Turnaround for Peter

I teach a Bible study on the first and third Thursdays of each month at the local assisted living facility. The regulars to the study look forward to outside company, and I thoroughly enjoy the banter with them.

When I started over a year ago, the folks would file in and seat themselves while I greeted wach one and then they'd be quiet while I presented the study. They still do that. But the 60 minutes I used to fill (usually by cutting from my notes) with Bible study has dwindled to about 30 minutes of teaching. The rest of the time is spent in conversation. Weather, mail, relatives, events at the home, the latest card from the grandkids, etc.

One gentleman who has been to every session since day one informed me today he wil be moving back home so he can be close to his kids and grandkids. His doctor says he has three years to live. So he wants to make the most of it. I responded "What do doctors know?"

We're working through the book of Acts. Not a verse-by-verse exposition: I probably don't have enough time with some of these people to do that. So I hit major passages and touch on major themes. Acts 3 and 4 were our focus today, primarily Peter's sermon in the temple.

I struck me that this was the same Peter who a few weeks earlier stood in the same temple courtyard vehemently denying any knowledge of the Nazarene carpenter being questioned inside. Did Peter suffer flashbacks? If this was a movie, you can be sure the director would cut to the pinnacle moment when Peter swore he didn't know Jesus. And we're not talking "cross-my-heart" swore. It was profanity. Gutter language. Words you'd expect to hear from a gritty, hard-working fisherman down on the piers.

But the Peter described by Luke in Acts 3 and 4 differs so much from the Gospel record. Something special had to have happened. A Jewish feast called Pentacost, celebrated weeks after Passover, proved to be a pivital event in Peter's life.

Jesus promised the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit showed up as promised. Peter and the apostles sang God's praises in languages they'd never studied or spoken before. And people from all over the then known world heard God's story in theoir native tongue.

Three thousand people were saved on Pentacost after Peter's first sermon, one that would not meet today's "seeker-sensitive" criteria. "You murdered your Messiah!" What's so sensitive about that?! But people responded because Peter told them how. Three thousand people.

Peter's second sermon ended up with five thousand. Trends definitely in the right direction! His board, if he had one, would be proud. And the message was the same. Peter didn't change his formula to "maximize impact" or to soften the guilt.

Not bad for a man who two months earlier had to be drawn out of the boat he'd retreated into after denying His Lord.