Apologetics: Did Jesus Say He will Build His Church on St. Peter?

St. Peter's in Rome

Here is part of a correspondence I had recently. The person was using the typical argument that Protestants like to use drawing a distinction in Greek between "Petros" and  "Petra,"

If you have never heard the Protestant claim, it's basically that when Jesus says "You are Peter [Petros] and upon this Rock [petra] I will build my Church" the Greek word Petros means "little pebble" while petra means "big rock". The Protestant is arguing that Jesus was not identifying Peter with "Rock," but rather contrasting Peter's littleness with the bigness of the Rock (i.e. Jesus). Therefore Jesus was not founding His Church on Peter.

In the Greek New Testament "Petros" is always used for Peter.(162 times). 

Where did the notion that Peter means "little pebble" even come from?

Some Protestant apparently dug up this distinction from a long outdated form of Greek that wasn't even in use at the time of the Apostles (i.e. not Biblical Greek). This detail alone makes the Protestant argument invalid.

There are two types of Greek: Attic Greek, and  Koine Greek.
In Attic Greek, there was a slight difference in meaning between "Petros" and "Petra," but in Koine Greek (the dialect used in the New Testament) they were synonyms. A place to look this up is D. A. Carson’s commentary on Matthew 16 in the Expositors Bible Commentary. He makes this point very well, and he is a highly-respected Evangelical Bible scholar.

Most Protestant scholars have rightly rejected this theory as well. But it always comes up with Evangelical friends.
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If I understand you correctly, are  you saying Peter is not the person Jesus will build His Church on?

Obviously the person who is most important is Jesus. But like God used Abraham to build His Old Testament covenant, Jesus will use Peter for the New covenant.  Like Abraham, Jesus changed Peter's name from Simone; God changed  Abraham's name from Abram.

Also I would like to add that to find the true religion in the Bible they use genealogies. When God spoke to Moses (Exodus 3:6) He identified himself as: "I am the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob."  God was still the God of everyone but he is showing the promised covenant family--- the keepers of the True Faith. The true Faith is not through Ishmael, also a son of Abraham, nor Esau, who was also a son of Issac. But the God of Jacob through whom the covenant of Abraham flows.  

St. Mathew begins his Gospel with a genealogy to show that Jesus is the Messiah. Luke uses a similar form with his genealogy too. In the Old Testament one needed to trace your family back to Abraham.

That lineage  was of a blood line but now in the New Covenant we do it by the Spirit, not by blood line, but nonetheless we should be able to trace our churches history back to Jesus and only the Catholic Church can do this--- especially through the line of the papacy, ie Peter.

All other Christian denominations were started by men--except Catholic  and the Eastern Orthodox.

Peter's Confession of Christ

Mathew 16:17-19

"…17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by My Father in heaven.

18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."..."

It seems pretty clear from the text that Jesus is saying : "I tell you that you are Peter,[Rock] and on this rock I will build My church," 

As you quoted from St. John's Gospel the name Jesus was using was not the Greek "Petros" but the Arimaic  "Kephas" or as St. John's Gospel translates it  "Cephas"

 (John 1:42)  
"And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter)."

So from what I see, Jesus was making a pun on the new name he gave Peter. He obviously wasn't speaking Greek to the Apostles, but Aramaic. So He said:

 

"I tell you that you are Kephas [Rock] and on this kephas [rock] I will build My church,"  Unlike Greek there are no masculine or feminine endings.

The reason the Greek uses "Petros" and not "Petra"  is that "Petra" is a feminine noun and could never be used for a man's name. 

To try to change it so "this rock" does not mean Peter is not according to the normal rules of grammar. 

Also the original Gospel of Matthew is held to have been originally written in Aramaic.

Papias, bishop of Hieropolis (60 -130 AD)  in Asia Minor {now Turkey}, who was a student of St. John the Apostle, and friend of  Poycarp, wrote:
 

 “Matthew compiled the sayings [of the Lord] in the Aramaic language, and everyone translated them as well as he could” [Fragments of Papias part VI].

Around 180 Irenaeus of Lyons, who was a student of Polycarp (Poycarp was a student of St. John the Apostle) wrote that:

"Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching in Rome and laying the foundation of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon his breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia." (Against Heresies 3:1:1)

And besides there are many Protestant scholars who agree with the meaning that Jesus was referring to Peter not to himself or Peter's faith. 

Albert Barnes
Nineteenth-Century Presbyterian

“The meaning of this phrase may be thus expressed: ‘Thou, in saying that I am the Son of God, hast called me by a name expressive of my true character. I, also, have given to thee a name expressive of your character. I have called you Peter, a rock. . . . I see that you are worthy of the name and will be a distinguished support of my religion” [Barnes’ Notes on the New Testament, 170].

John Broadus
Nineteenth-Century Calvinistic Baptist

“As Peter means rock, the natural interpretation is that ‘upon this rock’ means upon thee. . . . It is an even more far-fetched and harsh play upon words if we understand the rock to be Christ and a very feeble and almost unmeaning play upon words if the rock is Peter’s confession” [Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, 356].

Craig L. Blomberg
Contemporary Baptist

“The expression ‘this rock’ almost certainly refers to Peter, following immediately after his name, just as the words following ‘the Christ’ in verse 16 applied to Jesus. The play on words in the Greek between Peter’s name (Petros) and the word ‘rock’ (petra) makes sense only if Peter is the Rock and if Jesus is about to explain the significance of this identification” [New American Commentary: Matthew, 22:252].

J. Knox Chamblin
Contemporary Presbyterian

“By the words ‘this rock’ Jesus means not himself, nor his teaching, nor God the Father, nor Peter’s confession, but Peter himself. The phrase is immediately preceded by a direct and emphatic reference to Peter. As Jesus identifies himself as the builder, the rock on which he builds is most naturally understood as someone (or something) other than Jesus himself” [“Matthew” in Evangelical Commentary on the Bible, 742].

R. T. France
Contemporary Anglican

“The word-play, and the whole structure of the passage, demands that this verse is every bit as much Jesus’ declaration about Peter as verse 16 was Peter’s declaration about Jesus. Of course it is on the basis of Peter’s confession that Jesus declares his role as the Church’s foundation, but it is to Peter, not his confession, that the rock metaphor is applied” (Gospel According to Matthew, 254).

Herman Ridderbos
Contemporary Dutch Reformed

“It is well known that the Greek word petra translated ‘rock’ here is different from the proper name Peter. The slight difference between them has no special importance, however. The most likely explanation for the change from petros (‘Peter’) to petra is that petra was the normal word for ‘rock.’ . . . There is no good reason to think that Jesus switched from petros to petra to show that he was not speaking of the man Peter but of his confession as the foundation of the Church. The words ‘on this rock [petra]’ indeed refer to Peter” [Bible Student’s Commentary: Matthew, 303].

Donald Hagner
Contemporary Evangelical

“The frequent attempts that have been made, largely in the past, to deny [that Peter is the rock] in favor of the view that the confession itself is the rock . . . seem to be largely motivated by Protestant prejudice against a passage that is used by the Roman Catholics to justify the papacy” (Word Biblical Commentary 33b:470).
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Just a slight ironic point. St. Peter's Basilica in the photo above is literally built on the bones of St. Peter. You can take a tour under St. Peter's and see the tomb. So just a wink from God, who I think has a sense of humor.  It is pretty conclusive by archeological standards too. although many dispute it.