St. Peter and St. Paul, 2025

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, two of the founders of the early church.  I wonder what they would have thought of being lumped together this day, because as far as I can tell, they weren’t exactly best friends.

Peter was impetuous, outspoken, a fisherman by trade and a natural leader and spokesman for the disciples. Throughout the gospels we hear Peter debating with Jesus, the disciples going to Peter to ask questions, and the other disciples differing to him.  Peter was there at the Transfiguration and he was the one who rebuked Jesus for heading to Jerusalem and death; you recall Jesus’ response to that I’m sure…”get behind me, Satan!”  Peter was always right at the center of things, blurting out his thoughts before consideration, enthusiastic to the last. 

It was Peter who ran into the tomb on the report of Jesus’ resurrection and it was Peter who dove into the sea upon seeing the resurrected Jesus on the beach. It was Peter, in Matthew’s gospel, who declared Jesus to be “the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  It was also Peter who denied knowing Jesus at the crucifixion, and Peter whom Jesus called  to feed his sheep.  It was Peter to whom Jesus said belonged the ‘key’s to the kingdom’ and who was ‘the rock’ on which the church would be built.

As we read into the book of Acts, we can see that Peter does indeed emerge as the most prominent leader of the early Judaeo-Christian church in Jerusalem.  It was Peter who preached to the crowds at Pentecost, argued before the Jewish courts and became the head of the Judaeo-Christian council in Jerusalem.

Peter’s leadership and teachings however did not go unchallenged or unchanged.  In Peter and Paul’s time, the very first controversy to trouble the church was the question of ‘to be a follower of Christ do you first need to become Jewish?’  That is to be circumcised (which is a sign on entering the Abrahamic covenant between Jewish people and God) and to follow the laws of Moses, most especially controversially the food laws.  It was understood in the early years that Christianity was a Jewish denomination (for a lack of better terms).  Therefore, although not all Jews were Christian, all Christians were to be Jewish adherents.     St Paul did not agree.

Paul was not one of the 12 apostles, rather he famously was converted on the Damascus road.  Prior to that Paul, then called Saul, was a pharisee who was charged by the Jewish leadership to find and arrest as a heretic any Jew who proclaimed Jesus’ message and to bring them chained back to Jerusalem for trial.

However, en route to Damascus to arrest those proclaiming Christ, Paul received a vision from Christ and was converted to Christianity.  He spent time in the Christian community in Damascus, learning about the faith and then proceeded to spend the zeal he had employed persecuting the church, in preaching and missional work.

Paul, we read, was a very faithful and passionate person.  He was highly educated and well versed in scripture, law and Jewish teaching.  He was also a Roman Citizen by birth, which features prominently in his witness and his travel.   We know Paul primarily though the letters that he wrote to the many churches that he founded or traveled to and from, and from references to him in the book of Acts. 

Paul’s early teaching and travels were fraught with trouble as Judaeo-Christians struggled to trust that he was truly converted and many of the early communities that he visited contained Christians who had fled his own persecutions.

Paul also started off his ministry in opposition to the Council in Jerusalem, who maintained the need for Jewish conversion before baptism, by baptizing Greeks and other gentiles without the act circumcision or teaching obedience to Moses law.  Sts Peter and Paul were two very different Christians, with very different leadership styles and very different histories.

The wonderful thing about celebrating these two unique figures in one saint day, is the wonderful symbolism that it represents.  Peter and Paul are undoubtably two of the most important figures of the early church, they have been and continue to be vital influences in the church.  Yet, as we read about them in scripture it is clear they were chosen for their ministries based on criteria that that God alone could see.  

Peter was a fisherman, not an orator or scholar, he did indeed posses natural leadership skills, but perhaps he lacked vision. He objected to Jesus heading to Jerusalem, he denied Jesus under pressure and even when given a literal vision of bringing Jew and Gentile together he caved to the pressure of tradition.

Peter is still the Rock on which the church is built.

Paul literally persecuted the church and hunted down Christians.  He received a vision as well and clung to it as zealously as his former persecutions, believing his understanding of Christ superior to any other teachings.  Paul was self righteous and arrogant, but possessing a keen, theological mind.  His single-mindedness and faith, even in opposition to the 12 apostles enabled him to spread the gospel despite prison, shipwreck, beatings and years of suffering, and having to adapt his teaching from in person to writing the many letters we still hold dear.

Paul’s mission of evangelism spread the gospel throughout his known world.

St Peter and St Paul gave us such important teachings and yet, they disagreed on the most important and controversial topic of the day.  In those first hundred years, as the church began in Jerusalem with Jewish faith and culture and the spread through the Greco-roman, very cosmopolitan world, the question became Is Christianity Jewish?  Do you have to become Jewish to follow Christ?  Putting the massive amounts of gray area aside, Peter said yes, Paul said no.  This difference in theological understanding caused communities to split, congregations to riot, inspired violence and of course church meetings and councils.

Now it is clear that history favoured Paul and our understanding of who is and how to be a Christian is inclusive beyond what even Paul would imagine.  Still, the church kept those debates in the bible, allowed them to inform the church and stand as an example of a community united by faith even when divided by theology.  A lesson that has stood the test of many, many controversies since.

In celebrating Peter and Paul we recognise the importance of diversity within the church, both in terms of cultures and theologies.  Not only that but we also learn about how there are a diversity of calls and how we receive them.  Peter grew in faith as he walked with Christ, learning slow and steady and making mistakes along the way.  Paul was a convert in the most dramatic way, in fact creating the stereotype of the Damascus experience. 

In recognizing the diversity of theologies in Peter and Paul, the early church leadership did not seek to suppress either saint, rather they recognized that each had a valuable if different, ministry.  Recognizing that Peter and Paul had different callings, the church empowered each in ways that allowed them to build the church and fulfill their God given ministries.

St Peter and St Paul were likely not the best of friends, nor even on the same side theologically, but both were integral to the church that we have become.    As important a lesson now, as ever it was then.  There are many different iterations of the Christian church and just as one could be Jewish Christian or gentile Christian then, so too we can have many understandings of the one faith.  Just like we can be one church with many theological differences and still believe be the body of Christ, (that was one of Paul’s ideas).

Just as we have learned the importance of stability, community and structure from St. Peter.  That we cannot all do our own thing, but must come together as a community of faith in order to learn and grow and care for each other.  Appointing councils, ordaining those called and taking care to ensure that orthodoxy is maintained in the midst of change and growth.

 In celebrating St Peter and St Paul we not only honour the past but we inspired for the future.  As the teacher of Ecclesiastes says ‘there is nothing new under the sun’.  We can still value and learn from lessons that show the importance of a diversity of call, culture and theology in the church.  The lessons of the importance of ensuring the stability of the church community and the vital ministry of evangelism and spreading the gospel.

These are just a few of the lessons we can learn from Sts Peter and Paul this day. amen