PARACLETOS BLOG

What can earthly shepherds teach us about the heart of our heavenly Father? Shepherding is not a glorious profession. There are a lot of hardships to endure: being out in the elements in all kinds of weather sleeping on the ground, oftentimes being alone and isolated...

One way of knowing what good shepherding looks like is to read what the Great Shepherd has to say about not-so-good shepherds (see John 10): They flee when danger approaches. They are not concerned about the sheep. They are ultimately thieves and murderers. (Ouch!)...

No matter where you are today, somebody helped you get there. (Martin Luther King) We have an unfortunate tendency to place missionaries on a pedestal. We say things to them like, "I could never do what you're doing" or "I wish I had your kind of faith."And while it...

You don't have to know sheep in order to herd them. They can be driven by dogs or by helicopters (and I suspect robot shepherds operating on artificial intelligence will eventually replace animate herders of any sort). And sheep don't need to know the dog or the...

In order for a shepherd to effectively care for his sheep, there must be trust. That trust is born of familiarity, and proximity. There must be a physical presence and a presence of heart. The Great Shepherd said that his sheep follow him because they know his voice....

One of the oft-observed characteristics of Jesus on earth was his compassion. His heartfelt concern ranged from the mundane to the mortal. From the discomfort of an empty stomach (Mark 8:2) to the deadliness of demon possession (Mark 9:22). From the bereaved (Luke...

Here are some of the words and phrases used in scripture in relation to partnership: co-worker fellow worker joint heir co-laborer partner companion yokefellow worked with working together join in strive together have the same attitude follow Take each of these and...

Seventeen years ago I started a project with my son: we built a special table and began to create a model train layout on it. We had mountains and tunnels and a lake...it was really going to be cool. We bought the track and the train and all the equipment needed to...

“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." (John 17:3) Eternal life is not a thing; it is a relationship. The Shepherd's number one concern is that we are enabled to enter into relationship with the Trinity....

We tend to define love unilaterally: it is other-oriented, self-sacrificing, giving... Our Shepherd is defined in scripture as love itself. He is certainly other-oriented, self-sacrificing, and giving. But I don't believe those qualities fully describe the nature of...

Perhaps the simplest and most potent case to be made for partnership comes from the Shepherd himself. "Apart from me, [disconnected, on your own, by yourself] you can do nothing," he said. What are the limits to what we can accomplish together?  

Partnership. It's a concept found abundantly throughout scripture. But in our culture of independent living, it is not a concept that receives the attention it deserves. God wants to partner with us. Does that surprise you? Have you given much thought to what that...

With-ness. Not technically a word, but it should be. It is the foundational principle of our Shepherd's modus operandi. Biblical shepherding - the kind that satisfies the Great Shepherd's heart - requires proximity. Presence. Personal interaction. With-ness. When it...

Give a shepherd's care to God's flock among you, exercising oversight not merely as a duty but willingly under God's direction, not for shameful profit but eagerly. (1 Peter 5:2) Not for shameful profit. That includes more than financial gain. Pride, position, status,...

But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. (Jesus' final prayer, as recorded in John 17.) Just what is this joy that the Son speaks about with the Father? Before ever there was a world filled with...

The Shepherd sees his sheep as holistic beings. He is not simply interested in their souls, nor in their so-called afterlife. He does not separate his care into "sacred" and "secular" categories, prioritizing the "spiritual" needs over the "natural." As his sheep, we...

Shepherds are not interested simply in the survival of their sheep; they want them to thrive. To grow to their full potential. Our Shepherd is no different. The God who began a good work in us will continue to perfect it until we are fully conformed to the image of...

The foremost commandment, according to Jesus, is this: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. That is a holistic command; it entails total engagement of every aspect of a human being. In order to do that, each of those components - heart,...

In 1 Corinthians 3:9, the apostle Paul refers to himself and his associates as "God's fellow workers." The Greek word that is used is synergos, from which we get our English word synergy: the interaction of elements that when combined produce a total effect that is...

How do you gauge the results of your shepherding efforts? What criteria do you use to determine if your work has been efficacious? Judging by the health of your sheep, how effective do you think your shepherding efforts are? Do you find yourself consistently getting...

Some people have been given to the church as shepherds - people with a combination of compassion and capacity for caring for the flock. They have not been taught to be shepherds, but they can be taught to shepherd well. They are a gift to the body of Christ. We should...

