John 10:4 reads, “When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.” Verse twenty-seven reads, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”  Rather than accepting that God communicates to us through Scripture and we communicate to Him through prayer, many popular and prolific teachers are using John 10 to show that God communicates to us outside of Scripture, today. Henry Blackaby explains from John 10:2-4 which reads the same way concerning His sheep hearing His voice and following Him because they know his voice, “In just this way when God speaks to you, you will recognize His voice and follow Him” (Blackaby and King, Experiencing God, 102). Blackaby explains that God speaks to us individually in unique ways but not through the Scriptures. They are only our guide to hearing and knowing the voice of God (Blackaby and King, 103). He admits that he cannot give us a formula for knowing what the Holy Spirit is saying but we’ll just know when He speaks. Similarly, Charles Stanley explains that our problem is “not that we doubt God’s ability and desire to communicate, but are stumped as to how to identify His voice. If the sheep know His voice, he reasons, there must be some perceptible clues as to the nature of His conversation” (Stanley, How to Listen to God, 48). For Stanley, committed believers can identify the voice of God when he speaks. Robert Morris argues that our innate ability to hear His voice is a reflection of our identity. We are able to hear because we are His sheep. Once again, Morris teaches that God speaks to each of us daily and clearly outside of Scripture. Priscilla Shirer, also, leans on John 10 and adds that there are no exceptions or escape clauses. She reasons that “if you are His child, you are one of His sheep – the certainty of God speaking to you is as sure as the chair you’re sitting in.” (Discerning the Voice of God, 33-34). Joyce Meyer and Beth Moore are two more teachers who fill the airways with this same approach to John 10.
Jesus also promises that His sheep do not know the voice of strangers and that those who came before Him were thieves and robbers (John 10:5,8). So, a contrast is made which helps the Bible student to interpret the meaning. Second, a commentary is given in the same context by the apostle John that explains the language and meaning of Jesus. It reads, “Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.” Hearing His voice and knowing His voice were figures of speech that the Pharisees did not understand.  Third, Jesus interprets the lesson of his miracle in the previous chapter nine. Chapter nine gives us the encounter of Jesus over the healing of the man who was born blind.  The Pharisees were bent on discrediting Jesus. But the man who was healed, later has a conversation with Jesus in which he confesses, “Lord, I believe.” And, he worshipped Him (John 9:38). Here’s his lesson: “For judgment, I came into this world so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” As is common in John, much misunderstanding then as well as now occurs when we take spiritual applications and give them physical values. The spiritual eyes of the blind man was opened and his healing was a physical object lesson of that reality. The Pharisees who claimed to see were in darkness, not literally. They said to Jesus, “Are we blind?” Physically, they could see, but spiritually they were in darkness (cf. verses 40-41). They were blind to their own blindness and would, therefore, remain in darkness. This was God’s judgment on them (cf. v. 39).  Chapter ten is a continuation of Jesus’ words to the Pharisees. John ten was not addressed to His sheep. Some sheep may have been present to hear his words, but He was not addressing them. He was talking to the thieves and robbers or the voice of strangers (John 10:3-5).