Scouting the internet these days, I am hearing many new voices of “Christianity”—emerging church movement; the house church movement; prayer movement; prophetic movement; latter rain movement. Then there is Christian Right, Christian Left, and Green Christians, progressive Christians...
Has there ever been a time when it has been more important to hear the Lord’s voice? Paul warns us there will be many false voices, called deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons (1 Tim. 4:1) in the latter days. But good news! We have an assurance from Jesus “My SHEEP hear my voice” (Jn. 10:27). Please Note: He doesn’t say my LAMBS will hear my voice!
Sheep are ruminants, eating a diet of grass and legumes. Mature sheep have eight incisors. Every year after birth they get another pair of them until all eight are in place, enabling them to cut off the grass. Lambs, however, are born with milk teeth that are not strong enough to chew grass; they feed on mother’s milk until they get their first pair of incisors, and begin grazing: no longer lambs; they are sheep.
The analogy is obvious. Peter says “like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation” (1 Peter 2:2). But in order to grow into maturity, we must start eating meat: “solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil” (Heb. 5:14). Only those who have been trained by the Word of God are sheep—only they will be able to hear the voice of the Lord.
Greg,
ReplyDeleteIsn't it interesting that Peter--the unwilling "shepherd" who once was a fisherman (John 21)--would be the one to make this exhortation to those whom he now considered his "flock" whom he may very well have formerly considered his "catch"?!
Peter was commanded to "feed" Jesus' "lambs" and also to "care for" and "feed" Jesus' "ewes" in the passage I cited in John. (I wonder why no mention is made of "rams" in this text?)
Thank you, Greg, for filling in such pertinent information/knowledge/truth for us to chew on! Maybe you can be the one to write a new perspective on the subject matter to complement Philip Keller's series on shepherding the sheep. His viewpoints are from the shepherd or the sheepdog. Perhaps you would qualify to add the sheep's view in the mix...it would be of great value!
Stan
Stan
Thanks Stan. Unfortunately there are still 'fishermen' out there today who are still acting more like commercial fishermen than shepherds. Of course the analogies all run into each other after awhile, don't they!? Bottom line: we are called to 'feed' not 'fleece' the sheep.
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