John 21:15, commentary and pictures

After the meal by the Sea of Galilee Jesus asked Peter whether he loved Him more than his fellow disciples, recalling his boast of greater loyalty, and Peter humbly appealed to Jesus who knows all hearts without claiming more love than others, and being asked three times for his three denials he three times affirmed his love and received the charge to care first for the lambs and then for the sheep. Love for Christ is the essential qualification for caring for His people, without which knowledge and zeal cannot make ministry faithful, and it must be a living power shown in character and in loving self-denying service to those for whom He died. The lambs are children and youth and younger members of His family, those young in faith and newly believing who need patient nurturing, and the fatherless and homeless, the poor and oppressed, the hungry and wounded and straying whom He watches with tender affection. That charge to feed is laid on every minister and under-shepherd and teacher and parent and church member, and feeding means presenting the truth as it is in Jesus in simple measured portions suited to the hearers, with personal visiting and watching for souls and seeking the lost, done with tenderness and patience and forgiving love as Christ dealt with Peter. In thus forgiving and restoring the repentant Peter to trusted service Jesus showed the pattern for restoring transgressors, and Peter's experience of failure and repentance fitted him to shepherd the vulnerable with meek sympathy and to stand firm afterward even to prison and death.

Setting and Wording

The meeting belongs to Galilee after the Passover week, where the disciples had gone as directed, by the Sea of Galilee or Tiberias where much of Christ's ministry had passed. After a night of catching nothing, a miraculous multitude of fishes came at His word, followed by a meal of fish and bread He had prepared, and after they had dined Jesus spoke to Peter, just before His ascension. The place itself was full of reminders of Jesus and His mighty works, in a spot where they were not likely to be disturbed. On that sea He had walked upon the billows to their rescue when their hearts were filled with terror and the fierce storm was hurrying them to destruction, and there the tempest had been hushed by His word. Within sight was the beach where above ten thousand persons had been fed from a few small loaves and fishes, and not far distant was Capernaum the scene of so many miracles, so that as they looked upon the scene their minds were full of the words and deeds of their Saviour.

The question, lovest thou me more than these, refers to Peter's brethren, the other disciples, and asks whether he loves Jesus more than they do. It recalls and tests his former boast of greater loyalty, his declaration that he would never be offended though all others were. After His resurrection Jesus thus tested Peter by asking whether Peter loves Him more than the others.

Peter no longer claims greater love than his companions and makes no vehement assurance or confident claim about his own devotion. He puts a true estimate on himself, no longer comparing himself with or exalting himself above the other disciples, no longer claiming to be stronger or more devoted than his fellow disciples, and no longer judging his own devotion or expressing his own opinion of it. He humbly leaves judgment of his sincerity to Jesus, who knows the heart, reads all motives of the heart, and knows all things. His answer appeals to that all-knowledge, that Jesus knows that he loves Him.

Jesus asks three times, matching Peter's three open denials. His three affirmations of love answer his three denials. Peter is grieved and finally appeals with an aching heart to Christ's all-knowledge.

Jesus first lays on Peter the care of the lambs and afterward the care of the sheep. After asking whether Peter loves Him and receiving Peter's answer, He gives the charge to care for His lambs, connecting Peter's love with responsibility for the people Jesus calls His own. Feeding the lambs means caring for and guiding Christ's people, and Christ's love is joined to the duty of caring for them.

The heart-searching question was necessary for Peter and is necessary for everyone, because restoration is thorough only when the roots that produce evil are reached and the very depths of the hidden springs and the moral senses are judged in the light of the divine presence. Merely nipping the sprouts while leaving the root of bitterness defiles many and leaves shallowness in the practical daily life, like a lamp without the oil of grace, while enduring the trying process without self awakening to feel hurt and abused reveals that the soul is dead to self and alive to God. Trials, afflictions, and difficulties on the path test whether His children love Him and are meant to test and teach them.

Peter Restored and Changed

The question restores the repentant Peter after his denial and fall to trusted service, a place among the disciples, and renewed apostolic work and commission to care for the flock. His love had not failed or faltered while Peter was denying Him, but He forgave the apostasy, showed mercy, accepted sincere repentance and conversion, and welcomed him again into confidence and affection. Entrusting him with souls for whom He died is strong evidence of confidence in his restoration, and Peter must show sincere repentance and love before resuming his work. The repeated question lets the disciples see that he is humbled and fit to serve.

