I’ve always been intrigued by Simon Peter’s name change dubbed by Jesus and the way in which, at particular times of reprimand, Jesus would resort to his former natural flesh-life name and when Jesus was seeing something more promising and worthy of favored note, Jesus would use his latter spiritual-life name. We can all flip-flop in our sense of self from time to time and find ourselves stamped with one or the other moniker. I suspect that Simon Peter understood how Jesus was using his name(s), the same way we as children knew what it meant when mother used the full name….”Cathy Charlene Boyd!” …..with a certain tone of voice! Eeeeewwwww…..you know what I mean? I think the fact that Simon Peter is so commonly referred to by BOTH by many is an indicator of how hard it is to live fully in the spiritual-life name!
Actually, I double checked and John 1:42 says Jesus changed his name at the time Simon was called and reaffirmed it at Caesarea Philippi. How often do we fail our new name? And our new life? While Jesus understood that and loved and forgave that in this man he’d called, sadly the process of being called and having to go through the Jesus- gauntlet of religious elites today is not as understanding, loving, or forgiving.