John 10:1-6. The Good Shepherd

Sheep are the most stupid animals you can meet. Philip Keller, in his short book, ‘A Shepherd looks at Psalm 23’, describes one problem they face, they can be ‘cast’ or ‘cast down’.

“Even the largest, fattest, strongest and sometimes healthiest sheep can sometimes be ‘cast’ and become a casualty. What happens is this. A heavy, fat or long-fleeced sheep will lie down comfortably in some place, a hollow or depression in the ground. It may roll on its side slightly to stretch out and relax. Suddenly the centre of gravity in the body shifts so that it turns on its back far enough so that its feet are no longer able to touch the ground. It may feel a sense of panic and start to pore frantically. Frequently this only makes things worse. It rolls over even further. Now it is quite impossible for it to gain its feet.”

Philip Keller continues to say how utterly helpless the sheep are – they have low intelligence, are utterly uncreative in finding food, always follow the same paths but are then prone to wander off anywhere. There are even records of sheep wandering into a fire. They are defenceless, they have no equipment to fight an enemy and no speed to run away. They do need shepherding. Jesus says they are a picture of people without God.

Shepherding in Israel was a highly intimate personal job. Shepherds did not drive their sheep, they didn’t use sheep dogs, they led them from the front. They had names for each one. The sheep’s very existence depended on the 24 hour care of the shepherd.

There is no image of greater tragedy than that of a sheep without a shepherd. Such were at great danger both from themselves and predators such as wolves. Jesus often used this picture.

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” Matthew 9:37

The world is like sheep without a shepherd. Even believers are prone to wander off. Let us look at some of the properties of the ideal shepherd.

1. He has a close relationship with his sheep v. 1-6, 9-15

In Israel there were two kinds of fold. Those in the countryside were smaller low-walled corals with a small opening. Near the towns the sheep-folds were larger and had high walls but still had just one small opening. These large folds would house the flocks of several shepherds. In the morning a shepherd would enter the fold and call his own sheep with a sing song voice. The sheep would respond and come around their shepherd who would then lead them out to find pastures for the day. Jesus describes this scene as the shepherd approaches,

“The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” John 10:3

Someone tried an experiment. A man was dressed in the shepherd’s clothes and tried to copy his call but the sheep were not fooled. This is one ability they do have – they recognise their shepherd. Jesus then explains that he is the good shepherd.

“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” John 10:14

This is remarkable! The close relationship God the Father has with Jesus is applied to us. Jesus is saying that we can have a similar close, intimate relationship with Jesus. From all eternity God has known us. He knows our past, our longings, idiosyncrasies and failures yet, like the shepherd, he knows his stupid sheep and loves us. His love has persisted since we were just a foetus,

“My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in a secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Psalm 139:15-16

Doesn’t such love thrill you? A Christian knows his master’s voice, his will, his word, he reveals himself to us and this causes us to follow him. This close relationship is what God wants all people to enjoy.

Although Jesus used this parable to explain the relationship he wants to have with his sheep, his listeners did not understand his meaning.

“Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them.” John 10:6

2. He is robust

When people hear these words they are very likely to think of those pictures in Sunday School book that show a smiling mild Jesus holding a lamb, surrounded by many children who are looking adoringly at him. But this is misleading. A notice was put up in London saying ‘Jesus is nice’. Is this really the message Jesus wants us to pass on?

Let us understand what Jesus is saying here and put it in its context. In John chapter 9 we read about the controversy that the ‘man who was born blind’, who was healed after Jesus put mud on his eyes, had with the religious leaders of Israel. This had resulted in his being excommunicated. The religious leaders were anything but true shepherds, they were acting as blind guides! Now Jesus turns on these leaders in no uncertain way. He is saying that it is they who are the thieves and robbers.

“I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a robber.” John 10:10

It is likely that Jesus was speaking in the hearing of these false leaders. He is certainly not ‘nice’. Jesus is now at war with these false leaders. He puts himself in direct opposition to what they stood for. This was not a Jesus who is ‘meek and mild’ but a man who stands up robustly and bravely for the truth. No wonder they hated Jesus and wanted to do away with him. Oh that church leaders today had this same Spirit and would speak out clearly what Jesus Christ clearly says, that there is no salvation outside a personal submission to Christ. We will see more about this in the next article

3. He cares for his sheep

A shepherd’s life in those days was not easy. It involved long hours of work and many dangers. He had to guide his sheep to pastures and protect them from wild animals that would often attack at night. Sir George Adam Smith, when travelling in Israel, described a typical shepherd,

“ . . . on some high moor across which at night the hyenas howl. When you meet him, far sighted, weather beaten, leaning on his staff and looking over his scattered sheep, everyone of them on his heart, you understand why the shepherd of Judea sprang to the front in his peoples’ history and why he gave his name to their king and made him the symbol of providence.”

