Evang. Chukwuebuka Samuel Ezeokoli

The Lord is my Shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd] How natural a figure in a pastoral country, and for the shepherd-king, if the Psalm is his! Jehovah is often spoken of as the Shepherd of Israel, and Israel as His flock, especially in the Psalms of Asaph. See Psa_74:1, Psa_77:20, Psa_78:52; Psa_78:70 ff.; Psa_79:13; Psa_80:1, and cp. Psa_95:7, Psa_100:3; Mic_7:14; and the exquisite description of Jehovah’s care for the returning exiles in Isa_40:11. Jacob speaks of “the God who shepherded me” (Gen_48:15, cp. Gen_49:24). The title of shepherd is also applied to rulers; and in particular to David (2Sa_5:2; 2Sa_7:7); and to the future king of whom David was a type (Mic_5:4; Eze_34:23); and so Christ appropriates it to Himself (Joh_10:1; cp. Heb_13:20; 1Pe_2:25). I shall not want] The language, partly of experience in the present, partly of confidence for the future. So of Israel, looking back on the wandering in the wilderness, “thou hast lacked nothing” (Deu_2:7); and looking forwar

Act_6:7, Act_12:24; Isa_55:11; 2Th_3:1 So mightily grew the word of God, &c.] The oldest Greek texts have “the word of the Lord” (adopted by R. V.), The full sense of the words rendered “mightily” is “with overpowering force and strength, which nothing could resist.” Acts 19:1-23 While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul … came to Ephesus. Ephesus was the third capital and starting point of Christianity At Jerusalem Christianity was born in the cradle of Judaism; Antioch had been the starting point of the Church of the Gentiles; Ephesus was to witness its full development, and the final amalgamation of its unconsolidated elements in the work of John, the apostle of love. It lay one mile from the sea in the fair Asian meadow where myriads of swans and other waterfowl disported amid the windings of the Cayster. Its haven, once among the most sheltered and commodious in the Mediterranean, was thronged with vessels from every part of the civilised world. It lay at the meeting po