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Matthew 16 & the Papacy (vs. Patrick O’Brien)

Matthew 16 & the Papacy (vs. Patrick O’Brien)

Last updated on: June 13, 2026 at 11:42 am by Dave Armstrong

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Matthew 16 & the Papacy (vs. Patrick O’Brien) 2026-06-13T11:42:10-04:00 Dave Armstrong

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This is the initial transcript of the video, “Peter, The Rock and the Papacy – Why Patrick O’Brien is Wrong Again” (5-29-26, Catholic Bible Highlights, with Kenny Burchard).

Patrick O’Brien runs the YouTube channel, Philippians 1:9 Ministries. It has 10,000 subscribers and 304 videos. He grew up Catholic, was an altar boy, and even studied Catholic apologetics before he became a Protestant. We’re responding to his video, “The Pope in Matthew 16? The Truth Catholics Won’t Admit” (12-11-25). He states at the beginning:

[Patrick] Where is the pope in the Bible? The answer to this question will either make or break Roman Catholicism.

Great, then, because I have compiled 120 biblical arguments for the papacy, so it looks like we’ll survive after all. Whew! That was a close one. We’ll link to that article. Here’s the passage we’ll be discussing:

Matthew 16:13-19 (RSV) Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesare’a Philip’pi, he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” [14] And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Eli’jah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” [15] He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” [16] Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” [17] And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. [18] And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. [19] I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

[Patrick — 2:24] The reason Jesus singles out Peter is because Peter is the one that gave the answer. He’s the one that gave this proclamation that God the Father revealed this truth to him that Jesus is the son of the living God, the Christ or the Messiah.

That’s true, but it’s also true that he was consistently portrayed as the leader of the disciples in the Gospels. Jesus had already said that Peter was the “rock” (the meaning of Peter, or kepha [Kay-Fah] in Hebrew; Cephas [SEE-Fuss] in Greek), when He first met him: “So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter)”: John 1:42. So this was long since established and was nothing new in Matthew 16. But Jesus expounding upon what the new name meant, was new.

[Patrick — 5:17] Matthew’s as if he’s trying to say Jesus was pointing to the rocks, the little stones in the creek, and that’s who Peter is. And then he points to the big cliff and says, “Upon that cliff, upon that rock, the giant rock, I will build my church.” And equating himself as that rock or the confession that Peter makes as that rock. This is important because Catholics will make the claim that Jesus was speaking in Aramaic. That’s not validated. There’s no proof of that. In fact, we would say that he was most likely speaking Greek because he’s in this in the Greek area here . . .

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, “What Language Did Jesus Speak?”: “It is widely agreed among historians that Jesus primarily spoke Aramaic, the common language of Palestine.” There would be no reason to speak Greek, wherever Jesus was, when He was speaking to His disciples. It’s a silly argument. As to the desperate “big and little rock” scenario, D. A. Carson, one of the most highly respected Protestant exegetes, wrote the following about Jesus’ meaning:

On the basis of the distinction between ‘petros’ . . . and ‘petra’ . . . , many have attempted to avoid identifying Peter as the rock on which Jesus builds his church. Peter is a mere ‘stone,’ it is alleged; but Jesus himself is the ‘rock’ . . . Others adopt some other distinction . . . Yet if it were not for Protestant reactions against extremes of Roman Catholic interpretation, it is doubtful whether many would have taken ‘rock’ to be anything or anyone other than Peter . . .

The Greek makes the distinction between ‘petros’ and ‘petra’ simply because it is trying to preserve the pun, and in Greek the feminine ‘petra’ could not very well serve as a masculine name . . .

Had Matthew wanted to say no more than that Peter was a stone in contrast with Jesus the Rock, the more common word would have been ‘lithos’ (‘stone’ of almost any size). Then there would have been no pun – and that is just the point! . . .

In this passage Jesus is the builder of the church and it would be a strange mixture of metaphors that also sees him within the same clauses as its foundation . . . (in Frank E. Gaebelein, General Editor, Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1984, vol. 8: Matthew, Mark, Luke [Matthew: D. A. Carson], 368)

R. T. France, another highly renowned Protestant commentator, concurred:

Jesus now sums up Peter’s significance in a name, Peter . . .It describes not so much Peter’s character (he did not prove to be ‘rock-like’ in terms of stability or reliability), but his function, as the foundation-stone of Jesus’ church. The feminine word for ‘rock’, ‘petra’, is necessarily changed to the masculine ‘petros’ (stone) to give a man’s name, but the word-play is unmistakable (and in Aramaic would be even more so, as the same form ‘kepha’ would occur in both places). It is only Protestant overreaction to the Roman Catholic claim . . . that what is here said of Peter applies also to the later bishops of Rome, that has led some to claim that the ‘rock’ here is not Peter at all but the faith which he has just confessed. The word-play, and the whole structure of the passage, demands that this verse is every bit as much Jesus’ declaration about Peter as v.16 was Peter’s declaration about Jesus . . . It is to Peter, not to his confession, that the rock metaphor is applied . . .

