Verse 12
He that is a hireling, and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, beholdeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth, and the wolf snatcheth them out and scattereth them.
The contrast here between the hireling keepers of the flock and the Lord who truly loved the sheep, enough even to die for them, has an application far beyond this. In the church of all ages there have been both evil and good shepherds in the full character of these on view in this verse.
Hireling ... is not a reference to all who work for wages, the laborer being fully worthy of his hire; but it denotes a class of persons who merchandise holy things, not out of regard for sacred values, but purely from selfish and carnal motives.
The wolf ... was Jesus' usual designation of false teachers (Matthew 7:15ff); and the modus operandi of such is always that of scattering the flock. The surest evidence of such a wolf is that which derives from this very characteristic. A "church buster" is invariably a wolf, regardless of his pretensions.
Be the first to react on this!
