Warrior Shepherds | Part 2: The Shape of Shepherds
Warrior Shepherds | Part 2: The Shape of Shepherds
What makes a good pastor, anyway?
This is the second post in a series I’m running on the blessing of pastors. If you’re just jumping in, see my initial post from earlier this week to catch up.
When you think of a shepherd, what comes to mind?
Maybe you think of men with beards and canes standing around a Nativity scene. Or maybe you think of David, the scrawny shepherd boy, writing Psalms in the fields surrounded by an idyllic countryside. Maybe you recall the words of David’s most famous Psalm, the one that talks about shepherd stuff. Maybe you’re picturing the most boring job imaginable, with people in tunics from millennia ago staring endlessly at sheep eating grass in a field.
For whatever reason, our modern understanding of shepherds has been reduced to the few instances where shepherds still pop up in our lives, like a Nativity scene. And given the frequent association between pastors and shepherds, is it any wonder that the pastorate has steadily become les and less appealing over time?1 It should come as no surprise that, when a job’s main corollary is an office that fails to relate to or capture the modern imagination, the position will inevitably begin to lose some of its luster.
But this speaks to a misconception of what a shepherd actually is and does, particularly in the way the Bible understands shepherds, and why they matter at all. In this post, we will examine the mantle shepherds carried in the Ancient Near East, and see if a renewed understanding of their role has any effect on the way we think about pastors.
Of Lions and Bears
Growing up, my Little League coach put me in left field. At the time, I was not particularly good, and left field is not perceived as a high-value or prestige position in baseball. He put me there because he didn’t really have another place to put me. In some ways, it is tempting to imagine shepherds in the Bible similarly: people who are delegated a mostly menial task as a commentary on their not-very-important social standing. We are often reminded at Christmastime of the lowliness of shepherds when Gabriel the angel makes his pronunciation of Jesus’ birth. Isn’t the point of their inclusion in that story that they weren’t very significant to begin with?
But a Jewish understanding of the importance of shepherds paints a different picture of their value in society. Remember that the nation of Israel began as a nomadic people, and sheep were considered an important part of the national economy. Among other things, sheep provided wool, meat, and were used for sacrifices by the priests as part of the sacrificial system. Owning many sheep was thought to be a sign of great wealth. It’s true that shepherds were itinerate by necessity, requiring them to live on the outskirts of society, but they were by no means unimportant. Even if the work appears menial to us, for them shepherds were essential. Their presence provided the stability that allowed the nation to flourish.
Additionally, a shepherd would regularly encounter challenges they were expected to handle completely alone. The harsh realities of a life in the wilderness were constantly on a shepherd’s mind, including predators, bandits, and tough weather conditions.2 We hear hints of this in David’s conversation with Saul before he goes to fight Goliath, right after Saul asserts that David is too young and inexperienced to challenge the Philistine:
But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.”
1 Samuel 17:34–36, ESV
You can almost hear the edge in his voice here, can’t you? David’s candor towards the king implies he’s seen a thing or two during his time out in the badlands. This wasn’t a job where you could put your feet up and check out. It was the kind of job where a predator could find you at any moment, and nobody was coming to save you.
The shepherds of the Bible weren’t inconsequential nobodies who couldn’t be counted on to do anything else. They had a warrior streak in them. They had to survive. They had been entrusted with precious resources and had to be ready for a fight at all times. This will be important as we consider the ramifications of God’s self-association with the shepherd role throughout Scripture.
Feed My Sheep
As early as Genesis 48, we are told that God is like a shepherd. When Jacob commends Joseph to the God of his fathers, he refers to him as the God “who has been my shepherd all my life to this day.”3 This shepherd imagery comes up again and again in the Old Testament, with God reminding Israel that He cares for them just as a shepherd cares for his sheep.4 Picking up on this in the Gospels, Jesus tells the disciples that He is the Good Shepherd, the one who lays down His life for the sheep, the one who readily leaves the ninety-nine in order to find the one. Then, after He is resurrected, Jesus engages a contrite Peter and gives him a very intentional, very specific charge: “feed My sheep” (John 21:17).
Notice the continuity here: just as God the Father is like a shepherd, so too does the God-Man embody the role and qualities of a shepherd. What then transpires during Jesus’ conversation with Peter is a natural extension of the shepherd motif; Jesus is setting the expectation that those he commissions to lead would also have similar, shepherd-like qualities to them.
Peter himself would later expound on this in his epistles:
Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock; and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away.
-1 Peter 5: 2-4, ESV
Here, Peter calls pastors to be under-shepherds to the Chief Shepherd, to lead by example by taking on the same shepherd qualities Jesus embodies. When we consider this charge alongside what we now know about the functional reality of a shepherd in Jesus’ day, a typology for pastoral practice begins to take shape. This has heavy implications for how we think about what a pastor is and does. For instance, a good shepherd does not sit back idly while his sheep are being attacked, nor does he turn and flee when he sees an oncoming attack. A good shepherd does not indifferently shrug his shoulders when he loses a sheep or two, or when one sheep goes and bites another. A good shepherd is never without a plan. Most importantly, we know that a good shepherd knows his sheep, and his sheep know him.5 You get the point.
Just as shepherds were once rangers in the field, so too must pastors assume the shepherd-shaped nature of the role they occupy in the lives of their congregations. If the idea of a man alone in a field of sheep surrounded by predators sounds intimidating, keep in mind that is the profession God specifically chose to describe the job your pastor does for you every day. It is lonely. It tries their patience. At times, it feels like nothing is happening at all; other times it may feel like a street fight. A shepherd deals with these tensions every day, and so too does your pastor.
Just as I ended my previous post, I urge you to encourage your pastor today as they seek to serve and defend the Master’s flock. Remember that wolves lie in wait for them to lose focus. Move towards them, not away. For everything they do on our behalf, it is the very least we can do.
Coming next week: Part 3 | The Rod and the Staff
This was covered briefly in Part 1 of this series. See the top of this page for the link.
Additionally, in order to protect both their flocks and themselves, shepherds were known to carry multiple weapons on their person, including slings, knives, and clubs. It wasn’t uncommon for shepherds to take dogs with them into the fields for added support and protection. My next post will talk more about the tools a shepherd makes use of.
Genesis 48:15, ESV.
While there are many passages I could link to here, for an extended treatment of the shepherd imagery, see Ezekiel 34:11-31.
Contrast this with Zechariah 11:15-17, where God identifies what a bad shepherd is like: someone who does not protect the flock, but eats them instead. Once again, the pastoral implications of this are plain enough.