Pastors sometimes speak about “my church.” Usually we mean nothing more by it than “the church where I serve.” Christians do the same thing when they speak about “my pastor” or “my small group.” It is ordinary language.

But taken literally, it would be a dangerous thing for a pastor to believe. The church does not belong to its pastors. Peter makes that clear when he addresses the elders in 1 Peter 5. He does not tell them to shepherd their flock. He says, “Shepherd the flock of God that is among you” (v. 2).

Those three words matter: the flock of God. Every person entrusted to the care of an elder already belongs to Someone else.

That changes the way we should think about pastoral ministry. An elder has genuine authority in the church. Scripture does not reduce pastors to advisers who offer religious suggestions that Christians may take or leave. Elders are commanded to teach, lead, protect, correct, and exercise oversight. Elsewhere, Christians are commanded to respect and submit to faithful spiritual leaders.

But biblical authority is always delegated authority. A pastor is a steward, not an owner. Peter understood that personally. Jesus had once said to him, “Feed my lambs.” Then again, “Tend my sheep.” And once more, “Feed my sheep” (John 21:15–17).

Not your sheep, Peter.

“Mine.”

Years later, when Peter instructed other elders, he passed on the same understanding. Shepherd the flock of God. That should produce a particular kind of pastor.

Peter says an elder must exercise oversight “not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:3). The contrast is important. Pastoral authority is real, but it does not look like worldly power.

The world often understands authority in terms of control. The person at the top gets his way. His preferences carry more weight. People beneath him exist, at least partly, to accomplish his vision.

Jesus explicitly rejected that model for Christian leadership. When his disciples argued about greatness, he pointed to Gentile rulers who “lord it over” others and then said, “It shall not be so among you” (Mark 10:42–43).

Christian leadership looks different because Christian leadership is shaped by the cross. The pastor does not ask, “How can these people help me accomplish what I want?” He asks, “How can I spend myself for the good of people Christ purchased with his blood?”

That is why Peter speaks about example as well as authority. A pastor must preach holiness, but he must also pursue holiness. He must teach Christians to pray while being a man of prayer himself. He must call husbands to love their wives while loving his own. He must teach generosity without being greedy, repentance without being defensive, humility without demanding recognition, and endurance without abandoning the sheep when shepherding becomes difficult.

The shepherd walks where he calls the sheep to walk. This is also why character matters so much in the biblical qualifications for elders. Scripture certainly requires elders to be able to teach. Doctrine matters. Competence matters. But the qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 are overwhelmingly concerned with what sort of man an elder is.

His life is part of his ministry. That should also help us understand what pastors are actually for.

A pastor is not primarily a religious event organizer, motivational speaker, institutional CEO, or professional problem solver. There may be administration, planning, meetings, budgets, policies, and countless practical responsibilities involved in church leadership. Some weeks can seem to contain an alarming amount of them.

But underneath all of that remains the simple biblical picture: shepherds caring for sheep. Sheep need feeding. They need protecting. They wander and need pursuing. They become injured and need care. They sometimes need correction. They need to be led toward good pasture and away from danger.

And importantly, shepherding requires knowing the sheep. Peter says, “the flock of God that is among you.”

Pastoral ministry cannot finally be conducted at a distance. Preaching to the whole congregation is essential, but shepherding involves particular people with names, families, weaknesses, questions, temptations, griefs, and gifts. The pastor who loves “the church” as an abstract concept but has little patience for actual Christians has misunderstood his calling.

Actual sheep can be difficult. So can actual shepherds.

That is why Peter’s instruction is good for congregations as well as elders. Pastors are not the Chief Shepherd. They are themselves sheep under his care. They remain sinful men who need grace, correction, encouragement, prayer, and forgiveness.

A healthy church therefore avoids two opposite mistakes. It does not despise pastoral authority, treating elders as though their calling carries no particular responsibility before God. But neither does it exalt pastors into something Scripture never intended them to be.

The church does not need celebrity shepherds. It needs faithful undershepherds. And Peter gives those men a remarkable promise: “When the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory” (v. 4).

That title puts everything back into its proper place…. The Chief Shepherd. Every elder serves beneath him.

Jesus knows the flock better than any pastor does. He sees the member whose struggle an elder has not noticed. He understands the suffering we cannot solve. He pursues wandering sheep beyond the reach of our pastoral care. He feeds his people through his Word. He guards his church. And unlike every earthly shepherd, he never grows tired, never becomes distracted, never acts from selfish ambition, and never fails those entrusted to him.

Pastors come and go but the Chief Shepherd remains. That should humble pastors and comfort churches. The people sitting in our pews do not belong to us. The children growing up among us do not belong to us. The ministries we oversee do not belong to us. Even the local church we may spend decades serving does not belong to us.

Christ purchased his church with his own blood. So pastors must shepherd carefully. We are handling something precious that belongs to Another. And churches should pray for their shepherds, encourage them, receive faithful biblical leadership, and help them remember the same wonderful truth:

The flock belongs to God and the shepherds belong to God and over all of us stands Jesus Christ, the Chief Shepherd of his sheep.