Doctrine vs Theology

Sometimes the simplest idea can be the most profound.

ἔσται γὰρ καιρὸς ὅτε τῆς ὑγιαινούσης διδασκαλίας οὐκ ἀνέξονται, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὰς ἐπιθυμίας τὰς ἰδίας ἑαυτοῖς ἐπισωρεύσουσιν διδασκάλους κνηθόμενοι τὴν ἀκοήν.

2 Timothy 4:3

I first mentioned Michael Rood on this blog back in January after watching his video series about the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew entitled Raiders of the Lost Book. I’ve been watching a lot of his videos on Youtube since then and have to say that I’m mightily impressed. Although I’m still a bit skeptical about Rood’s extreme Judaizing (most notably revealed in his misinterpretation of Colossians 2:8 in his two part video Let No Pagan Judge You), for the most part, I find his Hebraic perspective on the Scriptures enlightening.

In Episode 3 of his Prophecies in the Fall Feasts series, Rood said something about how the Hebrews understand doctrine that, despite the matter-of-fact way it was put, struck me as terribly significant (slide to the 06:50 mark):



So, basically the Hebrew way of thinking is to consider doctrines to be commandments on how to act, rather than as theological instructions on how to think, that doctrine teaches how to do what God wants, not why it should be done. In other words, when considering biblical instruction, doctrine, the first consideration is to ask how one puts it into practice.

The profundity of this distinction wasn’t apparent to me immediately, but the more I thought about it, the more amazed I became. It was the first time I’d ever really given a thought to the distinction between doctrine for works and doctrine for theology, and I began to see a wonderful utility in calling the former “doctrine” and the latter “theology”. I now believe it is essential for preachers and teachers to make this distinction (whether these terms are used or not), because until it is understood and made clear to believers, an essential element will be missing from the Lord’s instructions—practical application!

Currently, doctrinal exhortations and commandments from Protestant pulpits are heavy on the theology and light on the doctrine; or, if you will, heavy on the why and light on the how. After getting people all fired up on why they need to do something, they neglect to tell them how to do it; thereby leaving the people in a state of confused frustration.

As an example, take the sermon I heard last Sunday at Church. Taking Romans 12:1 as his cue, the Pastor spoke stirringly about the need for us to be an example to the world by heeding the Apostle Paul’s call to become a “living sacrifice”. He completely convinced us that this was indeed our “reasonable service”. The only problem was that he didn’t tell us how we were to do this. He gave us all the why’s, but none of the how’s.

This lack of practical instruction (henceforth to be known as “doctrine”) in sermons has been a criticism of mine for quite some time now; which probably explains why Rood’s simple distinction had such an impact on me. All the way through the sermon I kept thinking, “Tell them how. Tell them how! TELL THEM HOW!” All he had to do was cite a couple of the following Synoptic Gospel verses werein Jesus tells us how to be a sacrifice:

Matt 10:38—And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

Matt 16:24—Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any [man] will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Mark 8:34—And when he had called the people [unto him] with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Mark 10:21—Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

Luke 9:23—And he said to [them] all, If any [man] will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

Luke 14:2—And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

So, clearly, to be a living sacrifice, we must first deny ourselves (act contrary to our flesh), then pick up our crosses (to which we are condemned by the world by bearing true witness), and follow Him (to His self-sacrifice for the Kingdom). See? Easy!

Now that's doctrine you can sink your teeth into.



Upon reflection, it occurred to me that so little practical doctrine is given in sermons these days because of a fear of overdoing it and becoming legalistic, or worse, works-based. In the Reformation, we were taken from the desiccated works of the Roman Catholics into the dry wilderness of Faith Alone-ism; all the while forgetting the warnings of the Apostle Yaakob (see James 2:20, 26). Now we are in a place were it is seen as dangerous to tell the flock too specifically what Jesus told them to do.

Okay, I'm going to leave that thought there for now and give this whole doctrine/theology distinction a long think. In particular, I'm going to ruminate on the possible relevance to this post of the two different Greek words in the NT that have been translated “doctrine”: διδασκαλία [didaskalia] and διδαχή [didache].

Oh, and I guess I'm also going to have to reconsider the wording of my Deconstructing Doctrines series.


