What Your Sunday School Never Told You - Peter Didn't Fail. He Got Out of the Boat.
Good old Miss Patty loved this story. She had a whole lesson on it… laminated poster and everything. Peter looked at the waves, took his eyes off Jesus, and sank. The moral? Keep your eyes on Jesus. Don’t get distracted. Don’t doubt.
She wasn’t wrong, exactly. She just stopped about halfway through the story and called it a day.
Because what Sunday school lessons skipped over entirely is everything that happened before Peter started sinking. They often skipped the part that makes the whole scene theologically devastating in the best possible way. They skipped what Yeshua walking on that water actually meant to a group of first-century Jewish fishermen who knew their Scriptures.
Our beloved Miss Patty, blinded by Aqua Net no doubt, skipped the fact that this was never primarily a story about Peter’s faith.
It was a story about who Yeshua is.
Let’s Set the Scene
It’s somewhere between three and six in the morning. The disciples are in a boat on the Sea of Galilee. They’ve been rowing for hours against a strong headwind, and they’re exhausted. Yeshua had sent them ahead while he went up the hillside alone to pray. He wasn’t with them and the sea was working against them.
Then they see something moving across the water toward them in the dark.
“Right away, Yeshua made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side, while He sent the crowds away. After He had sent the crowds away, He went up on the hillside by Himself to pray. And when evening came, He was there alone. But the boat was already a long way from land, tossed around by the waves, for the wind was against it. Now in the fourth watch of the night, Yeshua came to them, walking on the sea.”
(Matthew 14:22–25, TLV)
They think it’s a ghost. They cry out in fear and look around for Zach Bagans. And then Yeshua speaks.
“But immediately, Yeshua spoke to them, saying, ‘Take courage! I am. Don’t be afraid.’” (Matthew 14:27, TLV)
Hold up. Stop right there. Because your Sunday school teacher absolutely did not unpack what just happened.
“I Am” Is Not Just a Casual Introduction
When your translation reads “it is I,” you might picture Yeshua saying something like, relax, it’s just me, your teacher. That’s a perfectly reasonable reading if you’ve never heard the words in Greek before.
But the Greek behind that phrase is ego eimi. And while that can function as a simple “it’s me,” it can also carry deeper resonance in light of how Scripture speaks about God’s self-revelation. The Septuagint uses similar language in Exodus 3 when God speaks to Moses at the burning bush.
Now here’s the part that matters. That phrase isn’t floating around in a vacuum. It’s happening while Yeshua is standing on top of the waves at four in the morning.
So whether or not the disciples fully grasp it yet, this moment is doing more than identifying who’s speaking. It’s pointing to who is standing in front of them.
This isn’t just Him offering reassurance. It’s Him offering revelation.
The Old Testament Already Told You This
Job 9:8 describes God as the one who “alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea.”
Psalm 77:19 says of God:
“Your way was through the sea, Your path through the mighty waters, though Your footprints were not seen.” (TLV)
In the Hebrew imagination, the sea wasn’t just water. It was chaos. It was the untameable. It was tohu v’vohu. And Scripture consistently portrays mastery over the sea as something that belongs to God.
Humans don’t walk on it.
When Yeshua stepped out onto that dark, churning sea, he wasn’t performing a miracle for dramatic effect. He was doing something Israel’s scriptures associate with God Himself. He was walking where only God is described as walking.
The disciples who cried out in terror weren’t reacting to a magic trick. They were face to face with something their entire theological world just didn’t have a category for.
Now Can We Talk About Peter For a Minute?
“Answering, Peter said to Him, ‘Master, if it’s You, command me to come to You on the water.’ And He said, ‘Come!’ And Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water to go to Yeshua. But seeing the wind, he became terrified. And beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, ‘Master, save me!’” (Matthew 14:28–30, TLV)
Miss Patty’s lesson turned Peter into a cautionary tale. Doubting Thomas’s cousin, basically. The disciple who almost had it and blew it. Oh Peter.
But look again at what Peter actually did.
When every other disciple stayed in the boat, Peter was the only one who asked to come to Yeshua. And when Yeshua said come, Peter got out.
He stepped over the side of a boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee in the dark with wind whipping around him and walked on the water.
He walked on the water, friends!
The lesson was never “don’t be like Peter.” Peter is actually doing something amazing!
Now this is an important point we often just pass over.
…command me to come to You on the water.
He asks Yeshua to command him, because he understands that only Yeshua’s word has the authority to make this possible. Wow. That’ll preach right there!!
