John 21:16 - Exposition

He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas (John), lovest thou me ? Here our Lord omits, as Peter had done, the "more than these," but he again, with perhaps deeper meaning, uses the word ἀγαπᾶς . Dost thou render me even more in one sense, though less in another, of thy heart's reverence? Dost thou treat me with the confidence and esteem, submission and admiration, which are my due? Again Peter, with his heart bursting with personal affection, feels that he can and must say, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee ( φιλῶ ere; i.e. love thee dearly). The commission that follows is the second stage of pastoral office. He saith to him, Tend ("act the part of shepherd") my sheep . Christ is the "good Shepherd," and, as Peter puts it in 1 Peter 5:4 , the "chief Shepherd." He has laid down his life with a view of taking it again, and ever after discharging the functions of the Shepherd. He means to bring all the "sheep" into one flock. They shall all hear his voice, and receive from him everlasting life. Meanwhile the leader of the apostles is made to appreciate that love is the condition of all healthy guidance. Faculty for rule is part of the very nature of the pastoral care. The sheep will need this even more than the "lambs;" the old disciples will require, even more than the young converts, both direction and command In this respect the subsequent career of Peter was more conspicuous than that of the rest of the apostles (see Revelation 2:27 ; Revelation 7:17 ; Acts 20:28 ; 1 Peter 5:2 for the use of the word). But the shepherding of the sheep is an essentially necessary and integral portion of every pastor's care. When assailed by the wolf of heresy, by the hostile marauder, by new conditions of any kind, by special danger, unless he can in self-forgetting love pilot and protect his flock, he is no true shepherd.