Simon Peter: The Unauthorized Biography

I’ve always been bothered by the way Peter, the Apostle, is talked about in religious discussions. Some scorn him for his lack of courage and others praise him for overcoming his moments of weakness and becoming a powerful instrument in the Lord’s hands. Both characterizations ring false to me. They don’t adequately explain the entire New Testament record that we have of him.

We know that Peter did deny Christ three times, but we also know that he “smote high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear” (John 18:10) when Judas came to betray Jesus with “a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees…with lanterns and torches and weapons” (John 18:3). The other gospels describe this group as “a great multitude with swords and staves” (Matt. 26:47, Mark 14:43). I would imagine that this multitude outnumbered the people with Christ, and that they were better armed. Many of them were probably soldiers. Yet Peter attacked them first. I can’t understand how he could be so zealous in the garden, yet so craven only a few hours later. With the rest of this post, I will present an alternative narrative to explain Peter’s actions here. I don’t present this as doctrine or the absolute truth, but as another way of understanding the scriptures and the people they teach us about, based on what they tell us.

The narrative starts at the Last Supper. This is where Christ, according to the popular understanding of these events, prophesies that Peter will deny Him. But the language Christ uses here is very important. He says, “Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice” (Mark 14:30). God frequently uses the future tense in commands, not necessarily prophecies. Just look at the Ten Commandments and all of the “thou shalts” that it uses (Exodus 20). But why would Jesus command anyone, let alone His chief Apostle, to deny Him? Right before this, Peter declared, “I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death” (Luke 22:33).

Peter was perfectly willing to die for the man he knew to be the Christ. In fact, I get the feeling that he wanted to die for Him. Nothing would have been more glorious than giving his life for the man he worshipped. But that is not what Christ had in mind for him. Christ needed him to lead the church, no to die in some futile attempt to stave off the inevitable.

With this understanding, we see Peter’s reckless attack on the high priest’s servant as brave, but stupid, disobedience. Peter hasn’t yet got the message, so Christ tells him to put his sword away. Jesus has to help his overzealous disciple understand that this is supposed to happen. This isn’t a battle for Peter to fight.

Even still, while all of his other disciples “forsook him, and fled” (Mark 14:50), Peter followed. Being anywhere near Christ at that point was the most dangerous place for a disciple to be. The people wanted to kill the master, I can’t imagine that they would have treated the disciple any better. Despite the danger, Peter was there, as close as he could get to his Lord. When he was exposed as one of the Christ’s followers, he knew he had a choice to make, declare his allegiance to a condemned man and suffer the same fate, or deny it and escape with his life, as Christ commanded him. He chose obedience, even though the pain of it made him weep.

As the culmination of this narrative, the resurrected Christ asks Peter three times if he loves him not as a backhanded way of saying, “See, I told you so,” but as a reward. Peter suffered through helplessly watching the Messiah die, but it was not without a purpose. Peter was meant to “feed [the Lord’s] sheep” (John 21:17).