Asked before the assembled disciples, the pointed testing presses like a barbed arrow into his wounded heart and brings out the depth of his penitence and how thoroughly the once-boasting disciple is humbled. It regains the full confidence of his brethren so that past failure will not cripple his usefulness in emergency, and it marks the arrival of the time when, being converted, he would strengthen his brethren. His failure and renewed sense of weakness fitted him to feed and teach the vulnerable with meekness and tender sympathy and to help those who had fallen. His experience of sin, suffering, and repentance taught him his weakness and his need to rely fully on Christ, preparing him to shepherd believers as well as to seek those outside the fold.

Before his fall he was dictatorial, forward, impulsive, and self-confident, speaking unadvisedly from impulse, ready to correct others and express his mind before he had clear comprehension of himself or what he had to say, with self-love and self-assurance overbearing even his love for Christ, and Satan took advantage of those traits to overthrow him. After conversion he retained his former fervor but with grace regulating his zeal, becoming calm, self-possessed, teachable, meek and lowly in heart, humble, contrite, and sympathetic with the weak and erring. With true contrition he gave himself afresh, and with blinding tears went to Gethsemane where Christ had been in agony with bloody sweat forced from His pores and where he had slept while Jesus prayed, and there his proud heart broke in remorse, leaving that garden a converted man ready to pity the tempted, to sympathize with the weak and erring, and to caution and warn the presumptuous. A mild caution from John could then check his ardor, and John's winning patience and devotedness worked together with his energy and boldness, for though his sin was forgiven and he was honored with divine light and power, he knew that only Christ's grace could overcome the weakness that had caused his fall, and he found nothing in himself to boast about.

From that time he stood firm as a rock, boldly witnessing for Christ and never wavering in allegiance even when called to prison and to death for His sake. Reinstated, he braved danger without flinching with noble courage in preaching Christ as crucified, risen, and ascended, even when imprisoned and believing the time had come to yield up his life. His life of repentance and humility and his willingness to suffer showed the change in him. His memory of denying his Lord made him feel unworthy to be crucified in the same manner, so he asked to be crucified head downward, and his later humility in facing death reflects his contrition.

His faithful oversight of the believers fulfilled the charge and showed him worthy of the trust given him. The honor, authority, influence, and veneration given in the charge made him venerated and influential in the church, but it did not give him supremacy over his brethren. His standing came from God's favor in forgiving him and trusting him with the flock, together with his life as an entirely converted man who remained one of the closest followers of Christ in daily life.

Even after that restoration he failed in integrity at Antioch, dissembling and evading gospel principle for fear of man and to gain esteem, wavering and two-sided in position, requiring Paul to withstand his subverting influence face to face. Past service, long acquaintance, instruction received, gifts, knowledge, influence, and high position do not keep a person faithful without recognizing personal helplessness and daily dependence on God. The more responsibility placed on a man to dictate and control, the more mischief he does in perverting minds and hearts unless he carefully follows the way of the Lord and keeps close to principle, and His matchless grace alone can keep feet from falling, so the failure is recorded that others may profit by it as a solemn warning to men in high places not to fail in integrity. Refusing the Lord's plain counsel and resisting the Holy Spirit disqualifies people from the responsibility of caring for His people that they might have carried if they had heeded His warnings.

Love Required for Service

Love for Christ is the essential condition and qualification for discipleship and for serving as a faithful shepherd, and feeding both lambs and sheep is work only a converted person can do. Knowledge, kindness, eloquence, benevolence, gratitude, and zeal aid the work but cannot make ministry faithful without that love, and without Christ's love flowing into the heart the work fails. Christ's charge to feed His lambs makes care for the flock the work that love requires.

This love is not a passing feeling but a living, abiding power in the heart. It is shown in the shepherd's character and conduct as he lives out the truth he teaches. The shepherd and flock are united by their shared hope in Christ.

Loving Jesus means loving the people for whom He died. That love must be shown in faithful, humble, self-denying service that pleases the Master. It helps bring people into the church and strengthens them in faith, training them to carry truth to new places and gather others into the fold.

