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It is good to remind ourselves that most of the people Jesus encountered in his ministry were a lot like us. This is especially true on days when we feel like our own faith lives are insignificant or do not measure up.

To be sure, there are substantial historical and cultural distinctions. Yet over the centuries and across cultures, the biblical stories continue to surprise, inspire and inform us. They tell us of people who were not necessarily extraordinary by their society’s standards. They were ordinary people who did memorable things, but on most days simply lived their otherwise “ordinary” lives.

Consider Simon Peter, perhaps the greatest of the disciples, yet an ordinary and unremarkable fellow. A fisherman by trade, probably illiterate, he quit his job to wander around the countryside with a virtually unknown itinerant preacher. Perhaps most memorable is his confession at Caesarea Philippi, when Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter alone gets it right when he blurts out, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God!” (Matthew 16:15-16).

Peter excels at bold faithfulness. He is the rock on which Jesus builds the church. Not bad for an unemployed, illiterate fisherman.

This message is excerpted from “As God sees us” by Audrey West in the July/August 2017 Gather magazine. Today is the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost.