God Is Not Way Up There
Psalm 23:1-6
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
John 10:1-10
“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly
God is not Way Up There
Jesus the Good Shepherd Psalm 23
We’re focusing on Jesus the Good Shepherd this morning and we have this beautiful Psalm 23. I want to share with you something that I learned. This is the Hebrew for a section of this psalm.
Gam ki-elekh b’gei
Tsalmavet lo-ira
Ki atah ‘imadi
And this last phrase, ki atah ‘imadi, means “For you are with me.” So that is essentially the whole meaning of Psalm 23. God is with me.
Tradition has it that David composed this Psalm while he was running away from King Saul. David was starving in the desert when God saved him. And so, David writes, “Thou art with me.”
So David was in this life and death situation. And you know, so many people have told me that when they were at their lowest, that this psalm spoke to them. In a life and death situation, people look for something. They look for scripture. And so, this is a favorite through the ages. The Lord is my shepherd. God is with me.
I learned something fascinating about this Psalm. The Psalmist writes this text in a way that expresses God at the center, literally. In the exact center of the Psalm as it is written in Hebrew are the words, “Thou art with me.” In the Hebrew translation, this sentence “Thou art with me” is exactly 26 words from the beginning of the psalm, and exactly 26 words from the end of the Psalm.[1] So there is a kind of hidden message there. The psalmist places that phrase right in the center. God is in the center. God is right here. The Lord, my shepherd, is with me. God is with me.
Fourth Sunday in Easter
On this Fourth Sunday in the Season of Easter, we continue our meditations on the Risen Christ. The readings today present a beloved aspect of the Christ, that is, Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Jesus the Good Shepherd is a very important theme in Christian spirituality. As Christians, we love to think about Jesus as our shepherd, to meditate, pray, and worship him as our Good Shepherd. And so, we find in our readings the major source of this aspect of the Risen Christ.
Comparing John and Matthew
This week, we continue our yearlong study of Matthew’s Gospel by looking at John. I know I keep throwing you curve balls with this. But it is from this vantage point that we look at Matthew and understand how these two Gospels differ. In general, we are taking a comparative look at the Gospels, with our focus on Matthew this year. But recall that the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are similar in style and content, whereas John is quite set apart. So what is so different about John’s Gospel? Well, there are two things: First, there are fewer parables in John. Jesus teaches in much longer speeches. And second, John contains the “I am” statements. These “I am” statements are not found in the other three Gospels.
And so this is where Jesus the Good Shepherd originates. It is from John 10 and Psalm 23. In John 10, Jesus famously says, “I am the good shepherd.” So passage about the Good Shepherd, combined with Psalm 23, gives us this image of Jesus as a shepherd. And it is a beloved image. We see Jesus as a companion and protector. He is a friend who walks with us. He guides us and directs us. He is our shepherd. This is one of the most beautiful and beloved descriptions of the Risen Christ. Jesus is with us now as the Good Shepherd.
Translations and origins of scripture.
So here, I’d like to talk some more about translations of the Bible. And this is part of a larger conversation on the origin of scripture and the formation of the Bible. How was the Bible formed? Where did it come from?
God’s Word
You know, when I was a kid growing up in a very conservative evangelical environment, I was taught that the Bible is “The Word of God.” The Bible is God’s Word to Us. And so, in my mind as a child, (and I think it was quite natural for me to do so, in my mind, I always thought that God wrote the Bible. I mean, literally.
The Old Man in the Clouds
I pictured God as an old man way up in the clouds, you know, like Michelangelo’s painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the Old Man-God with the long flowing beard, holding his finger out in the creation of Adam. And so, God was way up there, and he decided to write a book, so he got out his pen and he wrote the Bible. And so we call the Bible ‘God’s Word.”
But of course, there are a lot of problems with this, you know? I was a kid. And what I eventually learned is that the Bible has a much more interesting story. Much more interesting than the Old Man Up In the Clouds Writing a Book story. The way the Bible actually developed is fascinating and it is factual. We can talk about the origins of the Bible as historical fact. And, I don’t know about you, but I find this totally fascinating because there is so much to learn here.
I am still learning about it, and I have even taught a class on this subject, even though it was way over my head and I don’t have a PhD in history, but I love it, and I wanted to learn more, you know, so I was curious about all the things I was taught as a child growing up in a very religious family.
