In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus contrasts two ways of life using the metaphors of a "narrow gate" and "wide gate." The narrow gate represents a path of genuine, sacrificial love from the heart, while the wide gate refers to living with outward righteousness that hides inner corruption. Jesus urges choosing the narrow path to true life.

Matthew 7:13-14 (NASB)

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Is Following Jesus Difficult?

At a key moment in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus assures people that following him will not be difficult. “My yoke is easy,” he says, “and my burden is light,” and I will bring “rest for your souls.” (1) That’s certainly encouraging.

But then, during his famous Sermon on the Mount, he paints this word picture about wide and narrow gates that seems to suggest the opposite.

So which is it? Does following Jesus bring peaceful rest to our souls? Or is the path to life in Christianity so difficult and “narrow” that, despite how hard we try, only a few will actually figure it out?

Popular readings of this passage often trend toward the notion that Jesus is contrasting the life of perfect religious observance and piety against the life of total immorality and debauchery: “Doing good is hard, and doing evil is easy.” Or more simply, “Hardly anyone is good enough for God, and mostly everyone is headed for destruction.”

But if Jesus’ yoke is easy, and if following him brings genuine rest to weary people, then there must be additional meaning in Jesus’ famous statements that “narrow is the path to life” and “wide is the path to destruction.”

Jonathan Pennington points out a long Christian tradition (born from the pietist movement) that sees the “narrow gate” versus “broad way” as the difference between moral and immoral behavior, or pious versus unholy practices. But that’s not what Jesus is contrasting here. Instead, Pennington says, Jesus is contrasting the way of outward religious observance against the way of genuine heart transformation. This is a distinction Jesus develops throughout the Sermon on the Mount. (2)

So to better understand, let’s closely examine the context of Jesus’ teaching, including input from the Hebrew Bible, and then zoom in on the narrow is the gate meaning in the teachings of Jesus during the Sermon on the Mount.

Two Ways of Life To Choose

In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus describes the same reality with two well-known biblical metaphors—the narrow versus wide gate and the narrow versus wide path. He is not referring to actual gates or paths, but ways of life.

The Hebrew Bible and other Jewish writings often compare the “way” or “gate” of life chosen by the righteous versus the way or gate of death desired by the wicked.(3)

For example, God warns Adam’s son Cain to never submit to the “croucher,” which he describes as sin crouching at “the gate [or door].” (4) You don’t have to give into it, God says. Choose life instead. Psalm 1 gives another powerful comparison between the way of the righteous people and the way of the wicked.

Speaking of the sins of God’s people, Isaiah says this:

Isaiah 59:7-8 (NIV)

Their feet rush into sin;

they are swift to shed innocent blood.

They pursue evil schemes;

acts of violence mark their ways.

The way of peace they do not know;

there is no justice in their paths.

They have turned them into crooked roads;

no one who walks along them will know peace.

Although many of these Jewish teachings do associate the bad path with corruption and debauchery, (6) Jesus makes a different point in the Sermon on the Mount. He says that scrupulous religious observance can be just as destructive as reckless immorality. Mere devotion to religious behaviors and virtuous-looking practices is another way to walk the wide path to destruction.

Earlier in the Sermon, Jesus quotes a biblical law prohibiting murder.

Matthew 5:21 (NIV)

You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, “You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.”

Then he offers his expanded interpretation of this law in light of the larger biblical story.

Matthew 5:22 (NIV)

But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, “Raca,” is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, “You fool!” will be in danger of the fire of hell.

Jesus says that the deeper attitudes of a person’s interior life—hate, envy, and contempt toward another—are what lead to murder. So the original prohibition against murder is not simply about stopping people from physically murdering one another; it’s about eliminating the cause of murder by ending malicious or contemptuous attitudes towards others. Jesus is laser-focused on teaching us ways that lead to life, starting with an honest examination of our hearts.

To refrain from actually murdering someone is obviously good, but we can still harbor hatred for people even if outwardly we treat them well. If we despise other people or groups of people while carefully observing the “do not murder” law, then sure, we appear pious and proper on the outside. But we are also on the easy, wide, broad way that ultimately destroys.

Instead, to refrain from harboring any contempt or hatred toward others, including enemy opposers—that’s the narrow path. To be filled with desire for reconciliation and a willingness to truly love others, even when doing so requires suffering—that’s the narrow path too.

This is the point of Jesus’ metaphor in Matthew 7:13–14. As Pennington writes,

“The wide and easy way that leads to destruction is precisely what Jesus has been describing all along as living with merely external righteousness, while the narrow and ‘difficult’ way is the vision he has cast for righteousness that is more and deeper than behavior. The broad and easy way is the way of the Pharisees, whose righteousness is easily definable and can be gritted out solely at the external level—not committing adultery, not murdering, and so on. The narrow and difficult way is Jesus’s vision, a righteousness that requires deep roots and the exposure of one’s whole person to God, true virtue.” (6)

On the one hand, the wide road describes the hard-hearted choice to create the good life for ourselves by self-defining what’s important and what’s not, or by cherry-picking the rules that would make our lives (or our loved ones’ lives) easier. Wide is the path to destruction that attempts to gain God’s favor by keeping his commands without actually learning to embrace a soft-hearted love for others.

