Wednesday, March 27, 2013



SERVING AND RULING Week 48
In 2 Corinthians 1.24 Paul says about taking spiritual authority over the believers in Corinth, Not that we lord it over your faith, but are workers with you for your joy, for in your faith you are standing firm. The Greek word is kurieuw, to have possession of, or control. Paul is refusing to have possession or control over the saints at Corinth.

This recalls what Jesus said in Matthew 20.25, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authotity over them. It is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant. The Greek word for 'lord it over them,' is a long Greek word. It uses kata, meaning against, with kurieuw, to have authority over.

Peter uses the same Greek word in 1 Peter 5.3. He is speaking to the elders of a church about shepherding the flock. He tells them to shepherd the flock, not under compulsion but voluntarily, nor yet as lording it over those alloted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. Peter is so intent on serving, he doesn't even mention the names of those who will follow him in ministry.

To give you an idea of the force of this word, Acts 19.16 translates this word as, leaped on them...to subdue them and overpower them.

Jesus will not allow the church to be run as governments are run--the ruler must be a servant. Jesus said He came to seek and to serve. Jesus said in Matt. 20.27, whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many. .


A wonderful example of serving one another is Matt. 21.2. Jesus tells two disciples to go into a village to find a donkey and colt tied up. He tells them to bring the donkey and colt to Him. What was the result of such a simple act? The Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem which led to His crucifixion which led to His resurrection and then ours.

When Jesus and his mother and disciples go to a wedding in John 2, the guests run out of wine. Mary expects Jesus to turn the water into wine before everyone, to great acclaim. However, Jesus is the servant of God--not a ruler. He waits, turns the water into wine by using pots reserved for purification. These pots would not be at the wedding itself, but where only the servants could get them. The servants pour water into these pots. When Jesus transforms the water into wine, the headwaiter did not know who did this because Jesus didn't broadcast it, but the servants did, John 2.9. Jesus was with the servants when He did the miracle.
He was among us all as one who serves, Matt. 20.28. Paul says, through love serve one another, Galatians 5.13. But the great word from God about serving is Joshua 22.5, serve Him with all of your heart all of your soul.

In Matt. 20.30 Jesus walks by two blind men on His way to Jericho. They call out to Him, 'Lord have mercy on us, Son of David'. Does Jesus tell them what they need to do? Does He tell them what He's going to do? No, He came to serve. So He asks them, 'What do you want me to do for you?' Jesus says 'Me' once; 'you' twice. When they say, 'We want our eyes to be opened,' Jesus opens their eyes.

In Matt. 5.39 Jesus tells of what might happen when we do not lord it over another. Jesus says, I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.... What would be the result in heaven if we did that? Jesus then says, in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven...

What would be the result here and now if we served rather than ruled? Paul tells the Romans to, serve in the newness of the Spirit, Rom. 7.6. He develops the thought with, Be devoted to one another in brotherly love, give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality, Rom. 7.10-13.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

TRUE OR FALSE Week 47

It's always interesting to see how others view you. An example of how Christianity is seen is from a well-known Jewish scholar Dr. Lawerence Shiffman. He has several things to say against Jesus and Christianity but they all seem to depend on one point.

He says Christian writers living 50 years after the death of Christ made up the gospels to appear to agree with OT prophecies.

Now if this is true, the epistles written before the gospels would not have any similiarity to them.. Since the historians say James was martyred in AD 62, his letter must have been written before then. Shiffman states that the gospels were written after that, to appear to make the life of Christ a fulfillment of OT prophecy. If this is true, James' epistle would have no relationship to Matthew's gospel.

So what do we find in James?

We know that when Jesus came, He came preaching the kingdom of God, not salvation or last things. Most of us recognize that the Sermon on the Mount is the Lord's great explanation of the kingdom which He brought and taught. But this kingdom is not just precepts but actions in the real world. Christianity according to Jesus is not just something you believe, but something you do.
Jesus uses some word pictures to say that. He says, You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid...Let your light so shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven, Matt. 5.14-16. That is an obvious call to make the kingdom of God apparent and visible to anyone and everyone in society.


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When we go to James 1.22, James says the famous line, But prove yourselves doers of the word, 1.22. He has learned from Jesus that the kingdom must be seen, it must be in front of an unbelieving society. It is the be presence of God before the world. Peter Marshall, chaplain of the Senate in the 1940s, once said his task as preacher was to enable people to see Jesus. This means to make Christianity something you do, not just something you believe.