Peter's answer, Thou knowest that I love Thee, is a personal confession to speak to Jesus when others speak or think evil, sneer, or judge, and while seeking to follow Him. Love for Jesus is known by Him even when men do not know how much He is loved, and that love goes with hating every evil course. Holding that confession without dismay under humiliation and without anger toward judges, with faithful service, brings purification from every stain of sin because Christ who gave His life abides in the heart.

Who the Lambs Are

The lambs are children and youth, the little ones and younger members of the Lord's family, Christ's own property purchased through His suffering and regarded by Him with deep affection and tender solicitude. Those older and more experienced are to give them special attention, not despising them but loving and caring for them as Jesus did, attending to their spiritual needs, teaching them of Jesus' love, repeating the story of that love at every suitable opportunity, leaving a little corner in every sermon for their benefit, and helping bring them to Christ. Children taught early in goodness bear lasting fruit, and teachers who feel Christ's love for the lambs win many to Him, gain lasting friends in the little ones, and do them lasting good. The charge lays upon teachers and missionaries a patient nurturing they must do, giving the youth no education except that which develops good qualities and represses evil, keeping Christ the Pattern ever in sight.

The lambs are also those young in the faith, beginners, newly come believers, young converts, and the ignorant, including young members of Christ's family who need patient, loving instruction, sympathy and encouragement as they face inherited and cultivated tendencies to evil. They need suitable teaching, patient nurturing, and training for usefulness, duty and the Master's work, with the Scriptures opened to them, education for service, and preparation to serve Christ in tenderness, patience, care and perseverance. This is a work Peter had little experience in and had failed to do patiently, yet he could not be complete in Christian life unless he learned it, and his suffering and repentance prepared him for it.

The lambs include fatherless and motherless and homeless children, the poor, oppressed and vulnerable members of the church, the conscientious and inexperienced, the spiritually hungry and starving, the sick and wounded, and those who have strayed or are tempted and tried. Christ watches over every soul for whom He died, including those who have strayed, and it is not the Father's will that even one of His little ones perish. Feeding them means more than supplying food and clothing, taking a living, watchful interest in young people who need guidance, especially fatherless children, helping them follow the path of obedience to God and eternal life. It includes caring for orphans by opening homes to homeless children and through an orphans' home, presenting them to God, blessing them, shaping them according to Christ's order, and placing them under teachers who love and fear God to educate them in the knowledge of God and His Son. It extends to nourishing poor, hungry, starving sheep and lambs such as those on the islands of the sea around Australia with timely Bible truth, and to caring for young people who are often neglected, reaching the unconcerned and unbelieving, and encouraging fellow believers to take part by active, personal effort and inviting example.

Feeding as Shepherd Work

The word spoken to Peter is spoken to every servant in all ages and lays out the duty of every gospel minister, overseer, under-shepherd, teacher, missionary, physician, evangelist, parent, and church member who has charge of the flock God purchased with His own blood. Christ repeats again and again to His under-shepherds, Feed my lambs, feed my sheep, and those given talents of influence must use them sanctified in caring for the flock. Peter himself had little experience in this work of feeding the lambs, meaning caring for those young in the faith, yet he could not be complete in Christian life unless he learned it. The charge comes home to nearly every minister today, for to feed means to care for newly come believers who are young in the faith, giving them the right kind of instruction and educating and training them for the Master's work and for usefulness and duty.

Feeding means helping people come to Christ through the gospel's saving power, making it a living power, presenting truth simply and following Christ's example. It means opening the Scriptures, giving the bread of life and pure spiritual food, the truth as it is in Jesus, and bearing fruit by faithfully sharing the saving gospel, since profession without such fruit does not meet the world's needs. It requires putting the crib low so lambs can reach the food, giving fresh, essential teaching in measured portions suited to ability to receive, in short direct discourses with few important points. It means leading in the path of truth and adapting teaching to needs, meeting people where they are, presenting truth simply, searching for lost sheep, doing personal work, giving clear definite instruction, and going about doing good with a heart touched by woe. When this work is faithful, many are convicted and converted through the Holy Spirit.

