EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/15/2026
9:12 PM
My
Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Common
Men, Uncommon Calling—Part 2”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Luke
6:14a
Message of the verse: “Simon, whom He also named Peter,”
I began this section in this morning’s
SD, and now I want to continue to quote from John MacArthur’s commentary in
this evening’s SD.
“Peter’s birth name was Simon
Barjona (‘son of Jonas,’ or ‘John’; (Matt. 16:17). Simon was a very common name in Israel; the
New Testament lists several other men by that name, including another one of
the apostles, Simon the Zealot, (Luke 6:15), one of Jesus’ brothers (Matt.
13:55), a leper (presumably healed by Jesus) in Bethany (Mark 14:3), at whose
house Mary (the sister of Martha) anointed Jesus with costly perfume (John
12:1-3), a Pharisee who invited Jesus to eat with him, and at whose house
another anointed Jesus (Luke 7:36-50), a man from Cyrene, pressed by the Romans
into carrying Jesus’ cross (Mark 15:21), the father of Judas Iscariot (John 6:71),
the false prophet Simon the magician (Acts 8:9-24), and Simon the tanner, at
whose house in Joppa Peter stayed (Acts 9:43).
As noted in the previous chapter of
this volume, Peter’s name heads all four New Testament lists of the
apostles. Emphasizing his primary
position among the Twelve, Matthew 10:2 calls Peter the ‘first’ of the
apostles. Protos (‘first’) does
not refer in this context to being first in sequence, but rather first in importance;
it has the sense of ‘chief,’ or ‘most important.’ He was by trade a fisherman, along with his
brother Andrew (Matt. 4:18). They were originally
from the small village of Bethsaida (John 1:44), but had moved to Capernaum,
the most significant town on the northern tip of the Sea of Galilee (Luke 4:31,
38), where Jesus had settled after leaving Nazareth (Matt. 4:13) Though it is impossible to be certain, a
church building found in the ruins of Capernaum may have been built on the site
of Peter’s home. Peter was married,
since Jesus healed his mother-in-law (Luke 4:38-39), and Paul noted that his
wife accompanied him on his missionary journeys (1 Cor. 9:5).
“That Jesus named Simon Peter is significant,
as I explain in my book Twelve Ordinary Men:
Luke’s
choice of words here is important. Jesus
didn’t merely give him a new name to replace the old one. He ‘also’ named him Peter. This disciple was known sometimes as Simon,
sometimes as Peter, and sometimes as Simon Peter.
‘Peter’ was
a sort of nickname. It means ‘Rock.’ (Petros
is the Greek word for ‘a piece of rock, a stone.’) The Aramaic equivalent was Cephas (cf.
1 Corinthians 1:12; 3:22; 9:5; 15:5; Galatians 2:9). John 1:42 describes Jesus’ first face-to-face
meeting with Simon Peter: ‘Now when
Jesus looked at him, He said, ‘You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas’ (which is
translate, A Stone).’ Those were
apparently the first words Jesus ever said to Peter. And from then on, ‘Rock’ was his nickname.
Sometimes,
however, the Lord continued to refer to him as Simon anyway. When you see that in Scripture, it is often a
signal that Peter has done something that needs rebuke or correction.
The
nickname was significant, and the Lord had a specific reason for choosing
it. By nature Simon was brash,
vacillating, and undependable. He tended
to make great promises he couldn’t follow through with. He was one of those people who appears to
lunge wholeheartedly into something but then bails out before finishing. He was usually the first one in; and too
often, he was the first one out. When
Jesus met him, he fit James’s description of a double-minded man, unstable in
all his ways (James 1:8). Jesus changed Simon’s name, it appears,
because He wanted the nickname to be a perpetual reminder to him about who he should
be.
And from that point on, whatever Jesus called him sent a subtle
message. If He called him Simon, He was
signaling him that he was acting like his old self. If He called him Rock, He was commending him
for acting the way he ought to be acting….
The young
man named Simon, who would become Peter, was impetuous, impulsive, and
overeager. He needed to become like a
rock, so that is what Jesus named him.
From then on, the Lord could gently chide or commend him just by using
one name or the other.
After
Christ’s first encounter with Simon Peter, we find two distinct contexts in which the name Simon is regularly
applied to him. One is a secular context. When Scripture refers to his house, for example,
it’s usually ‘Simon’s house’ (Mark 1:29; Luke 4:38). When it speaks of his mother-in-law, it does
so in similar terms; ‘Simon’s wife’s mother’ (Mark 1:30; Luke 4:38). Luke 5, describing the fishing business,
mentions ‘one of the boats, which was Simon’s’ (v.3)—and Luke says James and
John were ‘partners with Simon’ (v. 10).
All of those expressions refer to Simon by his given name in purely
secular contexts. When he is called
Simon in such a context, the use of his old name usually has nothing to do with
his spirituality or his character. That
is just the normal way of signifying what pertained to him as a natural man—his
work, his home, or his family. These are
called ‘Simon’s’ things.”
That is
all I am going to quote from MacArthur’s commentary at this time as this is a
good place to take a break, and then I think I will finish this section, which
comes from MacArthur’s book on the Twelve Apostles, which he is quoting here.
6/15/2026
9:50 PM
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