When Jesus appeared to some of his disciples at the sea of Tiberias, almost his last words, thrice repeated, contained the loving charge to Peter, "Feed my sheep." His earthly work with the disciples was nearing completion. He had lovingly led them, taught them, fed them with all spiritual food; and now, as he was about to disappear from mortal sight, he gave them the instructions which should remind them to pass to others the bread with which he had so liberally supplied them. The fact that he repeated the command, somewhat to the chagrin of Peter, implies that while the simple statement was plain enough, it contained an underlying significance too deep to be grasped without due consideration.
What was it to feed his sheep? Was it not to do for all humanity precisely what Jesus the Christ had done for them? When Jesus at one time fed the multitude, he did not do it directly, but through the disciples. The bread was passed to them, and they in turn gave to the hungering throng. This method was so divinely right that the store was multiplied a thousandfold, and at the close of the episode, instead of depletion, there was far more than they had in the beginning. If the material bread, which was but a symbol of spiritual food, could be so increased, how much more can the real products of Mind be multiplied! In either case, the one receiving the good must pass it along in order to increase it. Had the disciples contentedly consumed the bread given them, not only would the multitude have been starved, but the disciples as well.
Two types of shepherd are described in the sacred Word: one is called the "good shepherd," of which type Jesus is the perfect example; the other is known as the "hireling." The Master said: "The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep."