Right.

Who is the θεος of this World?

Bible Study rule #2: Be aware of translator eisegesis.

³ But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: ⁴ In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

2 Corinthians 4:3-4

As a student of the original languages, whenever I'm reading the Bible in English, simultaneously, in the back of my mind, I'm wondering how the original text looks; which is why, while reading 2 Corinthians 4:4 in the KJV last night, the phrase “god of this world” virtually jumped off the page at me. My first thought was, “Oh-oh, is this another example of wildly misleading translator eisegesis in the English New Testament?” A quick look at the verses in the Greek NT had me thinking it was.

³ εἰ δὲ καὶ ἔστιν κεκαλυμμένον τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ἡμῶν, ἐν τοῖς ἀπολλυμένοις ἐστὶν κεκαλυμμένον· ⁴ἐν οἷς ὁ θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου ἐτύφλωσεν τὰ νοήματα τῶν ἀπίστων εἰς τὸ μὴ αὐγάσαι αὐτοῖς τὸν φωτισμὸν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου τῆς δόξης τοῦ Χριστοῦ ὅς ἐστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ.

I then checked the readings in other English versions on Blue Letter Bible—the NKJV, NIV, ESV, YLT, ASV, DBY, WEB, HNV—as well as the Spanish RVR (Reina-Valera) and the Latin Vulgate, and, yep, they all showed a small-g god of this world. The NLT (New Living Translation) went so far over the cliff of eisegesis as to helpfully include the word “Satan” into their translation.

Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe.

For those who might not get what all the fuss is about here, I should explain that the original Greek texts of the Bible were written in uppercase letters. In fact, there were no lowercase or cursive letters when the NT books were first penned; these were a later scribal development.

This means that there was no literary convention whereby proper nouns were capitalized to distinguish them from common nouns—as with God and god—so there was no way to know from the morphology alone whether a proper noun or common noun was intended.¹

Even now, in lowercase Greek texts like the one above, you can see that there is no distinguishing capitalization on the two occurrences (in red) of the word θεός [theos], which is translated “god” in English. In these modern Greek texts, you will find proper names capitalized, but not common nouns, so there’s never a capital theta (Θ) on θεός.

Given that, you can now see that the translating of the first θεός in this verse as “god” and the second one as “God” is a function of translator interpretation. It all hinges on who the translator believes the Apostle Paul is referring to as the “god of this age” (the use of the word “world” is another interpretation rather than translation. The Greek word αἰών [aion] is closer in meaning to the word “age”, and is used to refer to an unbroken, therefore eternal, perpetuity of time.).

There are arguments on both sides of this question, but I am convinced, by the context, as well as the whole counsel of Scripture, that the Apostle Paul meant the God in 2 Corinthians 4:4. Sam Shamoun on the Answering Islam website has a great post about this very thing here. Conveniently, all my arguments (and more) are there, so there’s no need for me to detail them all now.

No matter which side you eventually fall on, however, it is still important to realize that there are many instances like this where the translators (and those who employed them) have taken it upon themselves to interpret the words of Scripture, rather than just translate them. In fact, the same capitalization decisions made with θεός were made regarding the word πνεῦμα [pneuma], which is translated as “spirit”. In the absence of the adjective “holy”, the translators decided when the Author meant uppercase-s “Spirit”.

Of course, interpretation is impossible to avoid entirely when rendering one language into another, but it is my firm belief that, especially with Scripture, in order to keep interpretation down to a minimum, a word for word translation should be done as consistently as possible, regardless of how odd it might look in English (E.g. if there is no first letter morphological distinction in the Greek text, then don’t capitalize the English text ever!). Any great amount of interpretation that a translator thinks might be needed could easily be done with foot or margin notes. That way, the reader would be given a purer text that he can either interpret or query for himself, without being forced to accept the questionable doctrine of an insular ecclesiastical or academic gate-keeper.

Herr Professor Brooke Foss Westcott II

But, of course, this has not happened with our English Bibles. Right now, the only way a believer can truly know what the Word of God said is to study with the original texts. However, to do this effectively, he will first have to acknowledge that doctrinal eisegesis has occurred in our English Bibles, and that even his most foundational belief might be in error, wholly or in part. One of the greatest tools used to corral Christians away from truth and the authority of the Bible into ignorance and dependence on church leadership has been English-only instruction.

