Introducing an Old Fisherman Part 1

Fire tore through Rome and a rumor finished the job. As the city smoldered, Nero’s propaganda machine named Christians as arsonists, and what had been scattered suspicion hardened into open hostility. Into that pressure cooker, Peter writes like a seasoned shepherd, urging believers to hold their confession without panic and to choose a defiant, settled joy that makes the world curious.

We walk through why the shortest creed, “Jesus Christ,” is both the church’s anchor and culture’s stumbling block. Peter stakes the claim that Jesus is the anointed Messiah and God the Son, echoing Acts 4:12 and the earliest preaching of the apostles. We contrast the apostles’ experience with Paul’s sudden encounter on the Damascus Road, unpacking why he often says “Christ Jesus” and how that reinforces the same confession from a different angle. The thread running through it all is grace: not a cushion for comfort but solid ground that cannot be shaken by mockery, loss, or marginalization.

To bring the theology to life, we zoom in on Peter himself. He’s brave, impulsive, corrected often, and yet restored—exactly the kind of flawed follower grace can turn into a pillar. From the Mount of Transfiguration, where his words drift into nonsense, to Caesarea Philippi, where his insight nails the truth, we see how God shaped him to sign his letter, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,” with a steady hand. Along the way we get practical: why the end of casual Christianity can be good news, how joy functions as evangelism, and why a rooted local church is a lifeline for worship, teaching, prayer, and mission when the cost of faith rises.

If you’re sensing that cultural comfort and Christian conviction no longer fit together, you’re not alone—and you’re not without a map. Press play to learn how to stand firm in true grace, keep a clear confession, and live with a luminous joy when the lights go out. If this resonated, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review to help others find the show.

_____

Stephen's latest book, Legacies of Light, Volume 2, is our gift for your special donation to our ministry. Follow this link for information or to donate:

https://www.wisdomonline.org/mp/legacies

Chapters

• 0:00 Stay With The Gospel Of Grace
• 1:23 Rome Burns And Christians Are Blamed
• 2:41 From Local Hostility To Organized Persecution
• 4:21 Costly Faith And The End Of Casual Christianity
• 5:41 Joy As A Witness In A Darkening World
• 8:31 Stand Firm In The True Grace Of God
• 9:41 Jesus Christ: The Church’s Earliest Creed
• 11:51 Paul’s “Christ Jesus” And Apostolic Witness
• 13:31 Why The Confession “Jesus Christ” Offends
• 15:31 Peter’s Restoration And Calling As Apostle
• 17:31 Meeting The Man Behind The Letter
• 19:31 Snapshots: Peter’s Nonsense On The Mount
• 22:31 Snapshots: Peter’s Insight At Caesarea Philippi