Feeding requires first receiving fresh manna from the Lord's storehouse for oneself and making zealous effort to know and understand the terms of salvation. Only those who themselves drink deeply of the water of life can minister to other souls, and this work requires grace and an intelligent knowledge of truth, which God gives to those who ask in humble faith. It requires studying Christ's life and manner of teaching and following Him as the greatest educator, talking with God so the Holy Spirit speaks through the teacher, and laboring with a constant sense of the Divine Watcher as though heaven were before the speaker as well as the needy flock. It calls for overcoming a slow, tame manner of work through the vitalizing influence of the Spirit, and it can reach even the prejudiced, for the command applies even where people are prejudiced. Christ watches over His sheep and lambs continually, and it is not the Father's will that even one of His little ones perish.

Feeding is more than preaching or sermonizing and cannot be delegated, for it is not wise to open more fields than can be thoroughly worked, since every stroke must tell for the future as well as for present influence. It requires personal labor, watching for souls as those who must give an account, visiting people in their homes and families, learning their spiritual condition, and giving personal care, instruction, and timely counsel. It means being closely connected with the people and strengthening the weak with timely words so they become established in the faith, tending the spiritually sick and wounded and binding their hurts. One thorough faithful shepherd is better than twenty sermonizers, and men who will only preach should not be credentialed or sent as missionaries until educated to shepherd, for accepting and paying men who can only preach leaves that work undone. Ministers are to preach less and minister more, with careful, temperate labor helping them remain able to serve wisely and give fresh nourishment.

Feeding must be done with care, tenderness, patience, perseverance, kindness, courtesy, sympathy, and forgiving love, remembering personal weakness and dealing with sheep and lambs as tenderly as Christ dealt with Peter. It means serving with the compassionate love of Jesus that softens character, reflecting Christ's mind and pattern, with love as an abiding power in the heart shown in character and conduct, uniting shepherd and flock in shared hope. It means correcting faults faithfully and mercifully rather than harshly or indifferently, refusing to censure, blame, magnify failures, or expose shortcomings, and instead encouraging, guiding, and training for Christian service. Peter's suffering and repentance prepared him for this work, and Christ's grace regulated his zeal so that he became calm, teachable, and able to care for both lambs and sheep. Remembering his own weakness and Christ's patient love and forgiveness makes the shepherd patient and conciliatory toward others who err, especially the tempted and erring.

Feeding includes shepherding people into the fold, seeking the lost and straying rather than abandoning them, searching for lost sheep, guarding the flock from being led astray, and protecting and nourishing them for salvation. It is the work of caring for and teaching those who have joined the church so they may be firmly established in the truth, cultivating God-given abilities, serving actively, and training members to carry truth and establish new churches. The command is set alongside Christ's watchful care for every soul for whom He died, including those who have strayed, as precious souls who should not perish in sin but have everlasting life. Teachers under Christ's control guard and care for sheep and lambs, and when they stray, seek them rather than abandon them.

Where this work is not done believers will have a dwarf experience and will be exposed to temptation and deception, and sheep and lambs suffer spiritually without a faithful, interested shepherd to tend and nurture them. Giving poison instead of healthful food is terrible; criticism, faultfinding, suspicion, and a combative spirit with unfair handling of Scripture are like poisonous food or medicine that damages the flock and unfit a person to pastor it. A minister who neglects that sacred pastoral duty and sets a careless example is unworthy of the work and must be converted before being entrusted with the flock, for neglect and careless conduct are unworthy of those entrusted with it. Those given this work must act as faithful shepherds, attend to their duties, set a fitting example, and faithfully protect and care for members, helping the spiritually sick rather than harming them.

Peter's restoration gives the pattern for restoring a transgressor and for patience with the faulty. The repeated question lets the disciples see that he is humbled and fit to serve, showing sincere repentance and love before resuming apostolic work, and the command entrusts him with caring for Christ's flock. His often-reproved, impulsive character did not prevent him from becoming a servant whose life of sacrifice testified to God's grace, showing that grace can make a faulty servant faithful and teaching patience with those at fault. His humbled, repentant response shows he is better prepared to shepherd others than when he was forward and self-confident, and his own failure and repentance taught him how to help tempted disciples. As Jesus' love never faltered while Peter was denying Him, the under-shepherd must feel just such love for sheep and lambs, dealing with the transgressor with patience, sympathy, tenderness, and forgiving love.

