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.