“But Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me.” (Matthew 16:23)
I hope you’ve never been in a relationship like that – one that starts with you affirming your eternal love for one another but ends up with you calling your beloved ‘Satan’!
Relationship do go toxic – we know that – but when that happens it normally takes a good few years for things to really deteriorate. In the case of Jesus and Peter, their relationship goes from hero to zero in a matter of seconds!
Peter has just made his great confession – “You are the Christ – the son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16), and Jesus commends Peter, blesses Peter, and promises that he will build His church on this rock – Peter (Matthew 16:17-18). Five verses later Jesus is calling him ‘Satan’?! In real time, about 30 seconds later!
What happened? Did Peter suddenly become evil? Did Jesus lose His temper? Did we miss something?
When Peter says “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”, of course we know what he means, don’t we? He means that Jesus is the only Son the Father – ‘God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten, not made”.
Of course that’s not when he means. Those words from the Nicean Creed come three centuries later. What Peter meant when he called Jesus, ‘the Christ’, was that Jesus was the one who was going to liberate them from the Romans! That’s what the Messiah did, and ‘son of God’ was simply the title they gave their kings!
Psalm 2:7: “This is my son. Today I have begotten you.” It’s a coronation Psalm. The king is designated as adopted God’s ‘son’ at his coronation, after which his key job is to go out and lead God’s people into battle.
It is fascinating, I think, that Jesus makes such a fuss over the confession of Peter – that He is the Christ – when He must have known that while Peter and He were using the same vocabulary, they were speaking entirely different languages!
Understanding Jesus isn’t just about having the right words, is it?
When I listen to people who preach the so-called “Prosperity Gospel” or when I hear someone espouse “Christian Zionism”, all the right words are being used. They speak of ‘blessings’ and ‘faith in God’s promises’, and they quote the Bible with great accuracy and in great volume, yet it becomes very obvious very quickly that what they mean by those words is on an entirely different plane to my understanding.
It’s quite possible to say all the right things yet be completely wrong!
Peter and the disciples longed for liberation — and understandably so. The Roman occupation was brutal, humiliating, and violent. As Tom Wright notes, even phrases like “forgiveness of sins” had become shorthand for ending the occupation by then.
If you were living in Gaza today and someone arrived claiming to be God’s saviour, you wouldn’t need to ask what He came to save you from. So when Jesus says He must “go to Jerusalem, suffer, and be killed”, Peter reacts exactly as any oppressed person would: “No. Absolutely not. This is not how liberation works.”
“Get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to Me.” (Matthew 16:22-23)
It’s harsh however we look at it, but keep in mind that ‘Satan’, in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, is not the fiery-coloured character with the tail and the pitchfork. He is ‘the tempter’ who has already tried to tempt Jesus once to take an easier path, and Peter here is again tempting Jesus to avoid the way of the cross.
“Take this cup away from me” (Matthew 26:39) Jesus prayed on the night he was betrayed. Jesus didn’t want to die either. Even so, Jesus ultimately accepted that the path to true liberation – for the Jews from the Rome, for the Palestinians from Israel, and for all of us from the pain and violence that so engulfs our world – is found at the end of the via dolorosa – the path of suffering.
Saint Paul understood this better than anyone. When people questioned his spiritual authority, he didn’t point to his academic credentials or his celebrity endorsements. He’d say, ‘Hey, I’ve received the forty lashes minus one five times! I’ve been beaten with rods three times, stoned once, shipwrecked three times!’ (2 Corinthians 11:23-28). “I bear in my body the marks of Christ” (Galatians 6:17).
I look back at my own life. I don’t want to compete with Paul. Even so, I was almost beaten to death outside Ashkelon prison in Israel in 2004. I somehow escaped being shot outside Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria in 2015. I almost drowned off Manus Island in 2017, pursued by the local navy after breaking into the Asylum-Seeker Processing Centre there, and I don’t know how I survived the experience of being disowned by my own church in 2019 – the most painful experience of them all.
Look back at your own life – at the things you’ve gone through, the price you’ve paid for love, the friends and family members you’ve sacrificed yourself for – pain you’ve endured. To some extent all of us, I am sure, bear in our bodies the marks of Christ.
It didn’t make sense to Peter that Jesus had to let things play out that way, and we still have trouble making sense of it all! Didn’t Christ offer us ‘life in abundance’? (John 10:10). Isn’t religion supposed to make our lives better and more enjoyable? How did the way of the cross somehow become the path to life?!
My favourite philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard’, gave a sermon on Matthew 7:14 – “narrow is the way that leads to life” – suggesting that it isnt’ just coincidental that the way to life happens to be narrow. “Narrowness is the way”, he said. In other words, for the follower of Christ, struggle is always our defining narrative! When life is a constant battle, you know you’re on the right path!
I don’t know exactly why discipleship always has to take this path of pain. I don’t even fully understand why Jesus had to suffer the way He did. Even so, I think we all know that at the end of the journey, we’ll look back and know it was worth the effort!
