Peter Didn’t Get a Bad Rap.
He Got a Whole One.

I read John 18 this morning, and I couldn’t get past Peter.

We don’t usually picture him like this. It’s night in the garden. Soldiers show up with torches and weapons. And Peter doesn’t run. He draws.

Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus.

John 18:10 (KJV)

That’s not a timid man. That’s a man ready to take on a whole detachment of armed soldiers by himself.

Jesus told him to put it away

Here’s what gets me. Jesus doesn’t thank him. He stops him.

Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?

John 18:11 (KJV)

Luke tells us Jesus then reached out and healed the ear.

And he touched his ear, and healed him.

Luke 22:51 (KJV)

Peter was fighting the wrong battle with the wrong weapon. The real fight that night wasn’t flesh and blood. It was unseen.

I think the enemy still pulls that trick on us. He gets us swinging at each other. He tries to trap us into picking sides against people Jesus came to heal.

Same man, same night

A few verses later, the man who stood up to soldiers can’t stand up to a servant girl at a door.

Art not thou also one of this man’s disciples? He saith, I am not.

John 18:17 (KJV)

He denies Jesus three times, with words.

So Peter didn’t get a bad rap. He got a whole one. The courage and the collapse belong to the same man on the same night. That’s what makes him so easy to relate to. I’ve got both in me too.

Who am I to judge by words?

Jesus didn’t write Peter off. In John 21 He asks him three times, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” That’s three chances to answer for three denials.

If Jesus didn’t judge Peter’s heart by the worst words that came out of his mouth, who am I to judge anybody else’s by theirs? Words carry a lot of meanings. Hearts carry more.

The courage and the collapse belong to the same man on the same night.

Not unbelief. Just not knowing.

Some time back, on a Tuesday when I was in pain, I was reading about unbelief. I realized what I had wasn’t unbelief. It was not knowing.

Peter didn’t know why Jesus wouldn’t fight. He believed and was confused at the same time. There’s a father in Mark’s Gospel who said it best:

Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

Mark 9:24 (KJV)

That’s a prayer God answers.

Two and a half pounds at a time

Today I’ve got the same pressure on me, maybe more. But I’m carrying it better.

It’s like lifting. When I started, I couldn’t do much. I had 25s on a 45-pound bar. Then I added two and a halfs, then fives. The weight never got lighter. I got stronger.

Knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope.

Romans 5:3–4 (KJV)

Peter got there too. The man who swung a sword in the garden became a rock the church was built on. He did it the same way we do: one plate at a time.

John Malham is the author of the Unseen Battle Series, Christian books for working men, born from over twenty years of fire pit Bible studies in the New Jersey Pinelands. See the books.