Do – The People God Uses 16: 1-27

The People God Uses
16: 1-27

The capital city of Rome was a magnet that drew people from all over the empire. In addition to Paul’s travels to many of the major population centers – Jerusalem, Syrian Antioch, Philippi, Athens, Corinth, and Ephesus – it brought him into contact with many believers within Roman society. This helps to explain the presence of Paul’s many friends in Rome, but his knowledge of their whereabouts remains a tribute to his deep concern for the people God uses.₃₉₆ While Paul mentions 27 people in the church at Rome, there is obviously one person missing: Peter. This begs the question, “Was Peter ever in Rome?”

According to Roman Catholic tradition, Peter was the first bishop of Rome. His pontificate supposedly lasted for twenty-five years until he was martyred in Rome in 67 AD. The remarkable thing, however, about Peter’s alleged reign as pope in Rome, is that the B’rit Chadashah does not say one single word about it. The word Rome appears only nine times in the Bible, and never is Kefa mentioned in connection with it. There is no mention to Rome in either of Peter’s letters. But Paul’s journey to Rome is recorded in great detail in Acts 27 and 28. In fact, there is no evidence in the B’rit Chadashah, nor any historical proof of any kind, that Peter was ever in Rome.

The most compelling reason for believing that Peter was never in Rome is found in Paul’s letter to the Romans. According to Roman Catholic tradition, Kefa reigned as pope in Rome from 42 to 67 AD. It is generally agreed that Paul’s letter to the church in Rome was written in the year 58 AD, at the very height of Peter’s alleged reign there. He did not address his letter to Peter, as he should have if he was pope, but to the believers in Rome. How strange for a missionary to write to a church and not mention its pastor! That would have been an inexcusable insult. What would we think of a missionary today who would dare to write a congregation in a distant city and without mentioning their pastor, tell them that he was anxious to go there so that he might bare some fruit among them even as he had seen in his own community (Romans 1:13), that he was anxious to instruct and strengthen them, and that he was anxious to preach the gospel there where it had not been preached before? How would the pastor feel if he knew that such greetings had been sent to 27 of his most prominent members, but not him? Would he stand for such unethical actions? Even more so the pope! If Peter had been ministering in the church at Rome for 16 years, why did Paul write to the people of the church in these words: I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong (Romans 1:11). Would that not be an insult to Kefa? Would it not be presumptuous for Paul to go over the head of the pope? And if Peter had been there for 16 years, why was it necessary for Paul to go there at all, especially since in his letter he says that he does not build on another’s foundation: it has always been my ambition to preach the Gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation (Romans 15:20).

And again, had Peter been pope in Rome prior to, or at the time Paul arrived there as a prisoner in 61 AD, Paul could not have failed to mention him, for in the letters written in Rome during his imprisonment – Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon – he gives quite a list of his fellow-workers in Rome and Peter’s name is not among them. He spent two whole years there as a prisoner and welcomed all who came to see him (Acts 28:30). Nor does he mention Peter in his second letter to Timothy, which was written from Rome during his second imprisonment, in 67 AD, the year that Peter is alleged to have suffered martyrdom in Rome, and shortly before his own death (Second Timothy 4:6-8). He says that all his friends had abandoned him, and that only Luke was with him (Second Timothy 4:10-11). Where was Peter? If he was the pope in Rome when Paul was a prisoner, why did Peter not call on Paul and offer aid? What kind of spiritual leader would that be?

All of this makes it quite clear that Peter was never in Rome at all, even though the Vatican has publicly unveiled a handful of bone fragments purportedly belonging to him. Not one of the early church fathers gives any support to the belief that Peter was bishop in Rome until Jerome in the fifth century. Du Pin, a Roman Catholic historian, acknowledges “the primacy of Peter is not recorded by the early church writers, Justin Martyr (139 AD), Irenaeus (178 AD), Clement of Alexandria (190 AD), or others of the most ancient fathers.” Catholicism builds her foundation neither on biblical teaching, nor upon the facts of history, but like the Oral Law (see the commentary on The Life of Christ, to see link click Ei – The Oral Law), only on the unfounded traditions of men (Mark 7:8).³⁹⁷