{"id":926,"date":"2019-05-05T23:14:59","date_gmt":"2019-05-05T22:14:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=926"},"modified":"2019-05-05T23:15:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-05T22:15:00","slug":"do-you-love-me-john-2115-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=926","title":{"rendered":"Do you love me? John 21:15-25"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a few weeks after Jesus rose from the dead. Peter took some of the other disciples out fishing. Perhaps they just wanted to do something ordinary and mundane. Maybe especially Peter felt a sense of failure and he just wanted to get back to doing what he knew he was good at \u2013 fishing. In any case they fished all night but didn\u2019t catch anything. Until early the next morning a stranger on the shore gave them some strange advice. Cast your nets on the other side of the boat. They did and immediately caught more large fish than their nets could hold. It is no surprise that it was the disciple that Jesus loved, the apostle John, who first recognised that it was Jesus. Jesus called them to the shore and cooked them breakfast.
\nAnd then it was the time of reckoning. Peter had been the natural leader amongst the apostles. But then on the night before the crucifixion outside the high priest\u2019s house Peter had denied Christ three times. By a fireside Peter had denied being a disciple. Now beside another fireside, what would Jesus say?
\nWe know the story so well. There were no words of rebuke. No words of condemnation or disappointment. Just a simple question.
\n15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, \u201cSimon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?\u201d
\nThat is the only question that matters. For Peter or for any of us. Do you love me? Do you love Jesus?
\nJesus knew everything about Peter \u2013 just like he knows everything about all of us who let him down and fall short time and time again. And here is the wonderful point of this story for all of us, miserable sinners. Our God is a God of second chances. Peter doesn\u2019t need to apologise. God is ready to forgive him. Like the prodigal son, or the woman taken in adultery, God forgives before they ever repented. No confession of sins here \u2013 just the simple question \u2013 do you love me? That is grace! Amazing grace.
\nNo matter how far any of us have fallen, whatever we have done wrong, God can restore us. By Christ\u2019s death on the cross for our sins, even we can be justified. God can make it \u201cjust as if I\u2019d\u201d never sinned. And so Jesus asks us, \u201cDo you love me?\u201d Because in the end that is the only thing that matters! Do you love me? How much do we love Jesus?
\nBut actually Jesus asks just a little more of Peter. \u201cDo you truly love me more than these?\u201d
\nThat question could mean at least three things.
\nDo you love me more than you love these boats and these nets? Do you love me more than you love your job and your livelihood? Do you love me enough to leave your job and your family and everything which is familiar, just to follow me? Do you love me more than these?
\nOr the question could mean something else. Do you love me more than you love these other disciples. Your brother Andrew. Your business partners James and John. These other friends you have made since you have been following me? Do you love me more than you love everybody else.
\nThen the question could have a third meaning, Do you love me more than these other disciples love me? Because that is what Peter had rashly claimed on the evening before Jesus was crucified.
\nMatthew 26:33 Peter replied, \u201cEven if all fall away on account of you, I never will.\u201d
\n34 \u201cI tell you the truth,\u201d Jesus answered, \u201cthis very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.\u201d
\n35 But Peter declared, \u201cEven if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.\u201d
\nAt that point Peter believed that he loved Jesus more than any of the other disciples did. But then Peter had discovered just how wrong he was. So Jesus is asking him, do you really love me more than all these others love me? You were the one who promised if everybody else let me down you wouldn\u2019t. Yet you were the one who denied that you knew me, three times, even in front of a little servant girl. Do you love me more than these?
\nYes Lord, you know that I love you.
\nThree times Jesus asks Peter, \u201cDo you love me?\u201d For each occasion Peter had denied Jesus, he has to declare afresh his devotion to Jesus. \u201cYes Lord, you know that I love you.\u201d
\nAnd with each response Jesus gives Peter a job to do.
\nFeed my lambs. Take care of my sheep. Feed my sheep.
\nThis is the ministry Jesus commissions Peter for. To lead the church. And it has three parts.
\nFeed my lambs. To nurture new-born Christians, feeding them on pure spiritual milk.
\nTake care of my sheep. Tend the sheep \u2013 take care of the whole flock of God.
\nFeed my sheep. Feed established Christians on spiritual solid food.
\nFeed and take care of the flock. Jesus entrusts Peter with caring not only for the sheep, the established believers but also for the lambs, the newly born. And I also think there is significance in Jesus commanding Peter twice to feed the lambs and the sheep and then once to tend the sheep. That is a reminder that the Christian Minister cares for the flock principally by feeding them, by leading them to pasture, by teaching them the word of God.
