Known: A Study of the Good Shepherd is a 10-week Bible study with a strong exegetical bent and a touch of devotion. In it, the reader is taken on a journey to encounter our great Shepherd by using the framework of Psalm 23, layered with other passages of scripture that reveal the Lord as our Shepherd. The reader studies the text to first discover what it tells us about the Lord through observation and interpretation. The goal of the study is for the reader to be able to discover what the Biblical text means to her own life, in light of who God is and what He has done, with application coming after sound observation and interpretation because the Bible is first and foremost about God!
The first week of the study is a straight-forward Biblical theology outline on the theme of the Lord as our Shepherd, in which the reader uncovers this theme from the front cover of the Bible to the back. She is invited to spend as much or as little time as her schedule allows in completing this overview, and an appendix with a sample outline is included at the end of the manuscript.
The second week of Known ushers in our exegetical studies as we dig deeply into Psalm 23. Each subsequent week contains a study of a different passage of the Bible that correlates with a specific verse of Psalm 23 and highlights an aspect of our Shepherd that is discovered in the psalm. The homework questions assist the reader in studying each of these selections verse-by-verse. We study John 10 to see how Jesus is the Shepherd, we look at Ezekiel 34:11-31 to learn about the pasture provided to us by our Shepherd, we delve into Psalm 30 to discuss restoration by the Shepherd, and we discover our righteousness found in the Shepherd in Romans 4:13-5:2. The study also covers suffering as a follower of the Shepherd as seen in 1 Peter 4:12-5:11, comfort found in the Shepherd with Isaiah 40, the preparation and blessing of the Shepherd which we will study in John 14, and our eternal hope in the Shepherd as we unpack Revelation 21:1-22:5.