In the literature of the ancient classical world, when a poet uses an extended metaphor he means to put something deep into the soul. this extended metaphor is saying the same thing more than once, using different images. When Jesus wants to speak against anxiety in the Sermon on the Mount, He uses 9 consecutive verses to do so, Matt. 6.25-34. So when James does the same thing in James 1.22-27 we should sit up and hear. He begins with hearing and then doing the Word. He goes on to a man looking at himself in a mirror; then he goes on from looking in a mirror to looking at the perfect law of Jesus and abiding in it. Then he goes on to controlling the tongue; and finally he mentions taking care of the widows and orphans as pure religion. James has gone from hearing to looking to abiding to controlling the tongue to aiding the widows and orphans.

You see what James has done? He has taken us from the inner quality of believing the Word to the outward gesture of taking care of others. He has taken Matthew 5.14 as a principle to be applied in his own day and time.

But that is only one instance, without a real close phrase or word linking James with Matthew. So let's look on.

In Matthew 5 Jesus will then mention five famous points of the Law: adultery, divorce, vows, and revenge (an eye for an eye), and loving your neighbor. Jesus will address each of these as indicating the sin in the heart which must be brought out to be forgiven. The role of the Law is to bring these inner things out into the open.

Does James have anything similar to this? Let's look at Matthew 5 and James 2.
In Matthew 5.25, 26 Jesus says if a man has a dispute with an opponent Jesus says, Make friends quickly with your opponent...in order that your opponent may not deliver you to the judge and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. This is what happened to people who did not have money for a legal defense.

James says in chapter 2 to show no favoritism to the rich because if you do, you have become a, judge with evil motives, James 2.4. Then James says, God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? And then James says what Jesus had said in Matthew 5, Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court, James 2.6.


Now let's look at Matt. 5.17-19 and James 2.10, 11.
In Matt. 5.17 Jesus says, Whoever annuls the least of these commandments and teaches others shall be the least in the kingdom of heaven...unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven... Matthew 5.20.


James 2.10 says, whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. James knows this brings up the question, How could someone be guilty of transgressing the whole law, yet have righteousness which surpasses the scribes and Pharisees? James says, by obeying the law of liberty, James 2.12. What is that law? Paul says in Romans 8.2 that it is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus which has set us free from the law of sin and death. James then says in 2.25 that we abide by the law of liberty by being a doer of the word, not just hearer.

Our conclusion is that the gospels were not written later than James to fabricate a certain kind of Jesus, but that James knew what his brother Jesus taught, he knew what the gospel of God was, he understood the kingdom of God.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

PRESENCE OF GOD
When I think of what the Christian faith is all about, I think of the presence of God first of all. He was present in creation--Let us make man in Our image(1.26)--He was present at the Fall when the Lord God said to Adam--Where are you?(3.9) He was present with Cain and Abel when He said to Cain--Why has your countenance fallen(4.6). He was present with Noah, even remembering Noah (8.1), and with Abraham many times.


He was with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He heard the cry of His people in Egypt, sending them Moses and then Joshua and the judges and kings and prophets and prophetesses. He was with Israel in His own glory in the tabernacle and later in the temple of Solomon.

In the NT He was with Jesus at His baptism, Matthew 3.17, He was with Paul on the road to Damascus, Acts 9.4,5, He was with Peter in Acts 10.14, and He will be with us in the heavenly Jerusalem.

Yet, this is not all. What does the Bible say God was like in His presence? What the OT says first is that God is the origin of us all, the One who breathed on Adam and the One to whom we will return, Revelation 21.6. More than that, in the Psalms He is the One who provides us with our life, our planet and food and drink. But most important, He is the One who provides us with a person to be like, Gen. 1.26, Philippians 3.10, Colossians 1.28, Hebrews 3.14.

When we realize God gave us a person to be, we are close to Him, He is close to us.

At first God provides an altar, Gen. 8.20 by which Noah and his family could approach God. Then with Moses He provided a covenant, laws and a tabernacle, Exodus 24. Later He would provide a land, Joshua 1. And then in the NT God provided Jesus to take upon Himself our nature, as we had taken upon ourselves His nature in Genesis 2. Philippians 2.7 speaks of Jesus taking on the form of a man. The Greek word is morphe. In Homer used it to mean the outward appearance which revealed an inner quality. So in Odyssey 11.367 it is usually translated, grace. In the Philippians passage, Paul says Jesus--
emptied Himself, taking the form (morphe) of a bondservant

and being made in the likeness of men.


