Matthew 16

The Demand for a Sign

¹ And when the Pharisees and Sadducees came to him, testing him, they asked him to show them [a] sign out of heaven. ² But he answered them saying: When it has become late you say: Fair weather, for the sky is fiery red, ³ And early, Today bad weather, for the sky is fiery red becoming gloomy. On the one hand you know how to discern the face of the sky, but you are unable [to] [discern] the sign of the times^{1 2}. ⁴ A wicked³ and adulterous generation seeks after [a] sign, and [a] sign will not be given to it except the sign of Jonah. And having left them he departed.

The Yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees

⁵ And when the disciples came to the other side they forgot to take bread. ⁶ And Jesus said to them: Be watching and guarding yourself from the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. ⁷ And they reasoned among themselves that: We [may] not take bread. ⁸ But Jesus knowing [this] said: Why do you reason among yourselves, [You] little-faiths, that you [may] not have⁴ bread? ⁹ Do you not yet understand, or have you forgotten the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you took? ¹⁰ Or the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many baskets you took? ¹¹ How do you not understand that I spoke to you not concerning bread? Be guarding yourself from the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. ¹² Then they understood that he did not say to guard oneself from the leaven of bread, but from the teachings of the Pharisees.

Peter's Confession

¹³ When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea of Phillip he asked⁵ his disciples saying: Who do men say the son of man to be? ¹⁴ So they said: Some on the one hand John the baptist, others Elijah, others Jeremiah or [one] of the prophets. ¹⁵ He says to them: But who do you say I am? ¹⁶ And Simon Peter answering said: You are the Christ the son of the zoe-living⁶ God. ¹⁷ Jesus answering said to him: Blessed are you, Simon Barjonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal [this] to you but my father in heaven. ¹⁸ And I say to you that: You are Peter⁷ , and upon this rock⁷ will I build my assembly⁸ , and the gates of Hades⁹ will not prevail against it. ¹⁹ I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of the heavens, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in the heavens, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in the heavens. ²⁰ Then he censured the disciples that no one may say that he is the Christ.

First Prediction of Jesus's Death and Resurrection

²¹ From then on Jesus began to explain to the disciples that he must depart into Jerusalem and suffer many [things] from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and rise on the third day. ²² And Peter taking him aside began to be rebuking him saying: Mercy to you, Lord! This will not be for you! ²³ But Jesus turning said to Peter: Withdraw behind me, Satan. You tempt me because you do not think on the [things] of God but of men. ²⁴ Then Jesus said to his disciples: Whoever wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ²⁵ For whoever wishes to save his psyche-life¹⁰ will lose¹¹ it, and whoever loses¹¹ his psyche-life¹⁰ because of me will find it. ²⁶ For how will [a] man be profited if he should gain the whole world and forfeit¹² his own psyche-life¹⁰? Or what will [a] man give in exchange for his psyche-life¹⁰? ²⁷ For the son of man will come¹³ in the glory of his father with his angels, and then he will render¹⁴ to each according to his doings. ²⁸ Truly I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste of death until they see the son of man coming in his kingdom.

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¹KAIROS (καιρoς ) `opportune time', `proper time', `season'

²"When it has become late ... sign of the times" (vss 2,3): DWK vg maj; omit: ℵB

³PONEROS (πoνηρoς ) here. The Greek word KAKOS (κακoς ) is always translated `evil', PONEROS is usually translated as `wicked' although occasionally as `bad'; it can also mean 'diseased', 'sickly' and is thus translated where appropriate. Like KAKOS, PONEROS also means `evil', but the harm that evil does is more in view, where KAKOS is more `evil as evil'.

⁴"have": ℵBD vg; "take": WK

⁵EROTAO (ερωταω) "Ask", but more polite, not demanding/begging as is AITEO. Both AITEO and EROTAO occur in John.16:26.

⁶from ZOE "ZOH-ay" (ζωη)—Life 'collectively', interdependent, interconnected. Although it means 'life' in the conventional sense (for example: Matt.9:18, Matt.27:63, Luke.2:36, Acts.25:24, Rom.7:2, 2Cor.1:8, 1Thes.4:17, 1Tim.5:10, Rev.19:20), Jesus uses ZOE exclusively of 'life eternal' (with the possible exceptions of Luke.15:13, Luke.16:25). The other N.T. writers use ZOE in both senses—temporal and eternal, generally clear from the context. The Father is the 'zoe-living God' (see Matt.16:16). The Septuagint (LXX) in Gen.2:7 has "...[God] breathed into his nostrils the breath of zoe-life, and the man became a zoe-living psyche-life" (and see 1Cor.15:45); and Gen.3:20 (LXX) "And Adam called his wife's name ZOE, because she was the mother of all zoe-living." Contrast PSYCHE (ψυχη): an individual manifestation of life/consciousness. See John.12:25 where both ZOE and PSYCHE occur. Greek also has the word BIOS (βιoς ) for 'life' in the sense of biological processes.

⁷PETROS (πετρoς ) Greek for 'rock'

⁸EKKLESIA (εκκλησια) from "called out". Appears 114 times in the N.T., but only in two places in the Gospels ( Matt.16:18 (twice) and Matt.18:17 (twice)). It's worth noting that when Jesus uses the term EKKLESIA, Christian community as we know it didn't yet exist—there were only the disciples. EKKLESIA is apparently different from 'synagogue' (SYNAGOGE (συναγωγη) which occurs 56 times in the N.T.) EKKLESIA is used in secular Greek literature of a popular assembly 'called to assemble', and also of those 'called' to a cult. EKKLESIA is used frequently in the N.T. outside of the Gospels to refer to Christian communities, but in Acts.7:38 it is used of the people of Israel led through the desert by Moses, and in Acts.19:32 ff. of a secular assembly. Thus, all told, the common translation of EKKLESIA as 'church' doesn't really reflect 1st century usage—it seems to mean more like 'a group of people assembled for some specific purpose'.

⁹"Hades" (αδης ), the Greek underworld.

¹⁰from PSYCHE (ψυχη): an individual manifestation of life/consciousness. Animals have PSYCHEs as well as humans. Contrast ZOE (ζωη)—Life 'collectively', interdependent, interconnected.

¹¹APOLLUMI (απoλλυμι) To lose something that one previously possessed. Can also mean `ruin' or `destroy'—see Rev.9:11 where the angel of the Abyss is named `Apollyon' (same root word).

¹²ZEMIOO "zeh-mi-AW-oh" (ζημιoω) to suffer the loss of something which one has previously possessed, with the emphasis on the hardship that this causes.

¹³or "is about to come," or "is soon coming"

¹⁴or "give back what is due," "repay"