In John 21, Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Each time, Peter responds, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” After each affirmation of love, Jesus tells Peter, “Feed my lambs,” or “Tend my sheep,” or “Feed my sheep.” This conversation comes after Peter has denied knowing Jesus three times before His crucifixion. The threefold questioning of Peter’s love counteracts his earlier threefold denial.
By telling Peter to “feed my lambs” and “tend/feed my sheep,” Jesus is commissioning Peter to care for and spiritually nourish Christ’s followers. As one of the twelve disciples and a leader among the apostles, Peter played a prominent role in the early Christian church. Jesus calls upon him to exercise pastoral care and oversight for the flock of believers.
There are a few important implications from this commission:
- Jesus emphasizes the priority of loving Him above all else. Our capacity to serve flows out of our love for Christ.
- In caring for Christ’s sheep, Peter takes on a role modeled by Jesus, the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep.
- The responsibility to shepherd God’s people is a sober and weighty calling.
- Pastoring involves tender care for both new believers (“lambs”) and mature Christians (“sheep”).
- The church needs godly leaders like Peter who love Jesus above all and are committed to teaching, feeding, and protecting His flock.
This was not just a commission for Peter and the first apostles. It extends to church leaders today as well. Pastors, elders, and overseers are tasked with imitating the Good Shepherd in caring diligently for His sheep. Like Peter, they must love Jesus wholeheartedly while also nurturing the spiritual lives of those under their care through preaching, teaching, counseling, and more. This requires great wisdom, discernment, patience, and sacrifice. However, like Peter, they follow in the footsteps of the One who laid down His life for the church.
When Jesus asks Peter three times about his love and instructs him to “feed my sheep,” this reflects Peter’s restoration to ministry after his denials. Peter must reaffirm his devotion to Christ with each charge he receives. As he does this, Peter not only accepts his own commissioning – he receives confirmation that he is forgiven, embraced, and recommissioned into Jesus’ service as an under-shepherd who will nurture the Master’s flock.
Other leaders in the early church follow this pattern as they take up leadership roles. Paul, James, and others are appointed to shepherd local congregations and nurture collective bodies of believers. Their primary duties revolve around teaching, encouraging, admonishing, correcting, and praying for those under their care. Like Peter, they aim to mirror the sacrificial devotion of the Good Shepherd.
For Jesus, caring for His sheep encompasses seeking them when they wander, strengthening the weak, healing the injured, and protecting them from threats. It involves intimate knowledge of their condition and needs. Christian leaders cannot perfectly emulate Christ’s divine love and care. But they follow His example when they prioritize feeding and tending God’s flock.
Christ’s commission of Peter reminds believers that pastoral ministry is vital to the flourishing of God’s people. It brings order, nurture, protection, and nourishment. And it calls us to pray for our leaders even as we care for each other in the body of Christ.
When Jesus walked the earth, His own flock of disciples and followers depended on His shepherding for their spiritual growth. But when He ascended, Christ’s pastoral role was taken up by under-shepherds like Peter who care for God’s people in His stead. This does not replace Jesus’ unique sufficiency for His church. But it does highlight how He graciously gives the church under-shepherds to lead, feed, and nurture believers. The Chief Shepherd providers for His flock through raising up human shepherds. And it is a sacred trust for those called to shepherd God’s flock.
The commission Jesus gives Peter echoes language from the Old Testament where God appoints kings and leaders over His people as “shepherds” tasked with leading with justice, integrity, and care. The feeding and tending of sheep was commonly known as an illustration for governing and guiding a kingdom. In calling Peter to “feed my sheep,” Jesus taps into this familiar metaphor to establish Peter’s role as leader of Christ’s church. And it signals how Peter must lead with the same nurturing compassion as the Good Shepherd.
This passage provides a benchmark for leadership and pastoral ministry. For Peter and all who come after him, leading the church means following the model of Jesus in ministering humbly and faithfully to God’s flock – feeding, strengthening, protecting, and nurturing. The authority granted to pastors and elders is to be exercised as a sacred trust under Christ’s direction and care. Their ministry flows from a sincere love for the Savior even as it images His affection for His people.
The ripples of Christ’s commission reach all believers as well in how we are called to build up and care for fellow Christians. Paul echoes this in urging the Ephesians to “speak the truth in love” to each other and “grow up in every way into him who is the head – Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love” (Eph 4:15-16). Care and nourishment within the body of Christ is a calling for all believers even as God provides pastors and teachers to lead.
When Jesus asks Peter to feed His sheep, He sets the trajectory of Peter’s life mission for the years ahead – shepherding the growing community of followers after Christ’s ascension. It shapes Peter into a leader, pastor, preacher, and author for the sake of Christ’s flock. And it provides an example for every generation of church leaders and believers as they collectively care for one another and build up the church to maturity. This commission encapsulates discipleship and ministry in the name of Jesus for the good of His sheep.
In summary, Jesus appointed Peter to spiritually feed and shepherd the first Christian churches in fulfillment of His own mission as the Good Shepherd. This set the pattern for pastoral ministry and ecclesial leadership where God raises up under-shepherds to care for His flock. Just as Peter was called to nurture, guide, and protect the sheep of Jesus’ pasture, so too does Christ appoint leaders to minister to the needs of His people across the generations. This reflects Christ’s own desire that His followers be faithfully tended and nourished so they mature in godly wisdom.