TRANSPARENCY

If you grew up in church like me then you probably heard that Jesus asked Peter three times because Peter had denied Jesus three times. I’m not saying that this statement is wrong, these verses do, in fact, show Jesus’ beautiful threefold restoration of Peter. But there is also more evidence here of the compassion of Jesus that we can’t get from the English translations, we must go to the original Greek. In English, we only have one word for love, but the Greeks, being so much more articulate and passionate than we, have four. There is “storge” meaning an empathy bond, “philia” or “phileo” meaning a friendly or brotherly love (This is why Philadelphia is called the city of brotherly love), “eros” meaning a romantic love, and “agape” which is an unconditional God love.
The first two times Jesus asked, he used the word “agape” which, as we just learned, is the sacrificial, unconditional love, the love of God. Peter only ever used the word “phileo,” the friendly, brotherly love. The last time Jesus asked, He used “phileo” instead of “agape.” Now you’re probably wondering why this even matters or how this is significant. This shows that Jesus, instead of asking for something that we, as finite, fallible human beings could never accomplish on this side of eternity, lowered the expectation to meet us where we are. How beautiful is that. Jesus knew that Peter only understood brotherly love at this point in his life. He knew that this conversation was giving Peter just another glimpse at the “agape” love of God; God, once again, lowering Himself to bring us up into true, right relationship with Him.