Is the Narrow Gate Really That Narrow?

[Music] well hello everyone hope you had a great Christmas yeah we had a really good Christmas got a ping-pong table and also it's not just Christmas if those of you who follow me on Instagram know we also have a rule in our house where we only play video games in the winter so like the day after winter solstice on December 22nd we get videos out and then we put it all away the first day of spring which is actually worked out as a great strategy for us it's been really nice but that means December 22nd is basically like Christmas for us for our kids and for me too if I'm being honest so we've been wrapped up in playing video games the last few days as well so but wanted to come and bring this video by the way during this break we'll be coming back shortly we're getting season 4 ready to go so we're really excited about that but there was a question on the ask Pete page that I am going to give a little answer to and it's a broad question so we could talk about it multiple times if we wanted to but it's on Luke chapter 13 and and really it's not much of a question as just hey can you give a little more context and a new perspective on Luke 13 which is the parable of the narrow gate and you know Luke chapter 13 and we read it for those of you who don't know what it says it'll look it up again here but Luke chapter 13 verses 22 to 30 says Jesus went through the towns and villages teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem and someone asked him Lord are only a few people going to be saved he said to then make every effort to enter through the narrow door because many I tell you will try and enter not be able to once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door you will stand outside knocking and pleading sir open the door for us but he will answer I don't know you or where you come from then you will say we ate and drank with you and you taught in our streets but he will say he will why I don't know your where you come from away from me all you evildoers there will be weeping there a gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves thrown out people will come from east and west and north and south and will take their places at the feast and the kingdom of God indeed there are those who are last who will be first and first who will be last so there's a few context pieces that we have to talk about first two that I think are really helpful and one that actually I don't think is very helpful so one piece of context that's really helpful is to look at these these meaning there's a similar parable in Matthew chapter 7 that sort of rounds out closes out the Sermon on the Mount when he talks about the narrow gate and it's a much shorter version there or just says you know entering into the narrow gate broad is the way that leads to destruction but narrow is the way that leads to life it really is those two lines basically but they're similar and it looks like they may be shared a source there and so reading Matthew's version and Luke's version and comparing them can actually be a helpful context for understanding what what Jesus is maybe talking about the second context that we have to keep in mind when we're reading the New Testament and this relates to a context that's not helpful is the relationship between Jews and Gentiles in the first century and in some of what Jesus is talking about and maybe more importantly how the community of faith after Jesus is wrestling with this question of who's in and who's out so the context is not helpful which I think this person who's writing the question are asking about you know give me some new perspective on Luke chapter 13 and for me the context for narrow who's in who's out narrow is the gate was about like this moralism and like there's not very many people who are gonna be saved in this cosmic salvation sense and the only way you can be make sure is to do the right things and it's really hard and it takes a lot of discipline and there's a lot of rules and you have to keep all that so that you can get into heaven and live forever that's not actually at all the context of the of the Gospels and what Jesus talks about for the most part so that's just not a helpful frame of reference when we're looking at the New Testament it's much better to think about saved the word saved and the New Testament is often more in the in the Old Testament it would have been saved from physical danger saved from our enemies in a physical sense and in the New Testament sometimes it still has that kind of apocalyptic or imminent danger more this worldly connotation not some spiritual eternal salvation sense so I'd rather just stick to what we have here in the context and if we it's interesting because if we look at just the immediate context there's just a few things here in Luke chapter 13 where he talks a lot about the fruit of what we do and then immediately though before this section on the the wide gate narrow gate or wide or opening the narrow door and going through it is in the story in Luke chapter 13 in verses 10 to 17 Jesus actually breaks the law he breaks the Sabbath in order to heal a woman and then he calls it then of course he gets in trouble for that and then he calls the religious leaders hypocrites and so it makes me think that whatever Jesus means by entering narrow gates and narrow ways and there are a few who do it is not talking about following some moral or ethical not may be ethical but may be rules and regulations of the religious order he was not talking about that at all and if we think about you know Luke adds what we don't know who adds what but in Matthews version we don't have anything about who's being included it's just really quick to say you know if you will find this narrow gate but if you back to when I read Luke's version he actually includes quite a bit of context about this you know people will come from east and west and north and south and they will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God so in Luke chapter 13 maybe we've been trained to think about this as a passage about exclusivity or exclusion but it's actually about inclusion it's more about a reversal of who we think will be in and who we think would be out it's about quality not quantity it says that you know there will be weeping there gnashing of teeth because you will see Abraham Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom but you yourselves will be thrown out and not only that not just the insiders meaning the Jews but also the Gentiles people will come from east and west and north and south and we kind of expect this from Luke Luke often has this phenomenon of thinking more about Gentiles than maybe Matthew who tends to be writing more from an insider perspective so Luke is actually a very expansive parable here where it starts to question who is in and who is out so someone asks him Lord are there only going to be a few people saved and his answer really is you know make every effort to enter through the narrow door because many kind of many insiders is how maybe I would approach this will try and enter it but they won't be able to because they don't they don't see that the kingdom of God is broader and bigger than their one little way of keeping the rules and so it's actually more of an inclusivity again we end of the parable by saying there will be many people who will come from east and west and north and south it's kind of an expansive vision for who's going to be in and they will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God indeed there are those who are last who will be first and first who will be last so it's more of a reversal commentary than it is a narrowing of who's in and who's out and we see this again if we talk about context Luke talks about this again in chapter 14 we talked about the banquet and who gets invited and even Matthew in the wicked tenants in chapter 21 if we see them in their larger trajectory it's really about including people and the recognition that those who exclude those whose fruits are bad if you will to bring it back around to that who are excluding others and luring their authority over them those are the people who are going to be surprisingly left out of this ever expanse of every grace filled feast and the kingdom of God so in Luke chapter 13 the narrow way is a way of it paradoxically of inclusion which makes sense in the context again of Jewish and Gentile relationships and how this Jesus narrative starts to open up the possibility that lots and lots of people will be entered into the kingdom of God so anyway hopefully that's a little different perspective on the narrow gates and why gates and for me I think just making sure that I can check at the door my tradition which was a pretty singularly focused way of reading the Bible everything was about getting saved in some eternal sense and that's really doing a disservice to the actual context of what Jesus is talking about alright have a great new year everyone we'll see you back in February for sure but we'll have lots of other things coming here on patreon over the next month in the meantime see you later

Channel: The Bible for Normal People

Views: 3,266

Rating: 4.6538463 out of 5

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Id: NKLo4pRV7VI

Length: 10min 10sec (610 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 29 2020