Simon of John, Feed my Sheep

John 21:15-19

The Seven Sign Miracles: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |

The Sacred Geometry Mystery of "Simon of John"

After the disciples have breakfast of fish and loaves (two kinds of food), Jesus engages Simon in ten lines of dialog filled with five sets of synonyms or repeated names. There are two different verbs for love (philio and agape), two nouns for sheep (arni, probaton), two verbs for feeding sheep (bosko, poimaino), two verbs for knowing (eido, ginosko), and two aliases for the names of Jesus (Lord) and Simon (of John).

A seemingly big red herring in this list of synonyms is about the kind of love (philio or agape) Simon the Stone has for Jesus. Religious scholars have written extensively about these two kinds of love. The word "phil-eh-o" means "to like or to be fond of something" while the word "agape" means "to love something dearly." So is Simon's love for Jesus an arms length pat on the back kind of love or an arms embracing squeezing hug kind of love? Some scholars say the meaning of the two words is significantly different, others say the two words are virtually interchangeable. Read the verses, do you see any word play?

Is the "love" Jesus has for Simon anything like the love Jesus has for the beloved disciple mentioned in verses 21:7 and 21:20-25? Is there any connection between Simon and this un-named beloved disciple? The answer is YES!! This little story is a fantastic gematria riddle. It's not just about Simon, his love, the command to feed the sheep, his death, and the mystery name of the Beloved Disciple!

The Setting: The unmentioned "land" near the shore of the sea from the previous story.

Four unique Characters: Jesus, Simon, John, and "these" other disciples from the previous story, now called sheep and little lambs in this story.

Nine different Signs for "things" mentioned in the story: the land, four characters, breakfast, amen-amen, death, God.