“This chapter, the culmination of Peter’s writing, unpacks for us what the call of the shepherd and the whole community under their care really entails.”
“If being a good shepherd is about protecting the flock, resisting the lions roaring around seeking to devour the sheep is the top point of the job description.”
The command is to keep alert. There is no option for laziness or complacency. A key core part of being a good shepherd is resisting the adversary, the lion. “Peter tells us to be hospitable to suffering. to import suffering. That means sacrifice, whether it’s money or power. It means the powerful willingly becoming less comfortable in order to lift the weight of suffering for others.”
So the question has to be, ‘How do we maintain love and offer hospitality’, ‘How do we campaign for the displaced and the stranger’, ‘How do we share with each other when we see suffering’, ‘How do we offer Christ hospitality and imitate Christ in our hospitality;. There is no option for being distracted by other matters. Keep alert! Don’t be reading a book, looking at someone else arguing at another shepherd.
Who or what is the adversary? For contemporary Christians in the global church, those forces which stand for all that is evil are numerous and should be named as they have been in those beautiful testimonies [contextual videos].
1 Peter was written before the ministry of the church solidified into the threefold order of bishop, presbyter, and deacon. … Peter does not use the word episkopos for bishop … he uses the word elder, presbuteros. And in a moment of great beauty he describes himself not as the primus inter pares presbuteros, he describes himself as the sumpresbuteros, … a fellow elder, a fellow with you. Peter looks at us and in his humility says, ‘I am with you’.
“Elder is a neutral term, it can be translated as both male and female elders, it designates older people within the congregation. Possibly people who are older in the faith. Peter calls himself a fellow elder rather than an apostle, teacher, or spiritual father. In choosing the same title as those to whom he is writing he signals that he has common cause with them. He writes to them as one of them.”
“The verb to shepherd echoes the command to Peter at the end of John’s Gospel to shepherd and nurture the flock of Jesus. … “Peter do you love me, Lord you know I love you. Feed my sheep.””
It calls to mind Jesus’s own teaching about the nature of the good shepherd in John 10 verses 1 through 18. The shepherd who lays down his life for the flock. … the shepherd is the one who searches for the lost sheep. The image of shepherd goes back a 1000 years to the image in the 23rd psalm and is picked up again and again in the Scriptures. … The shepherd is both pastor and evangelist. A call to shepherd was a demotion not a promotion. Shepherding is a call to relationship and that is what allows the flock to flourish.
Shepherding is not to be done by compulsion nor for gain, nor with a sense of “Oh, I am so important because I’m a shepherd. I am over everyone.” Shepherding is to be undertaken willingly, eagerly, and setting an example.
And peter takes the imitation of Christ one step further, through the image of the shepherd, calling the elders to example. …. And where we are commanded to be examples it is better put across by the sense of be those who are becoming examples. All of us look in on ourselves and think ‘oh, I got that wrong, I messed up that, I failed. Be becoming is so much more encouraging. It tells us we are on a journey of growth into being shepherds.
“ltimately elders remain members of the flock.”
We are shepherds and we are shepherded by the Chief shepherd by Jesus himself. We stand on a frontier, on the edge, what is called a liminal space. Sheep and shepherd, we are both sheep and shepherd and we need guidance and we need to be called to guide.
Only Christ is the chief shepherd. Only God in Christ can help people know, name, and resist the lions. The lion in our world is all that seeks to kill and to take authority over all that God has the right authority. The lion is a liar and a displacer. Elders therefore must practice humility because we are also sheep. Anyone who watches sheep knows that sheep are not the cleverest animals on the planet.
Before God, everyone is humbled, no one is exalted except by God’s actions. And Peter’s exhortation to humility echoes the teaching in all the gospels. All who exalt themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted.
“In this chapter Peter goes straight from being humble to being anxious because putting our anxieties in the hand of God is an act of humility.”
