December 22, 2023

Settling The Issue

“He said to him the third time, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love Me?’ Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, ‘Do you love Me?’ And he said to Him, ‘Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend My sheep.’” John 21:17 (NASB)

            Years ago, I was speaking to a person about an issue. They skirted the problem for a while, so I didn’t push it. I wanted him to tell me about the issue on his own. After a while, I changed the terminology a little to make it clear I had some suspicions as well. After some great insight from the Holy Spirit and careful wording, the guy began to explain what he had been struggling with. It was causing marital problems for him and his wife. When he began to talk, he hung his head in shame. It caught him off guard, but he admitted later he thought I probably knew about it all along. I asked him why he didn’t come to me earlier. He said he was too ashamed. I can only imagine Peter’s head hanging as he spoke to Jesus and said, “Lord, You know all things;” I am not Jesus, but I have the benefit of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling wisdom.

            “He said to him the third time, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love Me?’” Jesus, this last time, uses a different word “love.” This time He adopts Peter’s word phileo, meaning a friendly, brotherly type of love (an English derivative of the word Philadelphia- the city of brotherly love). This is a lesser type of love compared to Jesus’s. Peter understood the transition by Jesus now. It was remarkably different than what Jesus asked before. Brown says this so well: “This was the Physician’s deepest incision into the wound, while yet smarting under the two former probing. Not till now would Peter discern the object of this succession of thrusts. The third time reveals it all, bringing up such a rush of dreadful recollections before his view, of his ‘thrice denying that he knew Him,’ that he feels it to the quick. It was fitting that he should; it was meant that he should. But this accomplished, the painful dialogue concludes with a delightful ‘Feed My sheep’; as if He should say, ‘Now, Simon, the last speck of the cloud which overhung thee since that night of nights is dispelled: Henceforth thou art to Me and to My work as if no such scene had ever happened.’”[1] “And he said to Him, ‘Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Spence answers this statement: “Omniscience is freely conceded to the Lord. All things that Peter did, thought, or felt, all his bewilderment, all his mistakes, all his impulsiveness and mixture of motive, all his self-assertion, all his weakness and disloyalty, are known; but so also all the inner springs and lines of his nobler nature, and that though he played the fool, he was a hypocrite in his denials. The Lord knew that his faith did not really fail, though his courage did; and in virtue of this breadth of the Lord’s knowing, he must have come to full cognizance of the entire meaning of Peter’s life.”[2] That is some good insight to consider.

            God knows what is going on inside each of us. If we are honest, we too have to be probed by the Holy Spirit each day. Sometimes it takes God to let us hear what we are saying to Him. This way see truly what we are saying to Him. Jesus did this with Peter. Even though he was an imperfect master of himself, Jesus could help him do the impossible with the Gospel. It is by this that Peter was able to finally admit that, “Lord, You know all things;” It is here that Peter was humbled and yet strengthened to become the leader of the disciples for the future.

[1] Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). (Vol. 2, p. 171). Logos Research Systems, Inc.

[2] Spence-Jones, H. D. M., ed. (1909). (Vol. 2, pp. 506–507). Funk & Wagnalls Company.