Missional Sheep
The Strange Imagery of Luke 10:3
Have you thought much about sheep?
Last week in my study with some guys in the correctional work center, we talked about the feeding of the five thousand, a crowd that elicited Jesus’s compassion “because they were like sheep without a shepherd” (Mark 6:34).
I asked the guys whether they had any experience with sheep. They did not. Like me, they come to the Bible as foreigners in a strange land. I’ve been around livestock a little. I’m not a total urbanite. But I have no experience with what being a shepherd means.
Still, some basics are fairly easy to imagine. I told my friends about a TikTok meme I had, incidentally, just seen (no phones allowed in the work center, so I had the strange experience of orally transmitting a TikTok):
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The meme gets to the heart of the matter. Sheep need protection, not least from themselves.
The Parable of the Lost Sheep is a story about a sheep that wanders stupidly in the wrong direction: “‘What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?’” (Matt 18:12).
But let’s be clear: predators are the real threat.
This is a key part of Jesus’s self-representation: “‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep’” (John 10:11–13).
These images of Jesus compassionately, fiercely saving and protecting his flock dominate our imaginations. I’ll refrain from inserting any of the numerous Jesus-cuddles-lamb images, all of which make me a smidge nauseous for reasons beyond the scope of this post. Still, the imagery of the Good Shepherd is powerful. One of the earliest extant depictions of Jesus has him carrying a lamb on his shoulders and leading others.
So it jarred me the other day when, upon reading Luke 10:1–12 for the hundredth time, I realized that Luke too would tell us what kind of shepherd Jesus is:
“‘See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.’” (Luke 10:3)
What a startling image! It is violent and nonsensical. It cannot go well for the lambs.
Note the power of established imagination. I had never once allowed this passage to inform my vision of the Good Shepherd. The presumed role of shepherd-as-protector overwhelmed my interpretation. For all I’ve learned to resist the reduction of salvation to a personal benefit, it’s still so easy to miss the wild, weird implications of Luke 10:3.
Jesus is not interested in saving lost sheep just to keep them safe. Jesus is not the Good Shepherd so you can enjoy green pastures and cool streams without risk. He sends the sheep into the midst of wolves! The Good Shepherd makes missional sheep.
So, aside from revising my picture of the Good Shepherd, what does that mean? Probably a lot more than I’ll say here. But let me highlight two angles on meaning that come out of two distinct experiences.
Agents of Reconciliation
First, I was reading Luke 10:1–20 in the first place because my discipleship group was doing a spiritual practice called Dwelling in the Word.1 This practice entails processing a word or phrase from a communal reading that captures your attention or piques your curiosity. Obviously, the imagery of Jesus as a shepherd sending his sheep to the wolves had captured my imagination. As I processed this with the group, one of my fellow travelers, Jen, pointed out that the word in our translations was “lamb,” not “sheep,” and wondered why that was. I hadn’t noticed the detail. So I quickly looked at the Greek and then at the lexicon. And indeed, the word (arēn) specifically designates “young sheep.”
One of the fun things about looking at the Greek text is that it allows you to consider uses of the particular word not only in other New Testament passages but throughout the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint), which was the first-century church’s primary text of Scripture. Except when you’re dealing with a direct quotation or a clear allusion, discerning whether the language of the Septuagint is influencing a passage of the New Testament is something of an art. In this case, the discussion of arēn in the lexicon entry happened to highlight the juxtaposition of lamb and wolf in Luke 10:3 by reference to Isa 65:25: “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together.”2
The pairing of these words alone suggests an allusion. The emphasis in Luke 10:1–12 on eating in the homes of those to whom the seventy disciples are sent strengthens the case. The eschatological significance of Isa 65:17–25, in connection with the message of the kingdom of God that the disciples were to preach, makes the allusion quite strong. For context, here’s the entire prophetic utterance:
17 For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
and its people as a delight.
19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
20 No more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
21 They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23 They shall not labor in vain,or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD—
and their descendants as well.
24 Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent—its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.
