St. Peter, Chief Shepherd of the Church

In Matthew 16:15-18, St. Peter is presented to us as the Rock of the Church. In John 21:15-17, further evidence is given regarding Peter's preeminent place and his primacy among the Apostles. In this passage, Our Lord names him as the Chief Shepherd of his flock.

Here is the relevant passage from John 21:

Verse 15: When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Feed my lambs."

Verse 16: He said to him a second time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Tend my sheep."

Verse 17: He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" and he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep."

Why is Our Lord asking Peter this question three times? There are two plausible answers to this. First, Peter had denied Him three times at the onset of His Passion. So in conjunction with the threefold denial, there is now a threefold confession of loving faith towards Our Lord, which is a form of penance for St. Peter, and is restorative in nature so that Peter can be the Apostle that Jesus needs him to be to lead the Church, even to his martyrdom.

Secondly, it has been noted that there was an ancient near Eastern custom of repeating something three times as a means committing to a contractual agreement.

In verse 15, Jesus gives Peter the charge to "Feed my lambs." Here, the word "feed" in Greek is Boske, which means to spiritually feed and nourish. Lambs, in this context, refers to the laity, the Church militant on Earth. Peter is being commissioned to feed and nourish the universal Church through teaching. We will see him exercise this role all throughout the book of Acts.

Next, in verse 16, we have a very important word used in the Greek by Our Lord to Peter. The phrase here is "Tend my sheep." The Greek for "tend" is Poimaine. It is translated as tend, yet in Greek it carries the connotation of shepherding, governing, and ruling.

In fact, we see this same root word used by St. Peter himself when he is giving leadership and guidance to the clergy in 1 Peter 5:2-3. He writes, "Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock."

The sheep of verse 16 applies to the other Apostles and future Bishops. This hearkens back to when Our Lord directly told them, "Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves" (Matthew 10:16). Soon, Jesus will be giving them the Great Commission to go into the world, and He will be sending them the Holy Ghost at Pentecost to equip them in their task. Here, he is telling Peter to shepherd, govern, and rule them in this mission.

In the final charge from verse 17, Our Lord now tells Peter to spiritually feed the sheep, which in this context applies now to the lambs and sheep together. In other words, the entire universal Church.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem noted St. Peter as not only the Rock of the Church, but also her Shepherd. He writes, "He [Christ] promises to found the Church, assigning immovableness to it, as he is the Lord of strength, and over this [the Church] he sets Peter as shepherd."

St. John Chrysostom notes: "He was the chosen one of the apostles, the mouth of the disciples, the leader of the band... And at the same time to show him that he must now be of good cheer, since the denial was done away, Jesus puts into his hands the chief authority among the brethren; and he brings forward not the denial, nor reproaches him with what had taken place, but says, If you love me, preside over your brethren, and show now the warm love that you have always manifested and in which you rejoiced; and the life that you said you would lay down for me now give for my sheep."

St. Augustine writes, "The succession of priests, from the very see of the apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after his Resurrection, gave the charge of feeding his sheep, up to the present episcopate, keeps me here [within the Catholic Church]."

Protestant scholar Joachim Jeremias even backs this up in his Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. He writes, "Only in John 21:15-17, which describes the appointment of Peter as a shepherd by the risen Lord, does the whole Church seem to have been in view as the sphere of activity."

Stephen K. Ray, in his book Upon This Rock, makes the point, "The Good Shepherd appoints Peter to participate in his own authority as shepherd, to exercise delegated authority and leadership over the flock. What is this but a veritable primacy of jurisdiction? There are two sides to every coin: When Jesus commands Peter to govern his sheep, he implicitly commands the sheep to submit to and obey the universal shepherd—Peter."