THE THIEF COMES TO STEAL, KILL & DESTROY (PART XVII)

“Thieves and Robbers of Modern-Day Church”

By Akin Ojumu

John 10 describes the events immediately following the healing of the man born blind. After receiving his sight, the formerly blind man’s neighbors maligned and ridiculed him. After failing in their effort to discredit him, they dragged before the religious rulers.

As though taking a cue from the mob, the religious leaders compounded the agony of the healed blind man. Repeatedly, they interrogated him and his parents. They lampooned him for claiming to have been healed on a Sabbath. Eventually, they banished him from the assembly of the people for standing up for the Man who restored his sight.

Upon learning of the mistreatment of the blind man and how he was expelled from the Temple, the Jord Jesus went looking for him. After finding him, He asked him if he would believe in the Son of Man. The man believed and he was saved. 

Now, among the crowd gathered to witness these things were some of the Pharisees. It was this assembly of people that the Lord Jesus addressed in John 10 using extended metaphors based on first-century shepherding in the land of Israel.

John 10:1-3a

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.”

During this time in history, shepherds in the land of Israel kept their sheep in a shared sheepfold which was constructed with sturdy raised walls. The single gate of the sheepfold made it easy to monitor and control access to the sheep. To help watch over the sheep and guard the gate, the shepherds engaged the services of a “gatekeeper” or “hireling” who served as an undershepherd. 

Since the entrance to the sheepfold did not have an actual locked door or fence, the gatekeeper had to situate himself at the open entryway, in effect, serving as a human physical barrier. Should he need to rest or sleep, the gatekeeper would literally lay across the doorway. 

The job of the gatekeeper of the sheepfold was to make sure only legitimate shepherds with rightful claims to the flock were let into the sheepfold. In order for anyone to be granted access by the gatekeeper, they must have a valid reason to be there. Since the entry into the sheepfold is restricted solely to those with legitimate claims to the sheep, thieves and robbers often looked for alternative access into the sheepfold. Such pillagers almost always had a singular intention in mind; and it’s to plunder and pillage the sheep.

Matthew 23:4

“They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.”

The thieves and robbers in this metaphor were the apostate Pharisees who, by their Rabbinic Pharisaism, had turned the people away from the true worship of YAHWEH into apostasy. They were thieves and robbers because they abandoned the Written Torah given by God to Moses and in its place created their own Oral Torah, i.e. the Tradition of the Elders, with which they heaped unbearable burdens on the people making it impossible for them to know and worship the true God.

Matthew 23:14

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation.”

The thieves and robbers were the Scribes who, like leeches, abused the hospitality of widows by living rent-free in their homes, taking up the entire place, eating their food in a gluttonous fashion, and making all kinds of demands. They are robbers because they demanded financial support for themselves from poor widows. Pretending to offer legal protection, they cheated widows out of their estate by mismanaging the properties and when the widow died, they would take over the property leaving the children with nothing.

Matthew 23:13

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.”

By implication, the thieves and robbers in the analogy represent the charlatans and impostors who rule the modern-day religious establishments. These are the general overseers who drink tea with God, ask people to pray to a rod in order to receive their miracles. The thieves and robbers are the pastors who tell tall tales on the pulpit. 

2 Timothy 4:3-4

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”

They are the preachers who convinces their followers to comb their misfortunes and setbacks away with magic combs, persuades them to wipe their misfortunes away with magic handkerchiefs, brainwashes them to believe that if they eat his leftover food or seat on the chair he has sat on, they will receive their breakthrough.

Colossians 2:18

“Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you with speculation about what he has seen. Such a person is puffed up without basis by his unspiritual mind.”

The thieves and robbers are the apostles of portals and dimensions who fly back and forth from Heaven at will. These are the false prophets who lead masses of their followers into metaphysical transcendental and occult mysticism by bewitching them into believing they can encounter God and reach a height spiritual enlightenment by praying in gibberish at the watches of night, i.e., the witching hour, which is a pagan practice that originates from witchcraft and sorcery. Thieves and robbers are the modern-day Gnostics who believe they can teach you how to break into deeper dimensions in the spirit realm where you begin to experience God more intimately.

Modern-day thieves and robbers are the cheap knockoff pastors whose specialty is in stroking their followers’ passions with man-centered, seeker-sensitive, people-pleasing, ear-scratching ponderous platitudes that tickle the ear but leave the soul untouched. They are professional pulpiteers focused on shifting their admirers’ mindsets so they can see temporal possibilities and become those material possibilities. In their attempt to be the best they can be in this world, they completely lose focus from what’s most important, the eternal destiny of their souls.

The thieves and robbers of our day are the prosperity preachers who teach their undiscerning and gullible followers they can win souls by virtue of their affluence. These are the ambassadors of “there’s nothing real as real estate” who take pride in inflaming the sensuous and greedy passions of their admirers with messages of living your best lives now in this world and paying the price in the afterlife.

There’s still so much to unpack. But we’ll pause here and continue next time.