Why did Jesus change Simons name to Peter?

Why Simon Was Renamed Peter

So, why did Jesus change Simon's name to Peter? Some Catholics say Jesus changed his name because he was the first pope, the leader of the church. Furthermore, they claim that Peter is the rock on which the church was built.

They look to Matthew 16, 18, and we'll get to that in a minute. Now, the true church is supposed to be the Catholic church. That's what they say. But you see, nothing in Scripture says that Peter's name was changed for this reason.

Therefore, it's conjecture. Second, he wasn't the only apostle whose name was changed. Paul was first called Saul, you can check out Acts 13, 9, but he became known as Paul. Third, Peter is the apostle to the Jews, Escalations 2, 7.

Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles, that's Romans 11, 13. Here check it out. All we've got to do is put our mouse over there, and you get this, where Paul says he's speaking to the Gentiles as much as he is the apostle of the Gentiles.

All right. So we know that he was called, Paul was called to be an apostle to the Gentiles and Peter to the Jews. Now, if anything, the name change of both Peter and Paul reflects their assignments as apostles to the Jews, that's Peter, and the Gentiles, that's Paul.

It's not about being a pope. And finally, to be consistent, Peter is not the pope, so to speak, of the Gentiles, because that is not his apostolic assignment, that's critical, apostolic assignment. He is the apostle to the Jews.

Now, of course, this doesn't mean that Peter can't teach the Gentiles in Acts 15, 7 -9, he does that very thing. It doesn't also mean that Paul can't teach the Jews. So it makes sense to say that when Jesus changed Peter's name from Simon, it did not mean that it was because he was the pope.

It designates Peter's apostolic assignment to the Jews. We have these verses here in Galatians 2, 7, but on the contrary, seeing that I, Paul, had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised.

In Romans 11, 13, he says, But I, Paul, am speaking to you who are Gentiles, and as much then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry. In Acts 9, 15, I threw that in because it's interesting, you see, this is where Jesus says, Go, for he, that's Paul, is a chosen instrument of mine to bear his name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel, so Paul had his direction and his calling from Jesus.

Matthew 16:18 and the Meaning of Petros and Petra

All right, now let's take a look at Matthew 16, 18. Now, Catholics use this verse to claim that Peter is the head of the church. Well, he isn't. You see, the word Peter is petros in the Greek, notice the OS ending.

The word rock is petra, notice the A letter ending. Petros is masculine and means a small rock. Petra is feminine and means a large rock. The feminine petra occurs four times in the Greek New Testament, and there are the verses for that.

Aside from the text in question, Matthew 16, 18, we see that in each of the other occurrences, petra refers to a large immovable mass of rock in which a tomb is carved out. You can check out Matthew 27, 60 for that, because it says right there that he laid him in his own tomb, which is hewn out of the rock.

All right, so the term petra is also used of Christ, and that's in 1 Corinthians 10, 4. Now, check this out, 1 Corinthians 10, 4, when it says there, and all drank the same spiritual drink. Now, this is the context about the Jews leaving Egypt, and they're going to the desert, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock, which was followed them.

That rock was Christ. That's petra, was Christ. So that's what the Bible says, that the petra is in reference to Jesus. And furthermore, that's what Peter says, too, in 1 Peter 2, 8. He says, referring to Jesus, he's a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, for they stumbled because they are disobedient to the word and to this tomb they were also appointed.

And notice he says, a rock of offense. So Peter is referring to petra as referencing Jesus. That's what it says. So a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. So Peter references him to, just as Jesus did in Matthew 16, 18.

So we see that Matthew 16, 18 does not support the idea that Jesus changed Peter's name from Simon because he is the Pope, or the one with all the authority, or anything like that. So a little bit of extra, just some research, and this is just a little bit of extra trivia kind of information.

This is what I found in that research on the article, Why Jesus Changed Peter's Name from Simon. Simon, which is right there in the Greek, Simon means hearing, and Peter means rock or stone. Likewise, Saul means desired, and Paul means little or small.

Peter is still called Simon Peter, but Paul is not called Saul Paul. I find that interesting. The phrase Simon Peter occurs 21 times in the New Testament. The number of occurrences where the word Simon and the word Peter occur, but not Simon Peter, occurs 11 times.

Jesus first called him Cephas, that's Simon Peter, which is translated as Peter. That's in John 1, 42, way back at the beginning of the ministry. He's called Simon Barjona in Matthew 16, 17, and of course, in Matthew 16, 18, you are Peter Petros, and upon this rock Petra, I'll build my church.

Word Studies and Closing Thoughts

All right, so here's these verses, and I'll go through these slowly. These are the verses, the 21 times where the phrase Simon Peter occurs. You can check them all out. I'm not going to read them all.

I'm just going to scroll through them, and then after these, you'll find that there is a list of 11 verses where the word Simon and Peter are found together in the various verses. Now, you see, I'm a researcher, and I enjoy word studies.

I enjoy just finding out how many times a certain phrase occurs, what it means, and where it means it, and so I'm just providing this information there. It's not that big a deal. You can check it out.

You can look at all of these, and you can just read through. You can pause the video, and you can see what you think about it. Maybe you'll see something there I haven't seen. I think it's interesting, and I just wanted to share the information with you, and may the Lord bless you, and we'll just talk to you another time, so God bless.