Alan Dunn
We need to be the best preachers that we can be, and through the public ministry of the Word of God, endeavor to feed the sheep with the truth of the Word.
Indeed in Jeremiah 3:15, the Lord promises,
Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart who will feed you on knowledge and understanding.
The shepherd is one who feeds the flock of God with the food of the Scripture, but the pastor is more than a public speaker, and his ministry of the Word of God goes beyond preaching in the pulpit. He is a shepherd, and he is concerned that each individual sheep in His flock receives the nourishment of God’s Word personally and specifically.
We turn to Colossians chapter 1 and we read of Paul’s description of this concern for every man who sits under his public ministry.
Every man is the concern of the apostle. He speaks to all kinds of men, and he speaks to individual men. Every man. He does this at great cost with labor agonizing, striving, relying not on His own strength but on the power that works mightily within him, with an energy and ability that is given to the man of God to do the work that God has called him to do, for he is a man gifted by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit works mightily within Him as he works as hard as he can.
I labor says Paul, I work myself to the point of exhaustion. I drop in to bed at night sometimes absolutely exhausted emotionally, spiritually, physically, having labored to the point of exhaustion but not with my own power: laboring with the strength that comes from God.
The work of the pastoral ministry requires that we shepherd the sheep, that we feed them with the Word of God, not only publicly, in corporate worship, from the pulpit but also personally, privately, individually as we endeavor to meet with them one on one.