Sheep and Goats

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As Laniak pointed out in page 49 – [Biblical references to shepherding presuppose an understanding not only of the environment but also of the animals themselves], it will be hard to fully appreciate the teaching of Jesus on pastor and shepherding without an understanding of the nature of sheep and goats. From reading Laniak’s Chapter Two, I learned a lot not only about the culture and pastoral, but also about the nature of sheep and goats, those are exactly the area of information I was lacking.

Naively I had always considered goat is bad and sheep is good. To me, not only goat is bad, it is useless, they are the trouble-makers. I could never understand why people would treat the goats as their domestic animal, or as their domesticated animal livestock; won’t it be better only have the sheep as their property? Bible makes it quite clear that not every one come to church will get the salvation, since some of them are just goats, and God will separate the goats from sheep in the end time.

Consequently, I consider some of people in the congregation are goats, and they are useless and they are trouble-makers. But from reading the chapter 2, we now know goat is also very important to the shepherds and are important to the owners of the livestock too, as stated on page 50 that – [Goats have traditionally been valued more as domestic rather than commercial producers, providing, in addition to milk, fiber for tents and blankets. While they reproduce more quickly (within the first year) and yield more milk than sheep, goat products are valued less in the markets and the animals’ life expectancy is shorter].

Knowing that is how the shepherds (and God) think of the goats, may be those trouble-makers in the church are not all that bad, not only we can not arbitrarily categorize some people as goats (only God can), we need to readjust out opinion on them. Once we make such change in our thinking, we will start finding many good things in them and enjoying them as part of the flock and family, and leave the judgment to God.