Yesterday, the Church celebrated the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul—two men who, by any ordinary measure of leadership, should never have gotten the job.
Peter denied knowing Jesus three times on the worst night of His life. Paul didn’t merely doubt the early Church—he hunted it: “I persecuted the Church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it” (Gal 1:13). If you were assembling a founding team for something meant to last two thousand years, neither resume makes the cut.
And yet these are the two God chose.
He Commissions on the Far Side of Failure
After the Resurrection, Jesus didn’t quietly reassign Peter. He publicly asked three times, “Do you love me?”—once for each denial—and giving him the same charge each time: “Feed my sheep” (Jn 21:17). The failure became the seed from which his commission grew.
If you’re carrying a decision you regret—a person you handled badly, a season you’re not proud of—Peter is proof that God does not disqualify people based on their worst moment. The question Jesus asked wasn’t “Can you explain what happened?” It was “Do you love me?” If your heart is oriented toward Him, you are not disqualified. You may, in fact, be more ready than you were before.
He Builds with People Who Are Nothing Alike
Peter was a fisherman—unschooled, impulsive, fiercely loyal. Paul was a Roman citizen. The two clashed openly at Antioch (Gal 2:11). And yet together they built something neither could have built alone: Peter gave the early Church its pastoral anchor; Paul gave it its reach.
You know the pull to hire in your own image—people who think like you and agree easily. But Peter and Paul are a reminder that enduring work is often built by people who would never have chosen each other and is held together by a mission larger than their differences. Is your team built in your image, or built for the mission?
He Asks for Faithfulness, Not Flawlessness
Near the end of his life, Paul wrote: “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:7). Not “I have succeeded.” Not “I built something impressive.” The measure he chose was faithfulness. God does not ask you to succeed by the world’s definition. He asks you to be faithful with what He has entrusted to you, and to keep going.
The keys of the Kingdom went to a man who had denied Him. The Gospel reached the Gentiles through a man who had once tried to crush it. Christ builds through your business, your gifts, and even your failures—if you will let Him.
He has never needed flawless founders. He has only ever asked for faithful ones.