And so this is a fascinating journey. Of course, tracing the origins of the Bible is a huge subject, but I want to jump into this subject by looking at our reading of Psalm 23.
You may have noticed that our reading of Psalm 23 this morning was from the King James Bible. The King James Version was translated during the reign of King James the 1st of England. James commissioned the work in 1604, and it was first published in 1611. Interestingly, this was the same period that William Shakespeare was writing and producing his plays at the Globe Theater in Stratford Upon Avon. And so this why the King James version of the Bible sounds remarkably like Shakespeare. James I and Shakespeare spoke the same English, that is Elizabethan English, which, by the way is considered to be early modern English.
Now, I don’t know about you, but when I read Shakespeare, I always need to refer to the footnotes because the language is so different from our ordinary everyday modern English. The structure and usage, the vocabulary, date back 400 years. Even so, it’s called “modern English.”
The English Bibles
So, to give some context here, the King James Bible was first published in 1611, and the Pilgrims arrived in America on the Mayflower in 1620. And that is to say that the English Puritans were involved in the King James Version of the Bible. So, here is the story:
The first English Bibles, that is, the first Bibles translated from Latin into the English language, began to appear in the 14th century. There was the Wycliffe Bible (1380’s), the Tyndale Bible (1526-30), the Coverdale Bible (1535), Henry the 8th’s The Great Bible (1539), and the Geneva Bible (1560).[2] Now, the Geneva Bible was the Bible Shakespeare used, and it was the Bible the Puritans used. The Geneva Bible was the first Bible with numbered verses. And it was the first Bible with notes and commentary in the margins. And it was the Bible the Pilgrims took with them on the Mayflower.
Now, remember what was going on in this period. The Protestant Reformation. The Geneva Bible was published in Geneva Switzerland by a group of English Reformers, most famously, John Calvin. So this was a reformer’s Bible.
The Geneva Bible
Now, the Geneva Bible was quite popular among the Puritans, because remember, the Puritans were not fans of the English monarchy. They didn’t like kings. And while the Geneva translation itself was a good translation, nothing wrong with it, but in the margins, there were a lot of notes, and these notes were controversial because they encouraged a skeptical view of the monarchy. In other words, the notes in the margins of the Geneva Bible were “No Kings” notes. And, of course, King James didn’t like that very much.
The Bible Battle
In fact, King James was a big fan of the “Divine Right of Kings” perspective, and so, he wanted to get rid of the Geneva Bible. He wanted a new Bible. So he commissioned the “King James Version” of the Bible and published it in 1611. After this, the Geneva Bible was gradually phased out of the church and replaced by the King James Bible. There was a huge conflict surrounding this. It was the “Bible Battle” of the 17th century. Geneva Bible versus King James Bible.
King James Bible wins
The King James became the dominant version of the English Bibles for centuries, until new translations began to appear in the 19th century. And this is where we get the Revised Version, the Revised Standard Version, the English Standard Version, on and on. The Bible is the most translated and most printed book in the history of the world.
Fun Fact
So, now, I have a fun fact for you.
In 1631, there was an edition of the King James Bible printed with a mistake. And the mistake was this: in the seventh commandment, as found in Exodus 20:14, the word “not” was omitted. So the commandment read, “Thou shalt commit adultery.” Now this Bible is called, “The Wicked Bible.” And the printers got in big trouble. They were fined 300 pounds (a year’s wages), and were ordered to destroy the entire printing, 1000 copies. Now, only 11 copies of the Wicked Bible exist today![3]
So today, we have looked at the history of the King James translation, and the scriptural origins of Jesus the Good Shepherd. This important aspect of Christian faith comes from John 10 and Psalm 23. In conclusion, I want to point out that for the Christian disciple, Jesus the Good Shepherd is a promise from God’s Word that God is near. God is not way up there in the clouds. God is right here with us. May it be so for you. Amen? Amen.
[1] Walter J. Harrelson, The New Interpreter’s Study Bible: Toni Craven and Walter Harrelson, Notes on The Psalms (Nashville: Abington Press, 2003), 771.
[2] “History of the English Bible,” Dunham Bible Museum, Houston Christian University, accessed April 26, 2026 https://hc.edu/museums/dunham-bible-museum/tour-of-the-museum/english-bible/
[3] “History of the English Bible”, Ibid.