From The Penthouse To The Outhouse Series

Another thing I find very interesting is this. If the Lord appointed Peter as the head of His church, then how come only Matthew records our Lord’s words. Wouldn’t you think that Peter who advised Mark what to write down in his Gospel would comment on his appointment by our Lord. ‘Hey Mark, don’t forget to write down that our Lord at Caesarea Philippi made me the first Pope.’ No, as we will soon read Peter wanted to distance himself from what our Lord said to him a little later on –“21 From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. 22 Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!” 23 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

You see when we go back to the area around the rocky cliff near Caesarea Philippi our Lord responded to Peter’s confession that our Lord Jesus was the Christ or Anointed Holy One. He told Peter and upon this rock, [Our Lord was not going to build a physical church at the rocky cliff near Caesarea Philippi] or upon Peter’s strong and bold confession of our Lord’s identity, a whole new nation of believers would be established – The Christian Church.

Our Lord didn’t say, ‘Thou art Peter.’, then look to all of His other apostles while he had his arm around Peter, and say, ‘Hey guys, upon my buddy Peter who is a rock – and upon him, I am going to build my church.’ Can you understand this important fact?

Now I also find interesting the Lord’s remarks about binding and loosing – ‘19 And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’

What is going on when you read about binding or loosing? Well, the first thing you think about is that ‘binding’ is when you tie someone up as a captive and ‘loosing’ is untying them. In many cases church leaders have use this verse as a weapon against people in the church. I believe that it is referring to something totally different than the way it is presently being used by church leadership.

When you share the ‘Good News’ of our Great Master and King, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, you know that when a person receives the Lord Jesus he or she is ‘set free’ from their sins, or untied from sin. Would you agree?

We read in the book of Isaiah chapter 61 verse 1 this awesome verse regarding the future Messiah, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound’