Dr. John Bergsma

I studied this passage in Catholic graduate school.

Nobody ever told me what binding and loosing meant, but it's no secret.

The Jews know what binding and loosing means.

The best commentary in this passage, anybody can get right now online and invite folks to do it.

type into a Google search line, Binding and Loosing Jewish Encyclopedia.

And what will pop up is the free online public domain Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 with very famous American rabbi, Rabbi Kaufman Kohler wrote an entry on binding and loosing.

And he says, I'm just gonna paraphrase quickly.

He says, binding and loosing was terminology in ancient Judaism

for the divine authority to interpret God's word for God's people.

And he says, binding and loosing was not simply an academic decision about how to interpret the law,

but the rabbis who exercised it had a spell of divine authority and their decisions were backed up by the celestial court.

And then Rabbi Kohler moves from Jewish sources and comments directly on the New Testament.

and says, this is what's going on in Matthew 16, 18, as well as in Matthew 18, 18, where the same authority is shared with the apostles as a group.

Binding and loosing is a divine authority backed up by the celestial court to interpret God's word, to prohibit or permit things according to the interpretation of God's word.

So just as Moses established priests to interpret God's word,

Jesus gives Peter and the apostles as a group, a priestly authority to interpret God's word in the new covenant.

Now, many Protestants think, well, that just applies to the apostles, okay?

But we're talking about an office.

When Jesus says, I'm gonna give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, that belonged to the royal steward.

And the royal stewardship was an office, which is passed down from one to another.