<p>9:28 <i>And it came to pass about eight days after these sayings, that he took with him Peter, John and James and went up into the mountain to pray</i>- Peter is mentioned first. An over-reaction against Catholic views of Peter can lead us to under-estimate the undoubted supremacy of Peter in the early ecclesia. He was in the inner three along with James and John, and in incidents involving them he is always mentioned first, as the leader (Mt. 17:1,2; 26:37; Mk. 5:37). He is the first to confess Jesus as Messiah (Mt. 16:13-17), the first apostle to see the risen Christ (Lk. 24:34; 1 Cor. 15:5), the first to preach to the Gentiles. Being given the keys of the Kingdom is language which would have been understood at the time as the Lord making Peter the Chief Rabbi of His new ecclesia. The Acts record without doubt gives primacy to Peter as the leader and chief representative of Christ&rsquo;s fledgling church. But, humanly speaking, he was the most unlikely choice. The one who in the eyes of the world and brotherhood should have sat a fair while on the back burner, done the honourable thing&hellip; in fact, many honourable things, in just keeping a respectful and bashful silence. And there is no lack of evidence that Peter himself would have preferred that. But no, he was commissioned by the Lord to specifically lead the church. The early church was to be built on the rock of Peter. Whether we like to read this as meaning the rock of Peter&rsquo;s confession that Christ was the Son of God, or as simply meaning Peter&rsquo;s work as the manifestation of Christ,&nbsp;<i>the&nbsp;</i>rock, the Acts record shows clearly that the early church was built upon the specific work of Peter.</p><p>Being led up Gk. a high mountain by the leader to be present at a theophany is very much the language of Moses taking Joshua and earlier another trio of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu) with him part way up Mount Sinai, and likewise experiencing a shining face (Ex. 34:29-35) and God&rsquo;s voice from a cloud (Ex. 34:5). Moses returned from the Mount with shining face and the people were afraid- just as happened here (Mk. 9:6). Perhaps Peter vaguely comprehended all this when he wanted to build &lsquo;tabernacles&rsquo;, because this was the task given to Moses for Israel to complete. Lk. 9:32 speaks of the&nbsp;<i>exodus&nbsp;</i>which the Lord was to make at Jerusalem- a reference to His death. It was the Passover lamb which died at the Exodus- the implication is that now God&rsquo;s people were free to leave Egypt. Again, those secular fishermen were being shown (through the obvious parallel) that they were none less than Joshua in this new Israel which was being created; and after the Lord&rsquo;s departure, they were to take His place and lead God&rsquo;s Israel into the Kingdom.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>