The Peter of the Epistles
When Jesus told Peter, "Feed my sheep," no doubt the discouraged fisherman had no idea what was coming, or the role he would play in the Lord's church. Though we have seen, in Acts, Peter fulfilling that command, we can see it also in the fact this same Peter was also the author of two Epistles, his way of "feeding the sheep" not just in his own time but for all church history. In a sense, every time we read one of his letters, we are seeing another fulfillment of Christ's words to His disciple.
Pick one chapter, any chapter, from either of the Epistles of Peter. Read it over, pray over it, and try to imagine the character of the person writing it. What can you learn about the new Peter from what you have read in that chapter?
In some ways it is hard to imagine these deep, eloquent words coming from the same man seen in the Gospels, the harsh, brash fisherman whose mouth ran faster than his mind or his faith. Yet, this is the Peter transformed by God's grace into what Paul called "a new creature" (2 Cor. 5:17).
Particularly powerful are Peter's words in 1 Peter 1:18-21 and in 1 Peter 2:24, in which Peter puts emphasis on the death of Jesus for the redemption of our souls. The Peter who once was determined that Jesus should never go to the Cross is now the Peter who is proclaiming the Cross as the means of redemption, as the place where Jesus, our Substitute, bore our sins. Notice, too, the wording of 1 Peter 2:18-23, in which Peter is advocating a kind of pacifism, a turning of the cheek that one would not have found in the Peter of the Gospels. Truly, the change was remarkable. It should give us all hope, regardless of where we are in our own personal character development. Go back over the chapter you picked from one of Peter's Epistles. What was the main point? How can you take what this shepherd was feeding you and make it your own?
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