Reply To: Lovest thou me?

[Michael Pupko]

Thank you for the point of why Jesus may have asked the question three times. It expanded my thought to also the three days Jesus spent in the tomb and the three days after Mary Baker Eddy’s fall, declared fatal by the doctors and her clergyman, when she was illumined with Christian Science and rose out of that false state of consciousness.

In the past this passage in the Bible was very confusing to me but I was then introduced to the importance of knowing what the original words in Greek mean, by checking in Strong’s Concordance or Biblehub.com. Peter perceived it as the same question three times. The ‘nuance’ of which form of ‘lovest’ used in Greek gets a little lost in English because Jesus asks the first two times if Peter ‘lovest’ (agape/charity Love) and Peter responds with with “I ‘love’ (phileo; closer to am fond of you and “denoting personal attachment’!!) thee.” The third time Jesus changes his question by using ‘phileo.’

These comments inspired a need for me to better understand ‘feed’ as used in this passage. The word ‘feed’ Jesus used the first and third times Strong’s defines as literally ‘feeding’ and also to ‘keep’ (“retain possession of”). The second time ‘feed’ is translated as “to tend as a shepherd”, “supervise,” “rule.”