<p>21:15 <em>So when they had broken their fast, Jesus said to Simon: Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? He said to him: Yes, Lord. You know that I love you. He said to him: Feed my lambs</em>-</p><p>The Lord Jesus had already met Peter at least twice since His resurrection, but hadn&rsquo;t raised the obvious issue of Peter&rsquo;s denials. And now He does it only <em>after</em> He has first eaten with Peter. We must bear in mind that to eat together, especially to take bread and give it to others, implied acceptance and religious fellowship (the scene here is reminiscent of the breaking of bread, the same words for &lsquo;bread&rsquo;, &lsquo;take&rsquo; and &lsquo;give&rsquo; are found in Mt. 26:26). The Lord firstly fellowshipped with Peter and only then moved on to probe the issue of his disloyalty, after having first affirmed His abiding love for Peter. This is a pattern for us in dealing with others' failure. The human tendency is to demand all is resolved between us before we can move on together, but the Lord was wiser than that. He had tried to arrange circumstance to provoke Peter to himself engage with the issue- for the triple questioning, the triple invitation to work for Him, all took place by a fire of coals- just as Peter&rsquo;s triple denials had. We see clearly portrayed here the gentle, seeking spirit of the Lord.</p><p>&ldquo;Do you love me?&rdquo; was a question for Peter&rsquo;s benefit, not in order to give the Lord information which He didn&rsquo;t have. His great sensitivity to Peter led Him to foresee the obvious question in Peter&rsquo;s mind: &lsquo;Has He forgiven me?&rsquo;. And the Lord is saying that Peter knows the answer insofar as Peter knows how much he loves Jesus, on the principle that whoever loves much has been forgiven much (Lk. 7:47). The allusion back to that incident in Luke 7 is confirmed by the way that the phrase &lsquo;to love more&rsquo; occurs elsewhere only there, in Lk. 7:42: &ldquo;Which of them will <em>love</em> him Jesus <em>most</em> s.w. &ldquo;more&rdquo;&rdquo;.&nbsp; Jesus had already forgiven Peter; the answer to Peter&rsquo;s concern about whether he had been forgiven was really &lsquo;Yes you have, if you believe it; and if you believe it, you will love me, and according to how much you love me, you will know how much forgiveness you have received&rsquo;. In all this, we see the careful sensitivity of the Lord Jesus to His people, foreseeing and feeling our doubts and fears, our questions; and responding to them in a profound way.</p><p>&ldquo;You know that I love you&rdquo; was met by the Lord with the comment that Peter must feed His sheep. This wasn&rsquo;t so much a commandment / commission, as the Lord explaining that Peter&rsquo;s love for Him personally would be reflected in the degree to which Peter loved the Lord&rsquo;s sheep. John grasped this clearly, when he underlines throughout his letters that we cannot have love for God without loving our brethren. The Father and Son are to be identified with their people.</p><p>&quot;Do you love me more than these?&quot; is grammatically ambiguous. The reference could be to the nets and ships, or to Peter&rsquo;s other brethren. On both fronts, Peter needed provoking to self-examination. For he was proud of his profession and too eager to return to Galilee and get back to work; and he had boasted earlier that &ldquo;Though all men deny you, yet I will not&rdquo;. There are purposeful ambiguities in some parts of God&rsquo;s word, not every sentence is intended to have a final &lsquo;right interpretation&rsquo; which stands for all time; the ambiguities are to provoke our self-examination.</p>