Chapter 34 shows that God expects leaders to consider and take care of the people entrusted to them. Leadership is not position-focused, but responsibility focused.
34:4 - You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. - In this verse you can definitely see what God expects from leaders, especially shepherds or elders.
34:10 - Leaders are held accountable for my (God's) flock. - They have a responsibility to God for the condition and health of the people under their leadership. It isn't enough to get frustrated over their sin and weakness. We will be held accountable for what we do to help them. It is not that we have to change them, change is for them to embrace, but we must do everything in our power, the easy and the uncomfortable, to help them grow and one day we will be asked about what we did and how far we were willing to go.
34:11-16 - God will personally intervene to shepherd His people -JESUS!!!!! He will do several specific things that we should be doing also:
- search, look for and rescue the lost
- look after those who are near us
- bring them out of difficulty and into a place of peace
- pasture them (feed them) in good places
- tend to them and care for their needs. Pay attention to them.
34:16 - I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice. - It might be easy here to think that God is picking on the strong, but He is speaking about those who have made themselves strong off of the meat and condition of the flock. It isn't strength God has a problem with, but making yourself strong off of other people.
34:17-19 - Really interesting section.
35:6 - ... Since you did not hate bloodshed, bloodshed will pursue you. - I know here that God is speaking specifically to the people of Mt. Seir, the Edomites, but I think the principle is still true. When we do not hate bloodshed, but instead get involved in it and honor it we suffer the same fate, because our hearts become calloused. We have so many kids who live in our "Christian" homes who feed on violence everyday and we do nothing about it. In some cases we buy the guns, games and books. We need to teach our kids to value what God values. Turning the gore off doesn't turn the issue off. Death is the opposite of the God of life.
Love, Michael
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