John 10

"Meine Schafe hören meine Stimme, und ich kenne sie und sie folgen mir." (27)

After some Jewish people asked him, if he is the Christ or not, he gave them this answer. Acctually this answer is a clear "yes" because of the parable he said before, the works he had done till then and everything word he has said. But it seems that some people just do not want to, can not, are not willing to listen to him and follow him, like the sheeps are fallowing the shepherd according to his voice. But in contrary we can see how they hated him and wanted to destroy him for the words he is saying (19,31,39). They are at that time indeed not a sheep of Jesus. Because they do not listen to him, do not trust him and do not let themselves led by him.
On the other side the author of John illustrate the other side, the sheep of Jesus. He reported about the many people who believed in Jesus and came to him (41+42). Those are the one who will receive all the grace and protection Jesus has promised and the sheep are the one how will enter into eternal life.

In this small chapterwe can see how nice and meaningful the bible is written: In the first part it writes about the parable of the Good Shepherd, than Jesus esplains the meaning and purpose of telling this parable. Than in the second half it reports about a real situation where some people had problems with the identity of Jesus (which is not different today). With them we can see an example of, not to be a sheep of Jesus = not to believe in him= not to listen to his voice.

John 14

⁸Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." ⁹Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?


Here we can see that the disciple who has been with Jesus didn't fully understand who Jesus is or what Jesus means. Many times in the Bible we see this type of scenarios happen, where Jesus would speak one thing but the disciples will understand it for another. The disciples, even though they have been with Jesus, did not fully comprehend Jesus. Another example is in the case of Lazarus (John 11:11-13). Where Jesus was speaking of death, but the disciples understood it for natural sleep. Also in the case of Martha, when Jesus was speaking of immediate resurrection, she understood it to be the resurrection at the last day (John 11:23,24).

This makes me wonder if we still do that today as Christians. Even if we have been Christians for a long time, and we read the Scripture. Do we understand the Scripture differently than how God intended for us to understand it? Do we comprehend what the Lord wants us to do fully? Or are we on different wavelengths as the Word, and missed the point? One other example would be Peter, when he tried to save Jesus out of love and courage when Jesus told them He will suffer and be killed (Matthew 16:21-23). Peter missed the point of Salvation. In listening to the word of God today, do we also place our own thoughts and feelings into it? Or are we truly listening to the Word and comprehend the point it is trying to convey, even if it is against our thoughts and feelings?

The Spirit of truth will bring us to all truth (John 16:13). The problem is, are we full of the Spirit, and are we relying wholly upon the Spirit at all times?