The Lord said that the elders in the church are likened to shepherds of the flock. You can understand what this means by watching a shepherd: while he rules over the sheep, he is loving his sheep with a fervent love. The food, the water to drink, the resting place, and the protection for the sheep are all prepared by the shepherd. With him there is the outflow of love. As a result, the sheep hear his voice.

I was once in Scotland. There was a big ranch there with a number of sheep. The shepherd had a few special dogs that were small and short, with short legs, and he used them to protect his sheep. When the shepherd led the flock to the meadows, sometimes the sheep would move in a scattered way and would go astray. The shepherd wanted them to stay in the meadows, but they would run away to the creeks. In order to gather them back to the flock, the shepherd would give a certain signal to the dogs. Immediately, the dogs would run out. They could run faster than the sheep. Although the sheep were large and the dogs were small, the dogs were very fierce, and the sheep had to turn back to the flock. Once I saw two or three sheep running away from the flock, and the shepherd was helpless. If he were to chase after one, the others would have run away. And if he were to chase after another, still others would have run away. The shepherd gave a command, and one of the dogs obediently ran in front of the sheep and barked fiercely at the sheep. The amazing thing was that though the dog was fierce, it never hurt the sheep. In this way, the sheep all turned back, and within a short time, the dogs had rounded up all the sheep that had strayed and brought them back. The expression of the dogs seemed very fierce, but yet you would feel that they were full of affection. When the sheep came back, the shepherd was also full of tenderness. I thought that this was very meaningful. Even the ferocity shown to the sheep was an expression of love. This is the discipline of love, and it is absolutely an expression of love.

Often children are very perceptive. Some parents punish their children very severely, but the more they punish them, the more the children are drawn to them, because they know that the parents love them. However, if someone does not have love, the children can also feel the lack. Some parents can speak very harsh words, words which others would consider extremely serious, yet the children can taste the love in those harsh words. Sometimes a guest may say some pleasant and sweet words to a child, but the child knows that the words have nothing to do with him. Even a one-year-old or a two-year-old can sense this. Hence, the elders should realize that, while there is the need of proper authority in the management of the church, and without it there cannot be a proper management of the church, yet in being the authority, the elders must turn their authority into love. It should appear to others that authority is completely gone, and that everything is love. Love is authority transformed, in much the same way that the body of the Lord Jesus was God transformed. He never caused others to feel that He was God. On the contrary, He caused others to feel that He was fully a man. In the same principle, those who are the authority should not cause others to feel that they are the authority. On the contrary, they should cause others to feel that everything is absolutely a matter of love. If the brothers and sisters cannot sense love in you, you have no position, no ground, and no standing to be an authority. To be an authority, one must have love.