Do You Love Me? – John 21:15-25

Jesus spoke Aramaic.  John’s Gospel is written in Greek.  In chapter 21 John recounts a conversation between Jesus and Peter in which Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me.”  The first two times Jesus uses the word agapao in his question and Peter answers using the word phileo.  The third time John has Jesus asking with the word phileo and Peter answering with the word phileo.  Does John mean us to believe that these words for love are not synonymous?  I don’t believe so.   Different commentators have come up with different interpretations of the interchange of words and can’t agree, and Leon Morris has shown definitively John’s habit of using synonyms throughout his Gospel with no variation of meaning.  The question is stark.  Do you love me.

After breakfast Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”  He said, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”  He said to him, “Feed my lambs.”  He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”  He replied, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”  He said, “Shepherd my sheep.”  He said a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”  Peter was grieved because he asked him three times, do you love me.  And he said, “Lord, you know all things.  You know that I love you.”  Jesus told him, “Feed my sheep.  Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you were dressing yourself and walking wherever you wanted.  But when you are grown old, you will reach out your hands, and others will dress you and carry you where you don’t want to go.”  He said this to signify with what kind of death he would glorify God.  And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”

Peter turned around and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, who also had reclined at dinner and leaned against Jesus’ chest and asked, “Lord, who  will betray you?”  Seeing him, Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?”  Jesus told him, “If I desire that he remain until I come, what is that to you?  You follow me.”  So this statement is what gave rise among the brothers that this disciple would never die.  But Jesus did not say to him he would never die but, “If I desire for him to remain until I come, what is that to you?”

This one is the disciple who bears witness concerning these things and has written these things, and we know that his witness is true.  And there are many other things Jesus did, which, if they were written, I do not suppose the world itself could contain the books written.  (John 21:15-25)

John concludes his Gospel with a beautiful account of Jesus’ restoration of Peter, who had denied three times that he knew Jesus.  Jesus now asks Peter three times if he loves Jesus and each time we can feel the churning in Peter’s stomach at the words and his pained assertion that he does indeed love Jesus.  Each time he does Jesus commands him to take care of Jesus’ other believers.  Some have said that if we truly loved Jesus we would never disobey him but that logic does not take into account our entrenched sinfulness and self-preserving drive.  Jesus accepts Peter’s affirmation of love but also describes for him his future death by crucifixion (which tradition tells us did indeed occur) and abjures him to follow him no matter what.

Like many of us Peter could not leave well enough alone.  He childishly asks about John.  Does Peter have to suffer alone?  Jesus basically says that is his call, not John’s or Peter’s.  Peter is a disciple, and so are we, and disciples do what their master says and glory only in their privilege of serving Jesus.

We may long for more accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings, and indeed many others, heretics, have sought to supply such accounts, but what John wrote along with the other Gospel writers is enough, apparently, in God’s eyes.  What a wonderful Savior we have, who is still doing wonderful things that can be written about.

Discussion Questions

1. Who has questioned your love and why, and could you assure them you loved them?
2. Why do you think Jesus asks Peter if Peter loves him more than the others do?
3. Much has been made of Jesus’ and Peter’s use of different words in the Greek for love, but it is clear on several counts that we should not make anything of that, the key one being John says Jesus asked Peter a third time, “Do you love me,” and makes no distinction in terms.  If you were Peter, what would you have been feeling?
4. Why do you think Jesus gives Peter a glimpse into his future death?
5. Why, like Peter, do we want to compare the lots of other believers and our own?
6. What guarantees does following Jesus give you?