The Narrow Way/Path

Let’s take a look at the Narrow Path & the Broad Way in Matthew’s Gospel.  

Matthew 7:12–14 (ESV): So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. 

 

13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. 

These words continue the train of thought that’s taken up in Matthew 7:1 - 6

Matthew 7:1–6 (ESV): Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. 

Within Matthew’s narrative, these words were delivered as a response to the dutiful culture warriors & angry religious & quasi-religious bigots of Yeshua’s day & those who thought & behaved just like them. Matthew’s central foils would be the Sanhedrin, the Zealots, the Romans, & others including Herod & his sycophants, the Herodians.  The judgment emanating from them was at times merciless, unjust, hypocritical, & unnecessarily harsh. 

6 “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. 

Be careful when you play the prosecutor. If you behave like the people targeted in Matthew 7:1-5, the people whom you are targeting (the swine) might one day rise up against you, trampling you in the process - and that happen to you even if you don’t behave like them. After all, the messengers targeted by the lynch mob in Sodom were on the right side of the argument.

Matthew 7:7–11 (ESV): Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! 

The narrative continues with an illustration drawn from everyday life.  The Sanhedrin & others had been engaged in a long-term struggle with Rome in which they had come to believe that civil disobedience through resistance was preferable to paracleting through service (Matthew 5:41 - 48). 

Matthew 7:12–14 (ESV): 12 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. 

In other words, love God & neighbor before yourself & in the correct order - God first, then neighbor, then yourself.   These same words are echoed in Romans 13:8–10.

The text also emphasizes the need for empathy.  If for some reason - perhaps because there’s only so much you yourself are willing &/or able to do - at least try your best to empathize with God & neighbor, not only those who are on your side of a personal or community wide movement, conflict, or divide but also those who are on another side — particularly those whom you perceive as your real or potential enemies. 

13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. 

In other words, the way of obedience to the Law & Gospel is especially under the conditions of the Roman Occupation, counterintuitive, as well as antithetical, to the broad way on which a great many people walk, the way leading to their judgment at the hands of God as well as Rome - a way that in 70 AD eventually led to the sack of Jerusalem & the destruction of the 2nd Temple.

What does the Narrow Path/Way look like? 

(1)  It does not eschew Ecclesiastical Tradition—rather, it recognizes that Ecclesiastical Traditions accrete over time, & it examines & tests Ecclesiastical Tradition by way of Scripture correctly exegeted, exposited, understood, & applied (CEEUA).  As such, the Narrow Way/Path is a practical outworking of Sola Scriptura. 

(2) This Narrow Way also examines & tests our moral intuitions by Scripture CEEUA.  The mind that is set on the flesh cannot please God (Romans 8:7).  See also Romans 7.   

(3) If & when questions arise relative to what we can properly deduce about God’s Moral Will (That Which Ought To Be) from His Decretal Will (That Which Is), it answers the Is-Ought (Naturalistic) Fallacy with Scripture CEEUA drawn not from descriptive statements about God’s decretal will alone, but rather from God’s Moral Will — which alone is both necessary & sufficient to properly warrant faith & practice. 

The natural moral teleology of the Created Order is to testify to God’s existence, attributes, & authority. The unnatural moral teleology of the Created Order uses the Created Order as a sufficient epistemic warrant for faith & practice. 

How might this apply in a less abstract, moral tangible way that affects our lives? 

This approach to life & living is generally antithetical to the way people have been conditioned to think for a long, long time.  

For example, John Gill’s exposition of 1 Timothy 2:14 is a shining example of reasoning from one’s perception of the state of nature to a moral precept appertaining to God’s Moral Will.  

What he has to say about Eve basically conduces to “Yes, Adam committed the greater sin, but the fact that Eve was deceived is more important.  The Serpent was on to something by chatting her up first, & this just proves that women are just plain not well suited to leadership in the home, church, & government.”  I am probably not the only one who wonders if John Knox, John Gill, & John Owen all arrived Upstairs & (eventually) faced Queen Anne & Elizabeth I over a really awkward dinner table hosted by the Realm. 

We’re doing it to LGBTQ people too.  How so?

Step 1 - Interpret ‘Natural” to mean “heteronormative.”

This commits the Is-Ought Fallacy, Vicious Circularity, Category Mistake/Error, & Semantic Overspecification.

Step 2 - Appeal to Genesis 1 & 2, with or without Matthew 19.  

This step qualifies as an attempt to construct an interpretive grid over the text that commits a Category Mistake/Error by conflating the properties of 2 separate, yet intersecting, domains (God’s Decretal & Moral Wills). 

Step 3 - When a homosexual appeals to his or her biology/genetics in order to underwrite his or her sexual ethics, correctly identify that move as an instance of the Is-Ought Fallacy.  Then do the same thing relative to Romans 1:26 - 27, as if God has baptized a particular instance of Is-Oughting - instead of reading the text correctly.  Now you’ve engaged in Special Pleading. 

Step 4 - Appeal to Authority by running to 2000 years of Church History & Ecclesiastical Tradition like Andrew Rodriguez at Psychobible, especially when the Ecclesiastical Tradition’s understanding of the Bible is exegetically correct is the issue at hand (thus committing Vicious Circularity yet again). 

Step 5 - Appeal to your own notions about what constitutes “real” masculinity, like Jared Moore does, with or without biblical evidence, eg “Isn’t it obvious?”

Step 6 - Talk about human anatomy & physiology as if heterosnormativity is self-evident.  

Step 7 - Do it all while adding to the list of ways that Christians (& Others) are failing to paraclete people by obeying Matthew 5:41.   

Step 8 - Dig your heels in when corrected.

This is how we have wound up with a society full of dutiful culture warriors in both the LGBTQ community & the Christian community & other similar religious & philosophical communities who are constantly at war with each other sociopolitically.  That’s also exactly what happened in the 1st Century ADCE relative to the relationship between 2nd Temple Judaism & the Reform Movement we know today as Christianity.

 Matthew 7:15–29 (ESV): Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. 

I Never Knew You

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ 

Build Your House on the Rock

24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” 

The Authority of Jesus

28 And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, 29 for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes. 

May God bless us all, each & every one, & “ Go & Sin No More.”