LampShmamp Wrote:
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> I am familiar with the bible. I am familiar with
> cults. There is not a single upside to being a
> sheep, everything goes against them. "I am a
> sheep" exactly equates to "I follow dumbly." The
> analogy given to us as children--of the kindly
> shepherd leading and guarding his lambs--is
> patently flawed. That gentle watchful shepherd
> fully intends to slaughter those sheep for his own
> stomach, and in the meantime use their wool. The
> benefit only goes one way. That there are some
> stories of shepherds in the old testament does not
> take away from the insult of the term. Sheep do
> not think critically nor weigh choices and make
> decisions for themselves, by themselves. Surely
> there are more positive ways of thinking of
> ourselves. Frankly, shepherds don't have the best
> reputation either.


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I find the use of the metaphor sheep, as found in the scriptures, brilliant and beautiful and without reproach. I will continue to use the term freely on this forum as can anyone.

That's fine. The Bible is one thing, but the culture of the LW is another. A LW "sheep" is not the same free being as the "sheep" in the Bible. Me thinks.

I also agree with you Lily. I do not regret for a single second leaving the LW. And I don't know of anyone else that regrets leaving.

"Let's be clear here. There's nothing in the scriptures that says sheep never fully grow up into adults and develop normal adult skills." Sure there is. Biblical lambs were sacrificed and never made it to adulthood at all. The rest were slaughtered and eaten. Sheep were not beloved pets. Other than wool, their only value was when they were dead. Their lives were not their own and the shepherd was not their friend. There is no record of a biblical sheep developing any skills at all. From sheep101.info.com, a website exhorting sheep in scripture--"Sheep are gentle, quiet, innocent animals. They do not give their shepherds a lot of problems. They are easily led." Ugh. I do not get why some find this a beautiful brilliant concept that they want to emulate, but I get that every single cult in the world is looking for a few good sheep, and they are never in short supply.

Lamp you have a different world view from me. My leaving the Walk and the twisted scriptures had nothing to do with being a dumb sheep and I didn't stop believing in God and Jesus Christ as my Savior. I have always loved the metaphor that God/Jesus is my shepherd and I am one of their sheep and that God's sheep hear his voice...or the Lord is my shepherd and he makes me lie down in green pastures for his namesake (those metaphors are like poetry and beautiful to me). Let's leave it at that. The best to you.

If anyone is interested in a study on shepherd metaphors google: Like sheep without a Shepherd.. Reformed. It's a pdf doc.

Since we're on the subject of animals, I would like to point out that all dogs will go to heaven...except the bullmastiff that attempted to bite my hound last week. He won't be going unless he changes his ways!

I wanted to weigh in on the sheep discussion. I personally don’t think that Jesus taught that we should have shepherd/sheep relationships between humans in the first place. He said to call no man leader, teacher, or father – you have one and it’s the Christ and you are all brothers. When they tried to make him a king, he slipped away – even though he really was a king. He was always striving to get people into a relationship with himself and his Father – not with other humans playing Providence, but with someone who would really be life-giving. Nobody comes to the Father except through him. Many have tried and all have failed to be mediators - there is only One. It's only by first receiving His love that we are able to love others.

In comparison to God, there is a much greater gap in understanding between us and Him than between us and a dumb sheep. What we don’t see modeled with humans is that the Good Shepherd lays his life down for the sheep – He only has their good in mind. The human shepherd typically comes to kill, steal, and destroy even though sometimes they are unaware of their actions. Only God can give us a nature change anyway – not just a doctrine. The sad thing about a bad human relationships is that we tend to assume negative things about God that are just not true – “He’s not a man that He should lie.” There is great liberty, when it comes to other humans, when you learn to stand on your own two feet. But there is an even greater liberty when we learn to listen to the One who is absolutely perfect in all His ways. It just really needs to be Him instead of someone pretending to be Him.

Paleface asked: "Was one of the 5 streams the movement of William Branham? Branham and JRS seemed to be very similar."

No, not that I am aware of. I've never heard of any connection between Branham and JRS. Branham died in 1965 and there were rumors that his body had been frozen or preserved (sound familiar?).Some hoped he would be resurrected and he wasn't buried until after the following Easter .... just in case, I suppose. There is a decent account of his life and ministry in God's Generals by Roberts Liardon. (The first book in the series is very poorly written but the rest benefited from a good editor.They are a good and informative read. You'd be amazed at how little in CLW is original.)

One of the streams and someone that JRS did keep in touch with was Bob Mumford, I believe. Check the entry about him and the Shepherding Movement on Wikipedia. Very interesting.

larry bobo’s post is great.


I don’t ever remember getting life from submission to the designated shepherd. It was always on the level of trying to avoid their anger or disapproval. I was using my life/energy to keep the situation stable. What BS.

larry wrote: “He was always striving to get people into a relationship with himself and his Father – not with other humans playing Providence, but with someone who would really be life-giving.”

larry bobo Wrote In Part:
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> I wanted to weigh in on the sheep discussion. I
> personally don’t think that Jesus taught that we
> should have shepherd/sheep relationships between
> humans in the first place. He said to call no man
> leader, teacher, or father – you have one and
> it’s the Christ and you are all brothers.... What we don’t see modeled
> with humans is that the Good Shepherd lays his
> life down for the sheep – He only has their good
> in mind. The human shepherd typically comes to
> kill, steal, and destroy even though sometimes
> they are unaware of their actions.


I agree with you Larry. There are so many relationship lessons God has for us in seeing Him as the True Shepherd.

None the less, many Christians see the biblical shepherd image as the model for pastoral ministry probably because of 1st Peter 5:2 which tells elders to "shepherd" the flock. However, it is interesting to me that Paul used other metaphors to describe what an elder's work entailed such as a "nursing mother" (1st Thess.2:7), "a father with his children" (1st Thess. 2:1), "servants of Christ" (1st Cor. 4:1) etc. I don't think the true Shepherd standard as found in Jesus cannot be fully met by a man. That's why I agree with you.

Ugh....Following is a minor correction to the double negative in the last sentence of my above post: I don't think the true Shepherd standard as found in Jesus can be fully met by a man.