Tend My Lambs

Three times on the shore Peter confessed his love, and three times he was given a charge. The charges are short, and in Greek they use two different verbs. In John 21:15 the Lord says boske ta arnia mou, “Tend My lambs.” In 21:16 He says poimaine ta probata mou, “Shepherd My sheep.” In 21:17 He says boske ta probata mou, “Tend My sheep.” Bosko, which the YLV renders “Tend,” is to feed, to put a flock out to pasture. Poimaino is the whole work of a shepherd: to feed, to lead, to guard.

Peter was a fisherman (Matthew 4:18), not a shepherd, and the Lord was not sending him to keep animals. The charge is a picture, and a picture raises a question: if love is to be answered by feeding, what is the food? A shepherd who does not know which pasture is good for the flock cannot feed it, however much he cares for it. Here the rest of Scripture interprets the picture, so no reader needs to invent its meaning.

The Food Is the Word

Deuteronomy 8:3 And He afflicted you, and let you hunger, and fed you the manna, which you did not know, neither did your fathers know; that He might make you know that man (adam אָדָם aw-dawm') does not live by bread alone, but by all that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD does man (adam) live.

The manna was given so that Israel would learn where life comes from: the real food of God’s people is all that proceeds out of His mouth. Yeshua answered the tempter with this very verse.

Through Jeremiah, God promised shepherds of a particular kind.

Jeremiah 3:15 And I will give you shepherds according to my heart, and they shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.

The Hebrew verb for feed is raah, to shepherd, to pasture. The word for knowledge is de’ah, and the word for understanding comes from sakal, to have insight, to act wisely. In this promise the shepherd feeds the flock with knowledge and understanding, which is to say that he feeds it by teaching it.

And when the risen Lord sent His apostles out, He told them what that teaching was to contain.

Matthew 28:19-20 Go therefore and make disciples of all the ethne(ethnic-groups, Gentiles), baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the hagio(holy) pneuma πνεῦμα pnyoo'-mah(spirit), teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the age. Amen."

The word observe is tereo τηρέω tay-reh'-o, to keep, the same verb as “keep My commandments” in John 14:15. The apostles were not sent to teach people merely to know about the commandments, but to keep them. Feeding the sheep is teaching them to keep what He commanded. It is more than comforting them; it is instructing them in the Torah, God’s own instruction, so that they can walk in it.

From the Lambs

The first charge on the shore was about lambs. Feeding begins with the young, and the Torah had already said so long before.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 And these words, which I am commanding you (tzivvah צָוָה tsaw-vaw') this day, shall be upon your heart; And you shall teach them diligently to your sons, and you shall speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk in the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.

The verb for teach diligently is shanan, which means to sharpen, to whet, as a blade is sharpened by being drawn again and again across the stone. In the same way the words are taught by repetition through every part of the day, in the house and on the road, at lying down and at rising up. The children of Israel were to be fed the commandments from their earliest years.

Peter himself, writing later to believers who had been born again through the word (1 Peter 1:23), used the same picture.

1 Peter 2:2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure rational milk, so that by it you may grow —

The word translated rational is logikos λογικός log-ik-os', from logos, word; the milk is the milk of the word. A believer newly born is like a lamb, and a lamb needs milk before it can take solid food. Peter, once charged to tend the Lord’s lambs, now urged the newborn to long for the milk of the word.

Not New Teaching

What were the lambs and sheep to be fed? Yeshua had said it plainly on the mountain.

Matthew 5:17-19 Do not think that I came to abolish the nomos νόμος nom'-os(law) or the prophets — I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one iota ἰῶτα ee-o'-tah(smallest Greek letter) or one keraia κεραία ker-ah'-yah(stroke of a letter) will pass away from the nomos(law) until all things are accomplished. Whoever then breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of the heavens; but whoever keeps and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of the heavens.

In the kingdom, keeping and teaching go together, and a shepherd is measured by both.

Nor was this teaching something Yeshua invented.

John 7:16 So Yeshua answered them and said, "My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me.

The word for teaching is didache, and near the end of John 12 He says the same again.

John 12:49-50 For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak. I know that His commandment is eternal zoe ζωή dzo-ay'(life); therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me."

The Father gave Him “a commandment as to what to say and what to speak.” He was fulfilling what Moses had written of the prophet who would come.

Deuteronomy 18:18 A prophet I will raise up for them from the midst of their brothers, like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command (tzivvah) him.

“I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command (tzivvah) him.” Yeshua fed the sheep with the Father’s words, the commandments the Father gave Him. On the shore He sent Peter to feed the same sheep with the same food. A shepherd under Him does not make up a new diet for the flock. He gives them what the Chief Shepherd gave him, and the Father gave it first.

A Flock That Can Stand

Why does it matter so much what the sheep are fed? Because there are wolves. Paul, taking leave of the elders of Ephesus, used the same shepherd’s verb that Yeshua used on the shore.

Acts 20:28-30 Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the hagio(holy) pneuma(spirit) has made you overseers, to shepherd the ekklesia ἐκκλησία ek-klay-see'-ah(called-out community) of the Lord and God, which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.

The verb for shepherd is poimaino again, and with it comes the warning of savage wolves from outside and of men from inside who speak twisted things to draw the disciples away. The word for perverse is diastrepho, twisted, turned aside from straight.

Against twisted speech, Paul required this of an overseer:

Titus 1:9 holding fast the faithful logos λόγος log'-os(word) which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.

An overseer who holds fast the faithful word and can refute those who contradict is able to feed the flock with it. A flock that is fed the word as it was given, from the time they are lambs, knows the voice of its Shepherd and can tell when another voice is speaking. A flock fed on something else has nothing to measure the wolves by.

This is why the charge on the shore matters so much. The age of the wolves was coming, and with it what Scripture calls anomia ἀνομία an-om-ee'-ah, Torah-lessness: life without the commandments of God. Sheep fed with the commandments from their youth are able to stand against that Torah-lessness and to overcome it. Sheep never taught them have no defense.

The Charge Answered Love

On the shore the order was plain. The question came first: do you love Me? The answer came next: You know that I love You. And then the charge: tend My sheep. Love for the Shepherd was to be shown in care for His flock, and care for His flock meant feeding it with His Father’s words, teaching them to keep all that He commanded. A love confessed in words that left the sheep unfed would not have been the love the Lord asked for. And the promise that closes the charge in Matthew stands over every shepherd who does it: “behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the age.”

Peter heard the charge three times, and he left two letters behind that show what he actually fed the flock.