And Another Sheep Bites the Dust.

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And another sheep bites the dust... figuratively and literally.

One of the hazards of growing up attending Sunday school regularly is that, unlike many of my contemporaries who came to the Lord later in life, I have an entire library of sanitized Bible stories within my memory banks.

Quickly now, what can you remember about Samson? He was strong. He pulled down an entire building. He had a dalliance with Delilah, for which he paid dearly. And those who have a really good memory, (or a proclivity toward either the mystic encounters or pyrophilia,) might recall that his mom had a visit from an angel before he was born, or that he tied torches to the tails of 300 foxes to burn the fields of the Philistines.

The Sunday school versions of the story usually leave out the part where his father-in-law gave his wife to his best friend. They probably also left out the part where God split open the rock basin in Lehi to revive Samson with spring water, and in some bizarre time warp, they may have omitted the fact that he judged Israel for 20 years. At least mine did. I was left with the impression that Delilah had been his rebound relationship. The Sunday school handouts didn't portray Delilah as a national hero wannabe for the Philistines, and they did not address how Samson's parents didn't raise him to be that way. (Oh, the heartbreak!)

It is understandable why Bible stories are adapted for children, but it can lead to inadvertently passing along wrong ideas. I discovered one such case this week.

One of my Sunday school "Classics" was the 23rd Psalm: The Lord is my Shepherd.

My Sunday school teacher left us with the impression that life could be like the old style Disney movies, the ones made when Walt Disney was still alive, where birds and forest creatures were ushering the Peaceable Kingdom with lilting arias. To my child's mind, any green pasture worth lying down in is going to have lots of bedding. Much like this photo by Pam Brophy from the Geograph project:




But this week my rabbit trail took me to a website called Follow the Rabbi. It was there that I found another picture, one that is likely to be an accurate portrayal of the prototype pasture for Psalm Twenty-Three. It's hilly. It's rocky. Shade is scarce. And in-between the rainy seasons, any grass that might remain after a herd of sheep has grazed there is likely to be dusty. The grazing sheep literally bite the dust.


Figuratively, this second picture seems to be closer to the kind of world the psalm was written for. The sheep in the first photo have so much grass that they could stay there forever—sort of like heaven. The sheep in the second photo will need to be led in paths of righteousness. Their food supply is rather short, (in more ways than one.) They will need to make a journey, just as a life in pursuit of God is a journey. Goodness and mercy cannot follow if one does not move on down the path.

Reference link to the 23rd Psalm



If the 23rd Psalm is a metaphor for the providence of God, which picture should we be teaching to our children? The question is fodder for thought. Do you show your child the God of the luxuriant meadow or the God of the wilderness pasture?

When God reveals Himself to my children, I want the pictures to match.










Sheep Pasture at Shinfield © Copyright Pam Brophy and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence