The Tale Of Two Shepherds

This weekend we’ll explore how the author of Hebrews compares Jesus and Moses. In this epistle’s first few verses, Jesus is shown to be supreme over the entire cosmos, and then the scope of comparison narrows to celestial beings, humanity, and to Moses himself.Touting Jesus as worthier of greater honor than Moses was a bold claim in the first century. Moses had always been revered as God’s chief representative. A larger-than-life figure administered the divine law and led the entire nation out of its centuries-long bondage in Egypt. Even Israel’s neighbors acknowledged that God had worked powerfully through Moses to fulfill his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.In our passage, we find that Jesus and Moses are both worthy of honor, but in different respects. While one was a faithful servant within God’s house, the other remained faithful over God’s house, shepherding his people into spiritual abundance.As this empowering message unfolds, we will see that everything Moses presided over had always been intended to point toward the advent of our Savior—the “great Shepherd of the sheep” (Heb. 13:20)—and to his life-giving ministry.