“How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone
astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and
seeketh that which is gone astray? (Matthew 18:12)
Introduction
Our Lord Jesus Christ encourages men to think for themselves from time to
time. “How think ye?”
Dorothy often said to our children when helping them with various problems
they had to solve at school ‘ Think it through’
Dr Hugh Rae encouraged students to state their thoughts in their written
work. Often he said ‘Your personal thoughts on the subject are valid and
valuable, so express them as clearly as possible’
On a lighter vein: The businessman dragged himself home and barely made it to
his chair before he dropped, exhausted. His sympathetic wife was right there
with a tall cool drink and a comforting word.
“My, you look tired,” she said, “You must have had a hard day today.
What happened you look exhausted?”
“It was terrible,” the husband said, “The computer broke down and all
of us had to do our own thinking.”
In this question we have another instance of a method which the Saviour of
Men often adapted in His ministry and teaching. It was that of appealing to men
to test Divine actions by their own.
Jesus shows that men have a capacity to understand God in a special way and
that assumption was based on His perfect knowledge of human nature. He knew its
sinfulness and depravity and on occasions in making use of this method of appeal
asked “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children,
how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that
ask him?” (Matthew 7:11)
The very same method is used again, “If ye then, being evil, know how to
give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father
give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13)
Men could have the ability to be brought to a place of true thinking, to a
place of reasoning with God, to a place where he could understand God.
Jesus has the undivided attention of the listening people, and won their immediate and complete agreement about what He was going to say “ How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?”
The crowd were aware of the idea of the God of Israel being His people’s shepherd.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Certainly the shepherd would leave the ninetynine in the mountains and would
go in search of the one wandering sheep. That is what the God of Israel is
constantly doing. He is at all times in history a seeking and searching Lord. Is
this not what Jesus himself came to do? In
the context of our chosen text 18:12 is not this also what the disciples should
be doing, instead of focusing their attention on their own future greatness
(Matthew 18:1)?
Jesus was interpreting God’s attitude toward the lost; and he appealed to
that instinct in man. Both have the
instinct to seek that, which is lost.
We have discovered together in these precious scriptures there is something
here which we can remember in a positive way when speaking of the ways of the
Lord to family and friends and in general ministry. It must be done with care
and kindness.
We cannot discuss the ways of God from the ways of men, but we are assured
that the ways of God may be illustrated to all men by what they understand of
themselves, if they will think clearly and simply.
What do you think?
Page created 29 July 2006