Deacon Rick Lapierre
Early Church history tells us that these two great followers of Jesus did not seem to have much in common. Peter was a commercial fisherman who, if Jesus had not come along, would have probably died in Caesarea after many years of fishing. He was a faithful Jew, but he did not have a formal education. Paul, on the other hand, was a tentmaker by trade, but could almost be called a professional religious. He studied under the famous Jewish rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem and was a member of the Pharisees, the most influential segment of Jewish belief at the time of Jesus. While the Pharisees held themselves to strict adherence to the Torah, or Jewish law, they separated from the more radical fundamentalists on the issue of priesthood. Being less stringent, they also more readily accepted the Roman occupation and even collaborated with them.
Peter of course, as the gospel story tells us, was the first of the apostles to recognize Jesus for who He really was. He must have had inklings along the way, because when Jesus called him, he immediately dropped everything to follow Him. He would be rewarded for this faith in Jesus by being given the name "Rock" and told by Jesus that he would be the one upon whom the Church would be built. Peter of course would also be called "Satan" and would even go on to deny Jesus not once, but three times. After Jesus' Ascension, the apostles chose a man called James the Righteous to be the leader of the Jerusalem Church and Peter, like the other twelve apostles would journey throughout Asia Minor preaching the Good News, primarily to the Jewish communities spread throughout the area.
Paul had a somewhat different start. On fire with his beliefs in the Torah and God's choosing of the Jews for a special mission, he set out to destroy this new heresy of Judaism, which its followers called the Way, based on the teachings and stories of this Jesus who was killed by the Romans, but miraculously raised from the dead. Remember that Jesus did not particularly like the Pharisees, especially when referring to them as painted tombs holding decay inside. According to the Acts of the Apostles Paul was present when they stoned Stephen for heresy and even received a commission to go and arrest people in Damascus for following Jesus.
Each of these very different men then has an Epiphany, a manifestation of God. It happens to Peter in the account at the end of John's gospel where Jesus asks him three times, "Do you love me?" It happens to Paul on the road, when he is knocked off of his horse and Jesus asks him, "Why are you persecuting me?"
After these encounters with Jesus, the lives of Peter and Paul become quite similar, even though their temperaments are still quite different. Paul even criticizes Peter on the occasion when he falls back into the Jewish dietary practice and offends the Gentiles whom Paul has been converting. Yet both men have found something bigger than themselves, and in that pursuit they sublimate themselves to proclaim Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God.
