Simon turned Peter

-
The apostle Peter was considered a most undiplomatic man before his conversion, when his name was Simon. He was blunt, often putting his foot in it, possibly offending his listeners rather than charming them.

He loved passionately and was quick to identify Jesus as the Messiah, confessing as much when Jesus asked him. It was Peter to whom Jesus responded, "Get behind me, Satan", when he was prophesying his own death and Peter did not accept Jesus' fate and wanted to deny this prophecy.

Despite his confession of love for Jesus, his faith in Him as the Christ, the Messiah, the Saviour of the world, the one who will bring all humans to the kingdom of God if they believed, he denied Jesus three times, just as Jesus predicted.

Jesus told him he would deny him three times before his crucifixion, and he would know this when the cock has crowed three times. The fact that he denied Christ led him into depression, for he felt disloyal, weak, pathetic.

However, even though it can be said that he was disloyal to Jesus, that he went back on his word, or that he was not a die-hard believer as he thought he was, when Jesus rose again, He renamed him Peter, and he called him the rock on which his church was built.

Then Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him and he declared his love, and in so doing Peter knew he had been forgiven for his human weakness and instead of continuing in that vein, Peter became a strong missionary, responsible for the massive 3000 conversion when he first preached about Christ.

Peter committed the rest of his life to the mission of Jesus Christ. He was the one who, for lack of a better word, competed with Paul, and led not only Jews but Gentiles to faith in Christ.

At the end of his life, Peter was imprisoned and then crucified upside down, as was his wish, because he did not consider himself worthy of being crucified like Christ, and thus became a martyr.

The Book of Mark is considered to be the story of Peter, his life, his teachings.  What I like most about this character is his human frailty not being a deterrent for God to use him to share the Word of God. God used Peter after Jesus was born again, knowing Peter had denied him out of fear for his own life. God understood, forgave him and gave him the task to bring the Good News to the world nonetheless.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Farmer And His Sons

-
Taken from Headway's Intermediate Student's Book: The Farmer And His Sons There was once an old, dying farmer who had worked hard in his vineyard all his life.  Before he died he wanted to teach his three sons how to be good farmers.  So he called them to his bedside and said, 'My boys, I have an important secret to tell you: there is a great treasure buried in the vineyard.  Promise me that you will look for it when I am dead.' The sons gave their promise and as soon as their father had died they began looking for the treasure.  They worked very hard in the hot sun and while they were working they thought about what their father had said.  They pictured boxes of cold coins, diamond necklaces, and other such things.  Soon they had dug up every inch of the vineyard but they found not a single penny.  They were very upset because they felt that all their hard work had been for nothing.   However, a few months later the grapes started to appear on the vines.  Their grapes ...
Read more

Speech technique No.2 - the Unifying Metaphor

-
The Unifying Metaphor: As opposed to a simile which compares two objects using a specific linguistic form, eg. the man was as brave as a lion, a metaphor compares two objects by equating the one with the other, eg. he was a brave lion.   Literally the man was not a lion, but figuratively he was.   This figure of speech is used in literary works of all kinds, including poems and news articles. The Unifying Metaphor aims to unify people.   An example of an American metaphor is the Camel man.   He is healthy, strong and tanned, and he can survive in the wild bushveld with merely a pocketknife and a piece of string.   He drives a 4x4, and he works hard all day.   This is the image of the Camel man – please correct me if I’m wrong.   The logic and truth behind this image may elude us, but what unifies us is what Elgin (1980: p. 227) calls the consensus perception . As a unity, we have reached consensus about the perception of the Camel man.   The theory reminds of the Jung’s colle...
Read more

Bevor ich geboren bin, bin ich gestorben.

-
Image
Bevor ich geboren bin, bin ich gestorben. Warum bleiben dann Gefühle meines eigenen Gewissens? Warum bleiben die Gedanken und die Träume meines eigenen Lebens, wenn mich doch Gott neu geschaffen hat, mir neues Blut gegeben hat, mich in eine neue Familie hat gebracht? Ich will nicht mehr traurig sein, dass mein Leben mir wie nichts vorkommt, dass ich mir so unglaublich wertlos vorkomme, und stattdessen will ich den Glauben fassen, dass Gott mich tatsächlich in Seinen Händen trägt, und mich wirklich beschützt vom Bösen. Ich will mich vergessen, mich verlieben, und dann für andere leben, für einen Sinn außerhalb meiner Wünsche, eine Gnade und Liebe erfahren, die nicht aus dieser Welt stammt, sondern ganz weit entfernt und doch so nah. Ich freue mich auf keinen Tod, doch meiner ist schon vergangen, und mein neues Leben hat schon begonnen, jedoch sieht es manchmal nicht danach aus, und ich schäme mich, dass ich mich nicht mehr hab vertraut an den Herrn, den lieben ...
Read more