When the Lord Jesus Christ sent His disciples to preach His Kingdom, He told them: “Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves” (Luke 10:3). Of course, the words of our Lord Jesus are directed for all of us since all of us are His disciples and ambassadors to the world. He is the Good Shepherd and we are His reasoning lambs. So what does He want exactly for us?

And why would He allow His disciples to be in such a difficult situation and to appear in such not only weak but scary image?

What are the privileges of being lambs among wolves? Let us discuss these questions.

1- God preserves His lambs

He promised to keep us from wolves, surround His people and let not the scepter of wickedness be rest on the land allotted to the righteous(Psalm 124). According to His promise not a hair of our head shall be lost (Luke 21:18).

2- The lamb is meek but cautious

The Shepherd told His lambs to beware of people (Matt. 10:17). Although the lamb does not know how to respond to evil by evil, the lamb knows how to avoid being polluted by evil or involved in it.

The lamb is also cautious of the wolves dressed in lamb clothes attempting to sneak among the lambs to snatch a lamb or more. Here the lambs must adhere to the commandment of their Shepherd "Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves." (Matt. 10:16). The serpent is wise at escaping danger.Harmlessness implies the absence of duality, crookedness, or complexity in interaction.

3- The fruit type distinguishes lambs from wolves

Our Lord Jesus Christ said: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits…A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit...Therefore by their fruits you will know them” (Matt. 7:15-20)].

Therefore, lambs must have the ability to distinguish between true lambs and wolves in lamb clothing, because the external appearance may be similar to a great extent!

4- Even if wolves could bite the lambs, they cannot destroy them

This is because the lambs have a power of life that death cannot defeat. They derive this life from the True Lamb who sacrificed Himself for their sake. He was slain for the life of the world; He overcame death; and He also lives forever.

The lambs are strong because they have "the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt them" (Luke10:19).

The lambs never become frightened no matter how ferocious the wolves are because their Shepherd is the Almighty and their life and fate are in His Hands.

The lambs will be conquerors despite all circumstances, as St. Paul the apostle, one of the victorious lambs, asserts “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans: 8: 36-37).

5- The mission of the lambs is to testify for their meek Shepherd amid all the difficult circumstances

They testify among the kidnapping wolves and wild monsters. They testify through love, the world of truth and the good example.

Our teacher Saint Paul the apostle tells us that he has fought with beasts at Ephesus (1 Cor.  15:32). How did he fight them? He fought them with the Living Word, the sacrificing love, by warning everyone with tears and by tolerating many plots (Acts 20). He led many to the love of Christ. This is why he asserts to us that the mission of the lambs is the shining testimony for Christ: “That you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life” (Phil. 2: 15-16).