Even as under-shepherds, we are still first and foremost sheep ourselves. We are every bit as much in need of the Shepherd as those we endeavor to serve. The Great Shepherd has a dual purpose in inviting us to co-labor with him. For one thing, the work he does in...

The heart of the Great Shepherd is consistent. His care toward each of his sheep is the same in essence toward every one of them, though the specific details will vary. When we allow him to manifest himself through us, we should not expect our work to look like that...

The Great Shepherd lives within his under-shepherds, but he does not usurp them. Too often I have heard (and even employed) the phrase, "I must decrease but he must increase" in a way that implied the gradual evaporation of the person in reference. As if one's...

No metaphor is perfect, but God has chosen to use the concept of shepherds and sheep as a primary way of describing Jesus' relationship with us. I want to explore the application and ramifications of that metaphor in the realm of missionary care. The foundational...

Way back in the last century, around 1991, I had breakfast with a local pastor. He had designated me the small group co-ordinator for our church of 400, and we had met to talk shop. He was excited because he had just returned from a conference for pastors where the...

Shepherds are sheep-oriented. Their job is to care for sheep. That requires a lot of different skills, but more than all else it requires a heart orientation. Modern pastors are often bogged down with administrative duties. Even if they have a heart for people, they...

Stick with me here; you may end up agreeing with me. The term "pastor" appears only once in the entire New Testament, while "shepherd" permeates the gospels in particular. In our modern American culture we know very little about shepherds or the work they do. Other...

In his book With, Skye Jethani does a masterful job of describing the various paradigms which can determine the nature of our relationship with God. After describing the four major ones employed by Christians (life over God, life under God, life from God, and life for...

WWJD? What would Jesus do? Not the right question. While it is not wrong in the least to desire to live and to act as Jesus would, the problem with the way this mantra is applied is in thinking that we can duplicate his heart. Dallas Willard has suggested that the...

"Jesus never outsources his authority to call his people to the work he has for them...God's sheep need shepherds, but they already have a Lord." (Skye Jethani) We are, some of us, called to be under-shepherds, not under-lords. We are, none of us, proxies or...

So, let's take a quick look at how our thread has developed so far regarding the nature and work of the Great Shepherd: God's love is not utilitarian. The Shepherd does not value his sheep because of their potential for productivity. He values each one to the extent...

There is a considerable difference between representing Jesus and re-presenting him. To represent him can amount to little more than our best efforts to copy him. Your mileage may vary, but my best efforts have never come all that close to the real deal. But to...

“I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father." (JN 10: 14,15) How well does the Father know the Son, or the Son the Father? In what ways are they known to each other? This kind of mutual knowing is...

The glory of God is a huge concept. It encompasses a broad range, and every aspect is worth investigating. But when it comes to the glory of God the Son, I am convinced it is encapsulated in one thing: his place in the Father's heart as the beloved Son. Jesus is the...

What kind of Shepherd do we have? If Jesus is not a projection of our own imaginations, what is he really like? Well, for one thing, he is a life-giver. In John 10 Jesus describes himself as one who lays down his life for his sheep, and as one who came so that his...

Jesus is not who we think he is. And he is not who we want him to be. Jesus is who he is. Period. Our ability to fully comprehend his reality is limited. It is also distorted as we peer through a glass darkly. We may have some very accurate understanding of what the...

In a technical sense, our Shepherd owns us. But probably not in the way that we are accustomed to the term. He does not view us as property, to be used and disposed of according to his whims. He has indeed bought us with his blood, but not on a trial basis in which we...

How much value you place on your belongings may be determined by the way you treat them. (Others will be able to tell, in spite of what you may say.) Do you protect them? Keep them in good repair? Limit their exposure to harmful elements? Coddle them? How would you...

What is the value of one sheep? Does that value change if it is only one among one hundred? How about if it is one among a million? You may be tempted to determine the value based on who that one happens to be. If it is your best friend, you may be inclined to rate...

It is unfortunate, in my opinion, that American church culture has substituted the word "pastor" for "shepherd." The job description of "pastors" is extra-biblical in large part. They are hired to function as CEOs, and they are expected to earn their keep. Those who...

I am afraid that many of us have bought into the idea that the Shepherd's role is to fleece the sheep. That his primary concern is personal gain. We use words like "God's glory" in a way that would portray his love as utilitarian, selfish. I, for one, saw God as the...

The Father himself has chosen to use the metaphor of shepherd to describe his heart toward his people. There is so much we can learn about what he is like by examining what God has told us in scripture about shepherds and sheep. If I do not see myself as a sheep - if...