19 Bible Verses About Doors

John 10:9

“I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.”

Reflection: Jesus has just told a figure of speech about a shepherd who enters the sheepfold by the door while the thief climbs in another way. When his hearers do not understand it, he applies it to himself: “I am the door of the sheep” (John 10:7). Going in and out to find pasture describes the ordinary life of a flock that is safe, and the next verse sets it against the thief, who comes “only to steal and kill and destroy.”

Luke 13:24

“Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”

Reflection: On the road toward Jerusalem someone asks Jesus, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” He does not give a number. He tells the questioner to strive to enter, and warns that many will seek to enter and fail. The following verses explain why: the master of the house will rise and shut the door.

Matthew 7:7-8

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

Reflection: In the Sermon on the Mount, knocking is the third of three pictures for prayer, after asking and seeking, and each carries the promise that it will be answered. Jesus grounds the promise in what a father does: no father hands his son a stone when he asks for bread, and “how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11).

Revelation 3:20

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”

Reflection: The words close the letter to the church in Laodicea, which says “I am rich” and does not see that it is “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” The verse before reads, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.” Christ stands outside a church that thinks it needs nothing, and offers to come in and share a meal with anyone in it who opens.

Song of Solomon 5:2

“I slept, but my heart was awake. A sound! My beloved is knocking. ‘Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.’”

Reflection: The woman hears her beloved knocking at night and hesitates: she has undressed and washed her feet. By the time she rises and puts her hands to the bolt, “my beloved had turned and gone” (Song of Solomon 5:6), and she goes out to look for him. Read as love poetry, it is a scene of a delayed answer and a missed meeting; readers who take the Song as a picture of Christ and his people set it beside Revelation 3:20.

Genesis 7:16

“And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the LORD shut him in.”

Reflection: Noah, his family and the animals go into the ark as God commanded, and then the Lord himself shuts the door. The chapter dates their going in to the same day the fountains of the great deep burst open and the rain began (Genesis 7:11-13).

Exodus 12:23

“For the LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.”

Reflection: On the night of the first Passover, Moses tells the elders of Israel to put the lamb’s blood on the lintel and the two doorposts, and adds, “None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning” (Exodus 12:22). The doorway is the place of the sign: where the Lord sees the blood, he passes over the door and does not let the destroyer in.

Matthew 25:10

“And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut.”

Reflection: In the parable of the ten virgins, five bring extra oil for their lamps and five do not. While the foolish five go to buy oil, the bridegroom arrives and the door is shut. When they come back and call, “Lord, lord, open to us,” he answers, “I do not know you,” and Jesus ends the parable, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

Luke 13:25

“When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’”

Reflection: This continues Jesus’ answer about the narrow door. Those left outside plead that they ate and drank with the master and heard him teach in their streets, and he answers a second time, “I do not know where you come from.” The passage then says people will come from east and west, north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God.

Isaiah 22:22

“And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.”

Reflection: The Lord sends Isaiah to Shebna, the steward over the royal household, to say that his office will pass to Eliakim the son of Hilkiah. The key of the house of David goes with the office, and the one who holds it decides who comes in: what he opens no one shuts, and what he shuts no one opens.

Revelation 3:7

“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.’”

Reflection: The letter to the church in Philadelphia takes the words of Isaiah 22:22 and gives them to Christ, who “has the key of David.” The next verse applies them to that church: “Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.”

Revelation 4:1

“After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.’”

Reflection: After the seven letters, John sees a door standing open in heaven and is called up through it. The voice like a trumpet is the one he heard in Revelation 1:10, telling him to write to the seven churches. What follows the invitation is the vision of the throne in heaven.

Psalm 24:7

“Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.”

Reflection: The psalm twice calls on the gates and ancient doors to lift their heads so that the King of glory may come in, and twice asks who this King is. The first answer is “The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle!” The second is “The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory!”

Acts 14:27

“And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.”

Reflection: Paul and Barnabas have gone back through the towns where they preached, appointing elders in every church, and then sailed to Antioch, the church whose prophets and teachers had sent them out (Acts 13:1-3). Their report credits the work to God: he did it with them, and he opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.

1 Corinthians 16:9

“…for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.”

Reflection: Paul tells the Corinthians he will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost because of the door opened to him. He names the opportunity and the opposition in the same sentence: the door is wide, “and there are many adversaries.”

2 Corinthians 2:12

“When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, even though a door was opened for me in the Lord…”

Reflection: Paul went to Troas to preach and found a door open, but he did not stay: “my spirit was not at rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I took leave of them and went on to Macedonia” (2 Corinthians 2:13).

Colossians 4:3

“At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ…”

Reflection: Paul writes from prison and asks the Colossians to pray for a door for the word and that he may make the mystery of Christ clear. The request follows the command in the verse before: “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.”

Genesis 4:7

“If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, and you must rule over it.”

Reflection: The Lord speaks to Cain after his offering is not accepted and his face has fallen. Sin is pictured as crouching at the door, and Cain is told he must rule over it. In the next verse Cain speaks to Abel and kills him in the field.

Psalm 141:3

“Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips.”

Reflection: The psalmist asks God to set a guard at his mouth as a watchman stands at a door. The next verse carries the request from speech to the heart and actions: “Do not let my heart incline to any evil, to busy myself with wicked deeds in company with men who work iniquity.”