Question.1231 - WORKSHEET ON WORD MEANINGS Matthew 16 and 18: Binding and Loosing Matthew 16:13-20 13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, Who do people say the Son of Man is? 14 They replied, Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. 15 But what about you? he asked. Who do you say I am? 16 Simon Peter answered, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. 17 Jesus replied, Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 20 Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ. Matthew 18:15-20 15 If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16 But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. 18 I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19 Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them. What are some of the interpretations you have heard concerning the meaning of binding and loosing? (Answer in at least 75 words) What contextual clues could provide insight to the meaning of the phrase binding and loosing? What are some possible meanings to the phrase? (Answer in at least 75 words) Look to the next page for some commentary help on the phraseology. Then come back here and give some parting thoughts on what binding and loosing mean in Matthew 16:19 & 18:18. (Answer in at least 100 words) Commentary Helps for Matthew 16 and 18on Binding and Loosing The imagery of keys to a city gives way to that of binding up and releasing. But neither the precise nature of the imagery nor the manner of its application is at once clear. As with the gates of Hades, there are many suggestions. Davies and Allison are able to list thirteen.369 Questions of meaning and of source history are inevitably related: if the material here has a separate source history, as suggested above, then it is more likely that binding and loosing are being offered as an important but merely illustrative consequence of possession of the keys rather than as a clarifying definition of the imagery of possession of the keys&[Matt 18:18] (Nolland, Matthew, NIGTC, 677). That authority is exercised in binding and loosing, which were technical terms for the pronouncements of Rabbis on what was or was not permitted (to bind was to forbid, to loose to permit). This verse therefore probably refers primarily to a legislative authority in the church, though clearly such decisions must have direct implications as to what may or may not be forgiven, and this application will be taken up in 18:18 (France, Matthew, TNTC, 256). Moreover the rabbis spoke of binding and loosing in terms of laying down Halakah (rules of conduct): Shammai is strict and binds many things on people, while Hillel allows greater laxity and looses them. It might be argued, then, that in Acts 15:10 Peter looses what certain Judaizers want to bind. Yet despite this, it is better to take the binding and loosing in Matthew 16:19 to refer to people, not rules (Carson, Matthew, EBC, 372). Peter accomplishes this binding and loosing by proclaiming a gospel that has already been given and by making personal application on that basis (Simon Magus). Whatever he binds or looses will have been bound or loosed, so long as he adheres to that divinely disclosed gospel. He has no direct pipeline to heaven, still less do his decisions force heaven to comply; but he may be authoritative in binding and loosing because heaven has acted first (cf. Acts 18:9-10) (Carson, Matthew, EBC, 373). Binding and loosing were idiomatic expressions in rabbinical Judaism to denote the promulgation of rulings either forbidding or authorizing various kinds of activity. The authority to bind or loose given to Peter in our present context is given to the disciples as a body in Matthew 18:18, in a saying of Jesus similarly preserved by this evangelist only (Bruce, The Hard Sayings of Jesus, 144). [Matt 16:19] In its primary meaning, the phrase binding and loosing refers to the allowing and disallowing of certain conduct, based on an interpretation of the commandments of the Torah, and thus it concerns the issue of whether or not one is in proper relationship to the will of God (contrast the reference to the Pharisees misuse of their authority [note implied keys!] in 23:13). In Matthew, Jesus is the true interpreter of Torah. His disciples will pass on that interpretation and extend it. Thus Matthew may have in mind the teaching office of Peter and the apostles (for whom the power of binding and loosing is also assumed in the plural verbs of 18:18 in the discourse on church discipline ). Peter is in this sense the scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven (13:52). This would be a more Matthean description (cf 23:8) than the reference to Peter as chief rabbi by B. P. Robinson (98) and Davies-Allison (2:639). He is the primary custodian and guarantor of the tradition of the teaching of Jesus (thus rightly Bornkamm, Perspective 11 [1970] 3750). This means the words of Jesus and would, of course, include the ethical teaching of Jesushis authoritative exposition of the law. But it also includes the kerygmatic utterances of Jesus concerning the coming of the kingdom of God as well as those that point to his own unique position in the mediation of salvation (eg, 10:3233, 39; 11:27). Thus, despite the rabbinic idiom, more is in view than halachic renderings (although Matthew and his community would have relished this aspect). In construing the meaning here more widely so as to include gospel with law, we may appeal to the closely related saying in John 20:23 (indeed, probably a variant of the present logion [thus Emerton on the basis of underlying Aramaic]): If you [plural] forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you [plural] retain the sins of any, they are retained. The Matthean logion has an extended meaning quite like this, which refers to the declaration of the forgiveness of sins, ie, of salvation itself (cf 18:18; Fornberg thus likens Peter to the high priest of the new covenant). The authority spoken of, then, is in effect that of being able to declare whether a person becomes fully a part of the community of salvation or not, no longer simply on the basis of obedience to Torah but on the basis of response or lack of response to the good news of the kingdom (cf the practice of the disciples in 10:1315). It is the [vol. 33B, p. 474] conveying of the word of grace and judgment (Jeremias, TDNT 3:752). Thus it is not wrong to say, as Knight does, that ultimately the power of the keys is given to the people of God as a whole (178). Marcus (453) regards this as an apocalyptic change that alters the cosmos (including the law), involving the transfer of authority from the scribes and Pharisees to Peter (Hagner, Matthew 14-28, Word, 473-474). [Matt 18:18] See Comment on the nearly verbatim statement in 16:19. Several important differences are to be noted. In 16:19 Peter is addressed; here, by contrast, the verbs are plural, and thus other disciples and leaders of the community are also given the authority to bind and loose. Here the binding and loosing have to do directly with matters of church discipline, whereas in 16:19 they concern matters of conduct more generally. However, in both instances the ultimate issue concerns membership in the community. In the present instance, which addresses the case of one who has sinned (v. 15), the connection with John 20:23 ( If you forgive [???????] the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain [????????] the sins of any, they are retained ) becomes more apparent. Loosing is the equivalent of forgiving, binding of retaining. The leadership thus has the ability to make decisions concerning unrepentant sinners in the communitydecisions that carry [vol. 33B, p. 533] authority such that they are said to be likewise fixed in heaven. At stake is nothing less than the ultimate welfare of the offending individual (Hagner, Matthew 14-28 Word, 532-533).
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