We can see from Matt 16:18 that Jesus intends to make Peter some sort of important figure that will become foundational for the Church. Indeed it is a prophecy. Keys and binding and loosing can be seen in their Scriptural context as governing and judging (cf Is 22:22-23; Jn 20:22.)

The Jesus promise concerning Peter’s ministry is fulfilled in Jn 21:15-17. Jesus commands Peter, alone, to shepherd the entire flock. This extends Peter’s ministry beyond a mere portion of the flock and makes his charge universal. This is the heart of the Petrine Ministry.

Gil,

There is no reason to speculate om what Jesus may have meant by “the keys” since he immediately defines them as the power of binding and loosing a power given to all the apostles later. The terms may have somewhat alternate meanings elsewhere but Jesus gives the clear meaning in the context of this passage. Attempting to equate the meaning to one given in an unrelated passage is merely reading into the text support for a preconceived notion of the papacy. There is no warrant within the context of the passage to support such a reading. As for the passage in John, it is getting a bit ahead since I will be dealing with the passage in the future but there is nothing in that to support the notion that St. Peter was given univeral governance of the Church. The Apostle was made to affirm Christ three times as he had denied Christ three times and the Lord in tern affirms St. Peter’s role as a shepherd - something that applies to all the twelve. It is not the assigning of a new role but the restoation of an existing one that is the thrust of this passage.

I’m wondering why it is important to you to isolate Matt 16 from the rest of Scripture, particularly the context of keys and binding and loosing in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Simon Peter’s unique role as universal shepherd is not duplicated with any of the other apostles. Indeed, Jesus calls on Simon Peter to confirm and strengthen his brother apostles. This, again, underlines his unique role. He is also referred to as First, even though it was his brother Andrew who was first called. Seen in light of the role of Bearer of the Royal Keys in the Hebrew Scriptures, Peter emerges as Messiah King’s Prime Minister, a role that he fulfills in the book of Acts.

I havrn’t isolated it from trhe rest of Holy Scripture. It is merely that if alternate definitions of a term is possible but one is given in the passage itself, then the one given in the passage itself is the one to use. It is mere common sense. There is no reason to look elsewhere when Jesus gives an explicit meaning in the next sentence. He states He will give St. Peter the keys and in the next sentence He describes what this means. Why go looking to another set of keys that are not the same keys and apply it back to this passage when a definition is given here?

So your interpretive hermeneutic is to firewall Matt 16:19 and force keys to bind and loose? I thought it was common sense that keys lock and unlock rather than bind and loose. Could it be that Jesus is bestowing keys which have a distinct Scriptural meaning as well as giving authority to bind and loose which has a different Scriptural meaning.

If Jesus was bestowing keys in the Scriptural sense and not in an entirely novel sense (as you suggest), what impact would that have on Peter’s ministry in the Church?

Go back to the passage again. Jesus states he will give St. Peter the keys. Then he describes them. You are walling the passage from itself. It is common sense to realize one sentence supplies the definition of the object in another sentence. There is nothing novel about realizing that the “binding and loosing” defines the keys. It is the obvious definition. Without needing to defend a doctrine developed centuries later, there would be no need to scramble around to unrelated passages to force a meaning into the words of the Lord instead of taking Him at His word.

I recommend to you and your readers the following: The Keys of the Kingdom: A Tool’s Witness to Truth, Stanley L. Jaki, PhD; 1986 Franciscan Herald Press; and Jesus, Peter & The Keys, Butler, Dahlgren, Hess; 1996 Queenship Pub.

To keep it brief, I’ll give you an overview of the scholarly opinion regarding “binding” and “loosing.”

