Lamb Chop

I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. -John 10:14-16

Now, I did know people who kept two different flocks, for instance, a meat flock and a wool flock; but this was costly and overall impractical. Do shepherds at times put some of the same flock in different pastures? Yes, if it is a large flock and the shepherd has a few rams and some wethers, they will be separated out of the ewes until breeding season. Regardless of how the shepherd may be caring for his flock on a day to day basis, they are still one flock with one shepherd.
Justin at
The Maggid's Blog: A Daily Dose of the Good News
one flock and one shepherd

Bilateral Ecclesiology and the Gentiles Series

I read Justin's blog this morning and was encouraged. But after going through the 30 some odd comments in my own blog post Going Along with the Program throughout the day, I'm feeling my enthusiasm wane. I know we can't be expected to agree on everything, but it would be nice if we could agree on something.

I had considered writing a blog called If Bilateral Ecclesiology were a Marriage but I'm feeling a little too cynical right now, and don't think I could strike the proper tone. After all, I want Mike and Morrie to have a civil conversation, not a "knock down, drag out."

Be that as it may.

I like the shepherd, sheep, two pens, one flock metaphor Yeshua paints, but that's changed for me recently and with good reason. Not long ago on Ovadia's blog Gene posted a link to a PDF document called Shelters and Housing for Sheep and Goats. Included in the document is the following quote, which Gene used to help me understand his vision of John 10:

At a minimum, barns should have separate pens for adult males, young males, pregnant females, and young weaned offspring. If the herd is large and space is available, additional pens should be constructed for:

• Weaned male lambs/kids of the same size should be penned together and not mixed with younger, smaller animals unable to compete for feed;
• Pregnant females close to parturition should be penned separately from nursing females, young females not bred yet and adult males;
• Partitions for adult male pens should be high enough so that males cannot jump out to prevent unintended mating;
• Whereas small barns may not need an aisle between pens, particularly in large barns, a center aisle makes many management practices easer; such as sorting animals, feeding, monitoring breeding, etc. It also facilitates movement of workers in the barn.

As Justin said on his blog, which I referenced earlier:

As we know well our fathers, Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya'akov, lived as shepherds and throughout the Scriptures the Living God uses this imagery as a means for us to understand our relationship with Him.

Yeshua would have used a metaphor that was readily understandable by his audience, which probably included a lot of shepherds and people who knew a lot of shepherds. Most of us are "city boys", so the only time we see a sheep is when we dig into a nice, hot, juicy leg of lamb, (with apologies to Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop..see below). We can't really take the Master's words completely as plain text but rather, we must understand a bit about shepherding to gather his full meaning.

Gene's commentary on the "shepherding lesson" quoted above is:

Farmers have many sheep pens on a farm for the same flock. When it’s time to lead the flock to pasture you let them all to lead them to pasture. After they return from feeding, a shepherd separates each sheep into their respective pens.

So, extending the metaphor into the realm of the Bilateral Ecclesiology conversation we've been having today, all we sheep, black and white alike; Gentile and Jewish alike, operate within one big pasture and we do have one shepherd. We all listen to his voice...but we still live in different pens based on (if we were sheep) age, size, being pregnant, and other differences. Another part of the document states that you can isolate sick animals, separate sheep by feeding requirements, control a mating schedule (intermarriage or lack thereof?), and protect nursing mothers and their kids.

OK, we're not sheep, but you get the idea of the metaphor now. For BE, the natural interpretation of this metaphor is that Jewish and non-Jewish sheep are separated into different pens by the shepherd based on their differing requirements. Actually, it's a rather elegent fit from the BE perspective. Messianic Jews and Christian Gentiles do "mix" when grazing in the pasture (I'm reminded of the old Warner Bros. cartoons of Ralph and Sam, one a predator and the other a sheep dog, punching the clock, and going at it tooth and nail between 8 and 5 except for a break for lunch, then returning to being best friends at the end of the work day), but otherwise, return to their separate pens at the end of the day.

I can't say that Yeshua didn't mean that, particularly based on the context of the verses being quoted. On the other hand, was he really being that complicated? Who knows?

Justin says, "Regardless of how the shepherd may be caring for his flock on a day to day basis, they are still one flock with one shepherd" and he brings his blog post to a close with this:

Beloved, it is getting increasing dangerous in the world, even among the saints; place your trust in Him alone, learn to hear His voice and follow Him. As the Apostle Peter wrote, "But the day of Adonai shall come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with intense heat, and the earth and the works that are in it shall be burned up." My friends, all of these books, papers, blogs and lectures that we have done will one day disappear; before they do, are you sure that your faith in Him is solid? Are you standing on the Rock, or what someone else has represented as the rock? He is the Good News! Be not afraid, all who call upon the Name of the Living God will be saved! Omein.

A voice of encouragement in an apparent wilderness.

While I do find Gene's metaphor on pens and flocks plausable, I find our conversations and debates disheartening. According to Socrates, "Wisdom begins in wonder" and I find that I'm running low on wonder lately. On the Going Along with the Program blog, Ovadia commented that "...there really aren't very many of them (Gentiles in the Messianic movement), and they're largely irrelevant outside the already-marginal, Internet-based "Messianic" world." I seriously doubt that he meant to directly call me "irrelevant" as a believer in Yeshua or as a human being, but from his point of view, I may well be irrelevant in the world of Bilateral Ecclesiology...at least as it's currently designed. Am I a sheep without a flock or even a pen?

The one thing we're missing in most of these conversations is that we mere mortals aren't the ones building pens and flocks, it's Yeshua. The words quoted from John 10:14-16 are his words and he is the good shepherd, not you or I (thankfully).

In the end, that's the only thing people like me have to hang on to, even if our individual "square peg" lives don't fit into someone else's "round hole" puzzle.

I'm not asking to barge into the white sheep pen or to threaten white sheep distinctiveness. But when we're all in the pasture together, can't we share a little lunch together? After all, the grass is just as green for me as it is for you. We all eat the same spiritual food (1 Corinthians 10:3).

Oh, regarding the image at the top of this blog post, ventriloquist Shari Lewis created the very adorable Lamb Chop in 1957 and both Shari (who died  in 1998 of complications related to her cancer treatment) and Lamb Chop remain a fond memory from my childhood.