This passage is a short saying that people could easily remember. Jesus often used these. He speaks in opposites, in a parallel way. The text may be aligned in the following way.
NIV
Enter through the narrow gate
For But
wide is the gate small is the
gate
and
broad is the road and
narrow is the road
that leads that
leads
to destruction, to life
and may enter and
only a few
through it find
it
NRSV
For For
the
gate is wide gate
is narrow
that
leads that
leads
to
destruction to
life
road is
easy road
is hard
So much advice about life has to do with choosing one's path or road or way.
How do we know which is the right or best way? Often we choose based upon the way that most people are going. Have you ever arrived at an appointment or event and did not know exactly where to go? You followed the crowd and hopefully arrived at the right place. However, this is not the direction that Jesus gives. The right way is the narrow gate, the one not easily found; most people do not even bother to look. It is rough, the road is hard.
“For it is one thing to see the Land of Peace
from a wooded ridge, and yet another to walk the road that leads to it.” Augustine of Hippo
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted
wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
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