καὶ γνώσεσθε τὴν ἀλήθειαν καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια ἐλευθερώσει ὑμᾶς—John 8:32

Indeed.









Footnotes:

1. I am aware of the scribal custom of abbreviating certain holy names like ΙΗΣΥΣ [IESUS] and ΘΕΟΣ [THEOS] as ΙΣ and ΘΣ respectively, but this too was a later development and every bit an example of eisegetical translation as proper name capitalization.

When is a Union a Marriage?

If God doesn’t care what hellish unions the ungodly forge, why do we?

καὶ εἶπεν ἕνεκεν τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα καὶ τὴν μητέρα καὶ προσκολληθήσεται τῇ γυναικὶ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν.
—Matthew 19:5

Although I’ve finished the Bible study God Hates Divorce? I’m still researching what the Bible actually teaches about marriage. And the more I look into it, the more astounded I am at just how unscriptural all our marriage doctrines are. It seems that the false belief that God hates divorce was simply a tiny tip of a very large iceberg of error.

Let’s chip-off and examine another miniscule piece of that giant iceberg…

One thing that Christians invariably do whenever they think about marriage is to equate whatever they call a marriage with what the Bible calls a marriage. For some strange reason, in their promotion of lifelong matrimony, or in their denunciation of no-fault divorce, it never occurs to them to ask whether the marriages they’re getting all exercised over are even real marriages in the first place; that is, marriages in the sight of God.

This failure to question their definition of marriage is partly due to enculturation and partly due to tradition. Most of us have grown up in countries where the culturally approved definition of marriage was identical to the predominant religious definition of marriage. This is not surprising, since our societal form of marriage was informed by our religious traditions. Just like the term “family”, there was never any reason to think that what we call a marriage in everyday speech might not be the same thing the Bible calls a marriage.

Well, let me be the first to say it: They are not the same.

Before I go any further, though, I should acknowledge that officially the Church of Rome has always treated marriage as a Holy Sacrament and viewed Catholic marriages as the only true marriages. In theory, this meant that the Catholics viewed all non-Catholic unions as pagan couplings and the children of these unions as bastards. In practice, however, the Catholic Church has been its typical hypocritical self and, whenever it was politically or ecumenically convenient, granted all sorts of exceptions and special dispensations of Bishops and Cardinals (or whoever) to allow the parish priests to avoid applying the Church’s rules.

In any case, the Catholic doctrine on marriage is no more biblically legitimate than those of other Christian Churches, although their basic concept of unions being marriages only when they are sacred is spot on.

All of which then begs the question, “When is a union a marriage?”

The answer to this question can be found in Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians. The main thrust of this epistle is to call the believers in Corinth (and, by extension, all believers) to doctrinal unity. In Chapters 6 & 7, Paul is expounding on the proper way to view and deal with marriage.

I’m not going to flesh out the entire doctrine of marriage right now, I just want to draw your attention to a very important distinction Paul makes with regards to the marital status of three categories of believers in his letter (Remember Bible Study General Principle #1: The Bible is written for and to believers only!).

Now, let's take a look at 1 Corinthians 7:8. As you do, please keep in mind that the Greek word translated “wife”, γυνή [gune], means “woman”, and the Greek word translated “husband”, ἀνήρ [aner], means man (as in male, not human). Therefore, in ascribing titles to these people that might or might not have been implied by the author, whenever the translators wrote “wife” or “husband”, they were interpreting the text, not simply translating it.

I say therefore to the unmarried and widows...

So the first category of believer Paul is addressing is made up of those who are currently not married or widowed.

Next, in v.10, he addresses a second category of person he calls “the married”:

And unto the married I command, [yet] not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from [her] husband: But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to [her] husband: and let not the husband put away [his] wife.

The “advice” to eschew separation Paul gives to both the men and women of this second category is an exact echo of the Mosaic Law on divorce as written in Deuteronomy 24:1-2 and clarified by Jesus in Matthew 19:3-9. Which is why Paul is careful to note that this commandment comes from the Lord, not him. This is clear evidence that Paul considers the unions of those he calls “the married” to be subject to the Law of God, meaning that their unions are sanctified. In short, he calls them “the married” because they have actual marriages.

This is made abundantly clear by the next category he addresses in v.12.

But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.

And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.

What? “The rest”? Who are “the rest”?

Well, it has to be all those believers who he has yet to address, those he doesn’t categorize as unmarried, widowed or married; believers, male and female, who have partners that are unbelievers.

By the way, this is why it is important to know what the translators have done here in using the titles “wife” and “husband”. The Apostle clearly doesn't consider the believers married, so why would he call their unbelieving partners “wives” and “husbands”? He didn't. He called them “women” and “men”. The translators eisegeted their misunderstanding of this text into their translation and ended up contradicting the author and misleading the reader.

So, by implication, those who the Apostle calls “the married”, who have sacred, biblical marriages, are pairs of believers. Therefore, a union becomes a biblical marriage when both partners are believers.

This is why Paul doesn’t offer the Word of God to these believers with unbelieving partners, but instead offers his own advice. This is because their unions aren’t biblical marriages—they haven’t been, as Jesus put it, joined together by God (Matt 19:6)—and can be dissolved without any spiritual consequences, as we see in v.15.

But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such [cases]: but God hath called us to peace.

This all makes perfect sense, when we remember what marriage really is: The union between Christ and the Church (Eph 5:32). Spiritually, a mixed-marriage, one between believers and unbelievers, is a mixture of the holy and the profane.

Just another hellish union of the ungodly.

Coming to the full understanding of the biblical distinction between a sacred marriage and a pagan union, one immediately realizes that our civic and ecumenical definitions of marriage are entirely irrelevant to God. This, in turn, should help us see that, what unbelievers choose to call a “marriage”, whether same-sex or common-law, has no bearing on the true, universal Church.

So, all the stress and agitation by Christians over things like epidemic divorce or gay marriage is completely unnecessary. As far as God is concerned, if both couples in a union are not believers, then there is no marriage there.

Does God Really Hate Divorce?

Just uploaded the second installment of the Deconstructing Doctrines Series. It's titled DD2: God Hates Divorce? and to find it, either click on the Pages tab above this post, or click here. I still have a final tidying edit to do, but nothing drastic should change.

If you've got any questions or comments about this instalment (or the series), you can email me (click the Email Me link on my profile page) or leave a comment below the instalment itself or this blog post.

Enjoy & God Bless!

“Angelic Messenger” is Redundant

τῆς φιλοξενίας μὴ ἐπιλανθάνεσθε, διὰ ταύτης γὰρ ἔλαθόν τινες ξενίσαντες ἀγγέλους.
—Hebrews 13:2

It never ceases to amaze me how radically different the Bible is in the original languages. Whether Hebrew, Chaldee or Greek, the more I learn, the more I realize just how the actual words of God have been hidden by our English translations. Nearly every day some new, clearer understanding of a verse or doctrine, given to me through study of the original texts, highlights the extent to which modern Christian thinking has been lead astray by the hermeneutics of translators.

Sandy and I were discussing an example of this just this morning. I was reading 2 Corinthians 8:23 aloud from the KJV when I came across the word "messengers". Supposing this to be a translation of the common Greek word for "messenger", ἄγγελος [angelos], I began to wax theological on the problems stemming from the unfortunate habit of Bible translators to sometimes translate a word, and other times transliterate the same word.

In the KJV ἄγγελος is translated "messenger" 7 times; transliterated "angel" 179 times.

And, as with the transliterated "angel" for ἄγγελος, the general rule seems to be that the meaning of the transliterated form gets the full ecclesiastical treatment. So many additional church meanings get attached to these transliterations that entirely new words are created and their actual meanings as they appear in scripture are forgotten or ignored.

There are many other words treated the same way. Here's a couple:

μάρτυς [martus] is translated "witness" 29 times; transliterated "martyr" 3 times

διάκονος [diakonos] is translated "minister" 20 times, "servant" 8 times; and transliterated "deacon" 3 times.

Interestingly, the Bible translators liked the transliterated form of the Greek word ἄγγελος so much, they decided to use it as a translation for the common OT Hebrew word for "messenger" מלאך [mal'ak]!

