The Chocolate Gate Scandal: Part VI (Revised)

September 20th, 2006

THE CHOCOLATE GATE SCANDAL: PART VI (Revised)

Today is the day for the appointment at the medical school. I am still dealing with the issues I mentioned yesterday, but I have new thoughts. I’ve had such questions: will God heal me? Will he take my pain away? Am I looking at my illness the wrong way? There are plenty of perspectives that I can look at things. And one thing that really helped oddly enough is a website I visited yesterday dealing with the “Trinity Project”. For those of you who don’t know, Trinity James was a female porn star who left the business to pursue a life as a Christian. She is married and now has a child, but her husband has now left her and her bills have piled up beyond her means. And needless to say, she has given up hope and is going to re-enter the pornography industry. And as sad as that may seem, it has helped put my life into perspective. Life as a disciple isn’t promised to be simple and easy. Michelle (her real name) had expected everything to be given to her on a silver platter, she expected her life as a Christian to be roses, and that life wouldn’t be difficult in the slightest, from what I gathered from her postings. And if it is supposed to be easy and roses and streets paved with gold and all that, then sign me up! Of course But where she gives up, I feel the need to push forward. Also, this is the last edition of the Chocolate Gate series… just a heads up.

John 10:1-18
“I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them.

Therefore Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He 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 have it to the full.”

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.”

“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me - just as the Father knows me and I know the Father - and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life - only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

In these eighteen verses, gate is used five times. Here are previous uses of the word “gate” that I’ve looked at in the text thus far:

sha‛ar (noun)

• Gate, gate (of entrance), gate (of space inside gate, i.e. marketplace, public meeting place)


• Gate of city, town


• Gate (of palace, royal castle, temple, court of tabernacle)


• Gate of heaven


• An opening, that is, door or gate: - city, door, gate, port.

pulōn (noun)

• a large gate: of a palace


• the front part of a house, into which one enters through the gate, porch


• a gateway, door way or a building or city; by implication a portal or vestibule: - gate, porch.

pulē (noun)

• A gate (of the larger sort) in the wall of either a city; a palace; a town; the temple; a prison


• The gates of hell (likened to a vast prison)


• Metaphorically the access or entrance into any state


• A gate, that is, the leaf or wing of a folding entrance (literally or figuratively): - gate.

Now, there is another one to add to the list. In this scripture four of the five are the same. In verse 3, it is unclear to me what was used for gate, outside that it was implied due to the opening of something for the sheep, thus a gate. Makes sense to me.

John 10:1-2, 7, 9 gate:
thura (noun)

• A door, the vestibule, used of any opening like a door, an entrance, way or passage into, in a parable or metaphor


• The door through which sheep go in and out, the name of him who brings salvation to those who follow his guidance


• “An open door” is used of the opportunity of doing something


• The door of the kingdom of heaven (likened to a palace) denotes the conditions which must be complied with in order to be received into the kingdom of God


• Door; a portal or entrance (the opening or the closure, literally or figuratively): - door, gate.

I am the “door of the kingdom of heaven”; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture.

I have my appointment to go to, so I may be adding to this later today… hopefully I will be admitted into the hospital and not get to until a few weeks or so. We’ll see.

(This is actually what is added on the 20th.)
I have to admit, the appointment at the medical school failed to meet any of my expectations. I mean, on a scale of zero to 100, I can’t seem to give it much of anything except that it was very thorough yet repetitious from all the other exams that I had previously done. And despite a failing grade and what would normally mean a doom and gloom type situation, I couldn’t help walk away feeling like the worst part is somehow behind me. I can’t really explain that. Maybe I was putting all this sort of pressure on this one day on the calendar, I am not really sure. But when things didn’t go the way I had planned them to go in my mind, I somehow felt relieved. Kick me in the head and call me Elvis, but that’s how I felt. The rest of the day was pretty much a blur as was most of today, but now that my son is in bed and I sit here in some pain, I felt I should finish this puppy up.

I am sorry, but I want to go back to Michelle (Trinity James) for a moment. I just had this thought that we both had this expectation of what we wanted people and God to do for us, and when it didn’t work out for her, she fled. She gave up. I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t go through extremely tough trials starting over in life. Especially in her situation, this isn’t Hollywood where there is always a happy ending to every trial that comes your way. Maybe that is how she sees the life she is going back to, but that is her choice. In my situation (and this doesn’t just go for the appointment on the 19th), I have been expecting the doctors to “bow down” to my wishes. And it hasn’t worked once. Well, maybe except for the emergency room, but really, outside of that, it really hasn’t brought me any answers and only frustrated the doctors with my growing attitude. I am still very much in the learning process of this all. I know that giving up isn’t the answer. I am grateful for the lesson that Michelle has shown me, however much the cost to her and her family, now and later.

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Christ already did that. But I want to check out the word “lays” just a little closer. Curious, I guess.

John 10:11
tithēmi (verb)

• To set, put, place; to place or lay; to put down or lay down; to bend down; to lay off or aside, to wear or carry no longer; to lay by, lay aside money


• To set on (serve) something to eat or drink


• To set forth, something to be explained by discourse


• To make; to make (or set) for one’s self or for one’s use


• To set, fix establish; to set forth; to establish, ordain


• To place; advise, appoint, bow, commit, conceive, give, kneel down, lay (aside, down, up), make, ordain, purpose, put, set (forth), settle, sink down.

Lay down (from dictionary.com):

• To give up and surrender


• To give up; yield


• Also, lay down one’s life. Sacrifice one’s life, as in He would willingly lay down his life for his children.

It’s definitely important, to consider the words around the one you are looking to grasp the best meaning of course, or the other choices that could “fit” (at least for me) when I check the dictionaries. And with that in mind, I have to completely consider “down” with the word “lays” when checking this whole thing out. Christ, of course, did die on the cross, thus laying down his life for me. If I am to be a good shepherd and follow in his footsteps, then I should also as the Greek says: lay aside money, lay down my life for others, make myself for the use of Christ and God… yeah, I could go on and on this one. But I really didn’t intend to even check out that part of the scripture, seriously, it just kind of popped out at me.

Revelation 22:12-15
“Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”

“Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.”

The gates word used above is pulōn (see above for definition). You know, though, other translations do some of these verses better justice.

Verse 15
Good News Bible:
But outside the city are the perverts and those who practice magic, the immoral and the murderers, those who worship idols and those who are liars both in words and deeds.

Bible in Basic English:
Outside are the dogs, and those who make use of evil powers, those who make themselves unclean, and the takers of life, and those who give worship to images, and everyone whose delight is in what is false.

Contemporary English Version:
But outside the city will be dogs, witches, immoral people, murderers, idol worshipers, and everyone who loves to tell lies and do wrong.

“Blessed are those who wash their robes…” now my Strong and Thayer’s dictionaries both go with the KJV, so I have to jump to a compare feature to see what’s going on or I just jump back to my word document here to get my bearings, per se. But it was just interesting before I really had to dig, and being that I just don’t feel that I need to on this… the King James Version says this one pretty well… “Blessed are they that do his commands.” Now I do see the elaboration on the washing of robes. It makes sense to me, with Christ’s blood and being cleansed in baptism… anyway, I’m tired and still in pain, so I bid thee farewell. Johnny Out.