Peter

Peter is the apostle who keeps getting it wrong and keeps being put back in charge. He denies Jesus, gets rebuked for trying to keep him from the cross, then preaches the first Christian sermon at Pentecost and presides over the council that decided Gentiles didn't need to become Jews first. Whatever you think 'on this rock I will build my church' means, every later argument about church authority — papal, conciliar, episcopal — runs through Peter. Tradition says he was crucified upside-down in Rome under Nero around AD 64. 1 Peter is short and worth reading: a fisherman writing to scattered, persecuted Christians about hope.