The apostles Peter and Paul
Sermon by Russell Stannard
Today we celebrate the feast of St Peter and St Paul.
These two apostles were very different in a number of ways:
Peter was one of the twelve disciples. Paul was converted after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ.
Peter was a fisherman, probably illiterate. Paul was a highly-educated rabbi.
Peter was a provincial from the back of beyond, Galilee. Paul was a Roman citizen who was able to speak in public in sophisticated Athens.
Peter’s real name was Simon, meaning ‘he who obeys’ and his nickname was ‘Cephas’ in Aramaic or Petros in Greek, meaning ‘the rock’, because his confession of faith in Christ the Son of God was rock solid. Paul’s real name was Saul, meaning ‘the destroyer’, which was changed to Paul, meaning in Latin ‘short in height’ or ‘small’, no doubt because he was short and small.
Of the two, I suppose most people empathise more with Peter. He was good-hearted, impetuous, and tended to get into trouble. We read how when Jesus walked on water it was Peter who tried to do the same thing, and he got scared and began to sink. On another occasion, after Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples were in a boat and they saw Jesus standing on the shore. Peter couldn’t wait to get to him and plunged straight into the water to swim to him quicker. It was Peter who cried bitterly when he denied Jesus, not once, but three times, as Jesus had predicted he would. But it was Peter, to his everlasting credit, who was the first to recognise that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah. It was for this insight that Jesus declared that Peter would be the Rock on which the church would be built. But even so, immediately after Peter had been so elevated, he found himself in the doghouse. In telling Jesus that he should not sacrifice himself, Jesus rebuked him by saying ‘get thee behind me, Satan.’ One minute he was likened to the Rock, and the next to Satan!
Paul was very different. He had a history of persecuting the Church, and probably took part in the stoning of the first Christian martyr, Stephen. He was very much a creature of his time in regard to his attitude towards women. Today it is hard to forgive him for writing: “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church.” By way of mitigation, we perhaps should recall that Paul did, nevertheless, have several women among his “co-workers in the gospel”, and that he praised women like Priscilla and Lydia who were leaders in the early church. But above all we should note that the very finest description of love we owe to him at 1 Corinthians, 13, 4. It is the passage that begins “Love is patient, love is kind...” and concludes “...And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Peter’s main mission was concerned with converting the Jews. He saw Jesus as the consummation of the Jewish Messianic hope and worked tirelessly to convince his fellow Jews of this.
Paul, on the other hand, travelled everywhere he could and is known as ‘the apostle of the Gentiles’, the non-Jews. This in fact was quite extraordinary and innovative. With the original Jewish faith there had been no previous history of trying to make converts of non-Jews. But in this he was presumably obeying Jesus’ instruction: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” And what a good thing Paul did just that. If Christianity today simply consisted of Jewish converts it would not be anything like the church we know today. According to tradition both men were martyred for their faith in Rome under the reign of Nero, Paul being beheaded and Peter crucified.
Today we give thanks for the two very different, but complementary, ministries of Peter and Paul.
Sermon by Russell Stannard
Today we celebrate the feast of St Peter and St Paul.
These two apostles were very different in a number of ways:
Peter was one of the twelve disciples. Paul was converted after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ.
Peter was a fisherman, probably illiterate. Paul was a highly-educated rabbi.
Peter was a provincial from the back of beyond, Galilee. Paul was a Roman citizen who was able to speak in public in sophisticated Athens.
Peter’s real name was Simon, meaning ‘he who obeys’ and his nickname was ‘Cephas’ in Aramaic or Petros in Greek, meaning ‘the rock’, because his confession of faith in Christ the Son of God was rock solid. Paul’s real name was Saul, meaning ‘the destroyer’, which was changed to Paul, meaning in Latin ‘short in height’ or ‘small’, no doubt because he was short and small.
Of the two, I suppose most people empathise more with Peter. He was good-hearted, impetuous, and tended to get into trouble. We read how when Jesus walked on water it was Peter who tried to do the same thing, and he got scared and began to sink. On another occasion, after Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples were in a boat and they saw Jesus standing on the shore. Peter couldn’t wait to get to him and plunged straight into the water to swim to him quicker. It was Peter who cried bitterly when he denied Jesus, not once, but three times, as Jesus had predicted he would. But it was Peter, to his everlasting credit, who was the first to recognise that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah. It was for this insight that Jesus declared that Peter would be the Rock on which the church would be built. But even so, immediately after Peter had been so elevated, he found himself in the doghouse. In telling Jesus that he should not sacrifice himself, Jesus rebuked him by saying ‘get thee behind me, Satan.’ One minute he was likened to the Rock, and the next to Satan!
Paul was very different. He had a history of persecuting the Church, and probably took part in the stoning of the first Christian martyr, Stephen. He was very much a creature of his time in regard to his attitude towards women. Today it is hard to forgive him for writing: “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church.” By way of mitigation, we perhaps should recall that Paul did, nevertheless, have several women among his “co-workers in the gospel”, and that he praised women like Priscilla and Lydia who were leaders in the early church. But above all we should note that the very finest description of love we owe to him at 1 Corinthians, 13, 4. It is the passage that begins “Love is patient, love is kind...” and concludes “...And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Peter’s main mission was concerned with converting the Jews. He saw Jesus as the consummation of the Jewish Messianic hope and worked tirelessly to convince his fellow Jews of this.
Paul, on the other hand, travelled everywhere he could and is known as ‘the apostle of the Gentiles’, the non-Jews. This in fact was quite extraordinary and innovative. With the original Jewish faith there had been no previous history of trying to make converts of non-Jews. But in this he was presumably obeying Jesus’ instruction: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” And what a good thing Paul did just that. If Christianity today simply consisted of Jewish converts it would not be anything like the church we know today. According to tradition both men were martyred for their faith in Rome under the reign of Nero, Paul being beheaded and Peter crucified.
Today we give thanks for the two very different, but complementary, ministries of Peter and Paul.