The human form Jesus took showed us His human form while revealing His divinity. This is reinforced by Paul when he says in Phil. 2.8 that he was found in the appearance as a man--He looked like a man. Paul is saying He appeared to be an ordinary man, even though his morphe indicated that He was more than that. This is the image of God mentioned in Genesis 1.27--an outward image revealing an inner quality. So when Jesus comes to fishermen in Matthew 4, they just drop their nets to follow Him. In Matt. 8 a leper calls Him, Lord. A demon calls Him, Son of God, Matt. 8.29. They all know Jesus is a man, but much more than that.

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When Adam and Eve fell, their inward quality was ruined although their outward form was not. As it turned out, God used their outward form, their morphe, to eventually renew their inward quality. This we see when God promised to send a savior through the seed of a woman.

What God is doing is beginning with His own nature, then enhancing it by giving His image to new creatures, Adam and Eve. When God provided an altar, He gave us the earth upon which to worship God. When He provided a tabernacle and the Law, He bestowed His presence in the midst of a nation so that the Jews could approach Him. And then He gave Himself to every individual, tribe, tongue and nation.

But that is not all. To make the circle of holiness complete, God gave His own nature and being to us through the Spirit, He took us into Himself that we would be in Him.

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Now if all this is true, how how are we in Him and He in us?

After the Fall and before Jesus was born, a great many people displayed great talents. The first instance of this is Cain. He left the presence of God in Gen. 4.16, built a city, and his descendants became livestock herders, musicians, and metal forgers, Gen. 4.20-22. Being out of the worship of God did not ruin Cain's talents and those of his descendants.

What this means is that when Adam fell he could never fall out of God's care. Even Cain is given a city and skills. And by the way, those very same skills will be honored and used by God when Moses builds the tabernacle out of animal hides, metal for utensils and musicians to celebrate the tabernacle. Does this mean that even Cain in all his failure has a place with God's economy? Possibly it does. Does it mean that Cain did all of what he did on his own, entirely separated from God? Probably not. He was sent out of God's worship presence in order that his descendants might be brought back generations later.

We have this same pattern with Jacob and Esau. They were enemies first--Jacob was sent away--but then reconciled years later, Genesis 32. Cain and Esau never did take the role in God's plan of redemption that Abel and Jacob did. Still we can say they were cast down by God but not cast off. The same thing is true of Israel--they were cast out of Palestine into slavery in Babylon but God brought them back to be in the land when their messiah Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea.

God honored the image of God in man, even in Cain and Esau, no matter how defaced that image was.

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We might not even know that He is in us, but Paul says He is.
The apostle says in Ephesians 1.18 he is praying, that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of your calling... There is no other way to realize such glorious spiritual realities. They cannot be discovered on a scroll, by someone with special gifts or an overheated religious imagination, or someone possessing a secret map or language or viewpoint. Such insight must come from God.


Now we realize that what God did was true but not visible to us until we receive the inner sight to see it. What exactly are we to see? Hope, inheritance, power. The hope is His calling of us out of darkness, into light as John says in John 1.9. Our inheritance is the riches of His glory which is given to us now in part and then entirely when we reach heaven, Eph. 1.18. His power means the same power that raised Jesus from the dead will raise us up also, Eph. 2.6.

All of this is seen by grace, believed through faith. But as James says, faith is not alone for it always results in what can be seen. That brings us to the understanding that the presence of God in us reaches into our everyday life like bubbles coming to the surface of water. The woman caught in adultery saw forgiveness in Jesus. When Jesus healed a leper in Luke 5.13 Jesus tells the leper to go to the priest--
and make an offering for your cleansing, jus as Moses commanded, for a testimony to them.


Notice it is not a testimony against the priest, but to him. This is the faith which results in the works of love. It is the presence of God in us and among us which glorifies God.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

SCULPTURE AND SCRIPTURE

We all have read of St. Paul's encounter with the living God on the road to Damascus. Years later Paul tells the Corinthians what he's gone through for the gospel of God.

He says he went through labors, imprisonments, beatings and the danger of death. He took lashes from the Jews, beatings with rods, a stoning, a shipwreck, dangers from rivers, robbers, Jews and Gentiles who were against him.

What kept him going through all of this?

