Feed My Sheep (Christ's Words To Peter)

Peter had denied his Lord three times and returned to fishing. Yet Christ pursued him, providing a miraculous catch and breakfast before any word of restoration. The Good Shepherd does not abandon a straying sheep; He goes after His own. "Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus" (John 21:4, NKJV). Grace seeks the sinner first.

Peter had denied Christ three times around a fire of coals (John 18:18, 25-27); now beside another fire of coals Christ asks three times, "Do you love Me?" (John 21:15-17). The threefold question matched the threefold denial, undoing the failure point by point. This was not Christ extracting payment but a Shepherd tenderly leading a fallen disciple back to open confession of love.

No. The Westminster Confession teaches that the saved "can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace," yet "may, through the temptations of Satan... fall into grievous sins" (WCF 17.1, 17.3). Peter fell grievously, but Christ had prayed for him, "that your faith should not fail" (Luke 22:32, NKJV). His restoration displays preservation, not its failure.

Peter had boasted he would never stumble even if all others did (Matthew 26:33). Christ's question, "do you love Me more than these?" (John 21:15, NKJV), gently exposed that former self-confidence. The restored Peter no longer compares himself with others or trusts his own resolve; he appeals only to Christ's knowledge of his heart, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You."

In the Greek, Jesus first asks with agapao (a high, self-giving love) while Peter answers with phileo (warm affection); on the third question Jesus adopts Peter's own word. The distinction should not be overpressed, since John uses the terms interchangeably elsewhere. The point stands plainly: Christ presses Peter until love for Him, not bravado, becomes the confessed ground of ministry.

Before commissioning Peter to feed the flock, Christ secured his love three times. A shepherd who does not love Christ will not faithfully love and feed Christ's people. As Peter himself later wrote, elders must serve "not by compulsion but willingly... nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock" (1 Peter 5:2-3, NKJV). Love for the Chief Shepherd governs all true ministry.

To feed Christ's sheep is to nourish His people with His Word through faithful teaching and pastoral care. The sheep belong to Christ, not the shepherd; Peter is a steward of another's flock. Paul charged the Ephesian elders to "shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood" (Acts 20:28, NKJV). The pastoral office exists to feed, not to be fed by, the people of God.

"When you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish" (John 21:18, NKJV). John explains this signified "by what death he would glorify God" (John 21:19). Tradition holds Peter was crucified. Christ tells His restored disciple that following Him would cost his life, yet that very death would bring glory to God.

A believer's death glorifies God when it bears faithful witness to Christ and rests wholly in Him. The Westminster Shorter Catechism teaches that man's chief end is "to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever" (Q.1), and that end is not interrupted by death. Peter, once afraid of a servant girl, would later lay down his life confessing the Lord he once denied.

Christ ended where He began with Peter, repeating the first call, "Follow Me" (John 21:19; cf. Matthew 4:19, NKJV). Discipleship is not a single decision but a lifelong following of Christ, through restoration after failure and even unto death. The same grace that reclaimed Peter calls every believer to take up the cross and follow the risen Lord.