Study Format:
1. What did you hear Jesus offering to you? To us? To the world?
2. What kind of resistance to Jesus did you hear?
3. What will you have to learn to resist or renounce in order to receive what Jesus is offering?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Remember back in Lent when we heard the story of Jesus giving sight to the man born blind? This is Jesus’ teachings that follow that story. In 9:39, Jesus said, “I came into the world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” The Pharisees then asked, “Surely, we are not blind, are we?” To which Jesus responded, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains. Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold…” In this reading, he is talking to the Pharisees who just cast the man born blind out of the community.
• V. 3-5 builds around the intimacy of the sheep and shepherd based on the sheep’s ability to recognize the shepherd’s voice.
• A sheepfold was usually built alongside the house with a separate entrance gate that would be the only way to access the sheepfold.
• V. 6, “Jesus used this figure of speech…” The Greek word translated “figure of speech” is paroimia. There is not a good English translation for it. It could be proverb or parable or even riddle. Unlike an allegory where each thing directly represents another thing, paroimia has an openness, inviting the reader to consider many different interpretations of the meanings. “Figure of speech” is an attempt to capture the open-endedness of the word that proverb does not have in English.
• Imagery about sheep and shepherds is common in the Old Testament. God is often portrayed as the shepherd and God’s people as sheep. Ezekiel 34 portrays the kings of Israel as bad shepherds, which stands in particular contrast to God the good shepherd.
Works Sourced:
O’Day, Gail. “The Gospel of John.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
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