“It’s God’s church. If I can put it crudely, it’s God’s problem, the church. And that’s very reassuring because we are not so good at handling it ourselves. We acknowledge that God has the strength, and capacity, and wisdom that we do not and we entrust ourselves to him.”
“This beautiful letter balances the call to resilience in situations of vulnerability and the call to resistance from positions of power when we have authority. And here at the end we are invited to join God in his activity of putting all things in right order, the kingdom of God. The devils work from Genesis 2 and 3 through to the end of Revelation is disintegration to make disorder, to scatter the flock, so they run in every direction.”
God’s work from Genesis 1.1 to the end of Revelation is integration to make things right in the right order.
Let us remember that we cannot tell people only that there is one right way to observe, to respond to suffering. The testimony of those who are in the midst of suffering is almost always different from those who observe it from outside and almost always better.
Conversation with Archbishop Olisapi, the Primate of Kenya
[Timestamp: 41.01-50:03] ‘Fighting the lion’ — in reality and by extended application.
“Unity is chaotic and confusing because unity doesn’t mean agreement. But we are united in Christ against the lion we are united in care for God’s flock. Unity is needed even in the midst of chaos of our own making very often to defeat the roaring lion.”
“And Peter ends by returning once again to the themes of hope, suffering, and glory in Christ. His final call is one of reconciliation, to stay in relationship, and stand in solidarity with brothers and sisters who are suffering. And it makes me ask, how will we shepherd differently? How will we ensure, that we will ensure that we are in relationship and constantly being transformed, being transformed into the likeness of Christ. How will we hold on to the encounter with one another and with God in this place? Because without relationship and without encounter there is trouble ahead.”
There is trouble ahead without relationship, because when we don’t have a relationship that person is not my friend who I know and pray for, he is a thing [e.g. the AB of South Africa]. And it is much easier not to love a thing than not to love a person, a person with whom we have a relationship. We must remain in community, it’s not a one-off thing.
Like so much of Peter’s ethics it is living and continuous dynamic extending, growing, deepening, and Peter returns to the promise of the glory of Christ, who already has victory over the demonic, a cosmic victory over the lion. The shepherds are part of that resurrection victory. The call of the Christian and the promise to the Christian is to share both the suffering and the resurrection and the glory of Christ. That is our good news. It’s temporary, the suffering. At the end of the letter the promise of what salvation entails is specific. We are called to eternal glory in Christ. Just in your minds say to yourself ‘I am called to eternal glory in Christ’. After you have suffered for a little while the God of all grace, all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. This is the God who takes on our anxieties, the God who does not delegate restoration, but does it God’s self. This is the God in whom Peter’s followers must trust. This is the God who in verse 11 of chapter 5 we say ‘to him be power forever and ever. Whatever suffering is endured for Christ, God’s promises revealed in Christ, are God’s promises, God’s business, God’s work, God’s action, God’s decision. And they are enteral, assured, and wonderful beyond all human imagination. And the power and promise of God will always have the final word. Peace to all of you who are in Christ.
These are a few of the quotes about shepherding, leadership, humility, anxieties, and authority from 1 Peter 5: Authority in Christ.
Listen to Archbishop of Canterbury Welby leading last week’s Bible text with global contextual reflections.
Week 5: Authority in Christ. August 9. 1 Peter 5:1-14.
Watch the video here:
View the previous week’s video and find a friend, family member, or Trinity Church member to pair with, and discuss the study material.
If you want a digital copy to access the links and Bible study materials, send me an email to me (blbivins@verizon.net) and I will happily send you a digital copy of this document! 😊
Save the date!
The Lambeth Calls Phase 3:
Environment & Sustainable Development
The Lambeth Call on the Environment and Sustainable Development provides a theological rationale for why creation care is a global mission imperative. It also outlines some bold commitments in tackling environmental crisis, including just financing, community resilience building, advocacy, biodiversity restoration and promoting the UN Sustainable Development Goals. You may register as an individual or we may register as a church or diocese.
The link is below: