CCC Gainesville | Blog
This month Christ Community is seeking to raise awareness and understanding of the offices that the New Testament prescribes for churches: elder and deacon. To that end, I’ll be posting sections in order from a wonderful survey of shepherding, the task of elders, on this blog in the coming days.
You can also read the entire article in one shot.
To nominate men for the office of elder and deacon, fill out a form on Sunday morning, or email name(s) and designate office(s) to info AT christcommunity church DOT com.
third excerpt from Lessons in Shepherding
DAVID – THE SECOND EXEMPLARY SHEPHERD
David is introduced to readers as an actual shepherd twice in 1 Samuel’s narrative.
“Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Are these all the children?’ And he said, ‘There remains yet the youngest, and behold, he is tending the sheep” (1 Sam. 16:11).
David was the youngest. Now the three oldest followed Saul, but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father’s flock at Bethlehem” (1 Sam. 17:14-15).
David, Saul, and Goliath
It’s also worth observing, David’s own introduction to King Saul:
When the words which David spoke were heard, they told them to Saul, and he sent for him. David said to Saul, “Let no man’s heart fail on account of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.” Then Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are but a youth while he has been a warrior from his youth.” But David said to Saul, “Your servant was tending his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock, I went out after him and attacked him, and rescued it from his mouth; and when he rose up against me, I seized him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, since he has taunted the armies of the living God.” And David said, “The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and may the LORD be with you” (1 Sam. 17:31-37).
What aspects of shepherding are prominent here?
- Protection,
- the courage of faith,
- seeking out the lost (v.34-35).
Yet to whom does David give credit for these things? The Lord. The Lord was the one who delivered him from the lion and the bear. His confidence to defeat Goliath is not rooted in himself. It’s rooted in the greatness of God.
Why is David so confident that God will enable him to defeat Goliath? Because he knows that God is committed to his own glory among his people, and Goliath is working against God’s glory by making fun of his people.
The man who is a shepherd of God’s people must know that he is a guardian of God’s fame, a fact in which he should find tremendous confidence. If God is wholly committed to the honor of his own name, then to stand up for God’s fame, even if it means committing professional suicide (or worse), is to stand in the safest place in the universe.
David as Ruler
The kings of Israel were nothing like the pagan pharaohs of Egypt, kings of Babylon, or caesars of Rome, absolute in their power and beholden to no one. Rather, David and his sons were to be from among the people, and their rule was a stewardship.
Then all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, “Behold, we are your bone and your flesh. Previously, when Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel out and in. And the Lord said to you, ‘You will shepherd My people Israel, and you will be a ruler over Israel (2 Sam. 5:1-2; cf.Deut. 17:15).
The word for ruler here is nagid, referring not to an autonomous king but a crowned prince whose authority was derived, not inherent. The idea of being a nagid is placed in parallel position here with shepherding God’s people. So Israel gets a king, but, as Laniak writes, “only on the condition that it understands his role as derivative from and dependent on the rule of Jehovah, the flock’s true owner. Kings, beginning with Saul, were to be measured in terms of their responsiveness to the words of that Owner, mediated through the prophets.”[3]
When David made Jerusalem the new capital, he tried to transport the Ark of the Covenant there on an ox cart (see 2 Sam. 6), contrary to God’s command to carry it by poles. So God allowed David to encounter a little resistance. The ox cart began to tip over, David’s helper Uzzah reached out to steady the ark, and God killed him on the spot. It seemed to be God’s way of saying, “We’ll do this my way, David. I’m the melek (king); you’re the nagid (prince).”
In the next chapter, David expresses his desire to build God a house. Yet God turns it around on him and tells him he’s going to build David a house. The reason God objects to David’s idea is instructive:
Wherever I have gone with all the sons of Israel, did I speak a word with one of the tribes of Israel, which I commanded to shepherd My people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built Me a house of cedar?” (2 Samuel 7:7).
God objected to the house of cedar because he had never asked his people to make him a house of cedar. God will be the one who initiates. He will be the one who controls and determines the rules of engagement. “God will bless David, but on God’s terms.”[4]
Concluding Thoughts
The issue at stake here lies with who has the ultimate authority. And God always makes sure that his under-shepherds know how to answer that question rightly. God has the ultimate authority, and whenever that authority is challenged, he will squash the challenger. He will not share his glory with another. God takes the initiative in calling his shepherds, and God holds his shepherds accountable by blessing and disciplining them according to his Word.
God’s shepherds are called to exercise God’s work of gathering, guarding, nourishing, uniting, and guiding God’s flock through the God-opposing wilderness of this world on behalf of God. They do this by keeping the flock centered upon God and his Word. God is the king, the owner of the sheep. We who are elders are adopted princes, under-shepherds with no authority of our own. If we ever begin to shepherd God’s flock contrary to his Word or in a way that ignores our accountability to him and his ultimate authority over us, we will be the losers.
The whole story of Israel’s history in Psalm 78 ends with a reference to David’s shepherd leadership.
He also chose David his servant and took him from the sheepfolds; from the care of the ewes with suckling lambs He brought him to shepherd Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance. So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them with his skillful hands (Ps 78:70-72).
May the Lord grant us skillful hands.
excerpted from Lessons in Shepherding
Footnotes:
1.Timothy S. Laniak, Shepherds after My Own Heart: Pastoral Traditions and Leadership in the Bible, in New Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. D. A. Carson (IVP, 2006), 87.
2. Ibid, 89-90.
3. Ibid, 102.
4. Ibid.
Paul Alexander is the pastor of Fox Valley Bible Church in St. Charles, Illinois and the co-author (with Mark Dever) of The Deliberate Church (Crossway, 2005).
March 2007
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