27 January 2027 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malankara Rite · മലയാളം
“The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” John 10:3
In Galatians Paul skips the thanksgiving with which he usually greets a church and goes straight to his alarm: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.” Then he corrects himself: “not that there is another gospel.” There is only one Gospel, because there is only one Christ. Some were telling the Galatians that grace was not enough, that they must add the old observances to be saved. Paul answers with fierce words, because to change the Gospel is to lose Christ. And he examines his own heart: “Am I now seeking human approval, or God's approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” A preacher who tells people only what they want to hear has stopped serving the Lord.
In the Gospel Jesus speaks of the sheepfold. Thieves and bandits climb in another way; the shepherd comes through the gate, and “the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” The sheep “will not follow a stranger”, because they do not know the voice of strangers. Here is the answer to the confusion in Galatia: the Church is kept in the truth not by clever arguments but by knowing the Shepherd's voice. That voice is learned by long listening, in Scripture, in the Holy Qurbana, in the teaching handed on by the apostles. Denha reveals a Shepherd who is not distant: he knows each of us by name, goes ahead of us, and leads us out.
Theme: “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”
One Gospel, a servant who pleases God, and the Shepherd's voice.
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Psalm 119:105
“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel” Galatians 1:6
Apply: Read the Gospel of the day before any other message today.
“The fear of others lays a snare, but one who trusts in the LORD is secure.” Proverbs 29:25
“Am I now seeking human approval, or God's approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Galatians 1:10
Apply: Do one right thing today that no one will praise.
“But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” Isaiah 43:1
“When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.” John 10:4
Apply: Spend ten minutes listening to the Gospel in silence.
There is one Gospel and one Shepherd.
Seek God's approval and follow the voice that calls you by name.
Take-home resolution: Read a chapter of the Gospel each day this week.
Dear friends, Paul writes to the Galatians in alarm: I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ (Galatians 1:6). There is no other gospel, because there is no other Christ.
Then he examines his own heart: if I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ (Galatians 1:10). The temptation to please people is strong for every disciple.
In the Gospel Jesus says the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice (John 10:3–4). They will not follow a stranger.
We learn the Shepherd's voice by listening every day, in Scripture, in the Holy Qurbana and in the teaching of the Church. Then no stranger's voice will lead us away. Amen.
Children, a good shepherd knows the name of every sheep! Jesus knows your name. Let us listen to him every day so that we know his voice.
Lord Jesus Christ, good Shepherd, you call each of us by name and lead us out. Keep us faithful to the one Gospel we have received, free us from the desire to please people more than God, and teach us to know your voice and follow you. Amen.
Both readings ask how a Christian tells the true voice from a false one. Paul is alarmed that the Galatians are turning to “a different gospel”, and he insists that there is only one. Jesus speaks of sheep who follow the shepherd because they know his voice, and run from a stranger. In the season of Denha, when Christ is shown to the world, the question is simple: whose voice do I know?
Setting.
Paul had brought the Gospel to the Galatians, Gentile converts in the Roman region of Galatia in Asia Minor. After he left, other Christian teachers came and insisted that these converts must be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses (5:2–3; 6:12–13). This was a dispute among believers in Christ, and Paul, himself a Jew (2:15), argues it from the Scriptures of Israel. His answer is that salvation comes through the grace of Christ, received in faith, and that nothing can be added to it as a condition.
In his other letters to churches, some word of thanks or blessing follows the greeting. Here there is none. After the greeting of vv. 1–5 he goes straight to the problem, and the first readers would have felt the omission.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.” (1:7)
For Paul “gospel” is not yet a book. It is the preached message of what God has done in Christ, the Crucified and Risen One. To change it is to change Christ.
“But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed!” (1:8)
Paul places even himself under the curse. The authority of the Gospel does not depend on the preacher, however great. The truth does not belong to the one who proclaims it.
“If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (1:10)
The word for servant is doulos, a slave. Perhaps someone had accused Paul of softening his message to win converts. His sharp words here are his reply. A servant has one master.
How the Church reads it.
The Second Vatican Council teaches that the Magisterium “is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant” (Dei Verbum 10; CCC 86). The Church guards the Gospel; she does not own it. St Vincent of Lérins, writing in the fifth century, dwells on this very verse in his Commonitorium: the faith handed down may be understood more deeply, but it may never be changed into something else (in substance). The Catechism gives the same reason for the Church’s care for doctrine: the faith is a gift received from the apostles and passed on (CCC 171).
Setting.
There is no break between chapter 9 and chapter 10. Jesus has just given sight to a man born blind, and the man has been driven out for confessing him (9:34). Jesus now speaks to those Pharisees who questioned the man (9:40). He has shown what a shepherd does, in contrast to those who cast out a sheep.
The background is the Old Testament image of God and Israel’s leaders as shepherds, above all Ezekiel 34, where God condemns shepherds who feed themselves and promises to shepherd his people himself. Psalm 23 stands behind it too. A village sheepfold was often a walled enclosure with one gate, where more than one flock could spend the night. In the morning each shepherd called, and his own flock came out to him.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” (10:3)
“Leads them out” recalls the leader Moses prayed for: one who “shall lead them out and bring them in”, so that the people “may not be like sheep without a shepherd” (Numbers 27:17).
“When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.” (10:4)
“Brought out” is the same Greek verb used when the blind man was driven out (9:34). The man who was thrown out by others has in truth been led out by the Shepherd. And this shepherd walks in front: he goes first into every danger, in the end into death itself (10:11).
“They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” (10:5)
The healed man has just done this: he would not be argued out of what he knew.
How the Church reads it.
The Second Vatican Council gathers this chapter into its teaching on the Church: she is “a sheepfold whose one and indispensable door is Christ” (Lumen Gentium 6; CCC 754). St Gregory the Great, preaching on the Good Shepherd, asks his hearers whether they truly know him, and says that he means knowing not by faith alone but by love (in substance). The voice of Christ is learned by long listening, in Scripture and in the Holy Qurbana.
Paul sounds intolerant. Should Christians speak like this today?
Paul’s fierce words are aimed at those who were changing the message and harming new believers, not at people outside the Church or searching for God. The Letter to the Ephesians, from the same Pauline tradition, asks us to speak “the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). The Church holds both together: firmness about the Gospel, and respect and gentleness toward every person (CCC 2104–2106).