Jesus asks with agapaō twice, then phileō. Peter answers with phileō every time.

Speakerв первую очередьSecondThird
Jesus asksagapaōagapaōphileō
Peter answersphileōphileōphileō

John 21:15–17 Berean Standard Bible

Tap any word to see the Greek behind it.

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Does the change of word matter? Scholars are divided.

Many older commentators saw a deliberate change. Most modern scholars read it as John’s style. Here is each side’s case, and the verses you can read for yourself.

Yes, John changes the word on purpose

Richard Chenevix Trench, 1880

Jesus’ agapaō sounded too cool to Peter, so Peter answered with the warmer, more personal phileō. The third time, Jesus took up Peter’s own word.

Synonyms of the New Testament, §12

B. F. Westcott, 1881

The other way round: agapaō is the higher love. After his denials, Peter claims only the natural affection he can be sure of, phileō.

Евангелие от Иоанна, on 21:15

Kenneth L. McKay, 1985

Read on its own, the passage looks as if a difference is meant, whatever words were actually spoken.

“Style and Significance in the Language of John 21:15–17,” Новый Завет 27 (1985), 319–33, at 324

Trench and Westcott agree the change matters, but not on which word is the warmer one.

No, John varies his words

Augustine of Hippo, about 420

Jesus’ two words mean one thing: Scripture does not separate these loves.

О граде Божьем 14.7, reading the Latin Bible’s diligis и amas

Raymond E. Brown, 1970

Most modern scholars treat the change as John’s style, not a difference in meaning.

The Gospel according to John XIII–XXI, Anchor Bible 29A, 1101

D. A. Carson, 1991

John uses the two verbs as close synonyms, as he varies the other pairs in these verses. By then agapaō was becoming the ordinary word for love, partly because phileō had come to mean “to kiss”.

The Gospel according to John, 676; Exegetical Fallacies, 2nd ed., 52

Read the verses yourself

The yes side points to one verse

The third question is the one that hurt Peter

It is also the question where Jesus takes up Peter’s word, phileō. The no side answers that the verse gives the reason itself: Jesus asked a third time.

The no side points to three things

John changes three other pairs of words here

Feed and shepherd, lambs and sheep, and two Greek verbs that English Bibles both give as “know”.

John uses both verbs for the same love

The Father’s love for the Son, Jesus’ love for Lazarus, and his love for the disciple he loved are each told with both words.

Both verbs can mean a love for the wrong thing

Carson adds Amnon, whose violent desire for his sister is agapaō in the Greek Old Testament (2 Samuel 13).

What both sides agree on

Peter denied Jesus three times by a charcoal fire. Now Jesus asks him three times, by another one.

“To the threefold denial there is now appended a threefold confession.”

Августин, Трактаты на Евангелие от Иоанна 123.5

The Greek word for that fire, , appears only twice in the New Testament: the night Peter denied him, and the morning of these questions.

About this view

John 21:15–17, word by word

This view sets out John 21:15–17 in the Berean Standard Bible and joins each English word to the Greek word it translates. Tap any word to see the Greek behind it, what the dictionary says it means, how the Berean Standard Bible translates it in other places, and every verse in the New Testament that uses it.

When we count a word, we count it in the Greek of the SBL Greek New Testament. For the commonest words, such as “and” or “Jesus”, the list stops at the first 250 verses and tells you so.

The meanings come from G. Abbott-Smith’s Ручной греческий лексикон Нового Завета (1922), in the edition Tyndale House prepared for STEPBible, and scholars at Tyndale House wrote the one-word meanings. Nothing here was written by an AI model.

We join each English word to its Greek word by the Berean Standard Bible’s own word-by-word table. The two languages do not always line up: Greek often leaves out “he said”, for instance, and often puts in a word for “the” where English has none. Where a Greek word has no English word of its own, the verse is listed without a mark.

Sources and licences

  1. Greek text and grammar: MACULA Greek Linguistic Datasets, SBLGNT edition, © 2022–2024 Biblica, Inc. (Clear Bible), CC BY 4.0. github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-greek
  2. The SBL Greek New Testament, © 2010 Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, CC BY 4.0. github.com/LogosBible/SBLGNT
  3. English text and word tables: The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible, BSB, dedicated to the public domain. bereanbible.com
  4. Meanings: STEPBible-Data, Translators Brief lexicon of Extended Strongs for Greek (TBESG), Tyndale House Cambridge and STEPBible.org, CC BY 4.0, based on G. Abbott-Smith, Ручной греческий лексикон Нового Завета (1922). stepbible.github.io/STEPBible-Data. We shortened the entries; the words quoted are Abbott-Smith’s own.
  5. Greek type: GFS Didot, Greek Font Society, SIL Open Font License.
  6. The debate: Августин, О граде Божьем 14.7 and Трактаты на Евангелие от Иоанна 123.5; R. C. Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament (9th ed., 1880), §12; B. F. Westcott, Евангелие от Иоанна (1881), on 21:15; R. E. Brown, The Gospel according to John XIII–XXI (Anchor Bible 29A, 1970), 1101; K. L. McKay, “Style and Significance in the Language of John 21:15–17,” Новый Завет 27 (1985), 319–33; D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (1991), 676, and Exegetical Fallacies (2nd ed., 1996), 52.

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