{"id":1976,"date":"2011-09-27T15:13:35","date_gmt":"2011-09-27T15:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=1976"},"modified":"2011-09-27T15:13:35","modified_gmt":"2011-09-27T15:13:35","slug":"john-1010-the-thief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/1976\/john-1010-the-thief\/","title":{"rendered":"John 10:10 – “The Thief”. . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

Pastor John,<\/span><\/p>\n

In John 10:10 Jesus speaks of “the thief” coming to steal, kill, and destroy. Is He referring (inferring?) to Satan, the devil, specifically<\/em>, or the false teachers and religious leaders (hirelings) of the day?<\/span><\/p>\n

I was cross-referencing Matt 23:13,14, when Jesus also accused the Pharisees of standing in the way of the door, and it seemed to be the same implication. They were “thieves” of people’s souls, by not permitting them entry into the kingdom, neither going in themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I heard a brief segment of a radio program where Joyce Meyer was saying that the “thief” that Jesus was talking about in that verse was<\/em><\/strong> the devil.<\/span><\/p>\n

I know that that the serpent (Satan) is, in fact, a liar and a thief, a slanderer and a destroyer, but in those verses in John 10:10 and Matthew, I don’t think it is referring specifically to Satan.<\/span><\/p>\n

Can you clarify?<\/span><\/p>\n

Brad<\/span>
\n ============<\/span><\/p>\n

Hi Brad.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

You are on the right path in thinking that Jesus was referring to ministers who have not been sent by God. But Ms. Meyer is correct in associating the thief with Satan. Without Satan, false teachers could not be as effective in their deceit as they are, and as you heard me teach a week or so ago, we are held accountable not only for our deeds but also for the deeds that we influence others to perform. Satan, being “the father of lies”, gets credit for all the lies that are taught to God’s people, and all the lies told to everyone else on earth. And being “a murderer from the beginning”, he also gets credit for all the murder that takes place everywhere, especially the murders of innocent children of God that has been carried out over the centuries by the men you see as “thieves and robbers”.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Since Jesus said, “the thief” instead of “thieves”, it’s probably best that we start by saying that John 10:10 refers specifically to Satan. However, if we forget that Satan does virtually nothing to the body of Christ without his visible representatives (ministers whom Jesus would call “sons of the devil”), we set ourselves up to become victims of them.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Stay on guard!<\/em><\/span>
\n Pastor John<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pastor John, In John 10:10 Jesus speaks of “the thief” coming to steal, kill, and destroy. Is He referring (inferring?) to Satan, the devil, specifically, or the false teachers and religious leaders (hirelings) of the day? I was cross-referencing Matt 23:13,14, when Jesus also accused the Pharisees of standing in the way of the door, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}