Luke 8:51
51 When He came to the house, He did not allow anyone to enter with Him, except Peter and John and James, and the girl’s father and mother.
Here is when Jesus went to Jairus’ house (a synagogue ruler) to heal his twelve-year-old daughter; and only Peter, with James and John were allowed by Jesus to enter her room and witness the healing. This is an indication that these three were the closest disciples—those Jesus trusted most.
Luke 8:43-46 (also Matt. 9:18-26; Mk. 5:21-24)
43 And a woman who had a hemorrhage for twelve years, and could not be healed by anyone, 44 came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak, and immediately her hemorrhage stopped. 45 And Jesus said, “Who is the one who touched Me?” And while they were all denying it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing in on You.” 46 But Jesus said, “Someone did touch Me, for I was aware that power had gone out of Me.”
This story is recorded in both Matthew’s gospel (Matt. 9:20-22) and Mark’s gospel (Mk. 5:25-34), but only here in Luke’s gospel was it indicated that Peter was the central person who said to Jesus, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing in on You.”
So, it seems that Peter was speaking for all the disciples. He was the spokesman. And also, when Jesus said, “Someone did touch Me, for I was aware that power had gone out of Me,” He was speaking mainly, or more directly to Peter. Hence, I think Peter was getting Jesus’ response more than the others.
Luke 6:12-16 (also Mk. 3:13-19)
12 It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God. 13 And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles: 14 Simon, whom He also named Peter, and Andrew his brother; and James and John; and Philip and Bartholomew; 15 and Matthew and Thomas; James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot; 16 Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
Here we may note that Peter is named first. And in Matthew 10:2 it even says, “The first, Simon…” Moreover, in the list of apostles in Mark 3:16-19 and in Acts 1:13, Peter is listed first. Hence, not only does Peter always act as the leader, he is pointed out in Scripture (which is inspired by God) as the appointed leader.
This passage always reminds me of times I have been on camp outs and retreats. Usually, everyone sleeps in, and hardly anyone that I have found goes out in the wild to pray–like Jesus did.
Mark 1:35-39 (also Lu.4:42-44)
35 In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there. 36 Simon and his companions searched for Him; 37 they found Him, and said to Him, “Everyone is looking for You.” 38 He said to them, “Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for.”
After Peter’s mother-in-law was healed “the whole city” came to see Jesus, and He healed many. Apparently, Jesus slept there in Peter’s home that night. Here in the text, we see that Jesus got up early to pray in a secluded place. And Peter gathered a search party of his companions to look for Him; it seems that Peter was the leader of this group (and he was the natural leader everywhere he went). And when they found him they were surprised saying, “Everyone is looking for you.” They were probably wondering why he got up so early to go to this secluded place. What was He doing? They didn’t understand the concept of prayer—of having an early morning quiet time. But here they got a first-hand knowledge of Jesus’ prayer habits. Soon Peter and his companions would learn more about a prayer life.
Mark 1:29-31 (also Matt.8:14-17; Lu. 4:38-39)
29 And immediately after they came out of the synagogue, they came into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 Now Simon’s mother-in-law was lying sick with a fever; and immediately they spoke to Jesus about her. 31 And He came to her and raised her up, taking her by the hand, and the fever left her, and she waited on them.
After Jesus called Peter and Andrew (and also James and John) to follow Him, they all went to Capernaum into the synagogue where Jesus taught the people. And while He was there, He also cast out a demon. And then they went to the house of Simon and Andrew.
In this text (and also in Luke 4:38-39), we see that Peter’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever. We can only surmise that Peter asked Jesus to come and help her. And when He did help her the fever left her. This interaction no doubt brought a great bonding to Peter and Jesus. Earlier Peter was amazed by the great catch of fish, then by the casting out of a demon, now by the healing of his mother-in-law. I imagine that Peter was thinking, who is this Jesus?
Oh God
Don’t let me wander
Keep me in that good place
Hold me there
Don’t let me turn away
Keep me next to You
Luke 5:1-11
Now it happened that while the crowd was pressing around Him and listening to the word of God, He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret; 2 and He saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake; but the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. 3 And He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little way from the land. And He sat down and began teaching the people from the boat. 4 When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered and said, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets.” 6 When they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break; 7 so they signaled to their partners in the other boat for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” 9 For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken; 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men.” 11 When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.
This is Luke’s account of what happened when Jesus called Peter and Andrew to discipleship. This account is much more detailed than Matthew’s and Mark’s account (and John missed it altogether). I suppose that Luke took more detailed notes on what happened. Here is a tabulation of the things that were missing from the other gospels.
In this account we get quite a bit of information on Peter. In verse 4, we see that Peter wasn’t afraid to confront Jesus on his opinion of going out deeper to fish. But he was humble enough to yield to what Jesus wanted, disregarding his own expert-fishing opinion. Again, in verse 8, we see the deep humility of Peter as he acknowledges his lack of faith. Hence, we see Peter’s strong personality as well as his deep humility.
I have been writing a commentary on the personality of Peter and his two Epistles for a couple months now, and I just decided to make some blogs out of it. The first two chapters will be on the person of Peter from the gospels (chapter 1), and from Acts (chapter 2). I am about half way through chapter two, so these blogs will be what I have written a while ago.
The way I will be writing it is to always put the text I will be covering first, and then to comment on that text. I basically get the text from anything I find in my reading that is about Peter (with the use of a concordance). Here below is my first entry from Matthew 4:18-20).
Matthew 4:18-20
18 Now as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. 19 And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.
When Jesus first called Peter into His ministry he was involved in the fishing business with his brother Andrew. But it seems here that Jesus ministry was much more appealing to him (and his brother).
Actually, we find in the gospel of John (Jn. 1:35-42) that Andrew was John the Baptist’s disciple; and when Andrew saw Jesus being baptized by John, he ran and found his brother Peter and said to him,
“We have found the Messiah.” So, Peter came to meet Jesus and He looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Cephas” (translated Peter).
Hence, Peter (and his brother) had earlier met Jesus and they knew who he was—the Messiah. So, this knowledge of Jesus and the earlier impression that He made on them must have been the reason why they were so quick to leave their fishing business to follow Jesus. In fact, I think Jesus made such an impression on them that they couldn’t wait to be His disciple!
The gospel of Mark (in Mk. 1:16-20) reads the same as in Matthews gospel.
I was just walking along and saw this tan color among the bushes. When I zoomed in on it with my camera I discovered it was a young door, and he was looking at me just as I was looking at him.
Stephen Nielsen 