When Saul met Jesus on the road, He resculptured Saul's soul from inside out. He changed his heart, his name, his mind, his resolve and his purpose in life. God was present in Paul in much the same way God was present in the Holy of Holies---powerfully, purely, and in ecstasy. In the manner in which God was present with Adam and Eve in the Garden, in the manner in which God was upon David, God's Spirit was upon Jesus, so God was present in Paul. His life was changed, his travels were changed, his mind was changed, his relationships were changed, his vision of God was changed.

The JB Phillips translation of Romans 12 brings this out:
let God re-mould your mind from within so that you may prove
in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all His
demands and moves toward the goal of maturity.

We might be more familiar with another wording of this transformation:
be transformed by the renewing of your mind...
but the mind does not transform the soul, rather the presence of God in the soul then transforms the mind. The mind does not originate, it recognizes what God has done, what God is doing.

It is the presence of God from Adam to Christ to us. When God's presence is in us, we will desire His truth, we will seek Him through our will, and love His through our heart.
John 15 is famous for the 'I am' statements. Jesus is describing God's presence as the vine and branches: he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, John 15.5. Jesus will describe this quality of Him in us and we in Him with several images--fruit, branch, abide, commandments, but they all will culminate in love. When Jesus comes to a Pharisee's house in Luke 7, a woman washed Jesus' feet with her tears and hair, and anointed His feet with perfume. Jesus says, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much... The forgiveness which Saul experienced on a road, the woman experienced at dinner.

We don't always know that God's presence is in us. Paul has to write to the Ephesians, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlighted, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, Eph.1.18. Notice that Paul says the inheritance is, in the saints. With the OT, God's presence was upon the Jews or in their midst with the Law but not in them as it is with us.


God's presence gives us a new heart, a new mind, a new soul and will and life. When we are different people from the inside out, we have a new life, a new marriage, a new relationship with our children, friends, employees and all the saints whatever the denomination.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

 GOD IS LOVE
A familiar Biblical phrase to which many non Christians cling is this: God is love, from 1 John 4.16. We might not know that the verses leading up to this simple statement are rich.


   The chapter begins with the theme of the Spirit of God. John says test the spirits to see if they are from God. Among other things this implies that only one spirit comes to us from God, the Holy Spirit; He is sent as God to us. Any spirit must confess the Son, that Jesus has come from the Father, 1 John 4.2. And that's because only a spirit from God could do this. That's how we know to trust the spirit. Only the Spirit of God has experienced both the Son and the Father.
   John says that we are from God, agreeing with Ephesians 1.4, and that God is in us, Ephesians 1.14. The spirits which are not from God are, from the world, 1 John 4.5, John 15.19. John says anyone with the Spirit living within them will listen to the apostles because the spirit of truth is in them, 1 John 4.6.


   So we can see from the first 6 verses that the Spirit of God has come to us, He lives in our souls, and that He only can be trusted because He came from God, He did not come from the world. He witnesses to Jesus as the Son of God.

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Now if the spirit of truth is in us, John says, let us love one another, for love is from God, 1 John 4.7, John 15.17. How do we know love is from God? Because of what God did, sending His Son. In the act of doing, love came forth, it was manifested. We know God loves us because He made Himself real to us in His Son. So if God has loved us, we should love one another. Notice John does not say return God's love to God--he says pass it on to one another. In the process of loving one another, God's Spirit will become apparent in us and among us.


   This means, among other things, that the Spirit of God is His love.

   Now we come to 1 John verse 12, a verse loaded with richness.
   First John says, no one has beheld God at any time... So how would God ever be seen? John says He can be seen in us by others whom we love, if we love one another... This is because God abides in us, as He did in the tabernacle, and, His love is perfected in us. But how do we know that He abides in us, as we are loving one another? John's answer is, By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit, 4.13. There is the same thought, the Holy Spirit is God's love for us.


   John saw and came to know not just that Jesus was the savior of the world, but that the Father sent Him. It is this confession that the Father has sent the Son to be the savior of the world which makes every follower a believer, 1 John 4.14. In other words, to be the Son is to be begotten of the Father and sent into the world. When we know this, we have God.
Those who are of the world, who do not confess that Jesus is the Son of God sent into the world by the Father, do not abide in the love of God. They can say, God is love, but the Holy Spirit will not abide in them if they do not confess that Jesus came from the Father as the Son of God. Verse 15 says it: Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God.


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Having said that only the spirit who confesses that Jesus is from the Father sent to us is true, and that we should love one another, how can we love in the perfection of the Holy Spirit?

