![]() ![]() If anyone tried to come into the pen at night by climbing over the wall, it was clear that he was a thief and a robber, not a legitimate shepherd. A watchman, who was a hired hand, only allowed certain shepherds and sheep to enter that gate. For security, there was only one gate into the pen. Some sheep pens, including the one Jesus describes, were large enough to house more than one flock. This is the type of pen that Jesus’s readers would have seen in first-century Israel.Īt sundown sheep were led into this enclosure to protect them from predators and thieves. But in Israel the most common material is stone, and therefore the enclosure we saw that day was made of large white rocks piled on top of each other to a height of about three feet. If I had heard the words “sheep pen” prior to this trip, I would have imagined an enclosure made of either wood or metal. On one of our first stops, we visited a sheep pen. He thereby claims to be the one and only way into the pen…Ī few years ago, a friend of mine invited me to join him and twenty-five others on a tour of Israel. But they will never follow a stranger in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. He begins by describing a typical first-century sheep pen and the way it functioned for both shepherds and sheep: They would also have been aware of the many Old Testament references to God as the shepherd of Israel, including the well-known twenty-third psalm, which begins with the words, “The Lord is my shepherd.” So the imagery of this “I am” statement and the next (“I am the good shepherd”) would have been very familiar to Jesus’s audience. But in Jesus’s day, shepherds and sheep were common sights, and John’s original readers would have been familiar with sheep herding. Many people who live in an urban or suburban environment have only seen sheep in a petting zoo. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:7–10) They will come in and go out, and find pasture. I am the gate whoever enters through me will be saved. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.
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