door

Traveling one day in Israel, a visitor to the holy land came across a shepherd and his sheep. He started a conversation with the shepherd and the shepherd showed him the fold into which the sheep were led at night. It consisted of four walls, and only one way in.  He asked him, "This is where they go at night?"

"Yes," said the shepherd, "and when they are in there, they are perfectly safe."

"But there is no door," he said.

"I am the door," said the shepherd. (He was not a Christian and wasn't speaking in the language of the New Testament. He was speaking from an shepherd's viewpoint.)

The visitor looked and him and asked, "What do you mean you are the door?"

"When the light has gone," he said, "and all the sheep are inside, I lie in that open space, and no sheep ever goes out but across my body, and no wolf comes in unless he crosses my body;  I am the door."

"Therefore Jesus said unto them again, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door; whoever enters by 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 may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd.  The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.'"  (John 10:7-11)