Today's Devotion
Monday, June 29, 2026 (Sts. Peter and Paul) - Acts 9:23-43
Note: My apologies! I forgot to send this yesterday. +LB
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
Both men were apostles. Both wrote epistles in the New Testament. Both were attacked by both Jews and Romans. Both worked miracles and preached the Gospel. Both were corrected and forgiven by the resurrected Jesus. The ministries of both were recorded by St. Luke in the Book of Acts. Both were executed in Rome in the mid 60s AD, according to tradition, on the same day. But God in his wisdom used their differences to spread the kingdom. Peter became bishop; Paul a missionary. Peter was uneducated; Paul was a scholar. Peter’s main ministry involved Jews; Paul’s, Gentiles. On at least one occasion, they had a public dispute with each other (Gal 2:11-14). Tradition holds that Peter was crucified like a slave; Paul beheaded as a citizen.
It is fitting that the church honor both of these “pillars of the church” (as the early church father, Bishop St. Clement of Rome called them) together. And today is that day.
In today’s reading, the newly-converted Saul (Paul) became the subject of an assassination plot by the Jews in Damascus. This is ironically the same militant anti-Christian movement within Judaism that Paul was formerly a part of. But we learn that Paul was saved by his own disciples who smuggled him out to safety in a basket lowered from the city wall. This life-threatening hostility will plague Paul for the rest of his life, even though he was himself a Jew. Similarly, the Roman government would eventually put him to the sword, even though he was a Roman citizen. In fact, it was Paul’s steadfast confession in the face of death that finally convinced Barnabas and the other apostles to accept Paul as a brother disciple and apostle of Jesus. For Paul “preached boldly in the name of Jesus” in both Damascus and Jerusalem. Paul also debated with the Hellenized Jews, who were also “seeking to kill him.”
Luke turns his lens to the ministry of Peter as well. After miraculously healing a paralytic named Aeneas by invocation of the name of Jesus, Peter then raised Tabitha (also known as Dorcas) from the dead. In the ministry of Peter, we see Jesus continuing to act through signs and wonders: forgiving, healing, making whole, and raising the dead. This sacramental ministry of Peter is conducted through his ministry of the Word, “and many believed in the Lord” as a result.
And in spite of the opposition to the preaching and ministry of Sts. Peter and Paul, we see the Word of God going forth, to Jews and Gentiles, by land and by sea, in Aramaic and in Greek, in Judea and throughout the empire. And in these early days of their ministries, “the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.”
We praise You for Saint Peter; we praise You for St. Paul;
They taught both Jew and Gentile that Christ is all in all.
To cross and sword they yielded and saw Your kingdom come;
O God, these two apostles reached life and martyrdom (LSB 518:19).
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.