Peter is to be the foundation-stone of Jesus’ new community . . . which will last forever. (in Leon Morris, General Editor, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press/Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1985, vol. 1: Matthew, 254, 256)

I have found 28 more well-known, important Protestant scholars who agree that Peter was the rock, not merely his confession. This is currently the consensus view among all Bible scholars. We’ll put their names up on the screen:

New Bible Dictionary, Word Studies in the New Testament (Marvin Vincent), Wycliffe Bible Commentary, New Bible Commentary, Anchor Bible (William F. Albright and C. S. Mann), Eerdmans Bible Commentary, Henry Alford, Herman N. Ridderbos, Albert Barnes, David Hill, M. Eugene Boring, William Hendriksen, John A. Broadus, Carl Friedrich Keil, Gerhard Kittel, Oscar Cullmann, Peake’s Commentary, Gerhard Maier, J. Knox Chamblin, Craig L. Blomberg, William E. McCumber, Donald A. Hagner, Philip Schaff, Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: The Gospel According to Matthew, vol. 8, The Layman’s Bible Commentary, Encyclopaedia Britannica (1985; article by D. W. O’Connor, a Protestant), Robert McAfee Brown, and Richard Baumann.

[Patrick — 10:04] Surely the eternality of the church of Jesus Christ is not built upon a man. Surely we understand places like Ephesians 2 where the church is built upon the apostles and the prophets with Jesus Christ the cornerstone, right?

Yes; but both things are true. Jesus is the cornerstone in one sense, and Peter is the rock upon whom Jesus built His Church in another. Peter was the earthly leader. He is portrayed throughout the New Testament as the leader (again, see my linked paper for a comprehensive summary of all of the 120 evidences). God had always used men as central to His purposes, whether it was Noah or Abraham or David (He made covenants with all three of them), Joseph or Moses or John the Baptist or Paul. So again, this is nothing new. When it came time to pick a leader of the new Church that was to begin after He ascended to heaven, Jesus selected Peter.

[Patrick — 10:30] they try to go into different places like Isaiah 22 and make a reference there as if they and Catholics will do this a lot. They’ll try to take the Hebraicism of the Old Testament and like bleed it into the New Testament and say, “Look, the Jews did something, so now we do it.” Well, we don’t do things simply because the Jews did them or practiced them or they were part of their culture. We do things because we’re commanded to do them in the scripture by the apostles who were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write us instruction in the scripture.

Catholics aren’t the only ones who tie Matthew 16 and the keys with Isaiah 22. It’s massively referred to in Protestant commentary. F. F. Bruce is one of the greatest Protestant Bible scholars of our time. He views this very differently than Patrick:

The keys of a royal or noble establishment were entrusted to the chief steward or majordomo; he carried them on his shoulder in earlier times, and there they served as a badge of the authority entrusted to him. About 700 B.C. an oracle from God announced that this authority in the royal palace in Jerusalem was to be conferred on a man called Eliakim . . . . (Isaiah 22:22). So in the new community which Jesus was about to build, Peter would be, so to speak, chief steward. (The Hard Sayings of Jesus, Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity, 1983, 143-144)

Likewise, the widely used Protestant New Bible Dictionary concurs:

In the . . . exercise of the power of the keys, in ecclesiastical discipline, the thought is of administrative authority (Is 22:22) with regard to the requirements of the household of faith. The use of censures, excommunication, and absolution is committed to the Church in every age, to be used under the guidance of the Spirit . . . So Peter, in T.W. Manson’s words, is to be ‘God’s vicegerent . . . The authority of Peter is an authority to declare what is right and wrong for the Christian community. His decisions will be confirmed by God’ (The Sayings of Jesus, 1954, p. 205). (1962 edition, J. D. Douglas, editor, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1962, p. 1018)

Related Book

Biblical Proofs for an Infallible Church and Papacy (March 2012, 150 pages)

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The Papacy & Infallibility

Summary: We run through the current consensus of Protestant Bible scholars and commentators, that Peter –not Jesus or Peter’s confession — is the “rock” Jesus refers to in Matthew 16.

Papacy & Infallibility

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