Of Shepherds
By Wayne Williams--
“Shepherd” is one of the main metaphors of the Bible. Unless it’s talking about the actual occupation of sheep herding, “shepherd” is always a metaphor for leadership. Whether it’s family leadership (parents), religious/church leadership, or civic leadership, leaders are to relate to the people they lead as a shepherd relates to his sheep. They are to guide, nourish, protect, and tend to the injuries and illnesses of those under their authority.
In Ezekiel 34, the Lord condemned the ‘shepherds’ of Israel (priests and civic leaders):
This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. (Ezekiel 34:2-4)
There was a leadership crisis in Israel. The leaders were both negligent and abusive. They expected to be served by the sheep rather than to serve them. They used their leadership to care for themselves, not for the sheep.
We also are in a leadership crisis. Regardless of conservative or liberal, left or right, we have learned not to trust our leaders. We just expect that the vast majority of them will be more concerned about their power, prestige, wealth, and pleasure than the needs of the people. Nor is the church exempt from this. How many clergy scandals of power, morality, and greed have we witnessed even recently?
And it’s not just us and it’s not just now. Ever since Cain and his descendants, the world has suffered from the crisis of the self-centered corruption of leadership.
I was privileged to spend a couple of days last week with the shepherds of Greater Portland Bible Church: our elder team. I can objectively and confidently tell you that they are good shepherds (see 1 Peter 5:1-4.) We discussed some difficult and delicate issues. Their guiding principles in decision-making were always the truth of Scripture and the well-being of the people of our congregation. These are leaders you can trust.
The LORD’s solution for the leadership crisis in Israel is in verse 11 of Ezekiel 34:
This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep.
This passage and others like it in Isaiah and Jeremiah are what Jesus had in mind when he told the Pharisees, the ‘shepherds’ of Israel in his day, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11) He was saying that he was the LORD, Yahweh himself come to the earth as promised to be the leader, the shepherd that Israel and the world needed. He came, not to be served, but to serve, to comprehensively care for us even at the cost of his own life. That’s a good shepherd!
The solution for any leadership crisis today, whether the family, the church, or civil leadership, is for the leaders to be completely and continuously in submission to the Good Shepherd. Are you? Can you say with the ancient shepherd-king David, “The LORD is my shepherd?"