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Originally Posted by hosepipe
The pasture is not mentioned in the metaphor but its "implied".. and certain operators within the metaphor are ignored by your post.. especially Jesus calling them out of the sheep pen.. The sheep pen is not "the World" as they are "sheep".. The hireling seems to be the pastor in the sheep pen.. Much in this metaphor seems, to me, to be overlooked by the orthodox view of it..
The local church by my experience is indeed a sheep pen.. and Witless by his example and actions may have not been a christian.. But Jesus did not forbid denomination expressly.. The Body of Christ metaphor unified "the spirit" spiritually but not locally.. These two metaphors feed on each other I think..
A conversation on all of this may be beneficial.. If the word church is scewed then other concepts can be morphed and twisted as well..
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I like your thinking here.
I have given the hireling a few thoughts over recent years, and while I cannot say I
know what it is about, it does not seem to simply be about being paid. If you think about it, any shepherd is paid. They aren't volunteers. If they were, since the job is non-stop, they would eventually starve.
Instead, I think the issue is the connection, or lack of connection, with the sheep. The point of "hireling" does not seem to be about the money as much as the lack of reference to actually being a shepherd. One is a shepherd and the other is a hireling. One cares for the sheep. The other does not, but does enough to get paid and go home.
So a "pastor" is not necessarily a hireling. Unless he is in it for the money and not for the people. We like the idea of them being more closely connected with the "flock" than being some outsider. But even if you take the metaphor to ridiculous extremes, shepherds are not sheep that rose up to become shepherds. They are men who chose a career, even if only for a while, of taking care of sheep. So nothing in the metaphor can make the shepherd "one" with the sheep. I'm not saying that in the point of the metaphor our spiritual shepherds cannot be one with us. It is just that the metaphor is unable to deal with that aspect. You either need to bring in another metaphor to cover that, or simply say it.
Besides the aberrant aspects of the LRC, they are no more a "sheep pen" than any other church. Jesus was looking at what was and declaring that he was there to bring the sheep out to pasture. It was not about something wrong with churches. It seems to be more about taking the Jews to the "next level" so-to-speak. And the hirelings were ones who attempted to be their leaders, but could not stand against adversity. Or more pointedly (by comparison to a shepherd) were not there for the purpose of caring for the sheep.