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:38

Now, what Peter is saying here in this opening phrase is so important, especially when his readers are going to encounter persecution for claiming this creed, for holding to this confession of faith that Jesus is none other than the divinely appointed God the Son, the Messiah. So he opens with that. It's as if he says, look, stay with it. This is the gospel of grace. Don't veer off. You're not following the wrong man. You didn't get it wrong. He really is the Christ. The year is AD 64. Arsonists have set fire to the Imperial City of Rome. By the time the fire is brought under control, three of the 14 districts into which the capital city is divided will have been burned to the ground. It isn't a coincidence that the property most affected, in fact, where the fire began, began was that same plot of ground where the Emperor Nero wanted to build his new imperial palace and there wasn't room. Historians have long since believed that he was, in fact, the arsonist. But to avoid suspicion, his propaganda machine began spreading the news that Christians ignited the flame. Those, you know, strange people who never really quite fit in, who have these strange gatherings where they worship a dead carpenter. Those, you know, somewhat unpatriotic people who will not pledge allegiance to Caesar. And, you know, those people who won't allow even the possibility of the existence of some other god or goddess and our great pantheon. Those people, it figures. Now, persecution against Christianity up to this point has been local, it's been somewhat random, unorganized, but now it begins to coalesce. Christianity is facing a new crisis. Their world is changing, and they are, frankly, no longer welcome. About this time, an old fisherman, turned church statesman, reaches for his quill and under the inspiring influence of the Holy Spirit begins to write. Now he knew that Christians, not only in his generation, but by the Spirit of God in every generation, would be asking these kinds of questions that maybe we're asking more today than ever. How do you respond when people think you're strange for worshiping not only differently but dogmatically, as if you belong to the only true and living God? How do you react when government officials penalize you for your beliefs? How do you work for employers who demand that you make concessions or else? How do you move on after a spouse rejects you because you will not reject Jesus Christ? What do you do when you realize that while your life might not be immediately threatened, your career is? The letters of the Apostle Peter could have been written to us today. Beloved, they have been. They have been. And are they ever needed? Perhaps only in recent months the average Christian has begun to read the newspaper and follow the news reports, watch the decisions of legislators and courts with a growing sense, a growing recognition that suffering something for the sake of following Christ isn't just new, it's going to be normal. Being mocked and maligned and misunderstood and marginalized is simply new to the American Christian, but our world has changed and things are coalescing. We've now entered an era in our history where to be comfortable and culturally acceptable, and at the same time a committed Christian is impossible. Unless you keep quiet, but then that's not much of a commitment. One author put it this way: the days of casual Christianity is over. And I'm really excited about that. He wrote, It's no longer possible to drift, hoping that no tough choices will have to be made. It will not cost something to be a follower of Jesus Christ. And he goes on to write very perceptively, never before in American history has it been so important for the Christian to be connected to a believing body of believers, participating with other believers in worship, encouragement, instruction, prayer, discipleship, gospel outreach, because, he summarizes, the darker the night, the more important every single candle becomes. You become all the more significant as the lights go out. Perhaps only in recent months, the average Christian and the average believing church in America is finding more sympathy and more respect and more interest, more concern for believers in other places around our world, like in China or Indonesia or Turkey or Sudan or Japan or Russia, with new laws enacted just weeks ago. And the basic question asked by the majority of believers around the world, we're just beginning to ask, is how do we live when our world changes? How do we respond? In fact, let me put it this way: what is our disposition supposed to be? What is our demeanor supposed to be like? What is our reputation to be? I think the answer is by our brothers and sisters around the world. In fact, one mission agency that monitors the church and the People's Republic of China asked several thousand believers what drew them to faith in Christ, especially when it could mean demotion, persecution, even imprisonment. And many answers were provided, but the one answer that was given most often that drew them to the gospel was the joy, get that, the joy in the lives of believers with whom they came into contact, such joy that made them envious, then curious, and then receptive. As we study the letters of Peter and we read the newspaper, one in one hand and one in the other, although they're not certainly equal in inspiration, if we end up panicking or resentful or angry, we're not heading in the right direction. Peter will write in his first letter, in the face of testing, keep on rejoicing. Chapter 4. He's going to write in this letter that when they revile you because of your association with the name of Jesus Christ, I want you to be happy, Makirus. I want you to have a settled sense of internal joy and satisfaction. He will write. Chapter 5 and verse 12, he says, I have written to you briefly, middle part of the verse. Here's why. Exhorting, testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it. In other words, you are people redeemed by the grace of God. It is the gospel of grace from God. Stand in grace in the midst of your changing world. Don't lose sight of his grace and his graciousness and demonstrate the same to your world. If you turn back to chapter 1 and verse 1, it reads simply and yet profoundly. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. The original construction could simply be rendered Jesus Christ's apostle. In other words, Peter was sent out. That's what apostello means. He is an agent commissioned by Jesus Christ to fulfill the mission of Jesus Christ for him. And in a general sense, we are all sent ones. In more specific formal terminology, which he uses here, an apostle was among that group of men personally discipled by our Lord who had seen him after his resurrection. Those were the qualifications. It's worth noting that Peter here and the early church adopted, as they referenced their leader, both the human name, notice that, Jesus, and they combined it with the messianic title, Christ. For us today, Jesus Christ goes together kind of like a first name and a last name. The title meant Messiah, anointed one, a reference for the one who would come and die for the sins of the whole world. When the church was formed on Sunday, on the day of Pentecost, the earliest of creeds, what we could call their earliest confession of faith, was this, and Peter will preach it in Acts chapter 2 and verse 36, that Jesus is the Christ. They knew him first as Jesus, the man. They came to understand that he was divinely anointed as God the Son to become the Messiah. That would come a little later. It's interesting, by the way, that Jesus Christ is used consistently and entirely by all of the other apostles. Only Paul reverses the order to refer to him as Christ Jesus. And there's meaning there. It's interesting that the early apostles would all come to know him first as Jesus and then as the Christ, but for the Apostle Paul, his experience was reversed. He came rather suddenly into an awareness that Jesus was deity, didn't he? He's going along that road. He's going to go capture some more Christians, and a bright light shines and it knocks them to the ground, and a voice comes, it's in Acts chapter 9, as everything blazed with light that would temporarily take away his eyesight. And you hear this voice, he heard it from heaven saying, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he responded, Who are you, Lord? It's kind of like saying, Who's up there? You know, who's up there saying that? Who's talking to me? And it must have stopped his heart when the voice responded, I am Jesus. So for all of the other commissioned apostles who had followed Jesus, the teacher, and came to know him over time as Jesus the Christ, Paul, who had not met the Lord until after his resurrection and ascension, came to know him first as deity speaking from the heaven, and then he learned his name was Jesus. And so we would often refer to him in that experiential order, Christ Jesus. Now, what Peter is saying here in this opening phrase is so important, especially when his readers are going to encounter persecution for claiming this creed, for holding to this confession of faith that Jesus is none other than the divinely appointed God the Son, the Messiah. So he opens with that. It's as if he says, look, stay with it. This is the gospel of grace. Don't veer off. You're not following the wrong man. You didn't get it wrong. He really is the Christ. Isn't this what causes so much heartburn in our changing world? To this day, it is really, it boils down to this creed, this confession of faith that we hold today. And it is becoming more and more offensive that you and I would actually believe that Jesus is our living Lord. And he alone is the embodiment of the triune God of whom we've sung. That he's more than just another teacher, that we believe that there is no salvation. There is salvation in no one else. For there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Acts chapter 4, verse 12. We believe that. That's becoming more and more strange in our world today. That we would hold that. So what Peter does here is he opens with the most condensed doctrinal statement, sort of the shortest creedal confession you can ever utter. Jesus Christ. The man is our God and Savior, the Messiah. Now, there's something else in this opening phrase, which is all we're going to get to today in case you're wondering. Now, what you also have here in this opening phrase is a rather startling display of God's grace that would allow you to read the name Peter next to the title apostle. I mean, if you decided to read through the Gospels and you just finished Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and you stopped, and then you realize, you know, I really need to crank that thing back up and start reading. You just kind of flipped it open and you read 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 1, where Peter is an apostle, you would be stunned. If he did write a letter that God would allow to be extant for the church, you could expect it to open with something like Peter, the man who denied Jesus Christ. Yeah, that fits. The man who didn't keep his promise to Jesus Christ. That works. The man who used to be one of the closest disciples of Jesus Christ. That works. Instead, you read Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. So let's look at some snapshots to find out how Peter got from the ending of John chapter 22 or whatever it is to this point right here. In fact, I'm going to propose to you that who Peter was and the growth he experienced will have an incredible impact on what he writes and how he does it. His past life, his past failures, his past disappointments and successes are going to make all the more vibrant and rich and nuanced and significant as you read his letter. It's going to become all the more precious as it has been to every Christian in every generation at every time. So let's just kind of stop for a moment. And let's ask the question: how did Peter get from John to 1 Peter? Who was Peter? Especially for those of you who are younger in the faith, we need to do a little digging. Well, I want you to picture in your mind a fourth grade student who perpetually has his hand up in class. And when called upon, he has absolutely nothing to say. But he still speaks. And in so speaking, reveals he has nothing to say. That's Peter. John MacArthur, in his wonderful commentary on twelve ordinary men, he described Peter. In fact, he titled his chapter as the apostle with a foot-shaped mouth. It's pretty good. It's true. In fact, I'll never forget Howard Hendrick saying to us one time in seminary class that Peter opened his mouth only to change feet. Peter is that disciple who rushes in where angels fear to tread. He's inquisitive, he's impulsive, he's daring. And by the way, while we often are quick to find fault with the fact that he started sinking beneath those waves out there with the wind and the boisterous waves broiling around that little boat, we often overlook the fact that he was the only one who got out. All the other disciples are clinging to their cushions, hoping that they could serve as flotation devices because they thought the boat is going down. Well, we fault him for denying the Lord in that courtyard. He was still the only disciple who followed him that far before denying. No disciple speaks as often in the record of Scripture as Peter does. No one talks as much as Peter. And no one is spoken to by the Lord as much as Peter. No disciple is corrected more often than Peter. And Peter's the only disciple to have ever corrected the Lord, which is not a good idea. No one verbally denied Jesus more publicly than Peter, and yet no disciple ever confessed the deity of Christ more boldly than Peter.

