I Will Give You Shepherds

by Terry Virgo


Brighton, UK

My argument has often been expressed by noting that pastors are called to care for and feed the flock and meet the flock’s needs. An over-emphasis, therefore, on the pastoral role can result in pre-occupation with needs. We could become need-centred instead of apostolic and prophetic, thereby missing God’s intention and forgetting the bigger picture, building churches that gradually become foreign to the atmosphere of the New Testament.

I have been alarmed at the possible danger of a church becoming introverted, developing a culture where personal preference dominates and shepherds major on discerning and serving people’s so-called ‘felt needs’. However, in taking this stance, we may have failed to bring adequate positive Biblical teaching about the vital role of pastors and teachers. They are, of course, the most visible ministers in the local church. They have the most ‘hands on’ role among the flock.

Changing images

The danger of leaving a vacuum of Biblical teaching is that other images can begin to emerge. Historically the role of the pastor has often reflected current trends. Prior to the Reformation, for instance, he was regarded as a priest, holy, separate, somewhat other and mystical in his celibacy, a mediator between the people and their God.

The Reformation shed fresh light on the unique mediatorial work of Christ and established the truth of the priesthood of all believers who need no go-between but have personal direct access to God through the work of Christ and the Spirit (Rom. 5:1, 2; Eph. 2:18).

Post-Reformation and in the course of time, the Christian minister began to take his place in the developing culture and was often seen as a respected public figure in similar fashion to the local doctor or squire.

With the challenge of the Enlightenment, ministers began to feel a need for further academic qualification to prove their worth, and the comparatively modern ‘theological training college’ was introduced. Intellect was trained to challenge intellect in specialist settings. The emergence of Biblical criticism seemed to require further scholarship among pastors so that they could withstand the developing undermining trends of liberal scholars.

More recently, with the advent of psychology and therapy, the modern pastor has often felt the need to develop skills to discern the diverse stresses and strains of the members of his congregation, and among his opinion-formers and movers and shakers he aims to gain insights into their temperamental strengths and weaknesses.

To bring us right up to date in our current consumer-driven society, pastors increasingly feel the need to develop management expertise, able to research and discern the market, project graphs, establish their five-year growth plans, and reflect the sophistication of a CEO.

If you are a pastoral elder, I wonder how you view your gift and calling?

Biblical images

The most common Biblical image for local church elders is a ‘shepherd’ and though we feel fairly at home with the language of pastor or shepherd, most 21st century urban dwellers have never actually met a shepherd nor are they likely to. The fact is that when God called Abraham, Moses and David they were all shepherds. They looked after sheep!

Jesus didn’t say, ‘I am the good apostle,’ or ‘the good prophet,’ or even ‘the good evangelist,’ but happily claimed to be the Good Shepherd. Even our unsaved neighbours have a fondness for the 23rd Psalm! Recently I was struck by the ongoing role of the shepherd revealed in the book of Revelation. ‘…the Lamb in the centre of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them to springs of the water of life…’ (Rev. 7:17). So shepherding continues into glory.

Indeed the relationship of shepherd and the flock gives us a fundamental revelation of the relationship between God and His people. God is revealed in Scripture as the ultimate shepherd and Israel’s journey through the wilderness provides the archetypal model of that relationship.

God was their shepherd. His presence was essential. Without it they were unable to advance. His protection made them unique and unassailable. His provision met their every need in wilderness conditions every day through 40 years. His guidance meant that they were being purposefully led to a promised land.

God’s under-shepherds

Although the Lord was their ultimate shepherd, men were enlisted to fulfil the shepherding role on his behalf. So Psalm 77:20 records, ‘You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses…’ Moses was the extension of God’s rule, the agent of His provision.

Later Moses is replaced by David, whom we are told, God took from the sheepfolds from the care of the ewes and sucking lambs and brought to shepherd Jacob His people. So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart and guided them with skilful hands (Ps. 78:52-53).

Moses fed the flock by giving them the law. David gave them the songs of Zion and through his inspired psalms fed them with phenomenal awareness and insight about God, His covenant commitment to them and the uniqueness of their relationship to Him. David emerged as the model shepherd king, prefiguring a great shepherd king who would one day sit on David’s throne.

One day a descendent of David would come as the perfect shepherd king and rule God’s kingdom in righteousness and peace.

But we are told that the king won’t rule alone; under-shepherds are also anticipated. Princes will rule justly, each providing shelter from the storm and streams of water in a dry country (see Isa. 32:1, 2).

Other sheep I must bring

In the fullness of time the ultimate model shepherd arrives, trains his disciples and sends them to make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to observe all that he has commanded them. As the apostles go, their intuitive strategy in obeying the great commission was to plant churches, establish flocks and appoint shepherds to care for them who would establish them in truth.

In the first century this implied bringing about a massive turnabout in people’s thinking and lifestyles. Their worldview was in stark contrast to the gospel’s Jewish roots. Embracing many gods or idols they were notorious for their gross immorality.

