Jesus demanded, “Feed my lambs!”

Jesus taught us that new Christian life is a “new birth.” Caring for newborns is serious business. Have you noticed how hospitals focus on newborn care? Our local hospital has a chime to celebrate the birth of each child. Caregivers are present from conception, to birth, to the time when a newborn is ready to leave the hospital.

Neglecting a newborn is unthinkable! We would arrest someone who abandoned a newborn. We would call Family Services if a parent failed to feed a newborn every few hours. Hospitals carefully manage their resources to provide quality newborn care. The Neonatal Ward is the most carefully watched, wisely funded, and secure place in the entire hospital. Now…if the Church is a spiritual “hospital for sinners,” how will we manage our Neonatal Ward?

Jesus made sure that scripture recorded his point. He stared down his most impetuous disciple and demanded (βόσκε – imperitive verb), “Feed my lambs!” the value of caring for the spiritual newborns has been set. Answering an evangelist’s public call is not enough. Becoming a member is not enough. Without subsequent feeding, the act of beginning becomes a dead-end.  

Jesus demanded, “Feed my lambs!”

We cringe as we hear John Wesley storming at his preachers, “How dare you lead people to Christ without providing adequate opportunity for growth and nurture! Anything less is simply begetting children for the murderer.”

We all carry dreams of what we hope for the spiritual newborns in our churches: eager, committed, young Christians who devour Scripture daily, changing lifestyles, fervent participation in public worship, service in the church, praying and seeing answers prayer, and speaking openly of a new allegiance to Christ without embarrassment. Deep within, we know these results are not guaranteed, and if they fail to materialize, we rightly assume that it will be more our fault than anyone else’s.

Matthew tells us how to help spiritual newborns establish their spiritual life as he interprets Jesus’ “Parable of the Sower” (Matthew 13:1-23 see below). Matthew unpacks the disastrous spiritual journeys of many early Jesus-followers. They “made the decision” to follow Jesus. They left jobs, responsibilities, and many hopes behind to find their answers in Jesus and in his teaching. Many lost their way. While they made the decision to “follow Jesus,” they never became lasting disciples.

 ¹That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. ²Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. ³Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. ⁴As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. ⁶But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. ⁷Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. ⁸Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. ⁹He who has ears, let him hear.”  ¹⁰The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”  ¹¹He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. ¹²Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. ¹³This is why I speak to them in parables: ”Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. ¹⁴In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: ” ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.  ¹⁵For this people’s heart has become  calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes,  hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’ ¹⁶But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. ¹⁷For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

 ¹⁸“Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: ¹⁹When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. ²⁰The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. ²¹But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. ²²The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. ²³But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

Matthew identifies three principal “high risk” areas for spiritual-newborn care:

• 1.  Because (v.18) parts of the message can be poorly understood, we need to nurture understanding.
• 2.  Because (v.20-21) roots can fail to take, we need to nurture the newborn’s emotional and intellectual identity in Christ and among God’s people.
• 3.  Because (v.22) the worries of life and the deceitfulness of wealth can choke out life, we need to nurture their spiritual strength for their immediate specific worries and financial burdens.

These are the presenting needs for every church’s “Spiritual Neonatal Care Unit.” There are many ways for churches to plan for these needs. There are many “ways to raise a baby.” No church can claim a final answer. From these principles we can reflect, plan, study, imagine, and pick and choose in order “to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all … become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:12–13).

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