Book Review: Shepherding God's Flock

SHEPHERDING GOD’S FLOCK

Benjamin L Merkle and Thomas R. Schreiner / Editors

Kregel, Grand Rapids, 2014.

The book has a series of chapters on the subject of Biblical Leadership by several authors. However it freely admits that is not neutral in standpoint; every author is Baptist and presents strongly the Baptist view. It is therefore a defense and justification of their view. This automatically leans toward their bias, and the reader needs to understand that. This could either turn off those outside the Baptist tradition, or it could aid in gaining a greater understand and appreciation for the view, although they may disagree with it. I found the presentation somewhat fair and balanced. It upholds the importance of the Pastor leader, which I appreciated.

For me, the heart of the book is the Biblical Theology found in the first four chapters. It does a good job in presenting the Biblical view of shepherding/eldership. Its make clear that the mandate for the shepherd is to feed the sheep. It puts Jesus as the prime example. It upholds the interchangeableness of the terms—elder, bishop, and pastor. It sees deacons as servant leaders who assist in practical and physical matters of the congregation. However, I am not sure it fully gasps the contribution of the Apostle Paul and the Gentile influence upon shepherding the flock. 

The next few chapters deal with the historical outworking and its different forms of church leadership—Catholic, Presbyterian, Anglican, and Baptist. This is informative to anyone not familiar with these types of leadership.

The last two chapters focus on trying to put the Biblical leadership concepts into a modern context. I like and appreciate Ware’s comments about overstating and understating the role of elder. The idea of “professionalism” has brought an undue status to the elder. Although not stated in these words, the difference between the congregation and the Pastor is not status, but function. All in the church are ministers, but elders have a different function. To understate it is to underplay the idea of formal training. The book ends with what it calls 12 practical elements of Leadership, which I found very worthwhile.

This book will be helpful to the Pastor; however it seems to me to have some weakness. First, its narrow viewpoint. Second, there are places were there is clear overlapping of ideas and content. Third, it is a struggle to keep focus in some areas. There is value in this book, especially in the terms of helping one to form a Biblical view function of the Pastor-shepherd.   

Thanks to Kregel in providing a copy of this free of charge for my review. This did not influence my review.