Binding & loosing are discussed as referring to rabbinical power to teach, establish halakhic pronouncements, prohibit, permit, exclude, put under a ban and to acquit. Please consult the following sources for more in-depth treatment: Oscar Cullmann, Peter: Disciple, Apostle, Martyr pgs 204-205; RT France, Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher p 247; Ralph Earle, Beacon Bible Commentary, vol 6 p 156; Craig S Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary New Testament p 90; WF Albright, The Anchor Bible: Matthew p 197; Allen Willoughby, The International Critical Commentary St. Matthew p 177; David H Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary pgs 56-57; GA Buttrick, The Interpreter’s Bible p 453.

Regarding the keys and their role as a symbol of authority, rightly seen as the same authority vested in a vizier, master of the house, chamberlain of the royal household of Israel, regent, chief steward or majordomo see the following: WF Albright, The Anchor Bible: Matthew p 196; FF Bruce, The Hard Sayings of Jesus pgs 143-144; John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, vol 2 pgs 136-137; M Eugene Boring, The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol 8 p 346; CS Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary New Testament p 90, p 256; D Guthrie, The New Bible Commentary p 837; Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel p 130; Raymond E Brown, Peter in the New Testament p 96.

You will also note that the Greek word for bind (estai dedemena) and loose (estai lelumena) refer to knots and not locks. Locks and keys were a common feature in ancient times. The handing over of the household keys to the bride was part of the Roman marriage ritual. Greeks, too, were extremely familiar with keys. The Greek verb meaning to lock is kleioo. This word does not appear in the selected passages.

Also note that while Jesus bestows keys on Peter, he does not bestow them on the rest of the apostles in Matt 18:17-19 and John 20:23. This underlines something unique given to Peter, alone. The fact that Jesus is bestowing keys which has a distinct biblical and Near Eastern symbolism as well as the authority to bind and loose is supported by the broad witness of established biblical scholars across religious and denominational lines.

Binding and loosing do not define the keys. Such an assertion reveals an astounding lack of investigation into the meaning of the words of Scripture and their contexts and is misleading in the extreme.

Of course, the books by Jaki and Dahlgren, Butler, et al are the views of Catholic scholars who are defending the position of the magisterium. I could just as well cite the scholarly opinions of Protestant and Eastern Orthodox scholars who disagree that any such thing is implied by the passage, but what would it prove? Attempts to appeal to authority are a well known logical fallacy. Everyone has their own.

What is interesting is that your other sources by your own testimonly support my case. They tie the binding and loosing to an exercise of authority and you claim the keys are a symbol of authority. Thus it is clear the case here is one of pronouncement of authority followed by the description of that authority. Jesus states Peter will get the keys (will be given authority) and then describes the scope of that authority. If Jesus had stated “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. You will have universal governance of the Church.”, then you and every Catholic apologist in the world would make the obvious connection and rightly so. But He didn’t. Instead He describes the power of binding and loosing. He then later gives the same power to the other Apostles. The fact that the key metaphor wasn’t used again is irrelevant since the power implied by them is stated clearly.

The attempt to separate them into two pronoucements simply fails the common sense test. If the Roman Emporer had granted Pontius Pilate absolute control and said “I give you the keys (or some other symbol of authority) to Judea. Anything you bind in Jerusalem will be bound in Rome and anything you loose in Jerusalem will be loosed in Rome”, the two sentences would obviously be taken as flowing together. That is how anyone reading such a statement would take it. It is ironic that in this case, you make the same mistake as fundamentalist apologists who try to force home the petra/petros distinction. You violate the context of the passage by attempting to come up with possible nuances in the Greek whose introduction would never arise had a “fight-to-the-death” apologetics battle not been in place.

I would encourage you and your readers to read & pursue the references that I included in my post at your nearest seminary library. You will find that all references (but 3) are from illustrious non-Catholic Biblical scholars. Some, like FF Bruce, RT France and John Calvin you may recognize. Other Bible references like Anchor, IVP, Beacon, New Bible, New Interpreters and International Critical are essential resources for every serious Bible student.