The message could not consist of a simple ‘come back to God’ call. Old Testament prophets had often pleaded with Israel to return to their God but they worked from an accepted foundation of common history and the foundational place of the law. New Testament shepherds had no such common ground when encountering the Greek and Roman world. In the 21st century we now face similar challenges.

When Billy Graham came to the UK in the 1950s and ‘60s, the call to return to God would have been generally comprehended by that generation. Today we live in a different era and though people can be born again through encountering the simplest message, we must not assume that initial conversion will result in inevitable Christian maturity, or even basic understanding of Christian living.

The role of the modern shepherd includes a call to deconstruct people’s previous world view. Nothing can be taken for granted. Lives need to be re-formed. Coming from a fragmented and aimless society devoid of any trace of Christian values, people need to be re-socialised and taught how to relate in godly ways.

Raised on self-indulgence, consumerism and rampant individualism, the new convert won’t automatically be transformed into a mature Christian who knows how to conduct himself in the household of God (1 Tim. 3:15). God has promised to give His people shepherds after His own heart who will feed them with knowledge and understanding (Jer. 3:15). This feeding requires a radical approach. We are not called to build on a false foundation with teachings that imply merely personal fulfilment or the grasping of the individual’s full potential, or how to love oneself. The shelves of many a Christian bookshop are filled with titles which appeal to personal fulfilment as the goal of the Christian life. Coming from a culture where demanding your personal rights seems to be the bottom line, new Christians hardly need that diet.

Shepherds after God’s own heart will have a different goal. They understand the identity of God’s flock and their aim will be to build a contrasting culture, an alternative community.

Paul thanks God that though his hearers were once slaves to sin they ‘became obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which they were committed’ (Rom. 6:17). His choice of words implies that they were now poured into a new mould and reshaped by truth. Again, Paul speaks of a ‘standard of sound words’ (2 Tim. 1:13). The word ‘sound’ has a medical root and implies ‘healthy’. We get our word ‘hygienic’ from the original Greek word. False teaching, Paul says, ‘spreads like gangrene’

(2 Tim. 2:17). We have been entrusted with a glorious gospel (1 Tim. 1:11) and must make sure that we are feeding the flock with authentic food and thereby proving trustworthy!

Grace-based

In teaching the nations God’s requirement, it is vital that we do not simply impose new rules and regulations but bring God’s people to a new stance of grace and faith. This requires Spirit-inspired and empowered preaching and teaching that calls for and inspires a response in the hearers. Holy Spirit-inspired preaching brings about an encounter with God that demands a verdict and produces a changed life based on revelation, faith and love, not cold obedience to external rules.

God’s flock will intuitively hear His voice and respond as truth is fed to them by called and anointed pastor/teachers. Gradually a culture of God-centredness will emerge characterised by worship, faith, grace, mercy, respect, service and the awareness of being an alien people whose fundamental citizenship lies elsewhere (Phil. 3:20).

Shepherding love and care

The shepherd’s ability to feed and be a channel of God’s grace will result in the gathering of a flock. The sheep gather to the gifted anointing of shepherding and thus a flock forms.

The responsibility of the shepherds is not simply to expound truth but to develop relationships of love and trust, and in some cases to ‘parent’ a flock often made up of those who have never been parented before. Paul says that he was among the Thessalonians ‘like a nursing mother tenderly caring for her own children’ (1 Thess. 2:7), adding that he also was ‘exhorting, encouraging and imploring each of you as a father would his own children’ (1 Thess. 2:11). Many in our modern world don’t have true fathers. No one has helped to shape their lives. Many modern city-dwellers are lost and lonely, like sheep without a shepherd, distressed and harassed (Matt. 9:36).

There has never been a greater need for true shepherds to be raised up to care for God’s flock, unafraid to use rod and staff when the need arises, and thereby keeping the flock safe and secure, at rest and able to lie down unafraid in green pastures.

A final word

Paul, when speaking to the Ephesian elders, urged them not only to take heed to the flock and shepherd them, but also he reminded them ‘to take heed to themselves’ (Acts 20:28). If Jesus prayed, ‘For their sakes I sanctify myself’ (John 17:19) how much more must under-shepherds be on guard.

In John Piper’s words, ‘Brothers we are not professionals.’ Ultimately, we are also sheep. We need to stay very close to the great shepherd, enjoying His smile, drinking in His lavish grace and being diligent to embrace His disciplines and training and follow His guidance.

Moses came from encounters with the Lord with shining face. David made it his pre-eminent desire to spend days in the Lord’s tent, feasting at His table and delighting in His presence. No under-shepherd is an end in himself, or has intrinsic superior wisdom. If Jesus said, ‘The words I say to you, I do not speak on my own initiative…’ (John 14:10), how much more must we be constantly receiving fresh grace and instruction.

God has promised ‘shepherds after his own heart’. May we be the fulfilment of that promise.