Featured Posts Plugin

Of course defining what constitues ‘featured posts’ is the a big part of the equation.

You can use a shortcode:
https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/show-posts-shortcode/

You can use the sticky post feature when you write a post (in the Publish module, in the visibility section)

You can put code in your theme’s index.php template to retrieves and displays those posts. See example:
https://www.daobydesign.com/blog/2007/07/modifying-wordpress-front-page/

Or you can use a plugin such as https://rmarsh.com/plugins/recent-posts/ (requires the Post Plugin Library plugin also)