Quotes About Shepherds

The shepherds will give you milk, cheese, and chestnuts; and you will have nothing to fear from the law or from the dead man's relatives, except when you have to go down to the town to replenish your ammunition.

I used to go to the school plays my kids were in, and who were the angels at Christmas time? The blonde, blue-eyed girls. Who was Mary? And the shepherds were all the black and Indian kids in the background.

for God raised Jesus from the dead for the sake of shepherds and children and poor folks and all of us who worry a lot about security but can never finally make ourselves safe.

And here, above the valley of Yarrow, Lord Culter and his brother and twenty men from Midculter in their wedding finery with, thank God, half armour beneath, waited to intercept the English army on its plundering march, with two shepherds, twelve arquebuses, some pikes, some marline twine, a leather pail of powder, shot, matches, some makeshift colours, and eight hundred rusted helmets from the Warden's storehouse at Talla.

That Jesus—the eternal logos from whom creation sprang, the Christ who sits at the right hand of God—you will find swaddled in a filthy manger in Bethlehem, surrounded by simple shepherds and wise men bearing gifts from the east.

The simple shepherds heard the voice of an angel and found their Lamb; the wise men saw the light of a star and found their Wisdom.

When Christ returns, and only then, will the angel's message to the shepherds be totally fulfilled: Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.

Men rush towards complexity, but they yearn towards simplicity. They try to be kings; but they dream of being shepherds.

Shepherds, did they but know it, walk through greater halls than kings.

Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske, As time her taught in lowly Shepheards weeds, Am now enforst a far vnfitter taske, For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds, And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds; Whose prayses hauing slept in silence long, Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds To blazon broad emongst her learned throng: Fierce warres and faithfull loues shall moralize my song. 2 Helpe then, ô holy Virgin chiefe of nine, Thy weaker Nouice to performe thy will

LO I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske, As time her taught, in lowly Shepheards weeds, Am now enforst a far vnfitter taske, For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds, And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds; Whose prayses hauing slept in silence long, Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds To blazon broad emongst her learned throng: Fierce warres and faithfull loues shall moralize my song.

Since the local church is "the pillar and support of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15b), its leaders must be rock-solid pillars of biblical doctrine or the house will crumble. Since the local church is also a small flock traveling over treacherous terrain that is infested with "savage wolves," only those shepherds who know the way and see the wolves can lead the flock to its safe destination. An elder, then, must be characterized by doctrinal integrity.

New Testament, Christianized elders are not mere representatives of the people; they are, as the passages above show, spiritually qualified shepherds who protect, lead, and teach the people. They provide spiritual care for the entire flock. They are the official shepherds of the church.

I take comfort in knowing that it was the shepherds to whom the angels appeared when they announced Christ's birth. Invariably throughout the course of history, God has appeared to people on the fringes. It's nice to find theological justification for your quirks.

Kings and princes of the church may find shepherds and serfs preferred before them

There has many a man gone through that gate without a safe-conduct, who will reach heaven ahead of some who were escorted through with absolution and ceremony, and had their affairs in order. Kings and princes of the church may find shepherds and serfs preferred before them, and some who claim they have done great good may have to give place to poor wretches who have done wrong and acknowledge it, and have tried to make amends.

Just like our story, the original Christmas tales were stories of searching, not so much for the lost, as for the familiar. Mary and Joseph sought in Bethlehem- the home of their familial ancestry- a place to start their own family; the three kings from the East journeyed beneath the sentinel star to find the King of Kings; and the shepherds sought a child in a place most familiar to them: a manger.

Instead of shepherds, Matthew presents the Magi, who, despite "we three kings of Orient are," are not necessarily three, not necessarily all men, certainly not kings, and most certainly not wise.

Shepherds are no more and no less ritually impure than anyone else.

They are in the field where they protect their animals: they represent those who care for the vulnerable. They may also remind us of other shepherds: Rebecca, Rachel, Moses, and David.

The celestial choir that appears to the shepherds is usually called the "heavenly host"; the CEB offers "heavenly forces" (2:13), which is the better translation for today. This is God's army.

Luke tells us: pay attention to earthly matters, neighbors and relatives, shepherds, and who else might be at the inn.

The shepherds function as a "sign" to Mary; they assure her, "yes, what you experienced was not a hallucination; yes, no matter how unbelievable everything has been, believe!

Irish people marry late, as a rule. We have that potato-famine DNA from the old country, that mentality where you don't give birth to anything until you have the potatoes all stored up to feed it. My ancestors were all shepherds who got married in their thirties and then stayed together for life, who had long and happy marriages, no doubt because they were already deaf. My grandparents courted for nine years before they married in 1933.