Telltale Signs

Shepherds protect the sheep from the wolves. Hirelings herd them toward their open jaws. It’s easy enough for the hireling to offer up the sheep to the ravenous wolves because there is no one to tell the tale of their demise. Some clumps of bloody wool and sinewy bits are all that’s left over after the wolves are done feasting on the sheep, the rain washing clean the remnants of slaughter. The hireling walks away, well paid, reputation intact, eager to find another flock because the money is too good for them not to wash, rinse, and repeat in perpetuity.

It makes it all the easier because sheep are by nature trusting, and until the moment the wolves descend, and there is nowhere to run, they still believe the hireling is a true shepherd, willing to lay his life down in defense of theirs.

Please don’t misunderstand; hirelings are good at what they do. Their purpose is to keep the sheep docile, compliant, malleable, and easily swayed because spooking the would be antithetical to their goal. The hireling does not want the sheep to know they are in mortal danger. If they could, they would attempt to convince the sheep that wolves don’t even exist. Since they can’t pull that off, the next best thing is to persuade the sheep that even though they hear the howls, the wolves are nowhere near, and pose no threat at all.

“That happens over there, somewhere far away, and it will never come near to you,” they insist in sugary, syrupy tones. “Those people insisting on having church, on fellowship, on congregating together and following Biblical principles are just trouble makers. They give good Christians a bad name, and we should condemn their actions!”

The hirelings have conflated the idea of believers being the sheep of His pasture, with the notion that we must be docile as sheep, obedient even to our detriment, and contrary to the Word of God. This is not the first time hirelings have conflated two independent ideas, the most notable being that loving someone must automatically mean that you validate, celebrate, encourage, and give your stamp of approval to any sin or perversion.

In order for their plan to work, in order for them to be able to feed you to the wolves wholesale, they must keep you docile for just a little while longer. By their nature, wolves are predatory and are continually searching for easy prey. Like any predator, the wolves have an innate sense of who will put up the least amount of resistance, of who will put up the least amount of fight, and that is who they focus on first. If they can help it, wolves don’t want to work too hard for their supper. They don’t want a fight; they just want a meal.

When those who ought to be defending the sheep attempt to comfort them by insisting that only half of them will get eaten, then they’ve shown their hand, and you know that they are not what they purport to be. When so-called shepherds insist that the only way to coexist is to let the wolves roam free among the sheep, then you know you’ve happened upon a hireling, one who will have no qualms about offering you up to save their own worthless skin.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea Jr.