Confession of St Peter

 ¹³ When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” ¹⁴ They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” ¹⁵ “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
¹⁷ Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸ And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” ²⁰ Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. – Matthew 16:13-20

Let’s take a closer look at that picture, shall we?

Sometimes when we are familiar with a bible passage, or story, we lose sight of the important parts.  So we need to take a closer look to find details we may have overlooked.

We remember that Jesus “gave Peter the Keys of Heaven”.  But what was the really important part of this section?

 

V16 - “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Why is that important? 

Because until that moment, nobody had ever said it before.  What we have here, is the first credo, or creedal statement made in the Christian Church.    Before we had the Nicene Creed, or the Apostles Creed, or the Baptism Creed; we had Peter, the fisherman, saying “You are the messiah, the Son of the living God.”

How. Awesome. Is. That????

Out of that one statement, it became necessary to amplify who Jesus was, and how he fitted into the world.  Many creeds were drawn up, and attempts were made to understand the world. 

But at the end of the day, doesn’t our entire faith come down to our accepting this basic truth about Him?

He was the messiah (Christ, Saviour)
He was the Son of God.

On 18 January, we commemorate a very FISHy fellow.  With the Feast of the Confession of St Peter.