Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 10-11.

When Jesus talks about being the good shepherd here He actually combines two metaphors (or, perhaps John combines them).  First, He talks about how those who do not enter the sheep pen through the gate are robbers and thieves; that the shepherd of the sheep enters through the gate.   The shepherd calls his sheep by name and they follow him because they know his voice.  Jesus clarifies this by saying that He is the gate.  While Jesus was talking about Himself as the Shepherd who calls each of us by name, He also gives us about the people He sends to lead His Church.  If they do not enter through the Gate, which is Jesus, they are thieves and robbers who have come to kill and steal and destroy.  The leaders whom Jesus has sent to us have three characteristics: they come to us through Jesus and point us to go through Him, they know each of those whom Jesus has sent them to lead by name (more on this in a moment), we will hear Jesus’ voice in what they say.  That second point is more for those who believe that they have been called by Jesus to be leaders, although we should bear it in mind when we feel like we should follow someone: do they know our name, or are we just a member of the crowd to them.  And, if we feel called to lead some of God’s people, do we make the effort to learn their names.  If we don’t, we either aren’t called, or we are failing in our calling.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 10-11.

I was struck that Jesus implies that not all of the sheep in the sheep pen are His.  He tells us that He calls His sheep by name and leads them out.  Then He says that after calling all of His own sheep out through the gate, He goes on ahead of them.  This suggests that there are sheep which are not His, which do not follow Him.  Having made note of that I want to point out that Jesus has called each of His sheep by name.  There is something very comforting in knowing that the Creator of the Universe has called me by my name to follow Him.  As importantly, Jesus tells us that His sheep will only follow His voice, that they will run away from the voice of a stranger.  I think this helps explain why we sometimes feel that certain preachers are not to be trusted, even before they have said anything we can point to as wrong.

The account of Lazarus’ death and resurrection contains many things which advance our understanding of Jesus’ message.  However, I want to look at what we learn from the Sanhedrin’s response to it.  A couple of days ago I wrote about the human tendency to ask God for a sign after He has already given us the very sign for which we are asking.  Here the Sanhedrin recognized that Jesus had given signs which supported His message and were more concerned that people might believe His message than they were in what message He had for them.  They believed that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, but that did not inspire them to believe that God was working through Him.  Instead, it inspired them to fear that His actions would lead to them being removed from their positions of power.  These men, who claimed to lead their people to worship God properly, were more concerned with their positions and power than they were with listening to God’s message.  They were afraid that if people listened to God’s message, the temple would be destroyed.  How often do we today become more worried about the survival of our congregation than we are with its members doing God’s will?

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 10-11.

There are two things which Jesus says in today’s passage which I want to write about today.  First, He tells the Pharisees that His Father loves Him because He lays down His life, clearly stating that His crucifixion was not something forced upon Him, but something which He voluntarily experienced.  He goes on as part of that statement that God gave Him the authority to lay down His life, and to take it up again.  A little later when asked to state clearly whether or not He was the Messiah, Jesus says that the works He does in God’s name testify answer that question.  He then follows that up by saying that they do not believe because they are not His sheep, that His sheep listen to His voice and follow Him.  He gives those sheep eternal life and no one will take those sheep, those followers of His, from Him.  The Father has given those followers to Jesus and no one is able to take those followers from God.

All of this comes together to give us great hope and confidence.  Jesus did not die at the hand of the Romans, nor of the Jews: Jesus died because He laid down His life as a sacrifice for our sins. But He did not do so as a suicide, not even as a “suicide by cop” (or in this case by judicial execution).  No God, the Father, had given Him the authority to lay down His life, and to take it back up again.  The same God who has given us, if we are His followers, into His care.  Since no one and nothing is able to snatch us away from God the Father no one and nothing is able to take us away from being Jesus’ followers.  This gives us hope in the most desperate of situations, as well as confidence in those some situations.  Jesus had the authority to lay down His life, and to take it back up again.  Which allows us to know that if He asks us to lay down our lives in His service, He will also take our lives back up again to be with Him throughout eternity.  Today’s passage reminds us that suffering and death in Christ’s service is not forever.  It will be followed by an eternity of joy at His side.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  John 10-11.

We are called to imitate Jesus who laid down his life for us, and then took it up again.  In the same way, if we lay down our life for others in service to Christ, God will raise us up again.  This passage contains two statements which should give us great comfort.  First, if we listen to Jesus and believe in Him, He will give us eternal life.  God has given in to His hands those who do so, and no one is able to take them out of His hands.  The second statement is closely related.  Those who believe in Jesus will live, even though they may die.  Thus we know that those who have gone before us while believing in Jesus will live again, and if we put our faith in Him we shall one day see them again.

This passage also contains an important lesson in the negative.  While Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead caused many to believe in Him, there were those whose opposition to Him was merely intensified by this event.  They were more concerned with losing their power and position then with seeing the will of God come to pass.  In many ways, they represent the answer to the question, “Why doesn’t God just show Himself in a way that no one could doubt?”  The answer, as we see here, is that there will always be those who reject the evidence for God because they do not wish to accept it.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on John 10-11

There are two things which Jesus said as He spoke about being the Good Shepherd which I want to write about today.  He speaks about how He has sheep in another sheepfold that would also know His voice, follow Him, and become one flock with those to whom He had already called.  I believe that Jesus was referring to Gentiles when He referred to another sheepfold. Jesus’ teaching here, and what He spoke about in yesterday’s passage when He talked about truth and those who are truly the heirs of Abraham, form the basis for what Paul wrote in Galatians 3:28-29. Those who follow Jesus’ voice are no longer divided into tribes. We are no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, black or white. We are one in Jesus.  Those who strive to divide us into separate tribes are those whom Jesus refers to as the thieves who desire to steal and kill and destroy.  As we look around us today, we can see who those people are.  Do not listen to their voices.

Jesus goes on to tell us that those who listen to His voice were given to Him by the Father.  And once again, what Jesus says here is the basis for what Paul wrote in Romans 8:38-39.  Nothing can ever separate us from God’s love, nothing and no one can snatch us away from Jesus.  God is more powerful than anyone else, and  than anything.  As bad as things may seem when we look at the world around us, let us remember that God holds us in His hands and nothing can pry us out of them.  And this connects with what Jesus said to Martha shortly before He raised Lazarus from the dead.  Not even death can separate us from Jesus.  Those who put their faith in Jesus and listen to His voice will never truly die.  You have heard the saying, “Only two things in life are sure, death and taxes.”  But, the fact of the matter is that there is one thing even more sure than either of those.  That thing is God’s love for us.  No power can separate us from God, not death, and not the government.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on John 10-11

Jesus uses a mixed metaphor here that can be slightly confusing.  Perhaps in writing this John combined things which Jesus said at different times, but I think the passage can be understood as written.  First, Jesus is the gate to the sheepfold through which honest shepherds will come.  Anyone who presents themselves as a spiritual leader who does not direct us to Jesus is a thief and a liar.  But Jesus is also The Shepherd.  We should listen to His voice and follow Him.  Any leader who does not speak with Jesus’ voice and direct us to Him is a false prophet, who does not have our best interests at heart.