His ideas were very limited when Jesus Christ first came into his life, and he knew little or nothing of the various branches of knowledge which had become a second nature to the Greek scholar; but the fisherman was to receive his education in a very different fashion from Luke, for his teacher was the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
How impossible it would have seemed to Peter, in the days when he washed his nets by the Lake of Galilee, that his writings should ever form a part of the Scriptures—God's Book, which he had learned from his childhood to love and reverence!
Yet with God all things are possible.
Not only did the Apostle Peter write a part of the Bible, but that short book known as the 'First Epistle of Peter,' is one of the most frequently mentioned by all the earliest Christian writers—those authors and teachers who had seen the Apostles, and had heard from their lips the story of the Saviour's life on earth. Thus it is that Peter's contribution to our Bible has become one of the strongest witnesses to the truth of the words written down in the Gospels. There is no possibility of a mistake; the man who wrote this Epistle could have been none other than the Apostle Peter who had been with the Lord from the beginning of His public work.
And it is very beautiful to trace throughout Peter's writings the echoes of the great facts which he had seen, and which to the end of his days formed the background of all his thoughts.
Christ had given him his name 'Peter' or 'Cephas,' that is, a rock or stone, and so he wrote of his Master as the great Corner-stone of God's spiritual house, in which each one of Christ's people are living stones, (1 Peter ii. 5-7.)
The Saviour had once told Peter that he must forgive his brother although he was wronged by him on seventy-times seven occasions, and in Peter's Epistle we read, 'Above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.' (1 Peter iv. 8.) 'Charity' should have been translated 'love.'
Then the Lord had warned Peter that Satan had desired to have him, and he—remembering that solemn fact in his own life—tried to put his readers on their guard against the great enemy, 'because your adversary the Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.' (1 Peter v. 8.)
Most touching of all are the words he wrote: 'For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? But if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God ... because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example.' (1 Peter ii. 20, 21.) The man who had seen the Lord Jesus Christ suffer patiently could never forget.
'Feed the flock of God which is among you.... And when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory.' (1 Peter v. 2, 4.) His Master's last command by the Lake of Galilee to feed His flock was so deeply impressed on Peter's mind that it coloured all his thoughts to the last day of his life. (John xxi.)