I've had many, many, many people approach me with a certain verse once they find out that I raise both sheep and goats. The verse that they come to me with is Matthew 25:31-46. Okay, so it isn't one verse, it's many. Many people have been almost angry at this passage because it favors sheep and basically damns goats. Since goats are just a little easier to love, it's confusing for people. My 'concise' answer to people who question me on this is that goats would make bad Christians. However, I'm blogging here to try to expound instead of shortcutting my way through explanations forever. Of course, we must keep in mind that it's metaphorical and referring to people and not literal sheep and goats.
Matthew 25:31-46 says," When the Son of Man comes in his glory, accompanied by all the angels, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be assembled before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. The 'sheep' he will place at his right hand and the 'goats' at his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take your inheritance, the Kingdom prepared for you from the founding of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you made me your guest, I needed clothes and you provided them, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.' Then the people who have done what God wants will reply,' Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and make you our guest, or needing clothes and provide them? When did we see you sick or in prison, and visit you?' The King will say to them,' Yes! I tell you that whenever you did these things for one of the least important of these brothers of mine, you did them for me!' Then he will also speak to those on his left, saying,'Get away from me, you who are cursed! Go off into the fire prepared for the Adversary and his angels! For I was hungry and you gave me no food, thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, a stranger and you did not welcome me, needing clothes and you did not give them to me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they too will reply,'Lord, when did we see you hungry, thirsty, a stranger, needing clothes, sick or in prison, and not take care of you?' And he will answer them,'Yes! I tell you that whenever you refused to do it for the least important of these people, you refused to do it for me!' They will go off to eternal punishment, but those who have done what God wants will go to eternal life."
Let me just say now, that these reflections are how I understand things and I don't claim to know it all. Mostly, I want to share this these thoughts with all of my friends because this is a passage that I believe all of us would do well to meditate upon. Thinking of eternity is healthy. In future posts, I'm going to talk specifically about why Jesus calls his true followers the sheep and the false 'followers' goats. In this post, I'm just going to open this can of worms and let them wiggle a little bit. Obviously, Jesus has called forth ALL of his followers to him for judgement.These are all creatures that have acknowleged Jesus as 'Lord' in some way because that is what they call him. However, the 'sheep' Christians are those who had spent their lives serving others and obeying the precepts that Jesus taught while here on earth. The 'goat' Christians are those who called Jesus their Lord but didn't obey and were obviously ignoring the needs of those around them. I'm going to split up the next two blogs into "The Sheep on the Right" and "The Goats on the Left". I will talk about how sheep have certain characteristics that Christ needs in our hearts and goats have certain characteristics that would indeed make for a bad Christian! Hope you'll have the patience to follow because I've done a lot of study and meditation on this topic!!
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