Teaching - Life or Death
The Narrow Gate
"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it."
-Jesus of Nazareth, 1st century
Matthew 7:13-14 in the Berean Study Bible Version
[This is the 14th lesson of this series]
Jesus preached the most famous sermon ever. The excerpt above is part of that broad teaching.
We discuss portions of this sermon in a separate series -- Sermon On The Mount.
Throughout the ages, we can loosely divide teachers into those who preach love, grace and mercy, and the other extreme, into those who preach obedience, laws and dos and don'ts.
There are those who make it a point not to offend, and on the other end those whose only intent is to offend.
[And there those who teach prosperity and those who teach poverty]
We are not saying one is better than the other, because they are all preaching in some form the Word of God. God's Word encompasses all things. One mustn't preach parts of one end without touching on the opposite end.
[Teachers shouldn't over sell nor short change]
Image Credit: scripture-images.comWhole Counsel of God
God's Word brings the hearer back to Our heavenly Father, points them to Christ and it is the Holy Spirit's job to convict them. Not the teacher.
It's a delicate balance. God's Word hurts as it heals. Teachers shouldn't preach only those things which people want to hear, yet they should not teach only about hell fire or guilt trip people. Teachers mustn't condemn, that's the work of the devil.
There will be people who will not believe, even if Jesus Himself is preaching to them. And it is not the teacher's job to make them believe.
Teachers teach God. And teach Him with love. We were all (at one time) lost in the wilderness as one of God's lost sheep. Teachers preach with both passion and compassion -- passion for God and compassion for the hearer.
Jesus was hard on only two groups of people, those who have become His closest disciples and those farthest away from Him -- the religious teachers. The first group entered through the narrow gate and by the life they are living are leading others with them, while the other group entered right through the center of the wide gate and bringing with them a multitude of people towards death and destruction.
And no Jesus didn't promise an easy life. But He taught about a blessed and fruitful life, the life that He lived and He showed His disciples how by living it.
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