# Be Ready - Saturday, 2025.12.20 ## Passage And there were shepherds residing in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks by night. Just then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid! For behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: Today in the city of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord! And this will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” {Luke 2.8-12 (BSB)} ## Process Over the next four days, we will look at slices of the story about the angels announcing Jesus' birth to the shepherds. As I was typing the sentence above, a question occurred to me: Why was the first birth announcement made to the shepherds? Without doing a Grok search, I can imagine that there have been numerous dissertations written about various aspects of that question. Since I insist on being "Nuda Scriptura", I will attempt to answer the question without reading all the stuff written before. I highly recommend the following process: - Pray and ask God for wisdom {Proverbs 2.6, James 1.5, Ephesians 1.15-17} ****- Read the referenced passages (and others as God directs) - Think critically about them - Pray some more - Draw your own conclusions about what God's Word says ## Observations One of the first thoughts that came to me was that David, the "ancestral father" of Jesus was a sheep shepherd before he was the shepherd of Israel. {1 Samuel 16.11, 1 Samuel 17.34-36, 2 Samuel 5.2, 2 Samuel 7.8, Psalm 78.70-72, Ezekiel 34.23} David wrote Psalm 23 and praised the Lord as his shepherd. Through the prophet Ezekiel, God rebuked the shepherds of Israel then went on to say that He, the Lord God will be their good shepherd. {Ezekiel 34.1-24} Jesus referred to Himself as the "Good Shepherd." {John 10.1-18} Hebrew & Greek Words - The Hebrew word "raah" (H7462 / H7462a) translated into some form of "shepherd" 84 times - 18 occurrences of the Greek word "poimén" (G4166) usually translated "shepherd" in the New Testament - So, the verses shown above are a very small look at shepherding. A comprehensive study would require looking at all of them. ## Conclusions Shepherding is a significant theme in the Bible with Jesus at the center of the theme. It would seem most appropriate that actual shepherds be the first to hear the good news about the birth of the "Good Shepherd."