Different Greek Words for Love? (John 21:15–17)

In John 21:15–17, Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” and each time, Peter replies, “I love you.” However, different Greek words for “love” are used. When Jesus asked Peter “Do you love me?” the first time (v. 15), he used the word agapaō. However, when Peter replied “I love you,” he used the word phileō. This happened the second time as well (v. 16). However, the third time Jesus asked Peter “Do you love me?” (v. 17), he used the word phileō; the same word which Peter had been using.

A popular explanation for this phenomenon goes something like this: When Jesus asked Peter “Do you love me?” using the word agapaō, he was asking Peter if he loved him with the highest, unreserved form of love. However, Peter, now humbled after having denied Jesus three times previously (John 17:15–18, 25–27), could only say “I love you” using the word phileō, which supposedly denotes a lower form of love. The third time, Jesus used the word phileō because he was coming down to Peter’s level.

However, this is not at all the case. The reason why these two different Greek words for “love” are used in this passage is not because of their difference in meaning. Rather, it was simply the style of the writer to use synonyms (different words which are close in meaning) to signify the same thing. This can be seen throughout the Gospel of John:

• In the Gospel of John, a certain individual is referred to five times as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. Four of those times, the word agapaō is used (13:23; 19:26; 21:7, 20), while one time, the word phileō is used (20:2).
• In John 3:35, Jesus says: “The Father loves the Son,” using the word agapaō. In John 5:20, Jesus also says: “the Father loves the Son,” but this time using the word phileō.
• In John 21:8, the word for “fish” is ichthys. Later on in verse 10, referring to those same “fish”, Jesus used the word opsarion instead.
• In John 21:3, 6, the word for “boat” is ploion. Later on in verse 8, referring to the same “boat”, the word ploiarion is used.
• In John 21:15–17, when Jesus told Peter three times “Feed my sheep,” he used two different words for “feed”: boskō (vv. 15, 17) and poimainō (v. 16).
• In fact, Jesus also used two different words for “sheep”: arnion (vv. 15, 16) and probaton (v. 17).

While many Bible teachers are very eager to explain the different Greek words for “love” in this passage, they hardly ever point out that—let alone explain why—in this same passage, when Jesus told Peter “Feed my sheep” three times, different Greek words are used for both “feed” and “sheep”:

Also, notice that when Jesus asked Peter: “Do you agapaō me?” Peter did not deny it, saying: “No lord, I do not agapaō you, I only phileō you.” Rather, he replied in the affirmative: “Yes lord, you know that I phileō you!” This clearly indicates that in this context, agapaō and phileō mean the same thing: “love”.