John 21:16,17

He saith to him again— From our Lord's asking Peter if he loved him, before he renewed his commission to feed his lambs and his sheep, it is justly inferred, that, to render men duly qualified for the ministerial function, they must prefer the interest and honour of Christ to every other consideration. This is the great qualification by which alone a minister can be animated to go through the labours and difficulties of his office, and be fortified against the dangers which may attend it. Moreover, Christ's exhortation to St. Peter, to feed his lambs and sheep, being the reply which he made to Peter's declaration that he loved him, shews us that ministers best shew their love to Christ by their singular care and diligence in feeding his flock. Our Lord's threefold repetition of his commission to Peter, most probably was in allusion to Peter's three denials; and as it contains an oblique intimation that his repentance should bear some proportion to his crime, so it seems to have been intended by our Lord, to convince the rest of the disciples of the sincerity of St. Peter's conversion, and to prevent any slight which he might be exposed to from their suspecting the contrary. However, we are told that Peter was grieved at this repeated application to him for it seemed to him an intimation that Christ perhaps did not consider his repentance to be sincere; and to a person of his sanguine temper, nothing could have afforded a more sensible anguish than such a suggestion. It recalled his crime, with all its aggravated circumstances, into his mind, and renewed his grief for having offended. One would wonder that, from circumstances so evidently humiliating to the mind of St. Peter, the Papists could have inferred a grant of his supreme dominion over the church. The passage has evidently a quite different meaning; for Peter, by his late cowardice and perfidy, having, as it were, abdicated the apostleship, was hereby no more than formally restored to his office through the indulgence of his kind and merciful Master, and not raised to any new dignity above his brethre