unknown: 18:55

J.

SPEAKER_00: 18:55

Alan Blair wrote decades ago that probably no other person characterized in Scripture appears so impetuous and unstable and distrustful, and yet at the same time so bold and fearless and devoted. By the way, all of the above as I describe him are reasons why we love him. We love Peter. We just sort of feel a closer kinship, more immediately we warm up to this particular man. I mean, Paul, let's face it, really does kind of intimidate us. He's a brilliant attorney, and it's kind of like we think he's got it all buttoned down. Peter the fisherman, it's always coming loose, and we we kind of like that. We can identify with that easier, can't we? He's so clearly flawed, which we all are, but it's just so obvious with Peter. Peter was born, his given name was Simon, or Simeon in the Hebrew, although we don't have any proof he was from that tribe. His father's name was John, he had a brother named Andrew, he might have had more siblings. Only Andrew is mentioned, we're not even told if Andrew was younger or older. He grew up in a fishing village on the Sea of Galilee and developed a fairly successful fishing enterprise with his brother Andrew. In fact, they joined two other brothers known as James and John. The four of them would all leave their nets and follow Jesus eventually. We know that Peter was married, and because his wife often traveled with him in ministry trips, we're told in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 5. Possible they didn't have children, no reference to them, which would have allowed her time to be more involved directly in his travels. We can conclude that his fishing enterprise was lucrative, successful enough for him to buy a home in Capernaum in what we would call an upper middle class district near the synagogue. The home was large enough to accommodate other disciples and the Lord. He lived there with his wife and mother-in-law, who on one occasion grew ill and Jesus healed her. All given to us by the Gospel of Mark in chapter 1. Now, when the Lord meets Simon for the first time, he immediately nicknames him Peter. It's really more of a nickname. Cephas in the Aramaic. It means Petrus in the Greek means rock, stone, pebble. I think for Jesus Christ to take this impetuous, unstable, unpredictable, emotionally driven man, and at the very outset, he almost prophetically says, This is the person that I'm gonna make out of you. And it's gonna take a lifetime of ups and downs, stops, and starts. And what I want to do with the time remaining is watch some of it happen in fast motion. And so what I want to do is drop into several different scenes, and I'm gonna give you a caption to write next to each picture. And if you want to try to keep up and turn with me, you can. The first snapshot is found in Luke chapter 9. Luke chapter 9. And the caption underneath this scene is simply a word that describes Peter at this point, and it's the word nonsense. I thought about a lot of different words and finally settled on that one. Now, as you're turning, here's the setting. The three closest disciples to Jesus were Peter, James, and John. And they're hiking with Jesus up this mountain, and that mountain's going to be known forever as the Mount of Transfiguration, where Jesus kind of pulls back the veil of humanity and reveals the splendor of deity. And they get up to the top, and Peter is worn out and he goes to sleep while Jesus begins to pray. And that is kind of the normal pattern with Peter. So he's sleeping. Now, at some point, Peter wakes up and he's startled to find Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah. And it says that the garments of Jesus are shining like the noonday sun, and Moses and Elijah are dressed in splendor. We have no idea what that looked like, but it was just splendid. And Peter startled and he rubs his eyes and he wakes up and he steps forward. And in verse 33, he blurts out, Master, it is good for us to be here. Hey, this is great. I'm glad we're here. He has no idea what's taking place. It's good to be here. Let's make three tabernacles. Let's set up three tents. One for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah. Let's just make this permanent. Which is heresy. He's bringing Jesus down to the level of these two other prophets, Moses and Elijah, which false religions have tried to do to this very day. And then he says, let's just kind of bring on the kingdom. Let's set it up. I like this hill. This is great. Good we're here. What do you say? One author said that he magnificently disregarded the situation. And ignoring the fact that nobody was talking to him, began to speak. And it's as if God the Father interrupts this scene and interrupts Peter, and I think he's actually raising his voice. That's my guess. Because he says, notice, this is my beloved son. Listen to him. It's a nice way of saying, Peter, stop talking and listen to him. Peter's voice delivers nothing more than nonsense. Another snapshot is in Matthew chapter 16. Matthew chapter 16. And you can write the caption underneath this text, insightful. This is one of the high marks of Peter's development. We're not covering these chronologically. The Lord is asking the disciples who do people, you know, say he is. He says, give me the word on the street. Who do people say I am? And in verse 14, you can hear the answer. The disciples were found. Well, some say you're John the Baptist, others say you're Elijah, still others, you know, Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, because you weep a lot. So you must be Jeremiah or one of the other prophets. And now comes the major question on this examination. Jesus says to them, but who do you say that I am? Verse 16, Simon Peter answers, and you're thinking, oh no, please, Simon, put your hand down. He has it up. Yes, Simon Peter. And Simon Peter says, You are the Christ. Notice that, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Wow. And that will become the bedrock, the confession upon which the church will be built.