It must’ve been a little awkward. Peter knows what he’s done. Jesus knows what he’s done. But everyone else is just eating as usual.
15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ –
What a way to start a conversation. You might be wondering, who are “these”? The other disciples. Don’t forget, Peter said, according to the LLT (Leke Living Translation), “These guys here may leave you. But you see me yeah, that’ll never happen. I’m gonna be with you to the end. You know I love you more than these man.”
It’s never healthy to measure your spiritual life by your neighbour.
“Well, at least I don’t do what Zach does. So, I must be a better Christian than him.”
Suddenly, you’ve got pride knocking at your door.
Peter’s life has gone completely left. Imagine Peter being at the top of a mountain and with each and every denial, he’s gradually made his way down, to where he’s now at the bottom. Now Jesus is gonna have to bring him all the way back up. He had denied Jesus three times, so Jesus was going to give him three opportunities to confess his love and loyalty.
Time to flaunt that GCSE/A Level Philosophy.
To get a full picture of this interaction, we’re gonna need to see the use of the Greek verbs for love, agapao and phileo. I don’t understand Greek, but the internet is an amazing thing. So let me plug the verbs where they need to be.
Verse 15: “Simon, son of Judah, do you agapao me more than these?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I phileo you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.”
Feed my lambs…random.
Cool, so the word agapao is the verb form of the Greek word agape, which is God’s sacrificial love, love that seeks the highest good of the one loved.
So Jesus was asking Peter, “Do you love Me sacrificially? Do you love Me supremely?”
But check Peter’s response. He answered with phileo, the word for “brotherly love,” a word of affection. Peter basically said in the LLT “Yeah, I like you.”
This is the same Peter nah?
Peter was saying to Jesus, “I can’t say that I love You supremely. I would have never denied You if I really loved You like I said I did. So let’s start with like, I don’t have the right to say love.”
It’s funny, you know when you ask your friend in a relationship whether they love their partner, and they start to hesitate. “I don’t know about love, that’s kinda strong. Like you know I like her.” If they’re smart, they might even say “You know I’ve got mad love for her”, whatever that means. But we all know what’s happening here. Either they are embarrassed to declare their love, and hence are denying it. Or they don’t believe they can truly say they love them as of that point. A lot of the time they’re still saying “I love you to their partner before they sleep,” but I’m not even trying to get into that today..
We be acting the same way with Jesus. In private we claim Him with our chest.
In our room, on our knees screaming “My life is not my own. To you I belong. I give myself; I give myself to you”. But your friend is stressed and instead of telling them about Christ you distract them with food and parties because you don’t want to come off as “preachy”.
Anywho, back to Peter.
Peter was reluctant to say he loved Jesus supremely, but Jesus still said, “Feed my lambs.” He was inviting Peter back into the ministry, back into the Lord’s service.
Is He really going to give this guy another shot at the ministry when he can’t even say he loves Him supremely?
What would Jesus say to this. I don’t know. But I’m sure there’s value in Peter’s truth. So many of us would just lie and say, “I love You more than anything,” but we aren’t ready to live it.
To be honest I wanted to leave this, because I don’t know where I fully stand on this and I’m not trying to get myself in trouble, but I do wonder, how often do we lie when we pray?
What do I mean?
We close our eyes and try to say all the right words, but it aint genuine. There are times we’re annoyed at God. There are times where we’re confused. There are times where we doubt God. There are times where the truth would be “I like you God”. Sometimes it’d be better to say “God I don’t understand why you’re letting his happen to me. Do you see me?” , instead of “I know it’ll all work out because you’re in control”, just to go and spend 4 more hours stressing about it.
Well I don’t want to be ungrateful or disrespectful.
Oh I’m sorry, it’s better to lie then? God knows everything. He knows how you really feel. But He won’t act on anything you’re not willing to confess.
There’s more to prayer than “Lord, thank You for this. Thank You for that. Bless me with this. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
You’ve gotta think about it. You’re telling yourself everything is fine and is part of his plan, but deep down you’re overwhelmed. God’s looking down like “talk to me about it”, but instead you’re holding back in the face of not coming off ungrateful, yet still we want things to change.
I went way off track but let’s roll with it. Peter came clean with Jesus. He was authentic. When you come clean with God, He can come clean up the rest. And just like Jesus did with Peter, he’ll provide a role for you.
Isn’t that the grace we’re always hoping for!
My Sunday Skl 