In Paul’s gospel, the future has come to us. Everything God will accomplish at the conclusion of the final two eons has been placed into our hands, hearts, and minds by God. He time-travels backwards to dazzle us with these baubles of future bliss, handing His coming accomplishments to beings stuck in the dirt-box of Eon 3.

No wonder people think we’re nuts.

Did Peter think Paul was off his nut as he relayed these wonders? Yes. At first. I think the Rock needed a drink in order to hang with Paul’s time-traveling revelations of being extricated out of wicked eons and transported into future kingdoms. Peter, as all of Israel, thought linearly. Paul hopped, skipped, and jumped over Israelite expectations to bring far-off blessings into the laps of recently-idolatrous Greeks.

Peter was happy about it, I think, but could not live in it. That’s okay. It was enough for him to grasp it; he was not meant by God to appropriate it.