Throughout my youth, my mother always said that I was never deliberately named after St Peter, the apostle of Christ. Although at times I think I was. My mother originally got saved in 1972 after seeing a cross in a window, and when she went home she always said that Jesus appeared to her in the room of the house where my parents lived.

My father became a Christian the following year, in 1973. I was born that very same year.

Over recent years and months I have revisited the locations where these events happened and they have a very close affinity with me and my family. My mother was a very dedicated Christian who spent all of her life testifying about Jesus and singing about Him wherever she could. My dad on the other hand was a preacher, and a fishmonger.

I think some of these influences have impacted me throughout my life.

Like St Peter, I too like to go fishing. Like St Peter, I too believe Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven. Like Peter, I too follow Christ.

For me, I don’t like it when the very true apostle of Christ, who bears the same name as I, is slanderously claimed to be the founder of the singularly most apostate religion to have ever claimed the Name of Christ.

I am speaking of course about the Roman Catholic Church. An establishment that claims Peter was its first pope. This claim of course is absolute nonsense. The Roman Catholic church as it stands today was not even formulated unto 1054 A.D at the Great East West Schism. The facts remain that the early 1^st century bishops of Rome had nothing whatsoever to do with modern church of Rome. Today the Vatican is an empire, a political power, a religion that affirms many acts that the Bible speaks against.

But let us look at this claim of St Peter being the rock of the Roman Catholic Church.

The claim itself comes from Matthew 16: 18 where Jesus says to Peter, “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (NKJV)

Let us imagine for a moment that Peter was the rock that Christ chose to build His church upon, would that mean that church was the Roman Catholic Church? If it were, would that exclude all other churches? Would that mean that Peter was only the rock of Rome, or only those churches the pope has jurisdiction over? Would that exclude the Greeks? Would that exclude the churches that St Paul founded? Or the Church of Jerusalem that was run by James? Would it exclude the church run by Titus on Crete?

The Greek word that Matthew uses to communicate “rock” is Petra, which means “a (mass of) rock, (literally and figuratively): – rock”. (Strongs G4073)

This word can be found in Matthew 7: 24-25, where Jesus says a wise man builds his house upon the rock. Was Jesus talking about Peter here? Was Jesus saying that a wise man builds his house upon St Peter? I don’t think so. When the wise man Jesus is speaking about built his house upon the rock Jesus was talking about the wise man building his faith upon Jesus Christ.

It is more consistent to say that Jesus was building His church upon Peter’s declaration of faith which came from the Father (Matthew 16: 17).

When Jesus says “you are Peter,” (Matthew 16: 18) He is acknowledging Peter as one of His disciples and when He says “and upon this rock I will build My church,” He was saying that like the wise man built His house upon the rock, so also Peter built his house of faith upon a solid foundation, which is the true confession of faith.

This confession of faith has lasted for 2000 years since Jesus said those words and Christ’s church has never gone away.

The reality is that if the Roman Catholic church views Peter as the rock that the church has built itself upon, then it is a house built upon sand and not upon the rock.

Roman Catholic’s may well view Peter as the rock of the Roman Catholic church, but he is not the rock of the body of Christ. Jesus Christ is the rock of the body of Christ, not Peter.