God used shepherds quite often in His plan of salvation. In the Historical Books of the Bible we learn that Abraham had herds, Jacob was highly successful in animal husbandry, Moses married into a shepherding family, and David watched over his family’s flocks before he joined the royal court and became King.

In biblical times, human leaders were often called shepherds of their people since they held a similar protective and nurturing role. In the prophet writings of the Bible, we discover that God wants to be THE shepherd of His people. God sent his prophets to preach two topics in regards to the shepherd motif: 

1. Condemn the human leadership, both political and religious, who were failing their task of caring for God’s people and thus were proving to be poor shepherds 

2. Promise that He would be the good shepherd undoing the damage the poor human leadership had done 

A few of the places we find these references include Isaiah 40:10-11; Jeremiah 3:15, 23:1-4; and Ezekiel 34:1-23. 

The New Testament also using shepherd imagery, but now it develops into Jesus claiming the role of shepherd of God’s people. In the ancient world, a son would follow in his father’s business and had the authority to represent his father. Since the prophets had revealed God the Father as the Good Shepherd, it makes sense for Jesus, as the Son of the Father, to take up the mantle of the “Good Shepherd” for Himself. 

In Luke’s Gospel (Luke 15:3-7), Jesus alludes to the cultural and Scriptural background of shepherding when He implies that the listening Pharisees are poor shepherds. As religious leaders they should be good shepherds, working to keep the people spiritually safe. But rather than try to help sinners who have gotten off the path, they condemn these “lost sheep.” They also condemn Jesus for His association with sinners, even though Jesus is doing the job they should be doing! As Jesus alludes to in His parable of the lost sheep, He personally seeks out the lost; He does not delegate the responsibility on to an under-shepherd. This reveals His personal care and concern for each member of His flock.  

In the Gospel of John, the “God as shepherd” image is more fully fleshed out. This is most clearly found when Jesus explores His role as the Good Shepherd in John 10. First, He explains He is the “door of the sheep” (Jn 10.7). If the sheep are spending the night in the wilderness in a pen of rocks, the shepherd is the one who lays down in the entrance as the “door” and thus provides protection against sheep wandering out and against predators coming in.

Jesus then proclaims “I am the good shepherd,” and He gives a lengthy description of what this means including: He knows the sheep personally to the point He has named them; He offers them pastures of abundant life; and He lays down His life for them. All of these resonate with the reality of the role of shepherds.

These actions help to illustrate what Jesus means when He says He is the “good” shepherd. Biblical Greek had two words that are translated into English as good. One, agathos, has the sense of beneficial, such as fiber is good for our health. But the other, kalos, is the one used by Jesus to describe Himself as shepherd. Kalos has a sense of noble, honorable, and beautiful. 

Kalos is used in the New Testament to describe the good fruits of spiritual growth (e.g. Matthew 3:10, 7:17), the character that is revealed by good works and conduct (e.g. James 3:13, 1 Peter 2:12), God’s Law and Christian teaching (e.g. Romans 7:16, 1 Thessalonians 5:21 1 Timothy 1:8), and the good fight of good soldiers for the faith (e.g. 2 Timothy 2:3, 4:7).

With this context in mind, we learn that Jesus, as the kalos shepherd, does not merely fulfill the basic expectations of shepherding. Rather, He brings an honorable character and effort to His work so that it exceeds the lowest standards of shepherding to become something noble and beautiful. This effort ultimately culminates on the Cross. 

This level of care is something we are able to receive from our Good Shepherd, and in Part Three of this series, we’ll dig deeper into John 10 to explore what it means for us to be His sheep. 

Image: JESUS MAFA. The good shepherd, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48288 [retrieved July 20, 2020]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).