Notes on John 10: 1 – 10

We found this passage very difficult and, like the Pharisees Jesus is talking to, failed to completely understand what Jesus is saying here.

Our first difficulty was with the mixed metaphors Jesus uses. In this passage we hear Jesus using a typical Jewish way of expression: he says something, then repeats it in another way with emphasis. However, in doing this he changes the metaphors. We asked various questions that we could not answer:

1. Who is the gatekeeper? (See below)

2. Who are the thieves and robbers? Are they the prophets who preceded Jesus?

3. Is Jesus the gate or the shepherd?

Our second difficulty was the way this passage is sometimes used to be exclusive. Some Christians believe that only they can experience God through Jesus and deny the spirituality of any other faith group. The last two verses 9 and 10 do convey a more inclusive message, and if one reads on to verse 16 one gets a quite different interpretation. This set us to look back to chapter 9 and to what provokes Jesus to say these things the healing of the blind man. Jesus is replying here to the Pharisees about blindness. It is also very useful to read on as, by the end of this section, some who are listening come to believe, and some don’t. This is a recurring theme in John. We felt that here it was very important to read both the preceding and following texts. But this means that the lectionary passage is too long for congregations to take in at one sitting. We have often felt in our meetings that passages were too long, but the more we read the more realise that each bit of this gospel links to the next, and to take out chunks is not always helpful to understanding. Is this one reason why John’s gospel does not have a year to itself?

Our third difficulty was that this passage has an element of predestination about it. Only those predestined to hear the voice of the shepherd will follow, while those who aren’t don’t!

What might we preach on?

· Verses 9 & 10

· The Psalm for the day, Psalm 23 linking it to this passage

· The gate keeper as someone who opens the heart of those who would be Christians