Last
published in 2007, W. Phillip Keller wrote A
Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. Mr. Keller came to write the book with a very
interesting and diverse background. He was, himself, a shepherd for many years
of his adult life. Being a well-educated man, he spent the last several years
of his professional life working as a scientist. This placed him in an
interesting position when he wrote A
Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. He was able to provide insight from a practical
standpoint because he was a shepherd and he was able to write from a technical
standpoint because he understood the science behind why shepherds do the things
they do.
In the
book, Mr. Keller tells of how he would often lead a flock of sheep to a
luscious, green pasture. The pasture was often fenced in and would have good
water available and nutritious plants for the sheep to eat. He relayed how
there would always be one, and maybe a few more, lambs who would walk along the
fence looking for a way out. There were always sheep that wanted to escape. The
sheep would often escape to pasture that was dangerous for them and even to
pasture that was much worse for them. They were just looking for a way out.
Mr. Keller then
relayed how the sheep would develop an intimate relationship with their
shepherd and would do anything they were directed to do. He told how he could
lead a sheep to the slaughtering block and they would blindly follow him, not
being cognitively aware they were being led to their death. And, in the pasture
at large, the sheep would be headed for their own death or demise without the
shepherd’s direction.
It is
interesting how children of God will study His word and often attempt to look
for a way out of the directives given by God. Isaiah described humanity: “All
we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned every one, to his own way”
(Isaiah 53:6). Often times, Christians look for a way out of God’s directives
and it is ultimately to their own demise. Sheep need a shepherd and humanity
needs the Good Shepherd.
It
is also easy to imagine a lamb following shepherds to their own death. The
lambs were, of course, led to their own death by the priests of the old law and
did not have any awareness they were to be slaughtered. It was not that way
with the Lamb of God. Christ was led to
His own death completely aware He was to die on Calvary’s tree. “He was
oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a
lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He
opened not His mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).
-j
