Pastors, Love the Ones You’re With – The Gospel Coalition Blog

The Gospel Coalition graciously posted another of my articles. This one is about a new lesson I learned from a familiar passage:

I’ve read 1 Peter 5:1 many times. As a young pastor, I’m paying more attention to its straightforward directives for my calling as a shepherd.

But it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that the simple, often overlooked phrase “among you” leaped off the page and into my mind.

Why did Peter add this prepositional phrase? We know he wasn’t meeting an editor’s quota. And unlike so much of my writing, the inspired Word of God doesn’t contain throwaway phrases. No filler here.

So this means the phrase has significance. Peter could have easily said, “Shepherd the flock of God.” But he didn’t, because there is a lesson in that seemingly innocuous string of words.

via Pastors, Love the Ones You’re With – The Gospel Coalition Blog.