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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’m posting sections in order from a wonderful survey of shepherding, the task of elders, on this blog.
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.
sixth excerpt from Lessons in Shepherding
EZEKIEL
Perhaps more than any prophet in the Old Testament, the prophet Ezekiel is known for his incisive condemnation of the shepherds of Israel.
Leading the Sheep to Sin—Ezekiel 22
In chapter 22, he points to how the shepherd’s negligence results in bad behavior among the sheep.
There is a conspiracy of her prophets in her midst like a roaring lion tearing the prey. They have devoured lives; they have taken treasure and precious things; they have made many widows in the midst of her. “Her priests have done violence to My law and have profaned My holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the profane, and they have not taught the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they hide their eyes from My sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. Her princes within her are like wolves tearing the prey, by shedding blood and destroying lives in order to get dishonest gain. Her prophets have smeared whitewash for them, seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,’ when the LORD has not spoken. The people of the land have practiced oppression and committed robbery, and they have wronged the poor and needy and have oppressed the sojourner without justice. I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one. Thus I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; their way I have brought upon their heads,” declares the Lord GOD (Ezek 22:25-30).
What particular failures of the prophets and priests are highlighted here? Instead of protecting the sheep, the prophets are preying on them. They’re enriching themselves, and they’re failing to teach God’s holiness and model that holiness in their own lives. The princes are also acting like wolves instead of shepherds in order to enrich themselves with money that doesn’t rightly belong to them. They are speaking from their own imagination instead of waiting for God to speak and saying what he says.
What results from these failures (in verses 29 and 30)? Sinfulness among the people. And it’s a particular kind of sinfulness: the sheep are sinning against each other, oppressing each other, robbing each other, wronging the poor. Bad shepherding—failure to protect the sheep, failure to teach them about God’s holiness, failure to model that holiness in our own lives—corrupts the behavior of the flock. As the shepherds go, so go the sheep.
Prophesy Against the Shepherds—34:1-10
Ezekiel 34 presents what may be the most famous denunciation of bad shepherds in the Bible.
Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, 2 “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to those shepherds, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Woe, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? “You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat sheep without feeding the flock. “Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost; but with force and with severity you have dominated them. 5 “They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field and were scattered. 6 “My flock wandered through all the mountains and on every high hill; My flock was scattered over all the surface of the earth, and there was no one to search or seek for them.”‘ 7 Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: 8 “As I live,” declares the Lord GOD, “surely because My flock has become a prey, My flock has even become food for all the beasts of the field for lack of a shepherd, and My shepherds did not search for My flock, butrather the shepherds fed themselves and did not feed My flock; 9 therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: 10 ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will demand My sheep from them and make them cease from feeding sheep. So the shepherds will not feed themselves anymore, but I will deliver My flock from their mouth, so that they will not be food for them” (Ezek. 34:1-10).
What are the shepherds doing wrong here? First, they are failing to feed the sheep and feeding themselves instead. They are acting as if they own the sheep, able to treat them as they please, rather than as God has instructed them to treat the sheep—like owners, not stewards.
Second, they’re not binding up the broken or healing the diseased.
Third, they’re not gathering or bringing back the sheep that have been scattered. According to verse 5, this scattering happened because there was no shepherd.
Fourth, they ruled the sheep harshly (v.4 “with force and with severity you have dominated them”).
Fifth, because they were scattered, the sheep were exposed to the danger of wild animals who would devour them. In verse 6, we’re given an extended description of this scattering: “My flock wandered through all the mountains and on every high hill; My flock was scattered over all the surface of the earth, and there was no one to search or seek for them.” God laments the situation in which his sheep are scattered and wandering off alone.
How does God then react to such negligence? He says that he’s against those shepherds, and he demands his sheep from them. He calls those shepherds to account. He sets himself in opposition to them. He’s not going to allow his sheep to endure that kind of treatment from negligent and domineering under-shepherds.
A Great Salvation—34:11-17
In the verses that follow this denunciation of the bad shepherds, God promises a great salvation for his sheep.
“As a shepherd cares for his herd in the day when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will care for My sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them to their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the streams, and in all the inhabited places of the land. I will feed them in a good pasture, and their grazing ground will be on the mountain heights of Israel. There they will lie down on good grazing ground and feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I will feed My flock and I will lead them to rest,” declares the Lord GOD. “I will seek the lost, bring back the scattered, bind up the broken and strengthen the sick; but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with judgment. As for you, My flock,” thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I will judge between one sheep and another, between the rams and the male goats” (Ezek. 34:12-17).
What is God’s solution to the failure of his under-shepherds? He is going to shepherd the flock himself. And notice how he will do this. In verse 11, he will search for the sheep when they are scattered. In verse 12, he delivers them from all the dangers of the places where they were scattered. In verse 13, he brings them back and gathers them together and brings them to their own land, and he does this in order to feed them.
Feeding
Notice the repetition and detailed description in these verses of the feeding idea: “I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the streams, and in all the inhabited places of the land. I will feed them in a good pasture, and their grazing ground will be on the mountain heights of Israel. There they will lie down on good grazing ground and feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I will feed My flock and I will lead them to rest.” This feeding and leading to rest is the goal of the searching and delivering and gathering. Everything leads up to the feeding and the rest.
Skipping down a few more verses, we read, “Then I will set over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he will feed them; he will feed them himself and be their shepherd” (Ezek. 34:23).
What’s the principle activity of this one shepherd God places over the people? God will set his servant David over his people to feed them. Again, the feeding function stands by metonymy for everything a shepherd does. Feeding is the primary work of the shepherd. The reason the shepherd guides and guards the sheep, the reason he searches for the strays and binds up the wounded, is so that they can get to the green pastures and feed.
CONCLUSION
The composite sketch of shepherding we get from Jeremiah and Ezekiel is one of recognizing that the sheep are God’s and not ours, which keeps us from using the flock for our own ends.
- This involves gathering the scattered sheep, binding the broken and healing the sick, and keeping them together without any of them missing.
- This involves protecting the flock from wolves rather than preying on them, and leading them to the safety and satisfaction of their own pasture land.
- And all this is for the end of feeding them on the knowledge of God’s character and word and ways. All this shepherding work can be referred to in shorthand with the language of feeding the sheep, or grazing them on good pasture lands.
Footnote:
1. Philip Graham Ryken, Jeremiah and Lamentations: From Sorrow to Hope, from Preaching the Word series, ed. R. Kent Hughes (Crossway, 2001), 158.
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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