SIMON SAYS

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The Apostle Peter gets an unfortunate rap of being a bumbling, uneducated ignorant fisherman who goes around blurting out things before he thinks. ( which he did ).
But I've come to know Mr. Simon better. In his epistles, are some of the most deep theological concepts you'll find in scripture. Unfortunately , surrounding Peter also are some of the most misunderstood and divisive doctrinal subjects in church history.

Peter is at the center of the infamous controversy between Catholics and protestants over a little statement Jesus makes in Matthew 16:13-20. Here Jesus asks the disciples who they think Him to be, and they give various answers ending with "Peter's Confession". "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." To which Jesus basically replies, "Simon you're blessed. human understanding didn't cause you to arrive at that, but God showed it to you." and...

"...thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Ignorant church fathers hastily equivocated Peter with the "rock", and donned him first "pope".

Wiser scholars have since understood that Jesus was referring to what Peter said rather than Peter Himself. And in my opinion Jesus actually employed an orator's device making a play on words, knowing that "petros" and "petra" were similar, thus tying Peter the person in a complimentary way to what he said. ( "Thou art Petros and upon this petra..." ).

Catholics certainly don't have the market cornered with regard to misunderstanding the Bible. Evangelicals look to 1 Peter to arm themselves in the fuss over whether baptism saves us.

Those who believe that you wont get past Peter's sentry shack unless you've been dunked, often cite 1 Peter 2:21 where the words "baptism does also now save us..." appear.

If ever there was an example the letter of scripture killing instead of the Spirit giving life,...this is it.

After we're done at the river, lets go pluck our eyes out and hate our parents since we've decided to use the face value of word-for-word phrases to back existing notions, thereby "proof-texting" the Bible to suit our agenda rather than actually looking at things in their context, and by the understanding given to us by the living God who inspired the text.

There are many reasons and tons of verses besides this passage that I use to form my opinion on the subject of baptismal salvation, but my real point here is actually about Peter and not that controversy. Because of the writing style of Peter and the subject matter in his letters, the epistles of 1 and 2 Peter are among my favorite books in the Bible. In many ways , he wrote like he lived. It's all out there, Peter doesn't stand on ceremony. He goes right for the jugular giving hardcore instruction on matters of how to deal with heresy, how we need to be conducting ourselves as men and women, what real born again faith is to look like, and how we should be clear headed and ready for the end times events that are immanent.

Just like in the gospels where Peter was continuously saying and doing things that made him the perfect case-study of sermons and bible studies, his writings also are packed with attention getting zingers that get people talking and arguing. Along with the baptism deal, you've got him telling you that angels are watching you, ...you got verses for the "lose your salvation" crowd, you have Jesus preaching to dead people in their graves, and the verse that says "...one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." which people run the wrong way with so often. things like that. And then he goes and says PAUL was writing things that people were wrestling with!

One of the things that to me, shows Peter to really be an insightful writer is, the way in which he used metaphors and figures of speech back in that section where he mentioned baptism in chapter 2 of the first epistle. Professor Peter draws up a wonderful picture there of God's justification of us through the death and resurrection of Christ. The reason that you can't take the words "baptism saves us" and use them that way is, right there in the text is the obvious term "figure". the "like figure"...whereby baptism saves....Like figure meaning illustration. example. picture. metaphor. Also you have him immediately inserting a disclaimer as if he knew how stupid people would be reading that, ( not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience.." ) I just don't get how anyone can miss that. how much clearer can it be there, when he pretty much says "it's not the act itself that cleanses you, but the ritual demonstration (the "answer". the response) that you perform to signify visually to the world what it is you've aligned yourself to. Having this understanding always makes my eye twitch when I hear people use terminology like "washed in the waters of baptism" or whatever...I just think its risking the chance of some people being unable to distinguish rightly between illustration and literal narrative. They misappropriate enough Bible verses without us encouraging them.

I think its an awesome parallel to the "upon this rock" passage in Matthew, because in the same way , wordplay is being used to teach a point. In Matthew, Peter declares a profound truth that Jesus calls attention to in a way that some missed. Then later Peter himself makes a point in his own letter that once again people neglect to look at closely and in it's right context.

He says "8 souls were saved by water", then says, that was similar to baptism, in how it's a picture of what Jesus did in dying and rising. But it fascinates me how he says that water saved the souls. I didn't see that at first. Instead of the ARK saving them, ...or God, or Noah, it was "water". Here I thought it was water that they were saved FROM. Not BY.

See what I mean?....see how slick the guy is?

I'm telling ya. Peter was a closet intellectual.

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