Consider the goat. I was watching Planet Earth, the BBC earth documentary that I would recommend to anybody, and in their episode on mountains, I was thinking as I watched this, or perhaps I observed this later in order to make some peculiar observation about goats for our devotional, that we tend to define animals by one key characteristic. Foxes are wily, quick as a rabbit, slow as a turtle. I suppose if goats could be characterized it would be with words like, stubborn, angry, and dumb. Poor goats, we just don’t seem to give them any credit. In light of that, I think we should take some time and look at what scripture thinks of the goat.
Now, when most people think of goats in the Bible, they go to the passage about sheep and goats,and immediately the goat is marred as an image for a sinner. But an image in one parable doesn’t stand for our complete image.
Goats play a bigger part than that. Goats often come up in passages on sacrifice. Often a goat was used for the work of atonement. Abraham, when he was about to sacrifice his son Isaac, was offered from Goat a ram to take his place, a type of Christ stepping in on our behalf and taking our place in the slaughter.
So you see, there is something to being a goat. I know that this week’s devotional is less applicable than most. I just want those of you out there who see yourselves as goats to remember that a goat isn’t all that bad, and at times its a Christ figure. It’s good to be a goat.
May God bless all of you in his flock, even the goats, as you grow in him under his wisdom and will.
Jordan Vetro