St. Peter

Hello! Another Saturday, another post. Firstly, I want to say happy Easter, have a spectacular one! Now to my post. I realised last week while writing the post about Jesus that I should be doing that one today. But I was too far to do much about it by the time I noticed. So instead I'm going to write about Saint Peter!

Peter was one of Jesus's diciples, and probably one of the better known ones. He is also known as Simon Peter, and is considered the first pope of the Catholics. I think he is probably the easiest to relate to. In the Gospels he never seems to stop putting his foot in his mouth. There are a few times that he says something great, but only a short time later, his foot is back in his mouth. Luckily, the Holy Spirit comes in and in Acts he does some pretty cool things.

Peter first meets Jesus in Matthew 4:18-20 and John 1:40-42 (NIV). Let's do Matthew first. "As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 'Come, follow me,' Jesus said, 'and I will send you out to fish for people.' At once they left their nets and followed him." John says it a bit differently; "Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, 'We have found the Messiah' (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, 'You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas' (which, when translated, is Peter )." So (according to John) the first thing Jesus does is tell Simon that now his name is Peter. ("Jesus: King of first impressions.") Somehow he still decided to follow Jesus after that. He was probably a bit confused but intreagued by this strange Man.

His ministry seems to begin when Jesus sends the diciples out to preach and preform miracles (Matthew 10, Luke 9 and Mark 6, appearently John couldn't care less). This is little more than mentioned, although Jesus does give them specific instructions. Then he gives a phenomenal sermon at Pentacost (Acts 2:14-36) when the diciples are filled with the Holy Spirit after cowering in safety, scared that they would be persecuted. The Holy Spirit came and all that fear left. They weren't afraid for their lives and they openly preached in languages they didn't actully speak. Peter became a sort of leader to the diciples, which is most likely why he is now the first pope. He did miracles, he preached, he had visions, this guy pretty much did it all.

His story is still making a difference in people's lives, he is proof that Jesus can take someone who makes the stupidest mistakes and make him into someone who is so influental to the world. Being one of the very first Christians, it was important that he (and others) told as many people of Jesus's sacrifice, he took that responsebility seriously and it paid off. If he hid his faith, I might not be here, writing this blog.

So that's all for this post. Have a wonderful Easter and thank you so nuch for reading. It means a whole lot to me. God bless!

Sarah