The watchful leaders.
Under the details of this exhortation there seems to lie a reference to the shepherding of sheep. The shepherd goes before his sheep, leading them out and in, and finding pasture. This reference made probable by the further reference in Hebrews 13:20. Consider, then—
I. THE SHEPHERD'S AUTHORITY. Christians must maintain the liberty wherewith Christ hath set them free, but at the same time there is a discipline also to be maintained, a provision and protection to be accepted. Few are the Christians who can do without counsel, comfort, and spiritual supply from those who in various ways are qualified to give these. We must look for the shepherd ability and tenderness wherever we can find it. Those formally constituted shepherds may have very few of the qualifications. Let intrinsic authority be recognized; more than that, let it be looked for. It is quite possible to be the shepherd in relation to certain fellow-Christians and the sheep in relations to others.
II. THE SHEPHERD'S FIDELITY. He remembers that he has to give account. If any of the sheep be lost or slain he has to explain how it happened, and show that the blame did not lie with him. This makes a true shepherd ever vigilant and foreseeing, always ready to suspect danger under an appearance of the greatest safety.
III. THE SHEPHERD'S DIFFICULTY. The literal shepherd has difficulties enough. He has to do with stupid sheep who have to be watched continually. But, then, he can always employ main force. The spiritual shepherd, on the other hand, deals with human beings. They have to be persuaded. If they are bent on going into pasture-less and dangerous places, then the shepherd cannot stop. He warns, he expostulates, he entreats, with tears in his eyes, again and again; and that is all he can do. Hence the need of appeal to those who add the responsibility of a human being to the helplessness of the sheep.
IV. THE SHEPHERD'S ACCOUNT. The faithful shepherd can keep the day of account before him, with a calm and ready heart. He can justify himself for every sheep committed to his trust. But all this will not prevent him bewailing the sheep that are lost. Every one with the shepherd instinct in him will think with deepest sorrow of those who would listen to no counsel and believe in no peril.
V. THE SHEPHERD'S REWARD. He is rewarded according to his faithfulness. He may have to present a most deplorable list of lost sheep; but if he can show that no blame is his—that every one has been lost purely through self-will—then his profiting will appear all the same. The shepherd will have sorrow for a season, but he cannot suffer in the end. The sole suffering and loss remain in the end with those who reject the counsels.—Y.
A request for prayer
Here is a new and unexpected relation between the shepherd and the sheep; for as a shepherd the author of this Epistle must be viewed, whoever he may be. The shepherd instinct, striving to guard Christians from error and backsliding, is manifest in every page. But while there is authority, the authority of one who sees with a clear eye right into truth, there is also, as expressed in this request, a most touching sense of need. The guiding and comforting of Christians is an awful burden. To be in any way charged with the diffusion and enforcement of the truth keeps the heart continually on the strain. There are so many things to say, so little time in which to say them, and such lack of the best words, as makes one say, "Who is sufficient for these things?" Hence the earnestness with which one who is busy from the heart in working for Christ asks for the intercession of others. Only a man himself knowing the power of prayer could utter such a request. A prayerless man will never have an inward impulse prompting him to say, "Pray for us." Note where this request comes in—just at the end of the Epistle. As if the writer intended his friends to feel that he would first of all do all he could for them before he asked anything from them. If indeed they had profited by his instructions then, both intellectually and spiritually, they would be in the fittest mood to pray for him.—Y.
A most comprehensive wish.
This is both a wish and a prayer, None the less a prayer because referring to God in the third person. The writer both prays that God may prosecute a course of operations in the hearts of these Christians, and indirectly solicits them at the same time to make this course possible by their submission and co-operation. This prayer-wish, it will be noted, was peculiarly correspondent with the position of Hebrew Christians.
I. THE REFERENCE TO THE COVENANT. There had been a covenant, not everlasting, seeing there was no possibility of everlastingness in it. But now there is a new covenant, stable and consecrated by the blood of Jesus himself. The very Lord's Supper, in which these Hebrew Christians must repeatedly have taken part, made it impossible for them to forget the blood of the new covenant. This new covenant was really established in the raising of Jesus from the dead. And well might God be called a God of peace in connection with it. As God of the old covenant he had too frequently to be a God of wrath and of hostility to those transgressing the terms of the covenant.
II. THE COMFORTING REFERENCE TO GOD'S POWER AND DISPOSITION. Great as the troubles through which these people were passing seemed, yet they were not as the troubles of ancient Israel, idolatrous and apostate from the living God. It is a matter of the greatest importance to be assured that one is not contending with the Divine wrath. If God be against us, all comforts and hopes, however promising, are only delusions. [But here is the proof that God is for us, in raising Jesus from the dead. Jesus had been the great Benefactor of men, a true Shepherd. Had he not compassion on the crowd, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd? And when he died, how many lost their hope and comfort then] But God raises him from the dead, brings him back from among the corpses, and so constitutes him in a higher sense than ever the great Shepherd of the sheep.
III. THE GREAT THINGS YET TO BE EXPECTED AND PREPARED FOR. A risen Savior is not only to secure us immortality, but to confirm us in a new life in every way. Things are prayed for that belong to the very essence of the Christian life, whatever its external circumstances may be. We need to be properly placed and endowed for every good work; we need to be fitted to carry out the will of God. The Divine intent is that we should in all ways be strong for usefulness as well as strong to bear trial. The God of the resurrection can work in us all that is acceptable to himself, and he will do it through Jesus Christ.
IV. THE DOXOLOGY. How fittingly it comes in after this recital of the Divine power and ability! All true praise must be based upon a real and deep apprehension of the grace of God in Christ Jesus.—Y.