Gil and others,

This is a mea culpa. My earlier comment wasa first draft not meant to be published done as I was on my way to work and it was only a few thoughts and I had not looked at the previous comments thoroghly. I must have hit publish and not saved it as a draft by accident. This morning I did return to finish it and realized my error. I have corrected my previous comments and published Gil’s comment but I wanted to make it clear that the error was on my part and he was responding to a draft and is in no way at fault in the matter. Gil is of course free to respond to my corrected post and I am sure he will. :)

The commonly accepted interpretation of the symbolism of keys is a bestowal of a singular authority to govern. Scholars point out that this symbolism is common in Scripture and in Near Eastern, Roman and Greek culture. The commonly accepted interpretation of the symbolism of binding and loosing is the power to teach and judge. This symbolism is common in Scripture and Jewish writings. Both confer power and authority. There is a difference in kind that is pointed out by every major scholar on the matter across Christendom. Your hypothesis is interesting, if uniquely obscurantist and novel.

It is somwhat odd that you continue to brush aside objections with a general “scholars agree..” line of argumentation when the view that the first sentence is an assertion of a Petrine universal governance is a distinctly minority opinion among scholars. First of all, the fact that there may be two different references does not entail that the two are unrelated since one serves to illuminate the other. The first sentence obviously alludes to Isaiah 22:22:

Then I will set the key of the house of David on his shoulder, When he opens no one will shut, When he shuts no one will open.

Notice that the second passage describes the first - a natural way of reading it and one that carries over in Matthew as well. In both cases the first sentence declares an authority and the second one describes the scope of that authority. You have contended that the binding and loosing could illustrate the authority in the same manner as the opening and shutting since the keys are one of governance and the binding and loosing refer to teaching and judgment. Yet is not the core of the papal claim one to teach and judge? The Catholic Church does not declare the pope infalible in his governance of the Church but in his teaching on matters of faith and morals. This then would fall under the binding and loosing by your own definition.

More importantly, howerver, is the fact that you mistated the role of the keyholder in the Davidic kingdom. His role was not to govern the kingdom (even vicariously) but to control the access to the king. It was his decision who would get to plead their case. Now who is king in the kingdom of heaven? Jesus Christ of course! And apparently St. Peter would somehow have control over access to the king. Now, if we remember, access to the king was won on the cross and the curtain was rent in the Holy of Holies sybolizing this new access. So if we have access, how does St. Peter grant it? Simply put, access is given to those who believe and St. Peter’s authority is to proclaim the Gospel -an authority first given to him and then to the Church as a whole. Certainly, St. Peter was granted a special place. He was the first to proclaim the Gospel to Jews, Getiles, and even Samaritans. In this sense, he fulfilled the prophecy of Christ.

As far as being novel, I think you need to expand your reading beyond Catholic authors. The belief that the keys were given to St. Peter and then to the other Apostles is fairly common in Anglican and Eastern Orthodox theology. I did a quick search on Google and found a number of articles with the same conclusion. I had not read them and I’m sure they did not read my mind. It is just a common belief.

Another common view among scholars is that St. Peter’s role was that of a chief rabbi. The general practice was for the chief rabbi to moderate the debate and seek to move to consensus just as rabbis would do the same in disputes among their elders. Maintaining unity in a hostile climate was a major guiding factor.

As a point in getting past endless wrangling about scholarly opinion, allow me to quote Raymond E. Brown, who is among the top five Catholic biblical scholars of the last few decades from The Church the Apostles Left Behind:

Again, Peter and the disciples are given the power to bind and loose, a power clearly phrased in rabbinic terms. Some have proposed that consciously or unconsciously Matthew thinks of Peter as the chief rabbi of the church, although that designation never appears. The imagery of the keys to the kingdom that are given to Peter has its roots in Isa 22:22 as an expression for the power of the prime minister in the Davidic kingdom who controls access to the king

Brown never asserts that Peter has any sort of universal jurisdiction in the papal sense nor even considers the possibility - it is not taken seriously by any but a distinct minority of biblical scholars. Assertions to the contrary simply do not hold water.

