When Pastors Become Predators

 Posted at Reformation Scotland:

Shepherds are God’s gift to the church, given because He wants His dear flock to be well looked after. But sometimes the shepherds turn rogue and instead of caring for God’s flock, they put their own interests first. Pastoral ministry becomes all about their own position and prestige and what they can get out of it. The needs of the flock are left unmet and instead they suffer spiritually at the hands of those supposed to nurture them. As the Westminster Assembly member William Greenhill noted, this may be endemic in a church culture, and daring to speak out against it may be penalised. While we are familiar with high-profile scandals in evangelicalism in recent years, this is not a new problem. Nor do things have to reach extremes of financial, emotional or sexual abuse in order for pastors to be guilty of flouting their responsibility to feed the Lord’s flock. Harshness, neglect and a multitude of little ways of lording it over the Lord’s heritage belong to the same category of un-shepherdlike behaviour. Yet as Greenhill points out in his remarks on Ezekiel 34, when the sheep suffer, God notices, and He will ultimately intervene to rescue His maltreated people.

Ezekiel has already reproved the people and threatened the judgments of God against them for their sins. Now he comes chapter 34 to deal with their ‘shepherds,’ whose fault it was that the people had become so wicked. The first ten verses are God’s reproof of the shepherds, and the judgment He will bring on them.

THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE SHEPHERDS

The ‘shepherds of Israel’ (v.2) were the chief rulers, whether in church or state. A ‘woe’ or general judgment is threatened against them — a variety of evils, not just one but several sad judgments will come on them.

The shepherds should have been ‘feeding’ the people, leading and teaching them. But here was their sin — they ‘fed themselves, not the flock.’ Those who are shepherds in the church, are set up for the good of the people, to benefit and advantage them, not to seek themselves, to draw from the people what they can to make themselves great. They should be content with their allowance, and give themselves fully and wholly for the good of those who are committed to their trust. This interrogative, ‘Should not the shepherds feed the flock?’ highlights the heinousness of their sin, and the indignation of God against it. ‘What? You are shepherds, and you don’t feed the flock? You are perverting the course of nature, and violating the order which God has set!’ That is intolerable, and God will treat them severely for it.

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