One of the favorite themes of Christian preachers is the story of Peter's threefold denial and the question the risen Jesus repeated three times: "Do you love Me?" Commentators often pay attention to the shades of meaning in the word "love," which in the Greek text is conveyed by two different words, sometimes drawing far-reaching conclusions from the nuances of Greek usage. Yet such nuances could hardly have played so large a role in Jesus' dialogue with Peter: after all, they were certainly not speaking Greek, but most probably Aramaic; and in Aramaic, unlike Greek, such nuances are absent.

But the threefold question and the threefold answer do have their meaning in Jewish tradition: testimony or an oath repeated three times is considered definitively established. Apparently, this custom is connected with features of the national temperament: who knows what may slip off the tongue in the heat of the moment! But if a person repeats something three times, if he answers the same question the same way three times, then the answer is no longer given in the heat of the moment; the one answering really thinks as he says, and his answer can be considered firm and final.

Of course, when answering Jesus, Peter could not fail to understand why the Teacher asked him the same question three times. He, of course, could not fail to remember his threefold denial of Jesus, even if at that moment it had not been fully conscious. And both of them understood perfectly well that this denial had nevertheless not been fully conscious, but involuntary, that it happened in a situation Peter himself did not fully understand, and that it was threefold only outwardly: for all three times Peter, in essence, did not even think about the meaning of the question, but simply brushed off the questioners so they would not keep him from following what was happening to his Teacher. And Jesus evidently wants from him a threefold, almost formal oath of love for Himself. And Peter becomes bitter and pained, like a person who understands that after what happened the Teacher can no longer trust him as before.

And Jesus immediately explains His questions: Peter has ahead of him a new, important, and responsible ministry, which will end in the same way as the earthly ministry of his Teacher ended. The question was not asked for no reason: Peter himself needed the answer. A man whose apostolic ministry began with involuntary apostasy and ended with the martyr's death of a faithful witness.

Paul's words about salvation sent to the Gentiles are sometimes perceived as a kind of spiritual revolution. Yet there is nothing entirely new or unusual in them. The prophets said more than once that with the coming of the Messiah the Kingdom would be opened not only to Jews, but also to Gentiles who at that time would turn to the God of Israel. What was unusual in this case was only the fact that recent Gentiles were ready to accept the Messiah whom the Jews had rejected. From the standpoint of the views generally accepted in the Synagogue at that time, this seemed almost unbelievable: for it was the Jews who accepted the Messiah, it was they who were to decide who the true Messiah was, and those Gentiles who were interested in Judaism and worshiped the God of Israel were, by definition, left only to humbly accept the choice of their elder spiritual brothers.

In reality, everything turned out quite differently: recent Gentiles accepted the Messiah more readily than Jews did. One reason for this was precisely the Gentiles' freedom from those religious theories and concepts that at times so hindered Jews from seeing the Messiah in Jesus. And Paul sees no violation of subordination in bearing witness to Gentiles where Jews do not accept his witness, or where they have not yet made up their minds. The issue here is not even priorities, not who should hear first (and it should be noted that both always heard, since Paul always began his preaching in the local synagogue), but the fact that no one has the right to close the road to the Kingdom to others.

The apostle constantly reminds his readers of this in his letters: he keeps saying that the circumcised, that is, religious people, Jews, must not impose their religiosity on secular people, the uncircumcised, Gentiles. And if Paul now made the possibility of witnessing to Gentiles depend on the sanction of the local Jewish community, it would mean that he was making the Kingdom depend on religion. The apostle, of course, could not allow that, because he understood perfectly well that Christianity is not a religion and does not depend in any way on a person's religiosity. And if some part of the Synagogue, guided solely by religious considerations, closed the path to the Kingdom for those who were ready to go, such a state of affairs would contradict not only all the apostle's principles but also the will of God, who wants to save everyone regardless of that person's religious affiliation and regardless of the opinion of that person's fellow believers about the path he has chosen.

In essence, to refuse to preach in such a situation would have been, for the apostle, tantamount to betraying his witness and the people who believed his witness. It is no surprise that Paul continued his preaching: for him the Kingdom came first, not nation and not religion.

It is interesting that Peter and John are in some way especially connected through certain Gospel events. In today's passage we see the same straightforward Peter, who does not delay with questions and does not hide his thoughts. It is quite possible that all the disciples had a caring attitude toward John as the youngest. Here that care is shown in a direct question about the future fate of the "younger brother": "Lord, what about this man?" (John 21:21). And here we remember John's own question about who would betray Jesus, since it was asked at Peter's request. See John 13:23-25)…

And what do we hear in response? "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?" (John 21:22). The Lord gives an answer, though perhaps with a slight rebuke to Peter's curiosity. And people immediately try to interpret this answer in order to understand exactly what Jesus meant.

Such is our human problem: "I want to know everything" and understand everything, often regardless of whether it concerns us at all. How often one encounters heightened interest in horoscopes, dream interpretation, and predictions of the future. The same also includes the stubborn desire to interpret every word of the Book of Revelation... But John himself emphasizes that Jesus said nothing more than these few words. And it is not always necessary to tear the thin veil from something whose time has not yet come...