It is fascinating to read your assertion of Isa 22:22 as evidence that keys bind and loose. You will notice from the passage that keys open and shut. The underlying Hebrew also confirms that keys do indeed unlock, open and lock, shut. In no way do keys bind and unbind. It is also fascinating that you quote RE Brown who, also, sees a distinction between keys and binding/loosing. Apparently to him they do not mean the same thing, either. Brown clearly sees keys as representing a governing role, ie, prime minister and binding/loosing as representing teaching & judging, ie chief rabbi. You seem to be moving farther and farther from your original position. For the sake of arguement, I would throw out any concept of the papacy or the Roman Catholic Church. From a Scriptural point of view, you must agree that Jesus is promising 2 roles for Peter in Matt 16: a governing role similar to Prime Minister in Isa 22:22 (that he does not bestow on the others) and a teaching/judging role similar to Jewish rabbis (that he does bestow on the others). Wouldn’t you agree?

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that given a title by someone, the description of the title must always preserve metaphors in its description. There is simply no logical or linguistic reason for this to be true. One thing we do know, however, is that when one is invested with a certain power, it is common for the power to be immediately defined in whole or part. Also, the particular linguistic idiom used is common strucure for one in a position of great power or authority to bestow upon a follower a certain power or authority in terms of opposite scopes. In Isaiah, we have such a structure (”Then I will set the key of the house of David on his shoulder, When he opens no one will shut, When he shuts no one will open.”) as well as in Matthew (”And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”). Another scriptural example appears in John 20:22-23 (”And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.’”). Whenever such a structure appears, the title or power and the subsequent scope are always connected. The only reason for suggesting otherwise is to avoid the difficulties of Matthew 18:18.

Now it has been argued that the binding and loosing describe a role of the keys but do not exhaust their powers. That is, the keys include this role and more and the full power of the keys is unique to St. Peter. This is certainly a respectable position and one that cetainly needs to be taken in consideration. In fact, I did so in the original article by pointing out St. Peter’s unique role. But the passage does not provide us with anything resembling the papacy. What it does state is that the church will somehow be founded upon St. Peter and gives us a context for that founding - the confession of St. Peter. It is thus reasonable to believe the fulfillment of the keys has to do with a confssion of Christ and we see this in St. Peter’s preaching of the Gospel on Pentecost. He was the first to bring the Good News to both Jew and Gentile and even Samaritans. This also conforms with the passage of Isaiah. The role of the keyholder was not one who governed but one who gave access to the king. And St. Peter was the first to give access to the King of Kings by his preaching. The others would also spread the good news but his role in the founding of the Church is unique.

As for Dr. Brown, you obviously misunderstood the passage and are not that familiar with his writings. He did not state that he saw such a distincition but, as I quoted, “Some have proposed…” He is a scholar who is presenting it as a point of view that some have taken but he never states he is in agreement. Also, the view proposed is one of a “chief rabbi” that is starkly different from that of a pope. Rabbis - even chief rabbis - lead from a position of respect (both of person and position) and not from a divine mandate. By the way, Brown’s own view on these issues is that the Nes Testament texts represent diverse communities within the Church that were not always in agreement on key issues and using any particular passage to prooftext one’s own ecclesiology overlooks the historical realities. The reason I brought him up is to point out the fact that however comforting one may find “facts” printed in popular apologetics, they do not always stand up to close scrutiny. Things are often a lot more complicated than any of us would like.

As for your final question, you seem to keep insisting that I am denying a unique position for St. Peter. This is not the case and was pretty well explained in the original article. What I have claimed (and again this is also in the article) is that 1) there is no connection to anything like the papacy 2) the only explicitly granted authority is that of binding and loosing and 3) the only possible implicit imperative mentioned in the passage is connected to St. Peter’s cofession and this unique position was fulfilled by him and none other.