Pioneering Movements: Leadership That Multiplies Disciples and Churches

by Steve Addison

Sometime between AD 64 and 67, Simon son of Jonah (whom Jesus named Peter) was executed in Rome during Nero’s persecution of Christians. Peter was probably in his mid to late sixties. Rome was the fitting place for his death, with its Jewish community of forty to sixty thousand people. Peter was the apostle to the Jews. It was also fitting because Rome was the greatest of all Gentile cities, and Peter was the pioneer of the mission to the Gentiles. Rome was a long way from Peter’s boyhood home of Bethsaida, a northern Galilee fishing town where the Jordan River runs into the Sea of Galilee. Bethsaida was a Jewish town, so Peter grew up speaking Galilean Aramaic. He would also have learned Hebrew in the local synagogue as a boy. Bethsaida was surrounded by settlements of Greek-speaking Gentiles. Anyone growing up in Bethsaida would have understood some Greek and been familiar with Greek culture and religion. Simon was the Greek name that sounded closest to Peter’s Hebrew name, Symeon. His brother Andrew and his friend Philip also went by Greek names. Before he met Jesus, Peter had moved to nearby Capernaum, a larger fishing village and commercial center. At Capernaum he and Andrew partnered in a fishing business with Zebedee and his sons, James and John. Peter owned his own boat, and the business was large enough to employ workers to help in rowing, handling the sails and heavy nets, and sorting the fish to be ready for market.4 A Galilean fisherman lived a hard life under ...