Have you ever been to a sheep farm?
John 10:11 is one of my favorite verses. That said, we don’t have a lot of shepherding in the U.S.; so the description of Jesus as the good shepherd may be a little foreign to us.
What was a shepherd like?
For the shepherd who owned the sheep, the sheep were everything to him. He would take very good care of them, finding good pasture land for grazing, plentiful sources of clean water, and would treat their wounds.
He would keep watch over every single sheep, making sure they were all accounted for. If one wandered off, he would go find them. He knew every one of his sheep and the sheep knew his voice and followed Him. They didn’t follow Him because of fear, but because they knew He protected and provided for them.
The shepherd would go all out to protect them. In 1 Samuel 17:34-36, David, a shepherd at the time, tells of how he fought off a lion and bear to protect his flock.