\nAs Peter had denied Jesus three times, so Jesus draws out of him three declarations of love. In that way Jesus reinstates Peter as chief of the apostles and commissions him to lead the Early Church.
\nBut in all of this we have glossed over the most important point of this passage for Peter, and for us. For this, without the aid of a safety net but with the assistance of PowerPoint, we are going to venture into the world of New Testament Greek. There were a number of words in Greek which we translate as \u201clove\u201d, and we find two of them in this story.
\nAGAPE \u2013 God\u2019s kind of love, charity \u2013 the original New International Version translates this word as \u201ctruly love\u201d
\nFILIA \u2013 brotherly love, friendship \u2013 NIV translates this just as \u201clove\u201d.
\nSimon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?\u201d
\n\u201cYes, Lord,\u201d he said, \u201cyou know that I love you.\u201d
\nJesus said, \u201cFeed my lambs.\u201d
\nAgain Jesus said, \u201cSimon son of John, do you truly love me?\u201d
\nHe answered, \u201cYes, Lord, you know that I love you.\u201d
\nJesus said, \u201cTake care of my sheep.\u201d
\nThe third time he said to him, \u201cSimon son of John, do you love me?\u201d
\nPeter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, \u201cDo you love me?\u201d He said, \u201cLord, you know all things; you know that I love you.\u201d
\nJesus said, \u201cFeed my sheep.\u201d (NIV84)
\nThe first two times Jesus asks Peter do you love me with agape love, God\u2019s kind of love. Peter replies, you know that I love you with filia love, brotherly love, friendship.
\nThe third time Jesus changes to the word Peter has been using, and asks him, do you love me with filia love. To which Peter says again, Lord, you know that I love you with filia love, with friendship.
\nJ.B.Phillips translation renders this most effectively.
\nBEST – JB PHILLIPS:-
\nQ \u201cDo you love me?\u201d
\nA \u201cYou know I am your friend.\u201d
\nQ \u201cDo you love me?\u201d
\nA \u201cYou know that I am your friend.\u201d
\nQ \u201cARE you my friend?\u201d (Are you really my friend? Are you even my friend?)
\nPeter was deeply hurt because Jesus\u2019s last question to him was, \u201cAre you my friend?\u201d
\nA \u201cLord, you know I am your friend!\u201d
\nWhy does this Greek matter? Because Jesus asks Peter for God\u2019s kind of love, sacrificial love, the kind of love Christ Himself had shown on the cross just a few weeks before. But Peter was conscious of how much he had failed by denying Jesus three times. So Peter is open and honest enough to say, I can\u2019t promise you that kind of self-sacrificing love. I can only offer you human love, friendship, brotherly love.
\nSo Jesus asks again, can you offer me God\u2019s kind of sacrificial love?
\nAnd Peter answers again, I can only offer brotherly love.
\nSo Jesus asks \u2013 can you even offer me that kind of friendship? And that\u2019s why Peter was deeply hurt at the change of wording. But Peter insists, \u201cYes I can. You know I love you with filia love.\u201d
\nAnd Jesus accepts that. What God looks for is agape love. Sacrifice. That we love one another with exactly the same kind of agape love that Christ showed on the cross when he died for our sins. Jesus demands agape love \u2013 and deserves agape love. Jesus demands and deserves that we love him enough to take risks for him.
\nBut Jesus will accept filia love, brotherly love, friendship. When we can\u2019t love him in the same way as he loved us, to the same extent that he loved us, Jesus accepts that. He demands agape but accepts filia \u2013 from Simon Peter and from us today. That is the amazing grace of God!
\nBut Jesus also has a warning for Peter. Jesus said, \u201cFeed my sheep. 18 I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.\u201d 19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, \u201cFollow me!\u201d
\nFollowing Jesus carries a cost. Peter would lead the Early Church and preach the gospel but Peter would be crucified just as Jesus had been. Jesus invites us to love him more than everything else, and to love him more than we love anybody else. And Jesus calls us to follow him, whatever it costs.
\nSo the simple question Jesus asks each one of us is the same as the question he asked Peter.
\nDo you love me?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a few weeks after Jesus rose from the dead. Peter took some of the other disciples out fishing. Perhaps they just wanted…<\/span><\/p>\n

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