great window into the life of Jesus Christ. And I'm excited because Matthew 16 has some wonderful stories, especially for us Catholics. These chapters in particular are very, very important, and we could talk about that when we get later into the chapter. But let's just start with chapter 16 and the opening story here, because Jesus is going to talk about the signs. They want to come and test Jesus, ask him for a sign.
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B
That's right.
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A
And then he's going to give them a rather strong response. Why don't we pick up with Jesus response?
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B
Okay, sounds good. So Jesus, they ask him for a sign. And Jes Says, when it is evening, you say it will be fair weather, for the sky is red, and in the morning it will be stormy. Today, for the sky is red and threatening. You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. So this is really significant passage because Jesus is explaining that of course they can read the natural signs, but they don't have the ability to recognize what's unfolding before them. Here the Messiah is present, and they are unwilling really to recognize the miracles that Jesus is performing in their midst. And of course, here we have that phrase, the signs of the times, that gets thrown out, out quite a bit in magisterial documents of the Church, gets used quite a bit in papal documents. And one thing that we have to recognize is signs of the times is especially a Christological referent. In other words, they can't recognize how to interpret things in light of the person, the coming of the person of Jesus Christ. This is really important because I feel like a lot of times, Tim, people, People use this expression of reading the signs of the times. It's almost kind of like reading the tea leaves. You know, I can tell which way.
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The wind is going to go, like the zodiac. You could kind of make all kinds of predictions.
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B
That's right.
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But first and foremost, you're exactly Right. It's about Christ.
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B
That's right.
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A
And you know, it's not like Jesus just showed up on the scene and, you know, surprised everybody. There was Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, a lot of prophets that God had sent ahead of time. And even, especially I think of Daniel and Josephus mentions that Daniel was very popular reading at this time. And Daniel gave basically, if you want to have signs, he gave a whole set of signs and a timeline, you know, the 580 years, the four kingdoms that will rule over Israel. And so of course, since the time of the exile, you had the Babylonians, the Medo, Persians, the Greeks and now the Romans. So basically, you know, you're in the fourth kingdom, which in Daniel 7 and Daniel 9, that's a trigger, especially in Daniel 7, that we're at the time for the advent of the Messiah. So there was messianic expectation that was starting to brew and grow. And all of a sudden Jesus. And then you get John the Baptist saying, I'm preparing the way. You know, I'm the voice in the wilderness crying out, prepare the way of the Lord. So you get John the Baptist and now you get Jesus doing all these signs. It's like it's not. It shouldn't be a surprise, should it?
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B
That's right. And of course Jesus once again refers here to the sign of Jonah. And we've talked about that already, and it really has a twofold referent and this is important to keep in the back of our minds in light of what's going to come. That of course, the sign of Jonah on the one hand refers to Jesus Paschal mystery. Right. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale. So for three days Jesus will rise on the third day. Right. But at the same time, you go back and look at Jesus's use of that phrase, the sign of Jonah in Matthew 12. And it also refers to the fact that the Ninevites, the Gentiles came to believe. So the sign of Jonah is ultimately going to point us forward beyond the resurrection to the conversion of Gentiles, of pagans. And we're going to get there territory soon.
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Well, exactly. And I want to more to say about that later in the chapter.
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B
Right.
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But I think that that's an important thing that holds that there's two different threads to Jonah that we want to keep tabs of. Well then after that they go to the other side. So let's look at, I think that's verse five.
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Yep.
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When the disciples reach the other side.
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And that's of course the Sea of Galilee River Jordan feeding in.
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Exactly.
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We've got a map.
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Exactly. So the political divide. So the other side is not east to west or north to south. The other side is the side of territory. So Herod has what we would call the western part of the Sea of Galilee. His brother Philip owns most of the territory on the eastern half, and it's divided on the north by the Jordan river, where it enters into the Sea of Galilee. And that's the other side. So it could just be a couple miles going on the other side, and the other side then being the political jurisdiction. So that's the idea of other side. So that's important for us to keep in mind to understand where he's going. And so then Jesus goes to the other side. Now, actually, we know well. And then they forgot to bring any bread. And Jesus said to them, watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
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And.
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And they began discussing among themselves, saying, we brought no bread. And Jesus, aware of this, said, o you of little faith, why do you discuss among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive? Do you not yet remember the five loaves and the 5,000 and how many baskets you gathered? Or the seven loaves and the 4,000 and how many baskets you gathered? How is it then that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
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B
So this brings us all the way back to the temptation narrative, where Satan confronts Jesus and tells him, turn these stones into bread. And Jesus says, no, man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. And so already Matthew has helped us understand that bread is not just a reference to ordinary material food, but to the word of God, to Torah, to teaching. Right. And that word, Torah, actually means teaching.
