Jesus, the irresponsible shepherd?

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Jesus is said to be the Good Shepherd. He would leave the other 99 sheep to find the one who has strayed. If he did that some of the other 99 would wonder off. Wolves would come and devour and scatter the remaining sheep. By the time Jesus returned all that would be left of his flock would be a few sheepskin rugs. Good Shepherd indeed!

Any takers for this one?
 
Cadellin said:
Jesus is said to be the Good Shepherd. He would leave the other 99 sheep to find the one who has strayed. If he did that some of the other 99 would wonder off. Wolves would come and devour and scatter the remaining sheep. By the time Jesus returned all that would be left of his flock would be a few sheepskin rugs. Good Shepherd indeed!

Any takers for this one?
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The 99 sheep are put up in the pen at night as the Good Shepherd goes and locates the sheep.

Nice try!

P.S. It is a parable, you know. 😉
 
Cadellin said:
Jesus is said to be the Good Shepherd. He would leave the other 99 sheep to find the one who has strayed. If he did that some of the other 99 would wonder off. Wolves would come and devour and scatter the remaining sheep. By the time Jesus returned all that would be left of his flock would be a few sheepskin rugs. Good Shepherd indeed!

Any takers for this one?
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Jesus is the Good Shepherd but when He goes to find the lost one He leaves others in charge of the sheep while He’s gone. Others whom He trusts and loves.

These others are also known as ‘Bishops’. 🤷
 
With all due respect, and I really mean this in a spirit of charity when I say it, but it helps to actually read the words of the passage.

What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost. (Matthew18:12-14)

Jesus is indeed the Good Shepherd but the parable in question simply says “A man” and does not identify Jesus as the man. It does not say that the man doesn’t have helpers or that the sheep are not safe in someone elses hands. Jesus is the chief shepherd of the flock but there were often many helpers. And even if there weren’t helpers, livestock herding techniques are not the point anyway.

Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 18:18)

Four verses later, much to the point of some of the posters on this thread who mentioned the Bishops, the Good Shepherd gives his shepherd trainees the authority to care for his sheep on his behalf. He does this by giving them the authority to forgive sins. The sheep are well cared for.

Jesus’ words were in response to the question posed to him about who is the greatest in the Kindom of Heaven. Jesus turns the question on its head and says that you must be like a child to enter heaven. Thinking about being greatest in Heaven will only get you a one way ticket to Hell. He uses the question as an opportunity to teach them how to be servants instead of worrying about who is the greatest in God’s eyes.

-Tim-
 
Cadellin said:
Jesus is said to be the Good Shepherd. He would leave the other 99 sheep to find the one who has strayed. If he did that some of the other 99 would wonder off. Wolves would come and devour and scatter the remaining sheep. By the time Jesus returned all that would be left of his flock would be a few sheepskin rugs. Good Shepherd indeed!

Any takers for this one?
Click to expand...
Tim’s post puts everything nicely into perspective, particularly this part:
TimothyH said:
With all due respect, and I really mean this in a spirit of charity when I say it, but it helps to actually read the words of the passage.

What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost. (Matthew18:12-14)

… -Tim-
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The point is that when the shepherd has found that sheep, he rejoices over it more than the niety-nine that did not stray.

One might further remark with tongue firmly in cheek, that if the shepherd’s math is good then no wolves came to devour or scatter the remaining ones, because according to the words of the parable, ninety-nine sheep still remain.

Tim has demonstrated how, by putting scripture back into context with the inclusion of verse 14, the original post collapses in on itself :

To suggest that the shepherd of the parable is an irresponsible shepherd … to assert that, "wolves would come and devour and scatter the remaining sheep", is ultimately saying that , “it is the will of your heavenly Father that *even more than one *of these little ones be lost.”

:doh2:

Those don’t appear to be the most complimentary words to be putting into our Blessed Lord’s mouth… They obscure His message of just how cherished each of us is to our Heavenly Father.

🙂
 
Cadellin said:
Jesus is said to be the Good Shepherd. He would leave the other 99 sheep to find the one who has strayed. If he did that some of the other 99 would wonder off. Wolves would come and devour and scatter the remaining sheep. By the time Jesus returned all that would be left of his flock would be a few sheepskin rugs. Good Shepherd indeed!

Any takers for this one?
Click to expand...
The 99 sheep are the ones that don’t stray… that listen to His voice and follow His commands. They are safe is one of the lessons of the parable; because they hear His voice and keep His commands.

The one that has strayed did not listen and did not keep His commands (commandments) and so has fallen away to the dangers of the world. The Lord goes after this one - goes out of His way to bring it back.

Kinda like the painting in the Sistine Chapel where it shows Adam laying back, leisurely…barely reaching out his finger to touch God. God who in turn is hurling forward and powerfully extending His arm to reach the 99% of the way that Adam is not breeching.

God goes after us, calls us and carrys us on His shoulders…bringing us back to the fold. To the safety of the sheepfold.

The wolf (Lucifer) cannot touch the 99 that are safe in the commandments of the Lord. The 1 in danger is the one that needs the attention.
 
In telling parables, there was a common rhetorical practice of stating something “wrongly” so that the listeners would know that it was not to be taken as a literal story. Thus in the Parable of the Laborers, the landowner goes out to hire men, though he has a manager who would normally do that task. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son ( the Parable of the Two Lost Sons in German) the father runs to greet the returning son. One of the criticisms of the Book of Judith is that it is geographically and historically inaccurate. Guess what, the average Jew hearing the story would recognize that it was meant to be understood not as fact. Smart, those inter-testamental Jews. Wonder what happened to all that wisdom? These are signals not to take the stories literally. Boy, did I just upset a bunch of my Protestant brethren with that statement, but that is a matter for another thread.
 
The point of that parable is that Jesus cares enough about the single sheep to go looking for it.
 
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