My research on 1 Peter has surprisingly taken me some new directions. These past few weeks I have been reflecting upon the use of the term shepherd in 1 Peter 2.25 and 5.4. As a result I have run across a book that I have found to be very helpful with respect to leadership. It is called Shepherds after My Own Heart: Pastoral traditions and leadership in the Bible, written by Timothy Laniak. Here is what the back cover says:
Scripture says, "I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding" (Jeremiah 3:15).
Most of Israel's pastoral imagery is grounded in two traditions: Moses as God's under-shepherd and David as shepherd-king. These traditions, explains author Timothy S. Laniak, provided prototypes for leaders that followed, and formed the background for the ministry of Jesus, the good shepherd.
The pastoral role was central to the ongoing life of local churches in the Christian movement, and today's pastors are still called to be shepherds after God's own heart, to lead his people, living on the margins of settled society, to their eternal home.
In this excellent study, Laniak draws on a wide range of Old and New Testament texts to develop the biblical theology of "shepherd" imagery, and concludes with some principles and implications for contemporary pastoral ministry.
A wonderful resource for pastors, teachers and seminary students, as well as readers interested in the study of biblical imagery.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to reflect upon the nature of biblical leadership. As the author has written: "Principles will surface in this study. However, pastors who have read this work have described a different benefit, a more subtle but profound change in their sense of identity...For some it is a renewed regard for their vocation as a robust and significant calling...Rather than providing twelve 'steps' to shepherd leadership, here are twelve successive invitations* to reconsider leadership from within the prism of pastoral imagery. The mounting force of the metaphor should make some lasting impressions." (p. 27)* There are twelve chapters on various books of the Bible and their use of shepherd imagery.
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