Outline
Ⅳ
In order to shepherd according to God, we need to become one with God, be constituted with God, live God, express God, represent God, and minister God:
A
Shepherding according to God requires us to be one with God and to be constituted with Him—John 14:20; 1 Cor. 6:17; Eph. 3:17a; Col. 3:10-11.
B
Only those who live God can shepherd according to God—Phil. 1:21a.
C
God's eternal purpose is to work Himself into us as our life so that we may express Him—Gen. 1:26; Eph. 1:11; 3:11; 2 Tim. 1:9.
D
As those who shepherd according to God, we need to represent God and function as the acting God—2 Cor. 1:3-4, 12, 15-16; 2:10; 10:11; 11:2.
E
To shepherd according to God is to minister God to others:
１
How much we can minister God to others depends on our being broken by God for the outflow of life—4:10-12, 16; Heb. 4:12.
２
If we would minister God to one another, we need to speak words of grace, truth, spirit, and life, ministering the processed God who has been wrought into our being—Eph. 3:16-17a; 4:25, 29; John 6:63.
Morning Nourishment
Eph. 4:11-12 And He Himself gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ.Today man’s need is the release of our inner man, that is, the release of our spirit. This is the only way men will receive supply from us…How can we separate the outer man from the inner man?…The Gospel of John says that except a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit (12:24). If those who follow the Lord would lose their soul-life, they would gain life…Those who are tried before the Lord and whose outer man is broken will be able to release their inner life; they will bear much fruit. (CWWN, vol. 59, pp. 5-6)
Today’s Reading
The eldership is responsible to take care of the whole church. According to the New Testament, all the elders should be shepherds who care for the church as the Lord’s flock (Acts 20:28; 1 Pet. 5:1-2). First Timothy 3:2 says that the elders should be apt to teach. In the New Testament to teach is to shepherd. In Ephesians 4:11 the shepherds and teachers are one class. In order to shepherd others, we need to know how to teach.Teaching people is not a matter of teaching doctrine but of ministering the life supply to them. When a shepherd takes care of a flock, he does not mainly teach the flock. Actually, the flock does not need much teaching. What the flock needs is feeding for nourishment. In the church the elders’ main responsibility is to feed the saints, to minister the life supply to the saints (John 21:15-17).
Many saints consider shepherding a rendering of some kind of help to the saints. According to their concept, those who shepherd are higher than those who are under their shepherding. Actually, this is a wrong concept. The proper shepherding is not to rule over others but to minister life to them (1 Pet. 5:3). Concerning the elders, their main responsibility is to minister life.
The elders must spend much time with the Lord to pray for the church, to pray for the saints, and to find a way to feed them, to nourish them, to minister life to them. If this can be done, every local church will be healthy. In some places certain elders are very capable in administrating the church, but they are weak in shepherding, that is, in feeding the saints. In such a situation the church cannot be healthy, living, rich, and strong, because the saints are lacking in nourishment.
Primarily, the elders need to exercise to learn the spiritual things so that they will be able to teach the saints in the way of shepherding, not merely to give the saints instructions but to feed them. The elders need to teach the saints with the nourishing word so that the saints may grow in life (1 Tim. 4:6). This is absolutely a matter of life…The elders must pay their full attention to one thing, that is, to feeding the saints.
Today the greatest need is shepherding. In this matter we are very weak. Therefore, we need to be encouraged to exercise ourselves to become experienced, equipped, and furnished so that we may know how to shepherd the whole church.
The Lord’s only expectation of the elders is that they would shepherd the flock…In Acts 20, when Paul called the elders in Ephesus to come to him, he charged them to shepherd the flock (v. 28). Peter held the same concept. He exhorted the elders to shepherd the flock of God among them (1 Pet. 5:1-2)… The main thing in shepherding a flock is to feed the flock. We are weak in this point; among us not many elders are able to feed others. Today the elders in the churches mainly take care of administrative affairs. The lack of shepherding is the main reason that the churches are not growing as they should. All the elders must take the matter of shepherding seriously. They need to be exercised, equipped, and furnished so that they may be able to feed others by ministering the life supply to them. (CWWL, 1977, vol. 2, pp. 481-483)
Further Reading: CWWL, 1977, vol. 2, pp. 481-491