Theological Commentary: Click Here
In Jeremiah
23, God addresses the issue of righteous prophets and false prophets. I used to be fearful of being a false
prophet. I used to worry that I was a
shepherd who scattered the flock instead of being a shepherd who gathered the
flock. To answer this debate in my mind,
I had to focus on the words scatter and gather.
I used to
think that scattering the flock was akin to making people mad. I worried that when there was a debate and
people couldn’t see eye to eye that it was a sign of being a bad shepherd. I grew concerned when I would talk to people
about Jesus and others wouldn’t immediately see the wisdom of Christ.
Such
thoughts are the work of temptation within.
There needs to be a new understanding of the word scatter. From God’s perspective, scattering happens
when people get further away from God.
Scattering happens when the hearts of people are no longer aligned with
the hearts of God. Scattering isn’t when
people debate, scattering is when people stray from God. What that means is
that people can scatter even in community!
Should an entire body of people willingly follow a leader as a group
while losing sight of Gods ways, the flock is scattering!
This,
actually, is God’s point. God isn’t concerned
that the people are arguing and fighting and losing community cohesion. In fact, the opposite is true! God is concerned that the collective of God’s
people don’t seem to care that they are going away from God! God is concerned that His very prophets are
allowing this to happen because they are not confronting people about their
journey away from Him!
The false
prophets are those who allow the flock to scatter because they do not challenge
people. The false prophets allow the
flock to scatter because their messages are lies that the people want to
hear. The false prophets are those who
give messages that make them popular instead of messages that they have heard as
the counsel of the Lord.
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