Seeking Truth in Today's Troubled World

The question appears so simple it might be mistaken for small talk: “Do you love me?” Yet it is asked by the risen Christ, and it is asked not once but three times. When eternal truth repeats itself, it does so not from forgetfulness but for the sake of revelation.

The conversation between Jesus and Peter in John 21:15–17 is more than the restoration of a fallen disciple; it is a window into the heart of divine love and human frailty. Let us peer through that window for a moment, and listen not merely to the words, but to the weight behind them.

After breakfast on the shore of Galilee, Jesus turns to the one who had once boasted, “Even if all fall away, I will not,” and had then denied Him three times beside another fire. Now Christ, gentle yet searing, invites Peter to undo the knot of his guilt with a threefold confession.

“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” The phrasing is deliberate and precise. Our English Bibles say “love” in all three queries, but the Greek does not. The first two questions use the word agapas me? That is, do you love me with the highest, most self-giving, divine love? Peter responds, “Yes, Lord, you know that I philo you.” That is, I love you as a friend, a brother.

Jesus presses again: “Do you agapas me?” And again Peter, in humility or perhaps in honest self-doubt, replies, “Lord, you know that I philo you.”

Finally, Jesus descends to Peter’s level: “Do you phileis me?” Are you even my friend?

This third question wounds Peter. Not because he has been asked three times, though that carries its own sting, but because Christ has now asked less than before. As though Jesus were saying, “Are you willing to love me even at the level you can, not the level you should?”

Peter grieves, not because he has been accused, but because he has been known. “Lord, you know all things; you know that I philo you.” It is as if he says, “I do not trust my own declarations anymore. You know better than I do what I am.”

There is a sobering mercy in this exchange. The Lord does not ask Peter to pretend. He does not shame him for lacking agape. He accepts what Peter can offer and then gives him a charge: “Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.”

Here is the divine economy. Christ does not demand perfect love before entrusting Peter with responsibility. He knows that love matures through obedience, not merely emotion. He knows that sheep are fed not by those who boast in their affection, but by those who are willing to labor in humility. Love, even imperfect love, must work itself out in service.

This passage also offers a striking contrast between divine condescension and human honesty. The risen Christ, possessing all authority in heaven and earth, stoops to ask a question not because He lacks knowledge, but because He seeks communion. He who is Love incarnate asks for love from one who once fled.

And what of us? If we, like Peter, have faltered, if we have loved poorly, with half-hearts and hesitant hands, then this conversation is for us too. Christ does not call us to pretend at virtue we do not possess. He calls us to the truth. He begins where we are and leads us where He is.

There is one more subtle beauty: the fire. Peter had denied Jesus by a fire in the courtyard of the high priest. Now he is restored by a fire on the shore. The smell, the smoke, the warmth, these become the stage of redemption. Christ redeems not only Peter’s guilt, but even his memory.

And so the great Shepherd restores His sheep by asking the only question that really matters in the end: “Do you love me?” Not, “Will you succeed?” Not, “Will you never fail again?” But simply, “Do you love me?”

If you can answer as Peter did, with all the truth and trembling you possess, then hear His voice again: “Follow me.”

In Christ’s service, ~JFH