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A
And there's a great connection, Michael, with that, because he says, oh, ye of dinky faith or a little faith. And the first time he uses that phrase is in Matthew, chapter six, when he says, look, you know, God cares about the birds in the field. They don't gather into barns and store up grain. And yet your Father in heaven feeds them and takes care of them. And so do not be anxious, O men of little faith, what you shall eat or what you shall drink.
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B
Excellent.
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A
Right. And so there's a nice parallel between this story and chapter six. And then the two other times he uses metadinky faith, it happens to be. Well, the other two times was In a different story. So I'll just keep it to that because there's a lot to cover.
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B
All right? And then, of course, Jesus is saying, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. He's not talking about ordinary bread here. You know, they say, oh, we brought no bread. Jesus says, okay, but there's something to be more concerned about than not having enough bread. Something that would be worse, that would be even worse would be consuming the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. And here he's referring to their teaching. Now, some people have argued that this is a clear sign that. That Matthew doesn't know the first century Jewish world. He's talking about the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees as if they believed the same thing. And everybody knows the Pharisees and Sadducees had different beliefs. This is not anything like that. No, Matthew's not showing ignorance of the differences between the beliefs of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The problem is neither can read the signs of the times because neither understand who Jesus is. Right? So going Back to Matthew 13, we see that parable of the. Of the hidden leaven. Just a little bit of leaven, and it can have a massive impact, right? So you put a little bit of leaven in bread and it can make the whole loaf expand, right? Well, a little bit of leaven can be a good thing or it can be a very bad thing. And in a lot of cases, leaven is associated with sin in ancient Judaism and the feast of.
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A
Well, yeah, take a think of Paul in 1 Corinthians, right? So Paul in 1 Corinthians 5 uses this metaphor about get rid of the leaven of insincerity and conceit. And he says literally, your boasting is not good. But the word literally in the Greek for boasting is being puffed up. And that's exactly what leaven does. It puffs up the bread. And so it's the pride which is the fundamental sin, the pride of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And that kind of arrogance, that pride, that pride blinds you from recognizing Christ. And that's what he wants his disciples not to struggle with, pride, Right?
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B
And I think the main issue that Jesus has in view here, when he says, beware of their teaching, Jesus is later in Matthew 23, going to say, the Pharisees sit on Moses chair, so do whatever they tell you. So how can Jesus say what he says here? About beware of their teaching, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, Pharisees and Sadducees. Some scholars say, oh, well, see, Matthew's just totally contradictory. You know, it doesn't make any sense. No, here in particular, he's talking about their teaching in as much as their rejection of him. That is what they need to be aware of, their lack of faith in him. And so that leads us to quite the contrast, right, where the Pharisees and Sadducees don't understand, Simon does.
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A
Yeah, that's the next story, which is so great. So we pick up in the next verse, in verse 13. Now, when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea, Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say the Son of man is? And then we get the first Gallup poll on Jesus. Basically, some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, others say Jeremiah, one of the prophets, 10% undecided. And so you get the opinion poll on Jesus and notice that when you survey the crowd, the mob, you don't get the identity. They don't get the right identity for Jesus. Right. And of course that's going to come from Peter. So you want to talk about Peter's profession here, and then we'll come back to the place because that'll be important.
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B
So this is a passage I've spent a lot of time researching and writing about. And it's very rich, so they say. Some say you're John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. And Jesus said to them, who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter says, now the words are significant here. He says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. So you're the Messiah, the Christ, son of the living God. And the language here is drawing from expectations for a coming son of David, Messiah. And it's helpful here to just flip back to Second Samuel, chapter seven. In Second Samuel, chapter seven, we have a very important passage. This is the passage where God makes a covenant oath to David. David wants to build God a house. He wants to build God the temple. And at first, the prophet Nathan says, go do what's in your heart. And then he receives a word from the Lord and he comes back to David, says, no, here's what the Lord says to you. The Lord declares that the Lord will make you a house. So David wanted to build a temple. And God, through Nathan, says, no, no, God's going to build you a house. But in the sense of a royal line, a line of kings after you. The Lord will make you a House. So like the house of Aragon, if you're a fan of the Lord of the Rings, when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up off your offspring after you, who shall come from your body. I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. He goes on to explain that God's going to give you a kingdom that will last forever. So in context, David wants to build the Lord a temple. And God comes back and says, no, no, no, you're not going to build me a house. First, I'm going to be more generous than you can be with me. You can never out give God, Right?
