Shortly after that, some bystanders approached Peter. “You’ve got to be one of them. Your accent gives you away.”

Then he got really nervous and swore. “I don’t know the man!”
-Matthew 26:73-74 (MSG)

Here we see Jesus’ prediction from earlier in the evening coming true: Peter indeed denies being associated with Christ three separate times.

The first two accusers pointed out that they had seen Peter with Jesus, and therefore he was one of his followers. But the third group made a different accusation: they said he had the same accent. In other words, he sounded like Jesus.

Now, this is obviously a reference to Peter and Jesus both being from Galilee and the common dialect they both had from living there. I’m certainly not arguing that.

It does however make me wonder… If I were in Peter’s sandals nowadays and someone charged me with being a follower of Jesus Christ, what would their evidence be? Would they say, “Well, he wears a cross necklace… Uh, and he listens to ‘Christian’ music… And um, he’s almost always at church on Sundays…”? Or would they implicate me by simply saying, “I know he is a Christian because he lives a Christ-like life. In everything he does, he sounds like Jesus“?

Incrimination never sounded so beautiful.