John 10:1

“What I am about to tell you is true.” Jesus says, “It is quite easy to identify the thief and the burglar. They do not come into the sheepfold through the front gate; they jump a fence or do something sneaky to get in.”  John 10:1 EFP 

I will go on the assumption that this is Jesus continuing his response to the Pharisees regarding their spiritual blindness. Jesus has just finished telling them they are guilty as sin due to their unwillingness to see what is plain to see regarding his testimony. It is an indictment of their spiritual narrow-mindedness.

But now he takes a different approach in trying to clarify the contrast between his and their approach to ministry.  The events just transpired have made it clear that their method to protecting the well-being of the people God leads them to use less-than-honest means. They intimidate, threaten, chastise, malign, and use deceit to gain the upper hand. There is a clear contrast between the way of the Kingdom of God and the way of the kingdom of man.

The end justifies the means is the way of the world. It boils down to the survival of the fittest—which in this case would refer to the people in power. Even religion can serve to be an instrument of deception, control, and enslavement if it is not tempered by the grace of God and empowered by the Holy Spirit. It becomes nothing more than a human endeavor masked in the garb of goodness and pious platitudes. Movements begun with the highest and purest of motives can degenerate into self-perpetuating and self-serving social systems, devoid of any semblance of the God they claim to represent. God, deliver me from evil!