The chapter we have now begun is closely connected with the preceding one. The parable before us was spoken with direct reference to the blind teachers of the Jewish Church. The Scribes and Pharisees were the persons our Lord had in view, when He described the false shepherd. The very men who had just said “We see,” were denounced with holy boldness, as “thieves and robbers.”

We have, for one thing, in these verses, a vivid picture of a false teacher of religion. Our Lord says that he is one who “enters not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up some other way.”