Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock.
Peter was saying he was an equal with the elders ... not over them.
Exactly...
Peter was merely pointing our that like them, he also was an elder. There is absolutely no indication here that he was suggesting to them that his authority no longer existed or that it never did exist.
No one says that Peter was OVER the others, but that he led. Like a point man. I don’t know what is so hard to understand about that.