A graphic circulating online asks how a man never under the first covenant could be redeemed from transgressions under it. The question carries a premise it never states: that the only redemption there is, is redemption from covenant transgressions. Paul says guilt reached men who never had a covenant to break, and so does the remedy.

Who are the other sheep of John 10:16? The dispute turns on a word neither side had stopped to define. Scripture uses fold of a place — something built, entered, left or become — and never once of a people. Define the word and the sentence reads itself: Israel's own scattered, brought back to one fold under one shepherd.