You are reading John 10 and come across Jesus saying “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11). You think of a number of books that might be helpful to explore the idea of Jesus being the “Good Shepherd.” Phillip Keller’s classic work, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, or perhaps Timothy S. Laniak’s While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks come quickly to mind. Both are excellent works. But then you think to yourself, . . .
“I think I want to study from the inside out. I want to study for myself. I want to look at all the shepherd imagery of both the Old and New Testaments and I want to do a thorough study of all the relevant texts. And I think I want to look at other companion imagery to the shepherd as well whatever they may be.”
So you go to your book shelf and pull out a concordance, or you go to your Bible software program and pull up all of the references to shepherd(s) in the Bible. There are 111 references in all, and you quickly see that not every reference is relevant. Some clearly are not referring to God and that is what you are principally interested in. New questions come to mind. “Are there other companion concepts that I should be looking at?”
My new book is designed to help you study what you want to study in less time, but not with less thought.
Marty Schoenleber
Think of it as a concordance of all the names and terms for God in the Bible. Did you know that Isaiah has over 120 names for God? Did you know that there are 9 different names for God between the Old and New Testaments that have the word “Shepherd” as part of their description of God? What if you could study on your own all of the categories or groupings of names that reveal God’s power? Or, . . .
The Elohim Group
The Yahweh Group
The Adonai Group
The Power Group
The Compassion Group
The Protector Group
The Holiness Group
The Rescuer Group
The Redeemer Group
The Exalted Group
The “God Who” Group”
And dozen’s of others, each cross referenced and listing the book, chapter and verses in every book of the Bible? How about the “Personal Group” that gathers all of the pronouns affixed to God’s names
His God
Their God
Our God
Your father’s God
The LORD our God
The LORD their God
The LORD your God
My Husband
My Lord and God, etc. or,
maybe you want to study all of “The ‘God of’ Group”
The God of Abraham
The God of Isaac
The God of Jacob
The God of Hezekiah
The God of my righteousness and dozens more.
God is jealous for His name (see the book of Malachi). Let’s be jealous with Him.
And please, would you pray for me as I continue to edit and review and ready the book for publication. I am also looking for a publisher to produce the work rather than self-publish. Pray for that as well.
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