Going Back…
Feb 1st, 2008 by Amanda
While I haven’t gotten much out of the direct mail fundraising side of things at this conference, the spiritual ramifications have been pretty profound. This morning’s devotion was was John 21, and it really spoke to me.
At this point, Jesus has already died and been resurrected. He’s walked through doors and in and out of rooms. No one really knows where he is, so Simon Peter tells some of the disciples that he’s going fishing. Think about that for a second. What was Simon’s profession before Jesus called him? He was a fisherman. This wasn’t some lazy afternoon fishing excursion. How many bricklayers do you know who decide to spend their free time on a Saturday laying brick? None. Simon was telling the disciples that he was going back to fishing. And they said they would go too.
Despite the previous three years of ministry work with Jesus, now that he’s gone, Simon is lost. He doesn’t know what to do. So he goes back to the old way. And he’s joined by others.
So they get in the boat and go fishing. They haven’t caught any fish, and a stranger standing on the shore calls out to them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. They do, and they catch a whole lot of fish. This is a repeat of the miracle Jesus did when he called Simon Peter, so immediately Simon realizes that the stranger is no stranger at all - it is Jesus! In his excitement, he jumps in the water and swims to shore. The others row the boat to shore. When they get there, they see that Jesus has a fire going and he’s cooking breakfast. He tells them to bring their fish to shore and invites them to join him.
The scriptures don’t record any dialogue during the meal. Can you imagine how silent and awkward that must have been? Jesus had just caught his disciples going back to their old way of life after three years of ministry with him. I sure wouldn’t say anything, but I’d probably be squirming in my seat wishing Jesus would say that He understood and that everything is okay.
When they finished eating, Jesus asks Peter a question.
“Simon, do you love (agape) me more than these?”
I have to point out that the breakfast wouldn’t have been completely silent - remember those fish they pulled to shore? Those would be flopping around. So when Jesus asks if Simon loves him more than these, he’s not talking about the other disciples present. He’s asking do you love me more than these fish? Do you love me more than the old way? Do you love me more than what you know?
Simon answers, Jesus you know that I like you very much (philo).
Jesus says, feed my sheep.
A second time he asks, Simon, do you love (agape) me?
Simon answers, Of course I like you very much (philo).
Again, feed my sheep.
A third time Jesus asks… Simon do you like me very much (philo)?
Simon, breathing a sigh of relief because Jesus understands, said, Yes Lord, I like you very much.
Jesus replies, So feed my sheep.
Jesus went to where Simon was. Simon wasn’t there yet, he wasn’t where Jesus wanted him to be. And Jesus said that was okay. I’ll take you where you are. You can still feed my sheep even though you aren’t there yet.
Even though I’m not there yet (anymore?), Jesus will still use me. Even though I’ve gone back to the old way, to an extent, He will use me where I am. And he will help me move to where He wants me to be.
Peter knew that he was comissioned to the gospel, he did not know where. He did it in the best place he knew how, in the workplace.
We need workplace ministers as much as we need people to work in and for “ministries” such as you and I. Most of all though we need the Peter’s who are manning the nets and shoulder to shoulder in the workplace with non believers.
I agree that we need workplace ministers, but I can’t agree with your interpretation of the text. If that’s really what Peter was doing, Jesus would have known that and the conversation never would have happened because Peter was already planning to feed the Lord’s sheep.
I was born and raised a Catholic. I attended Catholic school for 13 years. I attended summer bible camps, Sunday school, and thought that I knew quite a bit about the bible.
That said, I never knew this bible passage used two very different words for “love”. I have only ever read/seen the story with Jesus asking the same exact question three times. Using agape and philo changes things quite a bit.
After I read your post, I called a few of my Christian friends as well as my mother and sister. NO ONE knew the correct usage/meanings of this passage. I can’t tell you how frightening that is.
How many other translation issues do we actually have in the Bible? How many times did a translator use a different word in the translation process which COMPLETELY changes the meaning of the verse? How many times have coping errors occured over the CENTURIES that these books have been around?
This is yet another reason why I don’t put much stock in the bible. No original manuscripts, tons of translational errors, yet people still consider it to be the irrefutable word of God. It’s very similar to the whisper game I played as a child- one person would tell start a secret and then pass it down the line. By the time it got to the end, it was a much different statement.
Very interesting.
Given the 17th verse:
” He saith unto him the third time, Simon, [son] of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me?”
Consider this (abridged, roughly translated, and with bastardized Greek thrown in to simplify and clarify):
Jesus - Do you agape me?
Peter - Yes, I philos you.
Jesus - Do you agape me?
Peter - Yes, I philos you.
Jesus - Do you philos me?
As in, “Do you even philos me, Peter?”
In this instance, the whole context and tone could make all the difference, and this would explain Peter’s reaction of being “grieved”.
Food for thought.
Musicguy: that’s less of an issue these days because modern translators try to reference the most ancient copies available. If you look at most Bibles (e.g. NIV), you’ll see lots of footnotes discussing translation, and some of them will even say “this chunk of prose doesn’t appear in some versions so it be a later addition”.
Prior to this, the problem was real. IIRC, the last pre-vernacular RC Bible was in many places completely different from the original text due to the chinese-whispers effect.
One other issue is: what about the history of the documents prior to our earliest recorded copies? For example, there’s a paragraph in (IIRC) 2 Corinthians 15 about how women shouldn’t be allowed to talk in church. This section discusses a completely different subject than the surrounding text, it conflicts with Paul’s stated views from 2C13, and it appears in slightly different places in different manuscripts. The current consensus is that it actually began life as someone’s scribbling in the margin, and got inadvertently copied into the body of the text very early in this document’s history.
(I’m doing all this off the top of my head cos the library computer I’m using won’t let me have more than one browser window open. So I can’t guarantee I’m referencing the right chapters. Sorry ’bout that.)
We can see similar problems in other areas that clearly arose from the historical evolution of the stories surrounding Jesus. For example, the two nativity stories in Matthew and Luke have no overlap whatsoever apart from mention of Bethlehem. Their content and chronologies are completely different, with no points of confluence, and arguably they contradict each other.
It’s fairly clear that these two stories arose independently, and were included in the Gospels very early on. Then, when it was decided to produce an “official” collection of scriptural texts, the two Gospels were too popular to be retroactively edited to match up.
So yeah, it’s the first three centuries that worry me, not the last 17.
Wow, so moving. How often are we so full of like, but not so full of love? I can’t wait to hear more about how God ministered to you this week.