Shared with Permission from Criswell Theological Review
The Good Shepherd: A Thousand Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament. By Kenneth E. Bailey. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014, 283 pp., $24.00, Paperback
In The Good Shepherd: A Thousand Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament, Kenneth Bailey, (ThD, Concordia Theological Seminary) author of Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels (InterVarsity Press, 2008) has added another significant work to his distinguished career, applying cultural insights from decades in Egypt, Lebanon, Jerusalem and Cyprus. It is a welcome addition to texts like Krikorian’s The Spirit of the Shepherd: an Interpretation of the Psalm Immortal (Zondervan, 1939), and Moghabghab’s The Shepherd Song on the Hills of Lebanon: The Twenty Third Psalm Illustrated and Explained (Dutton, 1907), which also bring personal and culturally relevant background to bear on the shepherding imagery of the Scriptures.
Convinced by rhetorical analysis that Psalm 23 initiates an adapting “good shepherd” theme, Bailey unpacks the literary and theological connections between it and eight other texts in the Prophets, Gospels and Epistles. Each rendition brings something new to the thematic table, culminating in an identification of Jesus as the incarnate divine shepherd come to lay down his life for his sheep, establishing a ministry vision for his disciples as they continue gathering his “other sheep” from the nations.
Oscillating between historical and cultural insights, weighty literary and light grammatical analysis and both theological and devotional considerations, Bailey tracks 10 “cameos” that form more than a coincidental bond between his texts.
1. There is a good shepherd: YHWH in the OT and Jesus in the NT.
2. There is a lost sheep or flock in need of divine guidance and protection.
3. There are opponents of the shepherd, which fluctuate between overt enemies and bad shepherds who neglect or abuse the flock.
4. There is a good host(ess).
5. There is an incarnation of the shepherd that is either promised or realized.
6. There is a cost paid by the shepherd to save the lost.
7. There is repentance or return of the lost, wherein the sheep desires rescue.
8. There are bad sheep, who are accused and resistant.
9. There is a celebration of the success of the good shepherd in his rescue.
10. There is a culmination in a place of safety.
While Psalm 23 concerns the psalmist’s gratitude to his heavenly shepherd, YHWH, its reinvention in Jeremiah 23:1–8 envisions a future, more tangible, arrival of YHWH to save his endangered flock from bad shepherds and dangerous enemies. Each will “get theirs” as God comes to shepherd his people, to install his Davidide King and to bring back the lost to dwell in the land without fear. Building from this, Ezekiel 34 seeks to prepare the nation for their lengthy “darkness before the dawn,” exploiting a latent self-accusation in the Psalm against the lost sheep for their wandering ways. YHWH promises to come to shepherd the lost flock, dismissing bad shepherds, but will also repay predatorial sheep. Zechariah 10:2–12 goes even further, describing YHWH’s plan to transform the lost flock into instruments of war and stability. These guilty victims will heed YHWH’s whistle and return through a sea of troubles from their scattering to become strong in YHWH.
While each of the Gospels have passages dedicated to expanding the good shepherd theme, no two do so synoptically. Luke 15:1–10 applies this theme to the pharisaic criticism of Jesus’ hosting of once lost sheep, proving themselves bad shepherds. Mark 6:7–52 applies this theme to the contrast between Herod and Jesus. Herod gorges the powerful and executes John, but Jesus feeds the “sheep without a shepherd”—a Moses risen to shepherd God’s flock. Matthew 18:10–14 applies this theme through the parable of the 99 and the 1, as does Luke, but revamps it for a leadership challenge to disciples who are fixated on power. They are called to be self-sacrificing shepherds caring for the flock, down to the last wandering sheep.
John 10:1–18 presents the theological endgame where Jesus declares himself the good shepherd, incarnate deity come to lay down his life to save his sheep and to take it up again in resurrection glory. This establishes the paradigm for the disciples’ own familial bond with Jesus and the Father in their continuation of Christ’s work for the lost sheep the world over.
1 Peter 5:1–4 cautions Christian shepherds, using Jesus’ good shepherd sufferings as a vital leadership paradigm in the face of ongoing righteous suffering by the community. Righteous suffering, says Bailey, not only leads to glory, but is glorious because it produces a unique kind of wisdom and personal substance.
There are a few points of critique one might raise.
First, one could accuse Bailey of audience confusion. Has he written a rhetorical analysis for academics, a light thematic commentary for lay leaders, or a devotional for small group discussions? The combination leaves his effective audience narrowed, it would seem, to reasonably educated pastors.
Second, Bailey chooses randomly when he will and won’t provide solid scholarly arguments for his decisions on critical issues. For example, while arguing for Petrine authorship for 1st Peter, Bailey treats Davidic authorship of Psalm 23 and Petrine backgrounds for Mark as givens.
Third, it would, at times, boost Bailey’s case if he expanded his investigations beyond the narrow limits of those passages bearing his good shepherd cameos. Zechariah is rife with unexplored shepherding imagery that must have some bearing on Bailey’s work in chapter 10. Matthew 18 is a single narrative sermon and Bailey’s good shepherd interests play an important role in that sermon, but some of his purported missing cameos in vv. 10–14 are clearly represented in the rest of that sermon. Bailey’s occasional appeal to “sheep without a shepherd,” which he deems a Zechariah 10:2 reference, emerges initially in the mouth of Moses in Numbers 27:16–17, blending images of Bailey’s incarnate divine good shepherd with divinely appointed Israelite leadership, clearly represented in Jeremiah’s and Ezekiel’s Davidide hope. This Mosaic connection (See also Deuteronomy 18:15–16; John 1:25, 6:14, 7:40) would add weight to his Mark discussion, but would also require more of him in terms of validating his almost axiomatic linking of “good shepherd” and incarnate deity in John.
Fourth, The Good Shepherd could be enhanced with a concise methodological introduction. Bailey’s Middle Eastern, analogical, “right-brained” approach may reflect the biblical authors’ own processes—he notes at one point, “The average Middle Easterner does not ‘illustrate ideas’; he or she ‘thinks in pictures,’ (272)—but with only a handful of methodological musings scattered here and there, more Western minded readers might find themselves flummoxed by his seeming lack of methodological focus. Bailey’s Middle Eastern insights are invaluable, but he seems “confused” at times. Is he interpreting, for instance, Mark 6 or is he interpreting his own historical recreation of the Mark 6 events based on information and feelings gleaned from other sources? Bailey floats like a butterfly through the Luke 15 parables, being neither analogical nor allegorical in any strict sense. The shepherd there, for instance, becomes for Bailey, at one and the same time, both a good shepherd representation of Jesus and a bad shepherd representation of the negligent.
That said, I enjoyed The Good Shepherd immensely. His point is handily established; Psalm 23 and the “good shepherd” tradition is an important literary and theological lens for interpreting the New Testament writers’ presentation of Jesus and for our conceiving of our calling as Christian leaders. I highly recommend it for every pastor’s shelf.
~Andrew D. Sargent, PhD
