how to follow Jesus in today's culture [college ave young adults]

[@daveevans3276]

Hello, You bring up the Greek words petra/petros argument and I believe it’s important to note to the viewers that Jesus spoke Aramaic, and the word in the Aramaic is Kepha for Peter and Rock. There is no distinction in Aramaic in this verse, like you are suggesting. There is no distinction in this verse that says this word means a small stone and this word means boulder or bedrock foundation. Simply Jesus would have said, you are Kepha and upon this Kepha I will build my church. An interesting note is to look at Matthew 16 in the French. It came from the same Greek translation but a different language and it only has one word for both-Pierre. It reads, you are Pierre and upon this Pierre I will build my church. Also, many non-Catholic Biblical scholars admit that Peter is indeed the rock.

[@xanderLudahl]

Ephesians 2:20-22 "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone" Context matters. There's only one cornerstone, for the church

[@daveevans3276]

@@xanderLudahl Yes, context matters. Just like in 1 Peter 2 says Jesus is the Church's cornerstone, not its foundation. A cornerstone is only one piece of a foundation (the corner part of it) and this doesn't exclude other pieces. Proof of this the verse you provided, Eph 2:20 "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone." So together with the apostles, they form the Church's foundation in this passage, which was written by the sam apostles who wrote 1 For 3:11, showing there was no contradiction in his mind between Christ being the foundation in one sense and others being the foundation in another. An additional interesting verse in Rev 21:14, where New Jerusalem is said to have not one foundation, but twelve, with the names of the apostles. This is a select group, including only the eleven who were apostles during Christ's earthly ministry, plus Matthias (acts 1:26). Not even Paul and Barnabas, who also were called apostles (acts 14:14) were members of the twelve. and of course Matthew 16. Context does indeed matter.