Posted by Basta! on September 26, 2013 at 16:48:53
With all due respect to Paster Don, I don't think Mathew 7:13-14 should be taken as a justification for narrow mindedness, assuming the definition of "narrow minded" is "having a prejudiced mind or being a biased person, not receptive to new ideas or having a closed mind."
Taken in context, Jesus is NOT telling his followers in Matt. 7:13-14 to have closed minds or to approach new ideas and information with preconceived prejudice. Everyone perceives and interprets information through a lens colored by personal experience, but some people try very hard to set aside their biases and consider ideas on their own merit.
A very wide gate through which so many of us enter is in fact our very human tendancy to look at things through the colored lens of personal biases. We don't know that we don't know. Stepping outside our comfort zone to look objectively at people, places and things-- trying on other points of view to see what reality looks like from someone else's standpoint--is a rather narrow gate through which few people make the effort to pass. As Matt. 7:3-5 suggests, the most radical point of view a person can take when considering others is to be nonjudgmental, merciful, and forgiving.
So now that I've stood the teaching in Matthew 7:13-14 on its head, I'd like to say what I think it means in the context of Matthew 7.
Matthew 7:3-5 says it's not enough to believe in forgiveness and mercy, you must also be a forgiving, merificul, nonjudgmental person. That might include forgoing judgment about Oprah's God, which is a way of judging Oprah herself, imo. If she is judged to worship a false god, how can she be a worthy person of goodwill?
Matthew 7:7-11 says it's not enough to believe God will take care of our needs, we must also actively seek out God's blessings.
Matthew 7:15-23 brings a warning to the series of related teachings in Matthew 7: It's not enough to believe Jesus is the Christ, we must also bear fruit, i.e., act on that belief in ways that usher in the now-and-coming Kingdom of God.
Finally, Matthew 7:24 says it plainly--"Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on a rock."
Or as it says James 1:22, "Don't just listen to God's word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves."
This is what Jesus is talking about with regard to the entering either the narrow or wide gate. Don't be like the many who hear, but do not act; rather, take the narrow path of turning your will and life over to God.