The Twelve: St. Peter

St. Peter

Meaning of his name: At his birth he got the name Shimon, which literally means “the one who was heard.” To some extend it is a reflection on the suffering of matriarch Leah who said “[God has] heard...” when she conceived and bore the second boy (Genesis 29:33). The apostle was named after the forefather – one of the sons of Jacob (which begs a question, maybe Andrew was the first and Simon – the second).

There is a famous passage (Matthew 16:18) that people identify as a moment when the apostle was renamed. (Close but no cigar). Actually, he was called Simon Peter prior to his confession, and after. But Jesus changed Simon's name – when the LORD called him as a disciple (John 1:41-42). Peter is a Greek word for “Rock” or a “jewel.”

Life story: The New Testament has many stories about St. Peter. I am not going to talk about his denial of Jesus, or cutting of an ear of the High priest servant, or multiple times in the prison, or conflict with St. Paul. We will pick a few of the most known ones to paint a picture of the apostle.

1 Timothy: on Christology

1 Timothy on Christology

1. Creedal confession, 3:16. Let us begin with the fundamentals. St. Paul wants to come to Timothy. Yet, preparing the younger pastor for a possible delay, he provides the confessional statement – what should the Church know about godliness. Before we go into text itself, let’s touch on two words: confession and mystery.   

Confession – Greek homologeon, means speaking together out loud. This is what the church should say as a statement of faith. This is what we believe – it should not be changed, adjusted, or improved. Later confessions: Apostle’s creed, Nicaean creed etc. used the very same form – a collection of short statements revealing the elements of doctrinal teaching about God, Christ, Holy Spirit, or Church. We repeat it TOGETHER every Sunday.

The word Mystery reflects the revelatory aspect of our faith. It is given to us, given from above. Therefore, we can recite it, we can study it, we can proclaim it. But we never will come to the full understanding of Who God is, and What exactly happened on the Cross, in the Tomb, and on Resurrection Sunday morning. Both Old and New Testament speak of the mystery – not magic, but mystery – something beyond our understanding (Proverbs 25:2, Psalm 131:1).           

Confession proper:

1. God (!) manifested in the flesh

2. Justified in the Spirit

3. Seen by the angels

4. Preached in/among the nations

5. Believed in the World/Cosmos

6. Taken up/received in glory.

2. Global function of the Christ, 2:3-7. Christ is the Savior of the world. All people are justified and should come to the knowledge of (this) truth. There is a need to differentiate between General and personal Justification. The difference is obviously seen in 1 Timothy 4:10 and 1 John 2:1-2. This passage talks about salvation and justification in a general way – what Jesus accomplished for the fate of the world on the Cross. Note the distinction of to be saved and to know. True knowledge follows salvation. Same as teaching follows baptism – Matthew 28:18-20. These elements of godliness should not be separated, but knowledge doesn’t HAVE TO precede salvation. That’s why we baptize infants – to be saved (1 Peter 3:21, AC V:1-2).      

3. Function of Christ on the personal level, 1:12-17. Regarding personal aspect of Justification, we can see St. Paul’s own example. He describes his actions toward the Church before his conversion as blasphemy etc. (v. 13). His resistance was conquered by the grace of our LORD, providing the faith and love in Christ Jesus. The apostle goes from general to personal – the task for Messiah is “to save the sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (v. 15). Knowing that people like Saul (former name of St. Paul) can be saved, gives us example of God’s patience and encourages us to pray for our “friends” who don’t know about salvation they can enjoy (v. 16).     

4. Christology is complete in training others in godliness, 4:6-11. Let me start with an example of Old Testament saint, Ezra (7:10): three steps – (1) he recognition of the WORD, given to the world; (2) personal “conversion” by studying and doing; (3) teaching others. St. Paul approaches teaching of Timothy in a similar way. We’ve talked about the first two, here is the third: command and teach these things (v. 11).