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Right.
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And so he says, you will have a son. You will have a line, and your son will be my son. Now, in the context of the narrative, of course, that son is Solomon. Solomon is the son of David, and he is the adopted son of God. And. And he builds the temple. So when Peter comes to Jesus and says, you are the Messiah, we already know what that means. Matthew's very first verse is that Jesus is the Christ, the son of David. You're the Christ, the son of the living God. And the fact that Jesus is the son of God makes perfect sense in light of his messianic identity. But then look at what Jesus says. Jesus answered him, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah. Oh, my gosh. So much to say about that. But Peter gets his own beatitude here, right? Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn. Blessed is Simon. And then he says, flesh and blood is 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. So notice that Jesus is the son of David, who's the son of God. You're going to build something? Peter says. Yeah. Jesus says to Peter, I'm going to build like the son of David did. I'm going to build the true temple. And that true temple is identified with the church, but so much so, Davidic imagery runs throughout. You are the Christ. And every time in Jewish, almost every time the Davidic king is identified as the son of David, it's in connection with his role over the temple, building the temple, managing the temple, something like that. So we have that imagery in place. We also have. I don't know what order we should take this all in. Let me just say something else about the temple here. Well, boy, why don't you talk about Simon, son of Jonah?
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A
Yeah, So I think we could go there. I love how there's this great parallelism if you read the text between Jesus and Peter. So Peter professes about Jesus, you are Christ, the son of the living God. And then Peter gets a blessing in response. And Jesus then says to Peter, you are Simon, the son of Jonah. And so it's a beautiful way in which there's this back and forth between Peter and our Lord. So Peter makes a profession about Jesus, you're the Christ, the son of the living God. And then Jesus himself then says, you are rock. Right? So just as Jesus had a title, Christ Jesus now gives Peter a title. You are Rock, you are Simon. And so Petros this in the Aramaic. So Peter now has a title, because rock is not a name. And so it's a title. It says something about Peter's vocation. And that's really important because Christ says a lot about Jesus, vocation to be the anointed son of David, the anointed king. And then what a lot of people miss is that Jesus then says, blessed are you, Simon. So he calls him Simon rock, Bar Jonah. And we even get Matthew keeps the Aramaic. So this is a phrase that was repeated in the church. And he preserves the Aramaic, which is very unusual for Matthew to do that. But it's getting said. This is something so important. And there's something about the Aramaic phrase that captures the meaning that you just can't simply put it into Greek. And bar, of course, means son in Aramaic. And Jonah, son of Jonah. So what does that mean, that Peter is Bar Jonah? Well, a lot of people think, well, all right, he's just saying, blessed are you Simon? We're changing his name. He's going to change his name from Simon to rock. But then the idea of Bar Jonah is a real significant point here because.
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B
It means, how cousin are you Simon, except for Jonah, Bar Jonah.
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A
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I know. And Bar Jonah being his father's name, is not Jonah. That's the fascinating thing we know from the Gospel of John, chapter 20, verse 17. And following that, three times Jesus says to Peter on the beach after he's resurrected, do you love me more than these Simon son of John? Do you love me more than these Simon son of John? And John is a very different name than Jonah. Jonah is an extraordinarily rare name. In fact, we have no instance of a Jonah besides the prophet Jonah in the Old Testament. We have no instance of a Jonah in the first century or even biblical, even in the Old Testament times of a man being called Jonah, Yonah means dove. And so people say, well, we're going to call our boy, let's call him dove. And the irony, of course, is that Jonah will be a dove sent to Nineveh to bring peace to Israel's enemies. So his name actually relates to his vocation in a very interesting and funny way. But the only other Jonah that we have for quite some time in the Talmud, the period of the Talmud, is a woman. So Jonah is an extraordinarily rare name, and it's not John. So we know that Peter's father's name is John. And so when Jesus says, bar Jonah, why is he doing that? Well, remember how this chapter began? No sign will be given this adulterous and sinful generation, except for the sign of Jonah. And now Jesus is saying, peter Simon, blessed are you bar Jonah. In other words, Peter is going to be a son of Jonah in a prophetic way. He's going to be a spiritual son of the prophet Jonah and a prophet like Jonah. And of course, Jonah is sent to the capital of Israel's enemy, Nineveh, the arch enemy of Israel, which is Assyria. And the capital of Assyria was Nineveh Peter. Will he be sent to the capital of Israel's enemy? Yeah, Rome. And that's where Peter's going to end up.
