Followers

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Smelly, Needy, Fickle ... Sheep!

At the fellowship I attend regularly here in NW Indiana, we are studying the 23rd Psalm. It has been a blessing, even though I memorized this psalm over 40 years ago and have never forgotten it. And even though I have some great new tools now to apply to my study, I find that it is the simple expression of a shepherd who is being led by the Good Shepherd that still moves me. In fact, the deeper I get into the text, the more those simple lessons make sense to my fuzzy brain.

Still, it occured to me recently to do something I don't remember ever doing before with this psalm. I asked myself, what did Jesus do with this psalm? And then I began to search for quotations from Jesus or applications made by Jesus that build on the truth revealed in this psalm. What I found was Matthew 10...an account that I was familiar with, but had never really considered in light of the 23rd Psalm. So my next blog will be posted with the ways I think these two passages relate. Until then, please read Psalm 23 and then look for some passages of interest to you that bring this psalm into play in Jesus' life as told in the gospels of Matthew and Mark and Luke and John. I would really enjoy seeing what you find in a comment or two, any length you may desire.

And if you need some help understanding the word pictures and parallelisms in this beautiful inspired poetry, I would suggest that Philip Keller's book (A Shepherd Looks At The 23rd Psalm) will be a good read for you.

Blessings,

Zieg

1 comment:

WendyC said...

Glad you are blogging again, Glenn. Loking forward to many sheep/shepherd figures of speech analyses lol