Greg Serita, a Seventh-day Adventist who hosts the channel Bible Flockbox, just put out a video against St. Peter being the Rock on whom the church is built, and this forms one of the reasons for believing the doctrine of the papacy.

So in today's episode, we're going to examine the linguistic and exegetical errors that Greg makes in his case.

First, Greg offers the well-worn objection that in giving Simon the name Peter,

which means rock, Jesus was actually talking about a totally different rock upon which he would build his church.

Jesus was actually making a distinction between Peter and the rock the church would be built upon.

He said, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church.

Furthermore, when you go to the original Greek that the New Testament was written in,

Peter's name is translated from the word Petros, which means a stone or a small rock.

Kind of like a pebble. And the word rock, which the

church was to be built upon, is translated from Petra, meaning a massive rock, like a bedrock or

boulder. A pebble is a stone that can be moved, while a boulder is enormous and immovable and can serve as a secure foundation.

Arguments like this were made popular in things like William Cathcart's 1872 book,

The Papal System, but it's based on a flawed understanding of New Testament Greek.

There is no relevant difference between the Greek words Petros and Petra.

They both just mean rock.

The Protestant scholar D.A. Carson says,

although it is true that Petros and Petra can mean small stone and large rock, respectively in earlier Greek, the distinction is largely confined to poetry.

The Protestant reformer John Calvin even said, there is no difference of meaning,

I acknowledge, between the two Greek words Petros and Petra. Also, take a step back and ask yourself,

why did Jesus even bother changing Simon's name to Peter in the first place? When God changes

someone's name in scripture, like Abram to Abraham, the new name reveals their

divinely confirmed mission. How does it make sense for Jesus to change Simon's name to rock, say you are

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