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And.
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And he will be sent there to preach. And just as Jonah was effective in preaching to the Ninevites, Peter will be effective at preaching to those in Rome.
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B
And I think it's significant that this all takes place in the district of Caesarea, named after Caesar, Philippi. Right. So it's Caesarea Philippi because it's named after Caesar in the region of Philip. Right. And then going on, Jesus says, I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. When Jesus calls him Peter, the Greek word is Petros. When he says, on this rock, I'll build my church, the word is Petra. People say, oh, well, then Peter isn't the one Jesus is actually building on. Right. Maybe Jesus is just building on Peter's faith and not on Peter himself or something like that. Well, the problem with that is Jesus couldn't have called Peter Petra because Petra is feminine in Greek. So Jesus couldn't say, blessed are you, Simon. He couldn't call him that. Right. Had to give him a masculine name. So he is the rock on which the church is built. Right. This is the point of renaming him. Right. At this particular point. And then he says he will Build his church on him, and I'll give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Now, that imagery of the key is widely seen as being drawn from an oracle in Isaiah, chapter 22. In Isaiah 22, we read about a wicked figure named Shebna who's getting pink slipped. He's giving it. Yeah, he's. He's getting fired by the Lord. And the main reason is he's been unfaithful. And God announces to Shebna he's going to be replaced by a righteous man named Eliakim. And it's worth reading what it says here in Isaiah. In that day, I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe and. And I will bind your girdle on him. I will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to the house of Judah. And the weight of his father's house will be on him, the offspring, and issue every small vessel from the cups to all the flagons. And so the idea is, in Isaiah 22, you have this figure whose authority is symbolized by the key. And it's often the case that people misunderstand who this figure Eliakim is. A lot of people have understood him as some kind of prime minister or something like that. But the reality is, if you read it carefully, in Isaiah 22, the garments that Eliakim wears, the coat and the girdle, are the two garments only worn by one figure in the Old Testament, and that's the high priest. So in Leviticus, for example, we read this in Leviticus, oh, gosh, I. I thought I had it right here. I think It's Leviticus, chapter 8. Aaron is given the. The garments of the high priesthood. We also see this in Exodus 28, and Jewish tradition understood that Eliakim wasn't just some kind of royal official, but that he was the high priest. In the Targums, which are paraphrases of the Old Testament books written by later rabbis, we read the version of this prophecy, says, I will thrust you, Shebna, from your place and throw you down from your ministry. I will clothe Eliakim with your robe, gird him with your censure, goes on to say, and I will give him the key to the sanctuary. And if you read Jerome, Eusebius, Aquinas, Aquinas is a commentary on Isaiah. In Thomas Aquinas commentary in Isaiah, he explains, who is Eliakim? He's the high priest, St. Charles Borromeo said the same thing. Right. So why do we think of the apostles as priests? Why do we think of the apostles as the first priests of the new covenant? Where do we get that idea? Some people say they weren't really priests, they were just missionaries. Well, no, if you understand the language Jesus is using and the echoes that he intends his hearers to catch, right, namely that Peter is the new Eliakim, then you understand Peter is a priest, the church is a temple. And so what do you call the person who's being put in charge of this new temple? He's a priest. And so it's appropriate for Jesus to draw from that image there. The image of key is also frequently associated with priests in Jesus day. Josephus tells us that when they changed division, so the there were 24 different divisions of priests that served in the temple at different times of the year. And when they had to pass over their authority in the temple, there was a ceremony when one division's time was up and somebody else took over. They had a big ceremony in the temple. And Josephus explains, First century historian Josephus says what they did is they met and they passed over the keys. So Jesus is signifying Peter's priestly authority and that authority is meant to be passed on.
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A
That's fascinating. You know, I think I haven't heard the idea of the priestly imagery here. Yeah, yeah, but it could be both. I'm still not convinced.
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Oh, it's not either or.
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A
Okay, okay.
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It's both. Because David is a king and he's a priest.
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A
Yeah, yeah, okay, great, great. Because it says in 22 that, you know, Chebna is the ha Albayitz, the one over the house.
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Right. But in the rabbinic tradition, for example, in the Babylonian Talmud and in second Baruch.
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A
Oh, I believe that. But that's because all they have left is the priesthood. They've lost the kingdom. So the rabbis aren't going kingdom.
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B
But what happens is when they tell the story of how the priests were wicked and caused the destruction of Jerusalem, there are stories of how the priests looked up into heaven and said, we have been unworthy stewards. The same language from Isaiah 22. And they take the keys of the temple in these Jewish legends and they throw them up into heaven. So they link the civil authority to the priestly authority because did of David is both a king and a priest. So it's appropriate.
