The Narrow And Difficult Way Series

When I was in my twenties, I was an avid cave explorer. Now, I just watch caving videos on YouTube. It is interesting how spelunkers will naturally follow a large wide-open passage first. They will bypass numerous smaller ones, all because the larger one does not involve hunching over or crawling in water; it is easier. But often, the large, promising trunk passage will “peter out” because of a breakdown. It is then that they will backtrack and check out a smaller one; crawling through jagged rocks over knee-pulverizing stones, on their belly in water with little room to breathe. But then, that tight crawlway emerges into a wide-open expanse that their lights cannot penetrate.

As a former spelunker, and now “armchair caver,” I sit back and think to myself, “If only they had tried the tight passage first!” In our Scripture today, Jesus shares a similar observation. When people come to the end of the wide, easy passage they have chosen through life, only to be met with a barrier keeping them from heaven; the question they will be asking themselves in agony is this: “Why, oh why, did I not choose the narrow and difficult passage first?” Nothing worthwhile comes easy; and shortcuts only result in missing the final cut. The same can be said when trying to take a spiritual shortcut to heaven. With this thought in mind, let us take a look at verses 13-14.

The Two Gates and Two Roads

13 Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

This passage is where we get the well-known expression “walking the strait and narrow,” which means choosing to do better and live right. Sooner or later, we will come face to face with the cross of Jesus Christ as we stand at the crossroads; and we will be faced with the hard reality that our own way is not working. It is at this point that we must decide to either stay on the same path or choose another. Jesus tells us that there are two separate gates that lead to two separate ways. One way leads to blessing and the other way to difficulty. We often think of the path of least resistance as being the right choice; but perhaps we have got it all wrong! In Deuteronomy 30:19, the Lord says, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore, choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.” So, which path, or which way, leads to life and blessing?

The Narrow Gate and Difficult Way

In this passage, Jesus speaks of entering by the “narrow gate” (v. 13); one which opens unto a “difficult way” (v. 14). So, what is He referring to? Well, to understand the meaning, it is best to look at some of the individual terms. We will begin with the descriptive term “narrow.” This comes from the root word stenos, which can also be translated as “strait”(1) (S-T-R-A-I-T). The King James Version renders it this way, saying, “Enter ye in at the strait gate.” This type of “strait” is used in reference to a situation that has a degree of trouble or difficulty, as in the expression “dire straits.” Commentator Adam Clarke says, “The strait gate signifies literally what we call a wicket; a little door in a large gate,”(2) and Matthew Henry elaborates, “This is a small gate, hard to find, and hard to get through . . . for we must stoop, or we cannot go on.”(3)

So, what might this narrow gate be? In Jerusalem, there were many large city gates. In the daytime, the doors of these large gates would be left wide open to allow the people to go in and out, travelling from their homes outside the gates and into the city, to journey to the marketplace or temple. The large gate doors would be shut and locked at night; however, the smaller wicket door would be left unlocked, as it was used for people entering the city after hours. “It was designed for security reasons, so that enemies could not simply ride into the city on their camels and attack. The gate was so small that a man would have to unload his camel of all that it was carrying and then carefully lead his camel through this small gate,” which was a slow and arduous task.(4) Thus, any enemy who entered it felt as though they were in “dire straits.”

Once through the wicket gate, it opened into “the way,” one which Jesus describes as “difficult” (v. 14). The word “way” (hodos) simply refers to a travelled path or road. Commentator A. T. Robertson says that “the way is ‘compressed,’ narrowed as in a [passage] between high rocks,” and that it is “a tight place.”(5) Strong’s Concordance says the word has the meaning of being “narrow from obstacles standing close about.”(6) So, what could this be describing? Well, in the Old City of Jerusalem, the gates were “designed and built to have an L-shaped entry instead of a straight line of entry. Taking this sharp ninety-degree turn would have slowed down an invading army in the final moments of a siege,”(7) as the guards above would have poured down boiling oil or tar on the enemy invaders.(8)