Page 468 - Bible History

CHRIST FOUNDS HIS CHURCH 441
receive the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. He would be the one to tell men what they must do to please God and to save their so s. Together with the rest of the apostles, he would have the authority to say what was right and what was wrong, what was true d what was false. God would wat over him and protect him from error, and atever he com­ manded would be the law of God.
Our blessed Savior sought by means of parables to The help the apostles and the people to understand what vine
and the His Church would be like and what her mission would branches
be. He said, "I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit, He will take away; and every one that beareth fruit, He will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself. unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine. You are the branches. He that abideth in Me and I in him, the same beareth much fruit. For without Me, you can o nothing. If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the re and he shall burn.''
Sheep raising was one of the principal occupations The of the people in the days of our Lord, and no gure Good
was more familiar than that of the shepherd watching over his sheep. All day long he would lead them across the countryside in search of good pasture. He would watch over them with loving care, driving them gently with his crooked sta . The sheep would learn to
Shepherd