Peter
is making a comparison of the man of God to an infant who needs (craves) milk
to sustain them in their growth.
Pure teaching is not just breast milk or
something that is only for beginners, but words and direction from Jesus
Himself, who feeds our spirit and sustains us in our spiritual growth.
Jesus answered, “The Scriptures say: ‘No one can live
only on food. People need every word that God has spoken.’”
Matthew 4:4 (CEV)
In the book of John, Jesus is called “The Word of God” (John 1:2), so we depend upon Him speaking to us daily with His
words to encourage us and to lead us into the fullness of salvation.
In ancient
Jewish thought, there were two types of manifestations of God which the Jewish
people recognized;
one way was the ethereal, a non-embodied entity that spoke
directly to an individual much like God speaking words from a burning
bush, or like Jesus speaking to Paul on the road to Damascus. (Exodus 3:4-15; Acts 9:3-12
The second way is by direct embodiment, where the Lord appears as either a man or
an angel. (Judges 6:11-12;
Luke 24:13-35) Either
way, a message is to be communicated, and the word of the Lord is evident.
Both hearing and responding to the Word of the Lord
brings encouragement and growth in what God wants us to become or what He wants
us to do.
Jesus is referred to as the Living Stone, Peter, who
wrote today’s passage, knew full well what a living stone was because of Jesus
calling Him a rock.
Simon Peter spoke up, “You are the Messiah, the Son of
the living God.” Jesus told him: “Simon, son of Jonah, you are blessed! You
didn’t discover this on your own. It was shown to you by my Father in heaven.
So I will call you Peter, which means “a rock.” On this rock I will build my
Church, and death itself will not have any power over it.”
Matthew 16:16-18
(CEV)
Peter wasn’t physically a rock, but there is something
that Jesus was attempting to convey, and I believe it was this; when we receive
the revelation of the word either from Jesus or the Father in heaven, we depend
upon the spiritual nourishment of that Word from God himself. That is how to grow spiritually;
we depend upon the word of God to sustain us.
Peter unknowingly received some spiritual food from the Father in heaven and spoke out the truth of who Jesus was, and Jesus acknowledged it.
Jesus makes another profound statement here “On this rock I will build my church..” Jesus is saying that He will build His Church upon
those who hear the spoken Word of God and receive it as their spiritual food and speak it out from a position of His authority.
What was unusual about Peter
is he was a fisherman, not a theologian, he spoke as the word was revealed to
him by the Lord, not by studying the Torah for years and years, nor becoming
proficient in analyzing the written accounts of God or the prophets. These are the words of Jesus below:
“You are busy analyzing the Scriptures, frantically
poring over them in hopes of gaining eternal life. Everything you read points
to me, yet you still refuse to come to me so I can give you the life you’re
looking for—eternal life!”
John 5:39-40 (TPT)
I believe that the message that Jesus is attempting to
convey here is that He is the Word of God, and the word of God is embodied in Him.
Many sincere scholars have spent a
lifetime studying the details of the biblical languages and their
relationship to the culture of the time. Still, the reality is that the scriptures
alone cannot save us, but a relationship with Jesus will.
He gives us His
Word(s) daily as we seek Him and desire what He has to say to us, and we grow
from the faith that He imparts. We become living stones as Jesus is a living
stone; stones are meant for a purpose which is to build. We gather together,
and we become (build) the ecclesia (the Church) the building of God which is our bodies.
“Remember this: whatever you bind on earth will be bound
in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. And this:
if two or three of you come together as a community and discern clearly about
anything, My Father in heaven will bless that discernment. For when two or
three gather together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”
Matthew 18:18-20
(VOICE)
We build the Church as we gather together. Satan does
whatever he can to prevent us from gathering, for this is where the Kingdom is
revealed and expands on the earth.
Presently with the Coronavirus, there is an image that Satan has erected that he wants everyone to bow down to, and that
image is fear.
We were told by Jesus not to let fear control us; Paul even reminds us of the same thing:
“For God will never give you the spirit of fear, but it is the
Holy Spirit who gives you mighty power, love, and self-control.”
2 Timothy 1: (TPT)
We serve the Lord, not fear. We will not bow down to
fear. Our spiritual enemies want us to avoid meeting, to avoid touching, and to
keep a personal distance from others by social distancing; it sure sounds like an attack on the
Church to me.
The spirit of the Lord is greater than fear and greater
than a virus. We are the sons and daughters of God, and we have authority over
such things in Christ Jesus. The government does not have authority over the
Church any more than a virus has authority over us.
The above passage ends with this last admonition “You are to serve God in this house as holy priests,
offering him spiritual sacrifices that he will accept because of Jesus Christ.”
Those spiritual sacrifices are the praise and
worship we offer to Him. We also help our neighbor and demonstrate accountability to one another, which pleases the Lord.
Be Blessed;
Stephen Barnett
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