Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours. 2 Peter 1:1
The English poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow captured an age-abiding truth when he wrote, “Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime. And, departing, leave behind us footprints on the sands of time.” He was right, and one man who left his footprints stretching across 2000 miles of time was a very unlikely candidate for success—a fisherman by trade. He was scarcely qualified to do more than perhaps organize the union of fisherman on Galilee until the day that Jesus walked by and said, “Follow me!” Peter got up, left his nets and followed Jesus.
I love Peter because I can’t help but see in him some of the foibles and failures of human nature, my own included. Peter was impetuous, determined, at times completely ahead of what God wanted. He’s the one who stepped over the gunwale of the fishing boat on Galilee when he saw Jesus coming toward him, walking on the water. He was also the one who affirmed, “I’ll never deny you, Lord,” yet he did so three times, as he stood outside the House of Caiaphas, the High Priest, when Jesus was taken prisoner in the Garden of Gethsemane. Can you relate to that?
God uses flawed vessels, and it was Peter who served as spokesman on the Day of Pentecost and became the leader of the fledgling church. In the book of Acts, which is the biography of the early church, Peter is prominent in the first half; Paul in the latter half. And Peter chaired the Council of Jerusalem where the church discussed the place of Gentiles in the church. Peter is not mentioned again by Luke, who wrote the book of Acts.
So, what happened to Peter? Unquestionably, Peter remained in Jerusalem, dealing with problems in the early Church, preaching and teaching. Though Scripture itself doesn’t mention this, tradition says that he went to Rome and was martyred under the persecution of Nero.
As this persecution was intensifying, Peter felt that he had to instruct Christians on how you handle the “fiery trials” that were coming on believers. He dictated a letter—it’s in your Bible, known as 1 Peter. Reading between the lines, you see the face of a mature believer, no longer impetuous but steadfast, committed, and as solid as a rock.
But the fact that this letter is called 1 Peter means there had to be a second, and there is. Shortly before his execution, Peter writes again. He denounces false teachers who ridicule the return of Jesus Christ. He also says, “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat” (2 Peter 3:10). He described something that was so far removed from the first century that those who read it couldn’t have fathomed what it possibly meant.
Only the vision of a mushroom cloud, the result of an atomic explosion, brings what Peter wrote into clear focus—a nightmare that the entire world now lives with.
And how does Peter sign off the ledger? He concludes, “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Peter was not using an empty complimentary close to what he wrote. What he said unquestionably described the very path he had taken, often a challenging, difficult one. Thank God for the growth that comes through difficulty. Some things come only through fiery trial. It’s still true today.
Resource reading: 2 Peter 3:1-18
