'She Knows the Shepherd'

The great actor Charles Laughton had been invited to a family dinner in London. During the evening, the host asked everyone present to recite a favorite poem or passage. When it was Laughton’s turn, he skillfully recited Psalm 23 (“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…”). Everyone applauded his performance, and the process continued.

The last person to be called on was an adored elderly aunt who had dozed off in a corner and missed Laughton’s recitation. Someone gently woke her, explained what was going on, and asked her to take part. She thought for a moment, then began in her shaky voice, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…”

By the time she finished reciting the psalm, everyone was in tears.

As Laughton was departing at the end of the evening, a member of the family mentioned the different responses to the two recitations of the psalm. Asked his opinion on the difference, Laughton answered, “I know the psalm; she knows the Shepherd.”

And what a difference it makes. Knowing God’s word is vital, but the purpose of knowing it is to know the God who gave it. The scribes of Jesus’ day knew the text of the Hebrew scriptures intimately, but they often failed to grasp what those scriptures so plainly taught about God. Today, library shelves contain many works about the Bible written by people who know the Biblical text well but are nonetheless wandering in atheism, agnosticism, or false religion.

Knowing God’s word must be more than a mere academic pursuit. The aim is not just to know about the Bible, but to know God, to have a relationship with Him, to take His message into our hearts, and to be transformed by it. “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).

Do you know the Shepherd?

View Full Content Source:
https://www.plantcitychurchofchrist.org/articles/2025/10/26/she-knows-the-shepherd