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A
Right? No, that makes sense. And the binding and loosing would be juridical. So that's something that's not priestly.
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So it's all right, because binding and loosing have multiple different meanings. There are four different meanings. But it can mean teaching authority, it can mean juridical authority, I.e. who is in the community, who's outside the community. Well, if you have the authority to say this is a mortal sin, this is a serious sin, this will cut you off, then these two things are related. They also seem to relate to.
- [25:33]
A
But the binding and losing in Isaiah 22 would be primarily royal.
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B
Primarily? Well, in Isaiah 22 it's not binding and loosing, it's he shall open, none shall shut. He shall shut, none shall open. And in Aramaic it's pretty much the same idea.
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A
Yeah, but that would be royal. That would be freeing people from prison or releasing presidential pardon.
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B
Although Thomas thinks that it's actually Thomas Aquinas says it's actually opening the temple or closing the temple.
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A
Yeah, no, I get that. But I think that I'll have to think more about the priestly element.
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B
He could be both.
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A
Yeah, he could be making the priest the ha Albayit.
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B
Right. That's how Eusebius, Jerome, the rabbis, everybody seems to interpret it that way. Charles Borromeo, doctor of the Church, as the others too. Joram, of course.
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A
But I'm going Back to Isaiah 22, just for context, before you get into the interpretive tradition, because, you know, and it does seem juridical there because he even talks about the things, the vessels in the kitchen.
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B
Yes.
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A
And I know you could say that there's a kitchen in the temple. I know you're going to go there.
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B
But you could easily.
- [26:43]
A
But freeing and binding, these weren't typically priestly things. These were royal things. And you have Hezekiah, who's the king, and you've got an unfaithful steward who is working on building his own tomb and giving up the fight.
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B
Yes, but the binding and loosing is also there, understood as priestly authority in Jewish and Christian sources. So it's also teaching.
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A
And Josephus, by the way, and Josephus uses the idea of the keys with kingdom connotations as well.
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B
Sure. Oh, there's no question. It's not either of them. But what I would just say is significant that we were talking above about the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. That was the controversy in 16 in the early. So when Jesus gives Peter authority to bind and loose, he seems to be giving him what teaching authority here. And that's really significant because what we recognize is in Peter we have the fulfillment of Eliakim's role and who was Alakim? He was supposed to be a fan father to the inhabitants of the land. And what is the Pope? What is the successor of Peter today? The Pope.
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A
The Pope.
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B
And Pope literally means father. Right. That's awesome.
- [27:52]
A
So it really does tie together. When you read this, you could see why Protestants were afraid of Matthew being too Catholic. And then they, you know, that's a whole other story of how they wanted to date Matthew really, really late as this Catholic accretion to the story of Jesus. But you can't understand Jesus without understanding the significant role that Peter plays here. We're going to come back to this in our next episode because there's. I can't believe we're almost out of time.
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B
We're out of time.
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A
But one of the things that I want us to think about is Jesus in Matthew 7 said, A wise man builds his house on the rock.
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B
Yes.
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A
And that's how he ended the Sermon on the Mount. And then at the end of chapter 12, he talked about a greater than Solomon is here. And of course Solomon was known for his wisdom and building the temple. And of course now Jesus says that he is going to build his kingdom on Peter. Right. And Jesus is the builder and the house he's going to build is going to be the new temple, the church.
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B
So the church isn't just a club, the church is a temple.
- [28:54]
A
Exactly. Absolutely. So that gives us the significance that Christus Faber in the Latin tradition, Christ the builder. Christ comes to build something and he's building it upon Peter. And you don't understand Jesus role if you don't understand that at the heart of Jesus mission is that he's a builder and he's laying a foundation on Peter, which is the rock, which is the church. So if we don't understand the church, we're not going to understand Christ. And there's a lot more to unpack about this and we're going to have some great conversations next time as we follow up on this. So I want to thank everybody for joining us. I want to thank all of you who are in our mission circle. You know, your monthly support, just $10 or more a month really makes a big impact on our mission. And we're grateful to be partnered with you and for your support. And if you want to learn more about the mission circle or become a member, just go to the top right corner of formed on the donate button, click that and you can find a couple different ways to donate. But the mission circle is a great way to donate and support us. We pray for all of our mission circle partners every day, and I'm grateful for all your support, and I hope that this has interested you. And there's a lot more to come. So stay tuned for next week's episode on the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 16. God bless.