   First John says if God's Spirit is abiding in us,, God is abiding in us. As He is perfect, so His Spirit in us will be. Abiding is dwelling but it is not inert. We will experience the progress of the soul as we are in God. We will have no fear in love because perfect love casts out fear. This comes through experiencing God. When we receive the love which is from God, we will have no fear of judgment day, 4.17.
   Second, this perfect love from God is also for today. John uses the example of loving our brother. We might recall the last phrase of Matthew 23.8: you are all brothers. Jesus had said to forgive your brother endlessly, Matt. 18.21, and if you have anything against your brother, be reconciled to him, Matt. 5.22, and don't be a hypocrite about your btother's sin, Matt. 7.4. So here, John says if you can't love your brother who stands in front of you, how can you love God whom you can't see,  1 John 4.20.


   When we receive His Spirit, when we confess that Jesus is the Son of God coming to us, when we love one another as He has loved us, then the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, one for another.

   If you want to jump and shout, Halleleuiah, go ahead.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

WORSHIP

Worship is the allegiance between the human soul and God. But what does our soul look like?

   The OT tabernacle was given as the meeting of the individual and God. The glory of God was there for the individual soul to approach with a sacrifice. When the sacrifice was accepted, the individual soul was cleansed and purified, restored to God, having entered His presence. In the tabernacle we see God coming to Israel so that Israel could come to God.
Moses went up to the mountain to receive the directions for this tabernacle, by which God could be in Israel's midst. Now in the NT in 2 Corinthians 5.1 Paul says, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. So the tabernacle represents our soul in its' resemblance to God in heaven, as a meeting of God and us. Peter says in 2 Peter 1.14, I must lay aside this my earthly tabernacle... and John says in Revelation 21.3, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men and He will dwell with them.

   The purpose of the tabernacle in the midst of Israel was so that the Jews would be conformed to the image of God. This was a sacrifice, it was a ceremony, it was a proclamation by the priest, in other words it was their worship.


   But in the NT, this tabernacle through which we are conformed to God is for everyone who believes by faith. Our tabernacle now is Jesus.
He existed in the form of God and emptied Himself to be made in the likeness of men, Philippians 2.6, coming to us. We exist in the likeness of God in order to meet God in the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, Titus 3.5. Instead of animals, when we present our bodies as a living sacrtifice, holy and acceptable to Him, we are transformed by the renewing of our minds that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect, Romans 12.1, 2. This will of God which is good and acceptable and perfect is the life Jesus lived, it is His ministry that we receive and do.


   All of this is to prepare our souls to receive Him, as the tabernacle of our soul, our life, our hope.


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This tabernacle has three qualities of worship.

   The first one is the meeting of past and future in the present.
Many Biblical passages exemplifie this. When John wrote about the Jesus he knew, he began with, In the beginning was the Word...and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory... John the Baptist said, He existed before me, John 1.15. When we contemplate the Biblical passages about God in the past, He comes to us in worship. This is quite evident in Hebrews 1.1, 2, God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. What was long ago has come today. No time or place could reveal the 'now' aspect of the Ancient of Days than communion. However, we must open our souls by faith to these things. Do we believe that the God who made the world is now with us? This question is the essence of worship as an asking God to come. We say we approach God, but it is rather that God approaches us.


   The second quality of worship is recognition.

   In John 4 Jesus says the Father is looking for those who worship in spirit and truth. To worship in spirit is to have the Spirit of God within the soul so that we can recognize Him. When the Wise Men came to Jesus in Matt. 2.11, they fell down recognizing Him. The disciples follow Jesus at the slightest prompting as they recognize Him. James and John left their boat immediately to follow Him. A leper worshiped Jesus, calling Him Lord in Matt. 8.2. A Roman ruler knew Jesus could heal his servant immediately, Matt. 9.18. They all saw in their own soul who Jesus was, recognizing Him. His Spirit was in them. This Spirit will be given to the disciples and to allof us, John 17.8. When Jesus fills our souls as He filled the temple in Isiaiah 6.1, worship will break out.

   The third quality of worship is hope.
When we bring our hopes to worship, we open ourselves to God as the God of love. Places where hopes have been spoken, felt, prayed, lifted up to God are spiritual places. They may be a small chapel or a wide cathedral. What is common to all is the belief that our hopes go to Jesus, as the author and finisher of our faith. Our hopes can be emotional, rational, detailed, personal or worldly. Our hopes ascend like a winding stair, upward, as we lift Him up. The perfect Biblical example is Matthew 8.5, the centurion's daughter. Jesus is willing to come to the centurion's home, but the centurion says, just say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority; with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, 'Go' and he goes and to another, 'Come,' and he comes and to my slave, 'Do this' and he does it.'

