I will give to you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven; and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven.”
Christ asked not what the hostile scribes and Pharisees said of Him, but what common people believed. When ministers lose their public pulpit, they must labor harder in private conversation with their own household, for every season of diminished public work is opportunity for deeper family instruction.
AI summary
Commenting on Matthew 16:13-20
Christ dignifies the Apostolic office with a twofold title: ministers of the Gospel are porters of the kingdom of heaven, carrying its keys, and invested with power of binding and loosing that is ratified in heaven. The key properly belongs to the office of teaching, since no gate of life opens except by the word of God.
AI summary
Then charged he his disciples,.... When Peter had so freely and fully confessed him to be the Messiah, and which was the sense of all the disciples; and when Christ had expressed his approbation of his confession, and had promised such great and excellent things upon it, he gave a strict charge unto his disciples, that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.