1 Peter 5:2

THE OVERSIGHT OF THE FLOCK

‘Feed [tend, R.V.] the flock of God which is among you, taking [exercising, R.V.] the oversight.’

1 Peter 5:2

‘Feed,’ writes the Apostle, ‘tend the flock of God which is among you.’ In the words ‘feed’ or ‘tend,’ the old and new versions of the Epistle are alike trying to give a suitable equivalent for St. Peter’s Greek word, whose full meaning is, ‘do the work of a shepherd,’ ‘shepherd,’ ‘pasture’ the flock. I do not know that the old word ‘feed’ is not at least as good as the new one ‘tend.’ ‘Do the office of a shepherd’—the phrase sends us back in thought, if not to the Old Testament, Moses and the Prophets, at least to some earlier verses of the New.

There is, e.g., the shepherd of St. Luke 15, whose sheep—one of a hundred—strays from the fold, and is followed by the careful owner till he has found the wanderer and carries her home. There is, again, the Good Shepherd of St. John 10, Who provides for the folding and feeding of His own sheep, in all His many flocks; knows them, and calls them each by name, leading (not driving) them as they ‘go in and out and find pasture,’ and Who not only follows the strayed sheep on the mountains like the shepherd of St. Luke and St. Matthew, but, in their defence, ‘giveth His life for the sheep.’ Again, in Hebrews 13 there is the specific identification of the Shepherd in the words, ‘The God of peace, Who brought again from the dead that great Shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ.’ And lastly, in our present Epistle (1 Peter 2:25) the Apostle styles our Lord the ‘Shepherd and Bishop’ of His people’s souls.

I. Here, then, is the Christian pastor’s model, however far he may come short of its full symmetry.—Pastors of the flock of God, we may set ourselves no lower standard for study or for imitation than that of our Lord. Entering upon our charge, not only according to His institution, but, through Him as the actual ‘Door’ of the fold, we must copy His holy love for the flock, His indefatigable industry in providing for their spiritual sustenance and health, in seeking and bringing them into communion in His life and grace, and His self-sacrifice on their behalf; like Him and His great followers, ‘spending and being spent’ in their cause, ‘counting not even life dear,’ with a view to accomplishing the ministry received at His hands, for the sake of the Church He bought with His life. There is one word which may perhaps sum up all the characteristics of the true pastor; and that is ‘leading.’ In Hebrews 13 the clergy of the Church are twice referred to by a Greek word which, in both versions, is rendered ‘they that rule’: ‘Obey them that have the rule over you,’ that are now your pastors; and ‘Remember them that had to rule,’ your former clergy now deceased. The translation is no doubt correct. Nevertheless, according to the genius of the Greek language and civilisation, the ruler theoretically was none other than the leader, and not, as in some other regions, the coercer or driver of the people under his rule. And to myself the word has always suggested the great Master’s description of Himself in relation to the flock: ‘He goeth before them, and they follow, for they know His voice.’

II. If we are to be of service to you—whilst you, no less than we, are to follow Christ and ‘press toward the mark’ set before us all alike—we, nevertheless, if we do our duty, must set the pace; never out of sympathy with you, yet never allowing that sympathy to chill our ardour or retard us in following Him Who leads both you and us. St. Paul bade his fellow-Christians follow him, as He followed Christ. But when some of them, yielding to the seductions of worldliness and sensuality, fell hopelessly behind, he for his part dared not loiter, but remembering that his country, his home, was heaven, pressed forward towards it, rejecting every encumbrance lest he should after all miss the crown.

‘Pasture’ the flock and ‘take the oversight of it.’ This phrase, as you are perhaps aware, is the equivalent of a word from which our word ‘bishop’ is derived, and implies a commission to exercise the episcopal office, in the primitive sense at least, in which it was nearly universal when the Epistle was written. What, then, was that primitive sense?

III. The term employed necessarily implies, not only the pastoral offices, but such a general superintendence and leadership as shall render the whole organisation more effective, by strengthening the weaker parts and connections of the system, by adding to the system when necessary, by correcting defects and errors with wholesome word and example, and, whenever occasion requires, by standing between the flock and the wolf, between the Church and its foes, no matter at what personal risk to the bishop himself. Authority is implied of course, a regulated authority, so to speak a constitutional authority. The bishop, to rule well, must obey well; not as lording it over the flock, but as their example. His example must illustrate his injunctions, which are sanctioned alike by the Word of Christ and by such Church laws as have that Word for their authentic principle. The ‘rulers’ or leaders of Hebrew 13 are said to ‘watch for the souls’ of those they rule, as themselves liable to be called to ‘account’ by the common Lord of all, that one true Bishop of bishops as He is also Lord of lords. And all this combined responsibility and authority surely oblige the bishop, even more than his fellow-Christians, clerical or lay, not only, as St. Paul bade Timothy, to ‘give heed to reading, exhortation, and teaching,’ but to prayer also: prayer for the supply of such manifold necessities as his own, intercession for his clerical brethren and for his fellow-Christians, especially those of his own charge and diocese. Look at the example as well as the precept of the great apostolic bishops. ‘I bow my knees for you’; ‘I would ye knew what conflict I have for you,’ conflict carried on upon the knees, for you and the Churches in your region. So wrote Paul to Ephesus and to Colossæ. The omission to watch and pray led to St. Peter’s disastrous fall. The practice of prayer, in the exercise of ‘faith,’ is St. Peter’s prescription in time of danger as the one secret of a successful resistance to the Arch-enemy of the Church, the prowling lion in its fiercest mood. Greatest of all, the Shepherd and Bishop Who saved us by His passion and death, saved and saves us no less by His incessant prayer, the prayers of sleepless nights and days of retirement on earth, and, as we believe, the prayers of His ‘ever-living intercession’ for His people in heaven.

Bishop G. E. Moule.