These lonely leaders of sheep clearly made a great impression. They called their kings ‘shepherds’ and they called on them to act as a shepherd in caring for them. King David, perhaps the greatest Old Testament king had been a shepherd when he was first anointed to be king.

In the New Testament the word ‘pastor’ is derived from the Latin for shepherd. Since the time of Jesus the ‘great shepherd of his sheep’, pastors have continued to minister to the flock of God’s people, leading them, feeding them and protecting them.

4. He opposes false shepherds

A good shepherd is very protective of his sheep and will not permit strangers or false shepherds to take any away.

Here Jesus is exposing the false shepherds of Israel and contrasts them, not with a good shepherd but with himself. Three times, in verse 1 and again in verses 8 and 10 he calls these faithless leaders, ‘thieves and robbers’.

When churches die it is inevitably because there have been false teachers in charge. Many denominations are crumbling because their leaders no longer teach Christ’s message robustly or no longer live by what he teaches. Today preachers may castigate those in the pew when it would be better sometimes if people in the pew castigated preachers for failing to pass on God’s word, the Bible’s message. However in many churches this is too late – the sheep have already fled!

There are problems in many seminaries that train people for full time Christian ministry. Those that fail to inspire their students to pass on what Jesus and his apostles taught, clearly and robustly, will inevitably dwindle and we can see this is happening. Dr. Sung was a famous evangelist in China between the two world wars. At one of his missions, thousands came to listen and hundreds professed faith in Christ. Amongst them were several seminary students who said that they had lost their faith since joining the seminary! Dr Sung advised them to leave the seminary. The Principal of the College rushed to see Dr Sung to complain. Dr Sung replied,

“If students lose their faith whilst in your seminary, you ought to feel something is wrong.”

I once asked a man who had completed three years in an English theological college and was about to be ordained,

“What have you learned most in your time of training?”

“I think it would be how to lead worship well.”

Not how to teach God’s Word better, not how to explain the gospel clearly, not how to lead people to Christ, not how to encourage God’s people to represent him better but just how to lead services! Many teachers in our training colleges are wolves not shepherds, they don’t really believe in the person they are meant to be inspiring others about. Such bandits or robbers cause the emptying of our churches. They may be very pleasant and nice people, but they do not have the same message as Jesus and his apostles.

Notice the striking way that Jesus describes false teachers, in verse 5 they are ‘strangers’ and in verse 12 and 13 they are ‘hired hands’. The flock understandably flees from any strangers.

A Palestinian shepherd would typically have around 100 sheep in his flock. In Luke 15:3-7 Jesus tells the parable of a shepherd who had 100 sheep but lost one and went off to search of it until he found it. The shepherds all have distinctive calls that their sheep recognise and when he calls they will come back to him from hundreds of yards away. Sheep know their shepherds voice but flee from strangers’ voices.

“But they will never follow a stranger, in fact they will run away from him.” John 10:5

This message is so shrewd yet we hear of it being repeated again and again today. A student who becomes a Christian at university goes home and attends a local church. They sit down and listen but something is not right. They are not hearing God’s word but a minister’s opinion. What is being taught would not lead people to trust Christ. Such young Christians do recognise ‘strangers’ and go elsewhere where the voice of God is heard.

Thomas Scott was a Bible commentator who died in 1821. Even then he said,

“We should not sit under ministries in church that are false ministries.”

No-one should entrust their health to a bad doctor, no-one should entrust their savings to a bad financial advisor so why sit under a ministry that does not keep pointing us to Christ. The Bible tells us to flee from strangers just as we are to flee from sin because the voice of the stranger will not build up the church but will destroy it.

Whenever you see a church that has become a furniture repository, remember that once there was a faithful ministry there but almost certainly a stranger entered the pulpit and the sheep fled.

