The John Project

John 10:17-21 • Authority Under ------------------------------- John 10:17-21 contains the closing stanza of Jesus’ shepherd parable and the response to it by the religious elite. Having earlier described himself as the Good Shepherd who lays his life down for the sheep, Jesus said he does so as an expression of his power, a translation of a Greek word used in the original text which means having...

“There will be one flock.” That statement by Jesus recorded in John 10:16 as part of the summation of his shepherd parable would have been shocking to his audience of Jewish religious leaders. They would have interpreted his teaching through the lens of their Hebrew-centric paradigm. So, they would have been blindsided when he said that his flock will include sheep “which are not of this fold.” An...

As the shepherd parable recorded in John 10 neared its conclusion, Jesus uttered another one of the seven “I am” statements found in this Gospel. He twice identified himself as the good shepherd and described two specific ways he fulfills that role. In verse 11, he said he gives his life for the sheep, considering them so valuable they’re worth sacrificing himself for. And in verse 14, he said he...

John’s Gospel contains seven statements from Jesus that begin with, “I am.” They allow us to hear the Lord describe himself in his own words. And as the shepherd parable resumes in verses 7-10 of chapter 10, we encounter one of these self-descriptions when the Lord said, “I am the door.” And he used this image to illustrate another in the series of stark contrasts between the shepherd and the thie...

Jesus' shepherd parable continues in verses 3-6 of John 10 where he defined another one of the severe contrasts between the shepherd and the thief who he also referred to as a stranger. He described it as a difference in how the sheep respond to their voices. He said the sheep follow the shepherd because they know his voice but refuse to follow a stranger because they don’t know his. The Greek wor...

The first half of John 10 is most likely a continuation of the pointed rebuke of the Pharisees by Jesus that concluded the previous chapter. But when he used the phrase, “Most assuredly, I say to you," it meant he wanted even greater attention to be given to what would follow. And what follows is a lengthy parable about the shepherd and the sheep. A parable isn’t a riddle. It’s not meant to hide m...

A man who'd been blind from birth received his sight when Jesus made mud from dust and spittle, smeared it over his sightless eyes, and sent him off to wash at a nearby pool. But the Lord had already moved on by the time he returned to thank him. So ironically, the man whose eyes had been miraculously opened didn’t get the chance to actually see the one who gave him that gift. But John 9 verses 35...

In John chapter 9 verses 24-34, the Pharisees continued their interrogation of the man who’d been healed of blindness. They were determined to find a way to turn this miraculous event into a means of condemning Jesus by twisting it into a Sabbath violation. But frustrated by their failure to discredit the man’s testimony or use it for their purposes, they reached a boiling point. Like a belligeren...

In John chapter 9 verses 18-23, the proxy trial of Jesus for healing a blind man on the Sabbath moved into a new phase. The Pharisees decided to subpoena the testimony of the man’s parents to determine whether his story was true. They asked them to substantiate his identity by confirming whether he was really their son, and if so, to corroborate his healing claim by verifying he’d been blind since...

In 2013, my wife was diagnosed – based on the results of two surgeries, a panoply of tests, and two different types of imaging – with stage-four, untreatable, incurable, and terminal cancer. But during a third surgery performed for the purpose of debulking the cancer to provide a short extension to her life, no trace of the lesions could be found. And her scans have been completely clear ever sinc...

The way we perceive things depends on our perspective. For instance, if someone believes that donuts are unhealthy, then that perspective will color the way they perceive donut shops. They will be more likely to view them with disdain. On the other hand, if a person thinks of donuts as a delightful treat, they will probably be seen smiling broadly when a new shop opens in the neighborhood. Now, I...

The eighth chapter of John’s Gospel begins and ends with the Jewish elite wanting to throw stones. They came after the adulteress first, and Jesus was able to skillfully diffuse that situation. But then, after spending the rest of the chapter unsuccessfully arguing against his claim to be the son of God, they became so frustrated they prepared to heave rocks at him instead. They couldn’t tolerate...

When my wife and I moved to the Los Angeles area, I began power walking down to the Manhattan Beach pier on most days. That’s a three-mile round trip from our home and involves climbing several steep hills. At first, the trek was quite taxing, and I couldn’t imagine going any farther. In my mind, I saw that pier as my terminus, the point where I had to turn back if I was going to have the energy t...

As a kid, I learned to repeat this little schoolyard rhyme as a means of countering the verbal cruelty of other children: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Sadly though, it didn’t take long before I discovered that words could cause pain, and the wounds they inflict can be deep and lasting. Have you ever been subjected to verbal abuse? Jesus has. And one of thos...

I have often been struck by the deep need people have for assurance of belonging. And this is nowhere more evident than in the way we’re driven to locate ourselves and others within families. For instance, when a child is born, I’ve noticed that an immediate and almost involuntary search is engaged by people to identify and catalog the traits and characteristics that link the baby to his or her re...

John 8:30-36 • Free Indeed -------------------------- Following our honeymoon back in the spring of 1974, Sue and I made a home together. Until then, we were building a relationship. After, we were living in one. And although aspects of the building process continue to this day, when we began living out our love under the same roof – abiding with each other – we began to discover the liberty that...

The religious leaders who dialogued with Jesus as well as the people who overheard those exchanges, just couldn’t seem to grasp what he’d said about his relationship with the Father. He’d made several attempts to explain that he’d been sent by God and was in all ways and at all times representing him. But their hardened and sin-scarred hearts were deaf to those truths. So, in verse 28 of John chap...

In John 8:26, Jesus followed up his response to the question posed by the religious elite in the previous verse about his identity. After making it clear he’d already said all that was necessary about himself, he commented that there was much more he could say about them. But he refrained from doing so and told them why. He said he would only speak what he heard his Father saying. He would go no f...

Jesus had just warned the religious elite with hard truth about the spiritual dead end they were approaching because of their unwillingness to believe in him. Their response, recorded in John 8:25, came in the form of a question. “Who are you?” they asked. The Lord answered by referring them to the transcript of everything he’d been saying since he began his ministry. He’d already declared himself...

Jesus invaded the world beneath from the world above in order to provide – by means of faith in his sacrifice – the only bridge leading back. In John 8:21-24, Jesus described the impassible chasm sin has opened between the two worlds and repeated the warning he’d made to the religious leaders in the previous chapter concerning the urgency of their need to place trust in his messiahship. His messag...

Who are you? That’s the incredibly important question John 8:13-20 can help answer. Unwilling to allow it to stand unchallenged, the Pharisees tried to discredit Jesus’ claim that he was the light of the world by invoking a legal argument. According to their law, two independent witnesses were required to establish the truth of a matter. So, they insisted his self-description was invalid. In respo...

My wife and I lived for a couple of years in California’s San Joaquin Valley. And between November and March each year, that region experiences a weather condition known as tule fog. It can last for weeks at a time and is so thick it can block out most of the sun’s light. I had an extremely hard time coping with it. And sometimes, when I just couldn’t take it anymore, I’d get in my car and drive u...

In John 8:7-11, the confrontation of Jesus by the Jewish elite over their arrest of an adulterous woman concluded in an unexpected way as the Lord demonstrated the dramatic difference between condemnation and conviction. The religious leaders continued insisting that Jesus take a stand on the issue of the woman’s punishment. Her guilt was not in question. She’d been caught in the act. This was abo...

The precious scene described in the first two verses of John 8 turned just about as dark and ugly as can be imagined when the scribes and Pharisees showed up in the next verse. They shoved a woman to the center of the crowd who’d been caught in the act of adultery and demanded to know whether Jesus would support enforcing the death penalty in her case. But the passage makes clear that they really...