Matthew 16:18

16:18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades ¹  will not overpower it.

Matthew 16:1

The Demand for a Sign

16:1 Now when the Pharisees ²  and Sadducees ³  came to test Jesus, ⁴  they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. ⁵ 

1 Corinthians 3:10

3:10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master-builder I laid a foundation, but someone else builds on it. And each one must be careful how he builds.

1 Corinthians 1:14

1:14 I thank God ⁶  that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius,

[16:18]  ¹ tn Or “and the power of death” (taking the reference to the gates of Hades as a metonymy).

[16:1]  ² sn See the note on Pharisees in 3:7.

[16:1]  ³ sn See the note on Sadducees in 3:7.

[16:1]  ⁴ tn The object of the participle πειράζοντες (peirazontes) is not given in the Greek text but has been supplied here for clarity.

[16:1]  ⁵ sn What exactly this sign would have been, given what Jesus was already doing, is not clear. But here is where the fence-sitters reside, refusing to commit to him.

[1:14]  ³ tc The oldest and most important witnesses to this text, as well as a few others (א* B 6 1739 sa^ms bo^pt), lack the words τῷ θεῷ (tw qew, “God”), while the rest have them. An accidental omission could well account for the shorter reading, especially since θεῷ would have been written as a nomen sacrum (eucaristwtwqMw). However, one might expect to see, in some mss at least, a dropping of the article but not the divine name. Internally, the Pauline introductory thanksgivings elsewhere always include τῷ θεῷ after εὐχαριστῶ (eucaristw, “I thank”; cf. Rom 1:8; 1 Cor 1:4; Phil 1:3; Phlm 4; in the plural, note Col 1:3; 1 Thess 1:2). However, both the fact that this is already used in 1 Cor 1:4 (thus perhaps motivating scribes to add it ten verses later), and that in later portions of his letters Paul does not consistently use the collocation of εὐχαριστῶ with τῷ θεῷ (Rom 16:4; 1 Cor 10:30), might give one pause. Still, nowhere else in the corpus Paulinum do we see a sentence begin with εὐχαριστῶ without an accompanying τῷ θεῷ. A decision is difficult, but on balance it is probably best to retain the words.