Who was Peter?

The short answer

Peter was a fisherman named Simon who left his nets to follow Jesus. Jesus gave him the name Peter, which means rock. He denied knowing Jesus on the night of the arrest, and after the resurrection Jesus asked him three times if he loved him and gave him work to do.

What the record says

Mark tells how it began, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee:

Jesus said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you into fishers for men.”

Mark 1:17

John says Jesus gave him a new name the day they met. He told him, “You shall be called Cephas” (John 1:42). John explains that the name means Peter. Both words mean rock.

When Jesus asked his friends who they said he was, Simon answered:

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Matthew 16:16

On the night of the arrest, Peter followed to the high priest’s house and warmed himself at a fire of coals with the servants (John 18:18). Three times people said he was one of Jesus’s friends, and three times he said he didn’t know him. Then a rooster crowed.

The Lord turned and looked at Peter.

Luke 22:61

Luke adds, “He went out, and wept bitterly” (Luke 22:62).

After the resurrection, John tells of a breakfast on the lakeshore beside another fire of coals (John 21:9). Three times Jesus asked Peter if he loved him. The third time Peter answered, “Lord, you know everything. You know that I have affection for you” (John 21:17). Each time Jesus gave him a job, to feed his lambs, to tend his sheep and to feed his sheep.

How the novels tell it

Third Day is a novel. In the novel he goes by Yeshua, the name his family would have called him. In The Narrow Gate, Yeshua tells Simon to think before he speaks and names him Peter, the Rock. In chapter sixteen of Third Day, “The Courtyard,” Peter stands at a charcoal fire in the courtyard of Annas and denies him three times. As the guards lead Yeshua past, he turns his head and keeps looking at Peter. In chapter twenty-five, “The Charcoal Fire,” Peter takes the others fishing in Galilee. They catch nothing all night, and the men stop following his lead. At first light a man on the shore tells them where to cast, and the net fills. Peter goes over the side and walks in to a charcoal fire with bread on it. After the meal Yeshua walks with him along the water and asks him three times if he loves him.

The old name and the coals held the whole courtyard between them.

Afterward Peter climbs into the hills with Andrew to find Simon Zelotes, who has gone off alone. Simon reminds him that he denied his teacher, and that Yeshua chose him anyway. Peter shakes his head. He says he was fed, and he opens a cloth of bread and fish between them.