Jesus and Peter

[Steve Forrestor]

Did Jesus ever instruct Peter to establish a church?

or asked another way...

Did Jesus ever implicitly or explicitly instructed or otherwise encouraged
Peter to establish either a well-organized or essentially unorganized faith
community, assembly or other religious institution or organization of
ecumenical shepherd, teachers and leaders and of those people who
wanted or needed some structure, guidance or instruction in effectively
worshipping God?

Thanks!

Steve

[h***@geneva.rutgers.edu]

Post by Steve Forrestor
Did Jesus ever implicitly or explicitly instructed or otherwise encouraged
Peter to establish either a well-organized or essentially unorganized faith
community, assembly or other religious institution or organization of
ecumenical shepherd, teachers and leaders and of those people who
wanted or needed some structure, guidance or instruction in effectively
worshipping God?

Yes. Mat 18:15 ff seems to assume the existence of a body with some
level of organization. Acts shows us the early stages of building it.
Paul's letters give us more information. I'm not sure that Jesus had
quite in mind everything that happened in the later church, but
there's plenty of NT evidence for organized communities with leaders
holding specific roles such as deacon and elder.

Mat 16:18 seems to say that Peter will have a role in creating this,
and Acts makes it clear that he was in fact a leader.