Of Shepherds and Such
Why is God so hung up on this one image, this one metaphor, as He seeks to help us understand His relationship with us? I am talking about the image of sheep and shepherds. This image runs throughout the Bible. All sorts of leadership positions are tied to the term shepherd — prophet, priest, king, pastor, elder, teacher.
Clearly, one of the reasons this image was used had to do with the culture and nomadic lifestyle of early Israelites, yet even in a more urban world in which the church was born, this image and style of leadership was used to describe church leaders.
My weekly heartlight.org article, A Really Inconvenient Truth, focuses on this the subject of shepherd-leaders. Great chapters of Scripture focus on this subject as well — Ezekiel 34, Psalm 23 and John 10 are probably the three most notable, but many others exist.
So let’s do some thinking about the shepherd image in Scripture and answer some questions to get us going:
Why do you think the image of a shepherd, as a leader, is so important in the Bible?
Why is it used to describe God so frequently and intimately?
Who has been the shepherding leader in your life — whether the shepherd was an official leader or not?
For whom can you be a shepherding leader?
What trait of God as Shepherd blesses you most?
When you have a servant shepherd after God’s own heart to lead His sheep they are healthy, well cared for and produce new lambs and are very blessed. When you have a shepherd that drives the sheep and cares only that his wage is due, His sheep are sickly,hurt, and dying and if they survive his harsh treatment the sheep often scatter and there are no new lambs. Many of the shepherds today trying to be relevant to today’s world and depend upon the business wisdom of this world to build their flocks and are driving their flocks to a point of scattering or even death. Sheep need a lot of care and our shepherds are admonished to “Be on guard for ourselves and for all the flock,among which the Holy Spirit has made us overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” (Acts 20:28) I pray for today’s shepherds that we will will allow the Holy Spirit of our Great Shepherd to lead and guide us rather than try to do what the business world would have us do to save our reputations in todays world economy. We need shepherds today that will care for the church of God not business administrators.
nancy snyder
22 Oct 09 at 10:53 am
I Beleive that this is fequently used because of the relationship that Shepherds had with their sheep. To me sheep all look the same but a shepherd knew each and everyone of his herd. If the flock was in Danger,sick or lambing the shepherd would often sleep with his flock and protect them. The sheep knew by the shepherd by his footsteps, by his smell and by his voice.If one of the sheep went astray a shepherd would leave flock to search for the one missing sheep.
By the same token God knows each and every one of us and knows when we go astray, he would come and find us, We also should know our Lords voice when he comes calling. in essence i think that is is a picture of how our relationship with God should be.
Gary
24 Oct 09 at 4:28 pm
Wealth of people where determined by the number of cattle people had, those days. So sheperds played a major role in the society, and they were determined as the bankers of the wealth. May be that’s the reason why the image of shepherd gained much prominance in those days.
But today?. It is very important, to see who is your shepherd. IS your shepherd a good bankers, who takes care of our spiritual and your wellbeing or is a banker how takes care of his well being at the cost of the sheep
Thomas
24 Oct 09 at 9:28 pm