And broad is the way of life that turns us into people who appear decent and well-mannered from the outside while nesting deadly wickedness in our hearts. Over time, these issues destroy our relationships with God and others. They end up filling our lives with bitterness, judgment, and selfish indifference toward neighbors. This is the sure path to corruption, even unto death.

On the other hand, people on the narrow path are intentional about living by God’s deeper wisdom (not merely the letters of the laws). Through prayer and meditation on Scripture, they allow God’s ways to penetrate their hearts. And with the help of God’s Spirit, they diligently work to obey and imitate Jesus’ teachings and his loving and sacrificial life.

Jesus’ way of life fixes our hearts and relationships with God and others. He fills our lives with love and peace, that deep sense of rest captured by the Hebrew word shalom; Jesus brings rest—true shalom—to the weary. It is the good life of God’s Kingdom.

Choosing the Narrow Gate

In Jesus’ Beatitudes (7) (which parallel Matthew 7:13-14), we learn that the Kingdom of God is all about experiencing and embodying God’s sacrificial love and peace with others—regardless of personal risk.

Jesus calls us to enter into relationships with others where root issues like malice, selfishness, and tit-for-tat dynamics are altogether rejected and each person practices God’s sacrificial love and active peace with others. These relationships themselves become the final reward—a microcosm of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Notice, then, that the narrow path is not only about entering the Kingdom of Heaven in the future. It also allows us to enter and experience this Kingdom right now. His yoke is light, and the experience of walking with Jesus is like a taste of heavenly rest from our burdens. All good things.

But there’s one critical, sobering caveat that Jesus offers.

Our English word “narrow” comes from the Greek word thlibo, which has much to do with persecution and trouble in this context. (8) Jesus warns us that choosing the narrow gate, or walking the narrow way, will necessarily include a willingness to be mistreated by others, just as Jesus was. For Jesus’ disciples, that meant they would encounter hostility from Israel’s leaders and their community members, who might misunderstand why they lived the way they did.

Similarly, for us today, taking the narrow path may at times cause friction in our relationships or other comparable challenges. People may not understand why we live the way we do, and such misunderstandings often result in relational and other suffering.

In the face of these expected troubles, Jesus’ metaphor also reminds us of the new heaven and new earth, where all wrongs will be corrected and all troubles will turn to joy.

With that living hope in mind, we can choose the narrow gate without being discouraged by any danger and mistreatment. The Apostle Paul must have this in mind when he writes, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (9)

The Narrow Path to Shalom

By considering Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:13-14 in light of the whole Sermon on the Mount and the larger biblical narrative, we can avoid overcooked interpretations that assume Jesus is merely comparing the ease of sinfulness to the difficulty of holiness. Or worse, that he’s suggesting a narrowly small group of people will ever be good enough for God.

The larger context helps us see his focus on two ways of life: one that proudly hides a corrupt heart behind righteous-looking behaviors, and one that humbly desires a transformed heart. Jesus’ narrow path is about learning to truly love everyone, everywhere.

This means the wide path to destruction includes more than the obviously immoral or debaucherous. It includes the types of people who congratulate themselves for refusing to murder, while harboring bitterness, hatefulness, or contempt toward others—folks who feel satisfied and holy by obeying religious law while also refusing to truly love God and others. However socially acceptable that way of life may be, Jesus teaches that it is (and always has been) the wide path to destruction.

We can enter through the narrow gate, as Jesus did, and trust his directive for life—his good yoke. Following his narrow path is a weighty challenge and requires a willingness to suffer. And yet, he crafts his yoke with love and light. It is reasonable and not burdensome; it enlivens us.

“Narrow is the path that leads to life,” Jesus says, and this path will eventually guide us to God’s renewed creation, to true shalom.

1. Matthew 11:29-30
2. Pennington, Jonathan T. The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 273.
3. For examples, see Gen. 3:24, 4:7; Deut. 30:15-20; Ps. 1:6, 9:13-14, 118:15-21; Prov. 16:25; Rev. 21:25, 22:14-15.
4. Genesis 4:7
5. See also Deut. 30:15-20; Prov. 2:6-13; Isa. 59:7-8; Prov. 9.
6. Pennington, Jonathan T. The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 273-274.
7. Matt. 5:3-12
8. For examples, see Matt. 13:21; 24:9, 21, 29; Acts 14:22; Col. 1:24; Isa. 26; Dan. 12:1; Hab. 3:16; Zeph. 1:15.
9. Romans 8:18