Gospel Note
Behind all of the pastoral (sheep-shepherd) imagery here, reintroduced from earlier in the chapter, is the central point of the discourse, namely, the identity of Jesus. The famous "punch-line" about the unity of Jesus and the Father should be read, not through the Greek philosophical categories of the later creeds, which suggest ontological identity, but in a rabbinic-style assertion of God's redemptive activity in history in general and in Jesus' ministry in…