First published in Father Dave’s weekly newsletter – August 28th, 2026
Getting Jesus Wrong — Even When We Sound Right! (Matthew 16:21-28)
“But Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me.” (Matthew 16:23)
I hope you’ve never been in a relationship like that – one that starts with you affirming your eternal love for one another but ends up with you calling your beloved ‘Satan’!
Relationship do go toxic – we know that – but when that happens it normally takes a good few years for things to really deteriorate. In the case of Jesus and Peter, their relationship goes from hero to zero in a matter of seconds!
Peter has just made his great confession – “You are the Christ – the son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16), and Jesus commends Peter, blesses Peter, and promises that he will build His church on this rock – Peter (Matthew 16:17-18). Five verses later Jesus is calling him ‘Satan’?! In real time, about 30 seconds later!
What happened? Did Peter suddenly become evil? Did Jesus lose His temper? Did we miss something?
When Peter says “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”, of course we know what he means, don’t we? He means that Jesus is the only Son the Father – ‘God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten, not made”.
Of course that’s not when he means. Those words from the Nicean Creed come three centuries later. What Peter meant when he called Jesus, ‘the Christ’, was that Jesus was the one who was going to liberate them from the Romans! That’s what the Messiah did, and ‘son of God’ was simply the title they gave their kings!
Psalm 2:7: “This is my son. Today I have begotten you.” It’s a coronation Psalm. The king is designated as adopted God’s ‘son’ at his coronation, after which his key job is to go out and lead God’s people into battle.
It is fascinating, I think, that Jesus makes such a fuss over the confession of Peter – that He is the Christ – when He must have known that while Peter and He were using the same vocabulary, they were speaking entirely different languages!
Understanding Jesus isn’t just about having the right words, is it?
When I listen to people who preach the so-called “Prosperity Gospel” or when I hear someone espouse “Christian Zionism”, all the right words are being used. They speak of ‘blessings’ and ‘faith in God’s promises’, and they quote the Bible with great accuracy and in great volume, yet it becomes very obvious very quickly that what they mean by those words is on an entirely different plane to my understanding.
It’s quite possible to say all the right things yet be completely wrong!
Peter and the disciples longed for liberation — and understandably so. The Roman occupation was brutal, humiliating, and violent. As Tom Wright notes, even phrases like “forgiveness of sins” had become shorthand for ending the occupation by then.
If you were living in Gaza today and someone arrived claiming to be God’s saviour, you wouldn’t need to ask what He came to save you from. So when Jesus says He must “go to Jerusalem, suffer, and be killed”, Peter reacts exactly as any oppressed person would: “No. Absolutely not. This is not how liberation works.”
“Get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to Me.” (Matthew 16:22-23)
It’s harsh however we look at it, but keep in mind that ‘Satan’, in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, is not the fiery-coloured character with the tail and the pitchfork. He is ‘the tempter’ who has already tried to tempt Jesus once to take an easier path, and Peter here is again tempting Jesus to avoid the way of the cross.
“Take this cup away from me” (Matthew 26:39) Jesus prayed on the night he was betrayed. Jesus didn’t want to die either. Even so, Jesus ultimately accepted that the path to true liberation – for the Jews from the Rome, for the Palestinians from Israel, and for all of us from the pain and violence that so engulfs our world – is found at the end of the via dolorosa – the path of suffering.
Saint Paul understood this better than anyone. When people questioned his spiritual authority, he didn’t point to his academic credentials or his celebrity endorsements. He’d say, ‘Hey, I’ve received the forty lashes minus one five times! I’ve been beaten with rods three times, stoned once, shipwrecked three times!’ (2 Corinthians 11:23-28). “I bear in my body the marks of Christ” (Galatians 6:17).
I look back at my own life. I don’t want to compete with Paul. Even so, I was almost beaten to death outside Ashkelon prison in Israel in 2004. I somehow escaped being shot outside Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria in 2015. I almost drowned off Manus Island in 2017, pursued by the local navy after breaking into the Asylum-Seeker Processing Centre there, and I don’t know how I survived the experience of being disowned by my own church in 2019 – the most painful experience of them all.
Look back at your own life – at the things you’ve gone through, the price you’ve paid for love, the friends and family members you’ve sacrificed yourself for – pain you’ve endured. To some extent all of us, I am sure, bear in our bodies the marks of Christ.
It didn’t make sense to Peter that Jesus had to let things play out that way, and we still have trouble making sense of it all! Didn’t Christ offer us ‘life in abundance’? (John 10:10). Isn’t religion supposed to make our lives better and more enjoyable? How did the way of the cross somehow become the path to life?!
My favourite philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard’, gave a sermon on Matthew 7:14 – “narrow is the way that leads to life” – suggesting that it isnt’ just coincidental that the way to life happens to be narrow. “Narrowness is the way”, he said. In other words, for the follower of Christ, struggle is always our defining narrative! When life is a constant battle, you know you’re on the right path!
I don’t know exactly why discipleship always has to take this path of pain. I don’t even fully understand why Jesus had to suffer the way He did. Even so, I think we all know that at the end of the journey, we’ll look back and know it was worth the effort!
First published in Father Dave’s weekly newsletter – August 28th, 2026
About Father Dave
Preacher, Pugilist, Activist, Father of four