If you read my post on the Memra… this is that in action!
And for a moment, it works.
Peter stands on the same sea that Scripture says only God rules, because Yeshua invited him into that reality.
Yes, he sees the wind, and fear takes over, and he starts to sink. Yes, Yeshua calls him “you of little faith.” But notice what Yeshua does immediately.
He reaches out his hand and grabs him.
There’s no lecture. No “I told you so.” There’s just a hand, and they get back in the boat together.
The Response the Disciples Gave
Here’s what Sunday school always glossed past because they were often racing toward the application point.
“When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped Him, saying, ‘You really are Ben-Elohim!’” (Matthew 14:32–33, TLV)
Ben-Elohim. Son of God.
In Hebrew, “son of” language often speaks of identity, role, or authority. And in this moment, the disciples are not offering Him a polite compliment. They are responding to what they just witnessed.
They watched Yeshua do what Scripture associates with God. They heard him speak in a way that echoes God’s self-revelation. And their response is worship.
They may not yet have a fully formed theology of everything this means. But they know enough to fall on their faces.
Verse Mapping Aid
ego eimi (Greek: ἐγώ εἰμι)
Pronunciation: EH-go EE-mee
Meaning: “I am” or “it is I”
This phrase can function as simple identification, but in certain contexts it carries deeper theological weight, especially when paired with actions or imagery associated with God in the Hebrew Scriptures. In Matthew 14:27, it appears in a moment where Yeshua is standing on the sea, doing what Scripture attributes to God. The combination is what makes the moment significant.
Ben-Elohim (Hebrew: בֶּן־אֱלֹהִים)
Pronunciation: ben-eh-lo-HEEM
Meaning: Son of God
In Hebrew usage, “son of” often expresses identity, role, or authority, not merely biological relationship. Here, the disciples are recognizing that Yeshua uniquely bears God’s authority in a way that demands a response.
My Final Thoughts
We’ve turned this passage into a motivational poster about not getting distracted, and in doing so we’ve walked right past the burning bush.
Yeshua walked on the sea because Scripture says God walks on the sea. Period. Full stop.
He spoke in a way that echoes God’s own self-revelation. And when Peter stepped out of that boat, he wasn’t being reckless. He was responding to an invitation from the One who holds authority over the chaos.
Peter’s moment of fear is real and relatable. I get Peter… I really do. But the story doesn’t end with him sinking. It ends with the disciples worshiping Yeshua on a suddenly calm sea.
It ends with the right conclusion: You really are Ben-Elohim.
That’s not a story about focus. That’s an epiphany.
If this study stirred something in you, share it with a friend who’s been handed the motivational poster version of the Gospel and is hungry for something with more weight to it.
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About the Author
Diane Ferreira is a Jewish believer in Yeshua, a published author, speaker, seminary student, wife, and proud mom. She is the founder of She’s So Scripture and She Opens Her Bible. She is the author of several books, including The Proverbs 31-ish Woman, which debuted as Amazon’s #1 New Release in Religious Humor, as well as Holy, Hormonal and Holding On.
She is currently pursuing her graduate degree in Jewish Studies in seminary, with her favorite topics being the early church and Biblical Hebrew. Diane writes and teaches from a unique perspective, bridging her Jewish heritage with vibrant faith in the Messiah to bring clarity, depth, and devotion to everyday believers.
When she’s not writing, studying, or teaching, you’ll find her curled up with a good book, crocheting something cozy, traveling, or playing her favorite video games.
Tree of Life (TLV) – Scripture taken from the Holy Scriptures, Tree of Life Version*. Copyright © 2014,2016 by the Tree of Life Bible Society. Used by permission of the Tree of Life Bible Society.
YES GIRL! Like, I knew this and believed it, but not in the way you just taught. That is a powerful word.
I feel a very strong affinity with Peter. He has great faith but he’s also a man driven to act on that faith. And sometimes that works in his favour and sometimes it doesn’t. He acts from his own understanding which gets him in trouble - fair enough.
But I’ve felt like God honoured the passion the zeal behind the faith. Not every action is the right one. But I can empathize with that zeal that requires me to DO something to participate, change, walk towards, reach out… I’d rather take a step in the wrong direction and have God redirect me than sit on my hands and hesitate, stay neutral, observe…
I’m always a little sad at these types of Sunday School lessons, because it inevitably lands somewhere near to — don’t be like Peter. :(