The allusion invites us to understand that the lambs Jesus sends into the midst of wolves are meant to be reconciled to the wolves! Indeed, the lambs of Isa 65:25 are the agents of new creation, sent by the Good Shepherd. They speak “Peace” to the wolves (Luke 10:5) and eat with them. They heal the sick among the wolves and say, “The kingdom of God has come near to you” (Luke 10:9). They are missional sheep.
Of course, they are still lambs. They go in weakness and vulnerability. The use of arēn in the Septuagint is overwhelming in reference to a sacrifical offering to God. From a wider perspective, these overtones are hard to miss when the shepherd who sends the sheep is himself “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), the passover lamb (1 Cor 5:7), the victorious slaughtered lamb (Rev 5:12).3 The notion of Christlikeness is on display in the reconciling work of these missional sheep.
Missional Shepherds
Second, in the same week, I was in a conversation about the qualifications of overseers/elders/shepherds.4 So it was striking how the vision of shepherding so often associated with the standard image of the Good Shepherd—the “pastoral” role—emphasizes care and protection in contrast with Jesus sending his lambs into the wolves’ midst. Why shouldn’t this be part of our taken-for-granted vision of shepherding?
There is an interesting confirmation in 1 Peter’s discussion of shepherding. Recall that at the end of John’s Gospel, as Jesus reconciles with Peter, he commissions him: “Feed my lambs” (John 21:5). It’s not surprising, then, that Peter envisions his and fellow elders’ work5 in terms of shepherding God’s flock (1 Pet 5:1–3). Importantly, he norms this work with reference to the “chief shepherd” (1 Pet 5:4), which invites us to think back on Jesus’s role as “shepherd and guardian of your souls” (1 Pet 2:25), a phrase that concludes this section:
18 Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. 19 For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. 20 If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. 21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.
22 “He committed no sin,
and no deceit was found in his mouth.”23 When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.
The echo of Mark 6:34 resounds. Fascinatingly, here as well, the connection between Jesus being a shepherd (and episkopos!) and his followers’ vulnerability as sheep who follow Jesus’s example as the lamb of God is essential. But it’s partially hidden. 1 Peter 2:22 quotes the last half of Isa 53:9. In light of Peter’s pastoral imagery, the preceding verses are relevant:
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people.
9 They made his grave with the wicked
and his tomb with the rich,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
Seemingly, Jesus’s role as the lamb of God fires Peter’s imagination about the sheep who have returned to Jesus the Good Shepherd.
These connections lead me to wonder why the shepherding role is persistently represented in terms of care and protection without reference to the chief shepherd sending his sheep to follow his footsteps in the midst of wolves. “Sending” here obviously does not mean disregarding or abandoning. Rather, Jesus equipping his disciples to participate in his redemptive work is the operative paradigm. Missional shepherds indeed.
For an introduction, see Dwelling in the Word: One of the Key Spiritual Practices of Partnership for Missional Church,” https://churchmissionsociety.org/blog/dwelling-in-the-word. For a more robust discussion of the interpretive significance of the practice, see Mark Love, “Missional Interpretation: The Encounter of a Holy God through a Living Text,” Missio Dei: A Journal of Missional Theology and Praxis (2014): https://missiodeijournal.com/issues/md-5-1/authors/md-5-1-love.
See also Isa 11:6. Notably, the Good Shepherd imagery has its origins in Isa 40:11.
The vocabulary varies in these texts, but the words are semantically interconnected through usage in the Septuagint.
Three terms are used interchangeably in regard to the role in question: ἐπίσκοπος (episkopos; overseer, guardian, bishop), πρεσβύτερος (presbuteros; elder, official, presbyter), and ποιμήν (poimẽn; shepherd, pastor). See Titus 1:5, 7 for interchangeable use of episkopos and presbuteros and 1 Pet 2:25; 5:1–5 for the connection between poimẽn, episkopos (and its verb form ἐπισκοπέω, episkopeõ, “to oversee, care for”), and presbuteros.
In 1 Pet 5:1, he calls the group at issue “elders” (presbuteros) and himself a “fellow elder” (sumpresbuteros).
Excellent. Never connected these references before. Our imaginations can also be set in stone it seems.