John 10: 1 – 10 – Jesus the Good Shepherd
In chapter 9, Jesus has raised the ire of some religious leaders by giving sight to a blind man on the Sabbath. Some of them have heard Jesus say “‘I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind'” (9: 39). some have asked him, “‘Surely we are not blind, are we?'” (9: 40), to which he has replied, ‘”If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.'” (9: 41). Thinking themselves worthy makes them unworthy in God’s eyes.
Now Jesus uses a metaphor to expand on his point (but no metaphor works perfectly). In Palestine, sheep belonging to villages roamed freely during the day but were confined to a common enclosure at night, to protect them from predators. Each morning, each shepherd called his sheep who followed him to pasture.
While “this figure of speech” (v. 6) is hard for us to understand in detail (as it was for those who heard Jesus), we can get the drift. So irate does the metaphor make the leaders that they try to stone him (in v. 31) and, in v. 40, Jesus flees across the Jordan. As he explains (v. 7), he is the “gate” of v. 2, so presumably the thieves and bandits are the Jewish religious leaders. Jesus, both the “gatekeeper” (v. 3) and the “shepherd” (v. 2) is the true leader. He calls the faithful to follow him (v. 4); they don’t follow a “stranger” (v. 5). The people listen to him and not to the “Pharisees” (9: 40), “all who came before me” (v. 8). He is the only “gate” (v. 9) to eternal “life” (v. 10), to freedom (“come in and go out”, v. 9, a Jewish idiom), and to nourishment beyond measure (“find pasture … abundantly”).
© 1996-2025 Chris Haslam
Prayer of the Week
God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant: make us perfect in every good work to do your will, and work in us that which is well-pleasing in your sight: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.