Please Help Us Keep These Thousands of Blog Posts Growing and Free for All

$5.00

1 Peter 2:25 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)
²⁵For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.

For you were as sheep going astray. Here also is an allusion to Isa. 53:6, ‘All we like sheep have gone a stray.’ See Notes on that verse. The figure is plain. We were like a flock without a shepherd. We had wandered far away from the true fold and were following our own paths. We were without a protector and were exposed to every kind of danger. This aptly and forcibly expresses the condition of the whole race before God recovers men by the plan of salvation. A flock thus wandering without a shepherd, conductor, or guide, is in a most pitiable condition, and so was man in his wanderings before he was sought out and brought back to the true fold by the Great Shepherd.

But now you have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. To Christ, who thus came to seek and save those who were lost. He is often called a Shepherd. See Notes, John 10:1–16. The word rendered bishop (ἐπίσκοπος,) means overseer. It may be applied to one who inspects or oversees anything, such as public works or the execution of treaties; to anyone who is an inspector of wares offered for sale; or, in general, to anyone who is a superintendent. It is applied in the New Testament to those who are appointed to watch over the interests of the church and especially to the officers of the church. Here it is applied to the Lord Jesus as the great Guardian and Superintendent of his church, and the title of universal Bishop belongs to him alone.

By Albert Barnes and Edward D. Andrews