Calls to Care Today

The charge first laid on Peter belongs to every servant in every age, and to love and care for children as Jesus did means never to despise the little ones. Teachers in the Sabbath-school must feel that love for the lambs of the flock, repeat the story of Jesus' love to children at every suitable opportunity, and do personal labor to save, educate, and spiritually train the young. A little corner is to be left in every sermon for the benefit of children, and the servant of Christ who does this will win many more to Christ, gain lasting friends in the little ones, and speak words that are lasting good to them. That work has been neglected, and both ministers and church members are accountable to God for indifference and failure in this duty.

Feeding Christ's lambs is the church's work of caring for children and youth and meeting their spiritual needs, and it is especially urgent in a time of peril that the church must recognize and act upon. It calls for a special, not casual, interest in the young, with kind, patient, tender care and steady, gradual instruction that helps children and youth grow in Christian life and protects them from Satan's efforts to draw them into his net. Those who do it act as stewards of the grace of Christ, discerning the necessities of the time and Satan's devices, working in Christ's spiritual vineyard to do what Christ Himself would do for youth and children under heaven's inspection. Each local church must carry the burden in its own place, opening schools where needed, educating and training children for service to God, and training as many as possible for His service instead of leaving them neglected to drift away.

Children are younger members of the Lord's family and lambs of Christ's fold entrusted to parents to be nurtured, cherished, educated in righteousness, guided in holiness, and led to God. Parents must seek the Lord with all the heart and cooperate with Him in the saving of their children, guarding words and actions and giving the lessons God has instructed by example as well as by precept. They are to help their children respond to the striving of the Holy Spirit, which prepares the way for the Spirit to strive with the children, and to guide them with healthful, sanctified care to become lambs in Christ's fold. In consenting to the baptism of children who desire it, parents pledge themselves as faithful stewards and shepherds over these younger members, to guide them in character-building and guard them with special interest through self-examination, faithful instruction, daily and hourly watchfulness, companionship, and right example in love, courtesy, Christian humility, and entire surrender to Christ. Neglect that leaves children to do as they choose, with no special duty to keep their feet in the straight path, bears responsibility if they lose faith and courage and interest in the truth, and such failure to feed Christ's lambs will not be passed over.

Feeding Christ's lambs means more than supplying food and clothing for fatherless and motherless and homeless children. It includes opening homes to homeless children and providing an orphans' home, presenting them to God, blessing them, and shaping them according to Christ's order. It means placing them under teachers who love and fear God to educate them in the knowledge of God and His Son.

The repeated charge lays on those given work the duty to strengthen and nourish the spiritually starving rather than spend effort on those who reject the message, gathering people into the fold and caring for and guarding those in danger of being led astray. Hungry sheep perishing for want of spiritual food, including the poor, hungry, starving sheep and lambs on the islands of the sea around Australia, must be nourished with timely Bible truth as an offering of self in doing good for Jesus. That work has waited long and requires waking from stupor, coming with a sanctified heart, surmounting obstacles long blocking the way, surrendering all to God to follow His will and way, cutting loose from love of the world and possessions, sacrificing means to speed messengers and supporting those messengers, and leaving convenient centers to go to localities where truth is unknown as Christ left heaven's honor and glory to reach the depths of human woe. Churches must not merely receive ministers' labor but cultivate God-given abilities, serve actively, build humble churches and schools in destitute fields, and be trained to carry truth to new places and establish new churches, laboring even when weak or ill because destruction comes like a whirlwind. In this application the lambs to be guarded also include Sanitarium employees and medical students who need protection from spiritual temptations and dangers.

The tender solicitude of the Lord of heaven rests especially on the lambs, meaning youth and beginners in the Christian life and newly come believers young in the faith, and the command lays on Peter and on every gospel minister and worker a patient nurturing he had failed to do patiently. To feed them is to give the right kind of instruction and educate and train them for the Master's work, giving the youth no education except what develops good qualities and represses evil, and the work is not mere sermonizing nor wisely extended to more fields than can be thoroughly worked, for every stroke must tell for the future as well as for present influence. It requires keeping Christ the Pattern ever in sight, putting away selfishness, prejudice, jealousy, envy, evil surmising, vain thoughts, and unbecoming words and actions, with selfishness eradicated and the love of Jesus and love for souls for whom Christ died controlling the workers lest barriers rise between them and God. An indwelling Saviour must transform the character, and when fully surrendered the tongue becomes as the pen of a ready writer, able to understand the Spirit's inspiration and bear testimony to Bible truths as timely food that feeds the hungry, so that many more believers are raised up into a strong company.