Boldness 11/23/2025

There really do seem to be two Peters in the Bible. The first one we know well: big heart, fast mouth, slow thinker. He steps out of the boat and sinks. He swears he will die before denying Jesus, and then hours later curses to prove he never knew Him. That Peter is lovable, relatable, and often embarrassing. Then, fifty days after the Resurrection, a second Peter stands up in Jerusalem. Same fisherman's hands, same Galilean accent, but a different man entirely. This Peter looks thousands in the eye, many of whom screamed for Jesus' blood, and without a trace of fear or bitterness says, "You crucified Him… and God has made this same Jesus both Lord and Christ." Three thousand souls come to faith that morning. What happened to Peter in those fifty days? And more importantly, can what happened to him happen to us? The Resurrection didn't erase Peter's failures; it absorbed them, rewrote the ending, and filled him with the Spirit so that a broken denier became a fearless witness; and the same risen Jesus is able and willing to do this in us today.