Peter's Three Questions: Failure Is Not Final

Scripture is quoted from the 1599 Geneva Bible with modernized spelling (words and word order unchanged), with the names Yahweh and Yashua restored throughout.

Peter was the bold one. He was first to speak, first to step out of the boat and first to swear he'd never leave. Then, on the worst night of Yashua's life, he failed exactly where he'd promised to be strongest.

His story is in the Bible for everyone who has ever let Yahweh down in front of everybody.

The promise

At the last supper Yashua warned him: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired you, to winnow you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: therefore when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren" (Luke 22:31–32).

Peter didn't hear the warning. He heard an insult. "Yashua, I am ready to go with thee into prison, and to death" (Luke 22:33).

Yashua told him the truth: "I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before thou hast thrice denied that thou knewest me" (Luke 22:34).

Notice what Yashua said before the failure. He said "I have prayed for thee," and He said "when thou art converted," not if. He already planned for Peter to come back, and He already had a job waiting for him.

The fall

A few hours later, in a courtyard by a fire, Peter was asked three times whether he knew Yashua. "Woman, I know him not" (Luke 22:57). "Man, I am not" (Luke 22:58). "Man, I know not what thou sayest" (Luke 22:60).

"And immediately while he yet spake, the cock crew. Then Yashua turned back, and looked upon Peter: and Peter remembered the word of Yashua, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out, and wept bitterly." (Luke 22:60–62)

Peter didn't just fail. He failed publicly, three times, after bragging, and the One he denied looked right at him while it happened. If anybody ever had reason to think "I'm done, I've disqualified myself," it was Peter.

"And Peter"

On resurrection morning the angel at the empty tomb gave the women a message: "But go your way, and tell his disciples, and Peter, that he will go before you into Galilee" (Mark 16:7).

And Peter. He was singled out by name. Whatever Peter thought about himself, heaven hadn't written him off.

Three questions by the sea

Then came the breakfast on the shore of the sea. Three denials by one fire were answered by three questions by another:

"So when they had dined, Yashua said to Simon Peter, Simon the son of Jona, lovest thou me more than these? He said unto him, Yea Yashua, thou knowest that I love thee. He said unto him, Feed my lambs." (John 21:15)

He asked a second time, and then a third:

"Peter was sorry because he said to him the third time, Lovest thou me? and said unto him, Yashua, thou knowest all things: thou knowest that I love thee. Yashua said unto him, Feed my sheep." (John 21:17)

Yashua didn't make him grovel or put him on probation. Each question let Peter replace a denial with a confession, and each answer came with a job. A man who couldn't stand up to a servant girl was given Yashua's flock.

What came after

A few weeks later, at Pentecost, the same man stood up in Jerusalem, in the city where he'd denied Yashua: "But Peter standing with the Eleven, lift up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judea, and ye all that inhabit Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken unto my words" (Acts 2:14). That day "there were added to the Church about three thousand souls" (Acts 2:41).

The rulers who had crucified Yashua couldn't explain it. "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and understood that they were unlearned men and without knowledge, they marveled, and knew them, that they had been with Yashua" (Acts 4:13). When the council ordered them to stop preaching, Peter, who had once folded under questioning by a servant girl, told the most powerful men in the nation, "We ought rather to obey Yahweh than men" (Acts 5:29).

That's what a restored failure looks like. Peter didn't become timid. He became bold enough to tell the government no when it stood against Yahweh.

If you've failed

"For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth again" (Proverbs 24:16). Falling isn't what makes the difference. Getting back up does.

Maybe you've denied Him with your mouth, your choices or your silence. Yashua already knows. He prayed for you before you fell. And He's still asking the same question at the shore: Lovest thou me?

Answer Him, then get back to work.

Failure is not final.