Peter was not an untested youth when he met Jesus. He was married (Mark 1:30) and had long pitted his strength against a treacherous inland sea [page 48] to earn his living by fishing.
Peter's life was changed by the miracle of Jesus walking on the water to bring aid to his distressed apostles, who were terrified at the strange sight. Keeping his composure, Peter courageously asked the Lord to bid him come. At Jesus' invitation, Peter "walked on the water, to go to Jesus." (Matt. 14:29.) Yet his faith and the Lord reached to rescue the sinking man. One can see a powerful spirit with seeds of perfect faith taking its first weak steps.
It was Peter who held the keys of presidency of Christ's church: "� whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matt. 16:19.) This commission did not create the first pope, for Peter never called himself bishop of Rome. He identified his office as "an apostle of Jesus Christ." (1 Pet. 1:1.) Only a church preserving the apostleship of Peter can claim his authority.
Consider also the case of Peter on the night he denied any knowledge of his Master three times in succession. Some of us commonly regard Peter as something of a weakling, whose commitment was not strong enough to make him rise to the Savior's defense. But I once heard President Spencer W. Kimball offer an alternative interpretation of Peter's behavior. In a talk to a BYU audience in 1971, President Kimball, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, said that the Savior's statement that Peter would deny him three times before the cock crowed just might have been a request to Peter, not a prediction. Jesus just might have been instructing his chief apostle to deny any association with him in order to insure strong leadership for the Church after the crucifixion. As President Kimball asked, who could doubt Peter's willingness to stand up and be counted [page 64] when you think of his boldness in striking off the ear of the guard with his sword when the Savior was arrested in Gethsemane.
The resurrected Lord instructed the Twelve to preach the gospel to "all nations," and history records how faithfully Peter carried out this instruction. Acts describes his blunt witness before the Jewish nation, and his going afterwards to the Samaritan people nearby. Because of policy differences with Paul, we know that Peter preached in the major city of Antioch. (Gal. 2:11.) About A.D. 56 he was probably making regular missionary journeys, and it was his practice to take his wife with him. (1 Cor. 9:5.)
Two of the first Christian scholars gave details of Peter's death. Tertullian wrote about the apostle baptizing "in the Tiber" and enduring "a suffering like his Lord's" in Rome (On Prescription Against Heretics, 36). Origen said that Peter came "to Rome and was crucified head downwards, for so he had asked to suffer." So the Lord's prophecy to Peter was at last fulfilled: "� when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldest not." (John 21:18.)
In the book of Acts, Peter was not merely the church's chief administrator and spokesman; he also received revelation to guide Christ's church into new paths. The most notable examples are the baptism of the first gentile, after Peter received a vision from God (Acts 10.
Peter's successors were not Bible scholars, ministers, evangelists, bishops of any kind, or even general councils of the church. Peter was an apostle raised to presidency and a prophet and revelator for the church. No one less can perpetuate his office in any Christian organization.
