Good morning. Taking up where we left off: Jesus tells Peter that He will give him the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever he shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever he shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. The words bound and loosed are in the perfect tense. That means that the actions of binding and loosing had already been accomplished in heaven before Peter did it on earth. Jesus then warns the disciples that they should tell no one that He was the Christ. It was not the correct time for that to happen. That would have caused great conflict between the Pharisees and the people. The people would have wanted to make Him king, and the Pharisees would've been afraid of losing their power. Jesus wanted to “fly under the radar”. Jesus then began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things, be killed, and then raised up on the third day. Of course that went contrary to what they were expecting. They were expecting Him to set up a kingdom here on earth right away. Peter even said, “God forbid it, Lord! This will never happen to You.” Peter had just recently proclaimed Jesus to be the Son of God. “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you're not setting your mind on God's interests, but man’s”. A stumbling block was the part of a trap to which the bait was attached. It's like the part of a mouse trap that holds the cheese. The cheese is the temptation, not the stumbling block. The stumbling block holds the temptation. Peter was not the temptation, but what he said was. Father thank You that the reader also has the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever he/she binds/looses on earth shall be bound/loosed in heaven.

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