psalm 22 on Sheep

A few years ago, my daily Bible reading had me in Revelation, perhaps the trickiest New Testament book to read and interpret. As I have taught this book in small groups and in sermons, I often advise ...

Sometimes, of course, the sense of God with us becomes much more distinct. My oldest brother, J. I. Willard, served for over thirty years as a minister under the blessing of God. But his entry into th...

Do you remember seeing the golden sarcophagus of the pharaoh Tutankhamun ? What has he got in his hands? If you remembered that he was holding a shepherd’s crook, you’re right (he is also holding a...

While in seminary I did some research and editing work for a missiology professor, and I came across a story of a missionary who took Jesus’s illustration of sheep and goats quite literally when worki...

In his book On Combat, Lieutenant Dave Grossman talks about people being in one of three categories on a bell-shaped curve: wolves, sheep, or sheepdogs. Most people fall into the category of being she...

While teaching on Jesus’ sending out of the disciples in Matthew 10, pastor John Ortberg uses the analogy of sports teams to describe the absurdity of Jesus’ description of the disciples as “sheep.” b...

Shepherds in Lebanon, and in the Holy Land (in addition to some of my students), have told me that once a sheep knows that it is lost, it tries to hide under a bush or rock and begins quivering and bl...

In his excellent study of the famous Biblical passage on shepherds, ( The Good Shepherd: A Thousand Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament ) , scholar Ken Bailey provides helpful context t...

One glorious autumn…I spent an afternoon climbing with a friend who grew up raising sheep in the Alps. We were climbing near the bottom of a ski area …[near] this steep green slope where [a] delightfu...

In 1995, the gray wolf was reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park after a seventy-year hiatus. Scientists expected an ecological ripple effect, but the size and scope of the trophic cascade took th...

In this short excerpt, scholar Ken Bailey provides context to the 23rd Psalm: “He leads me besides quiet waters”: M.P. Krikorian grew up in a village near Tarsus in southeast Turkey. Born into a fam...

In his excellent study of the famous Biblical passage on shepherds, ( The Good Shepherd: A Thousand Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament ) , scholar Ken Bailey provides helpful context t...

Abraham Lincoln once asked a deputation, “How many legs would a sheep have if it called his tail a leg?” The deputation promptly answered, “five.” “No,” said Lincoln, “it would not. It would have only...

The biggest issue in life is priorities. You don’t have to be religious to know that. We all acknowledge it every day, dozens of times a day. It is the essence of life for us list-makers; we draw up ...

Jesus doesn’t just use the shepherd metaphor when he refers to himself as the door. Over and over in the Bible, we are compared to sheep. Some people think it’s heartwarming. But I hate to tell you, i...

During the riots in Palestine in the middle thirties a village near Haifa was condemned to collective punishment by having its sheep and cattle sequestrated by the Government. The inhabitants however ...