   What is being said here is a relationship from God above to us, from we in our need up to God in His majesty. The centurion knows that Jesus has ministering angels under Him who come when He calls, who do what He commands. Paul tells the Ephesians that, all things have been put in subjection under Christ's feet, above rule and authority and power and dominion. The centurion prayed, the angels brought the prayer up to heaven to Christ, who answers every prayer.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

FEED MY SHEEP

One of the passages in the Bible which reads cryptically is John 21.15-17, the passage in which Jesus asks Peter three times about his love and tells him three times to feed His sheep.

When John records that Jesus had to say these things 3 times, there has to be more to it than repeating what He said. Jesus always had a way of answering what people need, not what they ask. So maybe we can look a bit further into the Greek words used by John to see something more.

In John 18.25 Peter denies three times that he knew Jesus. Under Jewish common law, denying three times meant that a contract could be voided. So here in John 21 Jesus restores Peter to the covenant with God by asking him 3 times, 'Do you love Me?'

Now let's go to the first exchange, 21.15.
We will isolate 4 Greek words, the word for 'love,' agape, the word for respectful love, philew and two words for 'feed,' boskw and poimaine. In this verse Jesus says,

15--Simon, son of John, do you agapas me more than these?

He said to Him, 'Yes, Lord, You know that I philew You.

He said to him, Boskw My lambs.


The word agapas originally meant a welcoming love. It was used in Homer to mean the love between a man and his son. Then much later in classical Greek, 12 times in the Greek translation of the OT it was used for sexual love. By the time of the NT, the gospel writers used it in it's Homeric sense, the distinguished unselfish love with a family between father and son. Jesus is asking Peter if he loves Jesus intensly, even more than Peter might love his fellow man, the other disciples, or anyone. This is Peter's moment to tell Jesus He loves the Master more than anyone, more than life itself; in this regard the question is Peter's Abraham and Isaac moment. Abraham had to show he loved God more than his own son, and Peter is being asked much the same thing.

Peter does not use the word, agapas, he uses filew, an impersonal and less intense word. When Jesus says, Feed My sheep, using boskw, Jesus is using the conventional word for a shepherd feeding lambs. Boskw originally meant a field of grass and fruit trees. Jesus is saying if Peter must love Jesus intensly, before he can feed the flock as any laboring shepherd would. The follower as a laborer in the field is used in 2 Cor. 6.1 and Colossians 4.11.

But this will not be enough for Peter with Jesus.

The second exchange seems like a repetition but it is not.
16--He said to him a second time, Simon, son of John, do you agapas Me?

He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I philew You.

He said to him, poimaine My sheep.


Jesus and Peter repeat their two words for 'love,' but now Jesus uses another word for 'feeding'. This is the word poimaine, meaning to feed one's own sheep, to care for their needs. What Jesus is saying is that Peter is to take his own love of Jesus and give that love to the sheep, to fellow believers. He is telling Peter to turn from loving Jesus to loving the sheep. Homer uses two forms of this word for 'shepherd and for 'flock', thus indicating the intimate connection between a shepherd and his own flock. It is from this connection of shepherd and flock that we get the expression, to shepherd a church.

When we notice that Peter has not changed his word, filew, this indicates that the flock is not Peter's possession but his care. It is his own to served. Peter seems to have understood this, as in 1 Peter 5.1 he calls himself a 'fellow-elder,' not the chief or the owner but a servant among servants.

Now for the third episode.
17--He said to him a third time, Simon, son of John, do you phileis Me?

Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, Do you phileis Me?

And he said to Him, Lord You know all things; You know that I philew You.

Jesus said to him, Boske My lambs.

Here Jesus does not use agapas, but phileis. He is asking Peter if he truly has turned from depending on Jesus to serving the flock of believers. That Peter uses filew indicates that Peter understands this is the real question. Is Peter ready to leave the fishing and his home behind to serve those he does not personally know, for the cause of Christ? By using filew but not agapas, Peter says he is ready. Now Jesus rewards him by saying, boske, feed the flock as a good shepherd would. It is not Peter's flock, the sheep belong to Jesus.


At last Peter is restored.