THE GATE

Therefore Jesus said again, "Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through Me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 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 NIV)

If you are familiar with the “I am” passages in the Gospels, then you probably remember this verse as the “I am the door” passage. I wondered why the modern translators changed this to “gate”? Perhaps because the Greek word has its root in a word that means “to rush in; properly, that through which a rush is made.” Thus, in the context of sheep and shepherd, it seems appropriate to think of a gate. And when Jesus completed this saying with the promise, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full”; this gate or door should be one that we want to rush through.

-- Rev. Kenneth A. Mortonson in “What Do You See?”

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