Text for the week: Finding the Right Path

Scripture: Matthew 7:13-20

¹³ “Go in through the narrow gate. The gate that leads to destruction is broad and the road wide, so many people enter through it. ¹⁴ But the gate that leads to life is narrow and the road difficult, so few people find it.

¹⁵ “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you dressed like sheep, but inside they are vicious wolves. ¹⁶ You will know them by their fruit. Do people get bunches of grapes from thorny weeds, or do they get figs from thistles? ¹⁷ In the same way, every good tree produces good fruit, and every rotten tree produces bad fruit. ¹⁸ A good tree can’t produce bad fruit. And a rotten tree can’t produce good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ Therefore, you will know them by their fruit.

Questions

1. What does the narrow gate represent within Jesus’ metaphor and what is the wide gate?
2. Jesus describes the road to life as difficult, how should we understand this metaphor especially since it has some degree of contrast with his saying, “my yoke is easy and my burden is light”?
3. What is the fruit of a false prophet and how can we identify them in our midst, and how much should we worry about them?
4. What does it mean that the false prophets are wolves in sheep’s clothing, and how do we as sheep spot such wolves when the metaphor implies they look like us?

Background

Related Scriptures: Deuteronomy 6:10-26, 26:16-19; Matthew 16:24-28, 25:31-46; 2 Corinthians 5:1-10

There is no direct object for the phrase “go in” and while we are distinctly told where to enter we are not told what we are entering. Jesus does frequently use this word in discussions of God’s kingdom and given the content of the Sermon that is probably what he meant.

The word translated “difficult” in verse 14 comes from the idea of pressing or squeezing and the idea Jesus is conveying is a path that is tight or even claustrophobic but not one that is full of difficult terrain.

False prophets are those people who claim to speak for God and yet do not, there is no specific group that Jesus is calling out, but rather the individuals whose practice and teaching is not in line with his. Such people are called out in Deuteronomy 18:20-22, the metaphor is about how these individuals are self-serving and that mentality leading to the harm or destruction of the sheep, not about the intent to deceive others.

Reflection

The difficulty I have in approaching these paragraphs in the Sermon on the Mount is because these words of Jesus make it dangerously easy for me to elevate myself while condemning others I disagree with, in direct opposition to the words of 7:1. The reason I say this is because I know I have listened to Jesus, I am entering the narrow gate, I am walking on the constricted path. However, I do not have this same confidence in my neighbor, I do not know that others have done what I am doing. Because of this it is easy for me to make myself the standard by which I measure whether or not others have entered the gate. I do not do this explicitly or consciously, rather this kind of judgmentalism comes when I make my own spiritual disciplines the standard of the gate. But what Jesus wants us to understand is that he and his standard are the gate and the path. As I said a couple of weeks ago (here), this means that we need careful in how we approach others. This does not mean we cannot make judgments about whether or not actions and attitudes reflect Jesus, but it does mean we must be gracious with the individuals and not think ourselves better than them. But the temptation is to gatekeep for this narrow gate, to determine whether people are in or out by the standards we establish rather than by a desire to follow Jesus. In doing this we establish ourselves as false prophets.

As I have tried to establish these last few weeks, even though the paragraphs of Matthew 7 seem somewhat disjointed they are connected by the theme of living in the kingdom and so these comments about the narrow path and false prophets do, in fact, relate back to the preceding concepts especially to the Golden Rule of 7:12. This is why Jesus talks of a closed in or constricting path. I know many translations use the word “difficult” for the path but that has connotations of harsh terrain and obstacles. The word Jesus uses would better describe a path that is small and surrounded by vegetation. It is not that walking the path is hard, rather the path does not leave much room for deviation (in contrast to a broad path that even if one walks off it is still easily visible). I think the metaphor is meant to suggest that the true path directs us on which way to walk, rather than suggest that it is overly hard. The point is the true path confines us to a specific mode of living one governed by 7:12, however we are often tempted to live according to our own ideals and push for a broad and free path that allows us to act however we please. It is due to this natural temptation that we so easily fall under the influence of false prophets, those individuals who in so many ways look like religious people who follow Jesus but whose message is self-serving.

There are many avenues for people to fit the category of a false prophet, because the false prophet is simply someone who says something about God that God did not say. In the Old Testament the majority of false prophets were telling God’s people they were safe, protected, and comfortable. The bible indicates they were false because those we call the prophets were saying God’s people were being judged for not caring for the poor, widows, orphans, and foreigners. In Jesus’ day he seems to categorize the Pharisees as false prophets, because they were gatekeeping God’s presence in a way that did not please God. They were holding people to harsh and uncompromising standards which violated the standard that Jesus established, give the love and grace to others that you would like to receive from them. So here we have two examples of false prophets one holds people to too high a standard for religious duties and the other does not criticize failures in religious duties. But what both of these illustrations have in common is they are laying aside the call to love and care for others in a way that makes the false prophets comfortable. The Old Testament false prophets saw that God wanted to bless people but divorced that blessing from the care of the vulnerable and person piety that was connected to that blessing. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were called out for elevating concerns for discipline and piety in a way that made God’s kingdom completely distinct from helping others. In each case the false prophet seizes on a truth of Scripture and uses that truth to interpret the whole of Scripture in a manner that is not consistent with what Jesus calls the center. This is why focusing on what Jesus identifies as the center of the message of Scripture is so vital, anything else will eventually lead us of the narrow confined path.

These paragraphs of the Sermon are a warning to seek out the narrow gate that is Jesus and walk on the path that is constricting- loving God and neighbor- while avoiding false prophets who want to send you down the path of comfort. The message for us is to make sure we interpret the whole of Scripture and our lives through the context that mattered most to Jesus.