Jesus’ conversation with the disciples at Caesarea Philippi in Matthew 16:13-28 includes eight statements, alternating between Jesus and the disciples:
1. Jesus asks who people think he is
2. Disciples: various answers
3. Jesus: Who do you think I am?
4. Peter’s confession
5. Jesus: build church
6. Peter: God forbid
7. Jesus: Get behind Satan
8. Jesus: life by losing life
This seems to have some connections with the creation week.
Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Son of the Living God, the New David, is in the “Day 4” slot of the conversation. Jesus is the one who rules from heaven, the Sun and Morning Star. Jesus responds by promising to build the church on the Rock of Peter, and this fits with the gathering of teeming, swarming things on Day 5. Peter’s rebuke to Jesus is an Adamic sin, and Jesus’ return trebuke to Peter as Satan is a Sabbatical judgment, the rebuke that Adam should have issued against Satan in the garden. Finally, Jesus moves beyond the seven-day sequence into an eighth day, a day of new life, where His disciples will find life by losing it.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