Hired Hands

The hired hand is in it for himself, when a wolf comes he flees.

“The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.”

He represents ministers who are in it as a career.for themselves. In Victorian England the youngest son often went into the church. Preferment was the usual goal, if not an easy secure life. When problems arise, when the wolf comes he flees. He is not prepared for the sacrifice of service.

There are however many faithful shepherds. When taking a team to run a student camp in Kursk, Russia, we met there a Baptist pastor who, when a lad, had wanted to go to medical school. He was a Christian and was therefore rejected by the Communist authorities. He remained faithful and became an effective pastor. In Ethiopia we met a minister who had spent seven years in prison simply because he was a Christian pastor. Such stories can be repeated countless times. In East Germany the Communist authorities tried very hard to silence Christian leaders. Imprisonment didn’t seem effective, they just witnessed to Christ in prison. Another solution they tried was to help pastors leave East Germany and enter West Germany, something they were loathe to do for anyone else. The faithful shepherd puts the needs of his flock above all else. It can be hard. In Ethiopia, Ruanda and other African countries, the pastor may be the only educated person. He is poorly paid yet needs to support an extended family. He could have a job in the government service any day. But they are not hired hands. These pastors persist in caring for God’s sheep.

The Test

How may false shepherds be identified? The simple answer is ‘Christ’. Is it Jesus Christ that they are focussed on all the time? Do they want to be a good shepherd like him? Is living for Christ and his glory what they demonstrate and advocate? Are they clearly longing to draw people into Christ’s kingdom. Are they training their flock to represent Christ to the world so that others may be saved? False shepherds may be nice people, in fact usually are, but their concerns tend to be primarily social. Their focus is on living in this world and not on living now in expectation of the new world in God’s presence.

Although Jesus derides the work of false shepherds in this passage, he does not contrast them so much to good shepherds as to himself. He puts himself unmistakably into the centre of everything. He centres all conversations on himself. Thus,

“I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. . . I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved. . . I have come that they might have life and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd.” John 10:7-11

In a normal situation anyone would think that Jesus was a megalomaniac. He consistently made these claims to be God. In 1936, Watchman Nee made a similar argument in his book, ‘Normal Christian Faith’.

A person who claims to be God must belong to one of three categories:

First, if he claims to be God and yet in fact is not, he has to be a madman or a lunatic.

Second, if he is neither God nor a lunatic, he has to be a liar, deceiving others by his lies.

Third, if he is neither of these, he must be God.

You can only choose one of the three possibilities.

If you do not believe that he is God, you have to consider him a madman.

If you cannot take him for either of the two, you have to take him for a liar.

There is no need for us to prove if Jesus of Nazareth is God or not. All we have to do is find out if He is a lunatic or a liar. If He is neither, He must be the Son of God.

Clearly Jesus offered much more evidence to support his claims. He fulfilled all the Old Testament prophecies about the coming Messiah, he performed extraordinary miracles that even his enemies could not deny, he died and rose again and he has changed people for good ever since. As God, it is surely his right, and only his, to speak in such a way.

All of us are being constantly inundated with advertisements that recommend their product over that of the competitors. Some do the same in religion.

“Our religion is better because . . . “

Such talk is sales pitch. Christians must not go down this route. We should not be selling Christ because of what he can do for people. We must not say that being a Christian is better for you. For many it will be riskier and harder. Just like the man born blind who came to see the light in Jesus, the result was excommunication. The Lewes Martyrs were a group of 17 Protestants who were burned at the stake in Lewes, East Sussex, England between 1555 and 1557. These executions were part of the Marian persecutions of Protestants during the reign of Mary 1. They chose to suffer in this life in exchange for something much better in the next. They could have denied Christ and lived a few more years but they would not sell their souls for such a small short-term benefit. Doors may be closed in our faces because we are Christians, but one door remains open, the door to heaven.

The reason why we should be Christians, according to Jesus, is because he is God’s truth, he is the only shepherd and he is the only way to heaven. Religion has little to offer except rules, and wistful thinking but, in contrast, entering into a personal relationship with Jesus radically changes our lives. Jesus puts his Spirit into us so that we want to live for him now because we will then meet him face to face. He has promised us that such a Christ-centred life will be eminently satisfying and worthwhile even if there is a price to pay. He is indeed a wonderful shepherd.

BVP