מלאך is translated "messenger" 98 times, "ambassador" 4 times, and "angel" 111 times (!)

Now, just imagine how different our Bible exegesis would be if the translators had simply translated ἄγγελος and מלאך as "messenger". Then, in many of the instances where these words occur, the context would indicate what is being referred to, rather than a translator thousands of years after the fact. After all, a messenger might be a prophet, a person bringing God's message, or any believer with a word of Scripture. Imagine how differently you would think about Hebrews 13:2 if the people you might be "entertaining unawares" weren't heavenly, non-human creatures, but simply other Christians who hadn't identified themselves as such.

Well, as it happens, the word translated "messengers" in 2 Cor 8:23 was not ἄγγελος but ἀπόστολοι [apostoloi]. This is the word "apostles" (lit: "appointed away ones"). And that's a topic for a whole other post.

On the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew

At some point in your journey through Koine Greek and the Greek New Testament, you will hear that the Gospel of Matthew was originally penned in Hebrew and then translated into Greek. The argument for such a claim is fairly compelling, and more and more Biblical scholars are giving it credence, but it does rest largely on cultural and linguistic textual insights rather than strictly archeological evidence. That is by no means a comment as to its veracity, but rather a caution against any absolutist statements proffered by the (almost exclusively) Messianic apologists. In the case of the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, the only thing we can know for certain is that, as yet, we cannot know anything for certain.

Here is part 1 of 10 of an exellent presentation on YouTube about the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew called Raiders of the Lost Book, from self-described Messianic Jew, Michael Rood. The greater and by far the more fascinating part of the presentation is given by Nehemia Gordon, a Karaite Jewish textual scholar at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and author of The Hebrew Yeshua vs the Greek Jesus.



As for me, I'd be delighted if it were true. For far too long Christian scholarship has ignored the Jewish Jesus (Yeshua). Anything that helps us recreate the cultural milieu in which the Gospel was written would be a blessing to Biblical exegesis.

However, let me state for the record, that a Hebrew Matthew would in no way shatter my trust in the Greek text; which is, I think, the hope of far too many of the Hebrew Matthew's proponents.

And there's the rub. There always seems to be this underlying implication that, if the Gospel of Matthew was originally Hebrew, then it's possible that other Gospels might've been, too—particularly John's. And if that's true, then, really, Paul's epistles probably were written in Hebrew as well. Before you know it, the idea of the original NT being Greek would be utterly abandoned and a massive historical (and textual) revision would take place. Hebrew, rather than Greek, would become the primary language of New Testament scholarship. And, in my opinion, that would be a disaster.

Those who want Hebrew to eclipse Greek because they think it is the Holy Tongue are ignoring a very important fact and a very important theological insight.

Fact: God preserved the New Testament record of Christ's earthly Mission in Greek. He arranged things so that Greek would be the lingua franca of the Gentile world at the moment in time when He took exclusive access to His Word from the Jewish nation and gave it to "all flesh", to any Jew or Gentile who would believe that Jesus was the Savior of the World.

Theological Insight: As with the confusion of tongues after the tower of Babel episode, God punished Israel by changing the language through which He chose to speak to them. Their understanding was darkened in large part through the demotion of their language. In this way, as Joseph was hidden from his brothers by being dressed as an Egyptian, the Messiah was to become unrecognizable to them after they "killed" Him.

As well, with the revelation of Spiritual Israel that came with the advent of Messiah, there was a need for a language that could reveal the spiritual aspects of the Hebrew Scriptures. Biblical Hebrew is a simple, naturalistic language suited to expressing concrete thoughts. Greek, on the other hand, is a complex, conceptual language, highly adept at expressing abstract and esoteric thinking. In chosing Greek as the language of ἀποκάλυψις [apokalupsis], of "taking off the cover", and not Hebrew, God fulfills even more of the prophetic elements of the Josephine story. Here is the "famine" that the brothers had to go through before they finally, and humbly, approached their Savior. Jesus is the Word (John 1:1), which is the Bread of Life (John 6:35, 48), and the Word was the Spirit of Truth (John 14:6) hidden within the letter of the Law (2 Cor 3:6). Access to this spiritual Bread is now gained through the Greek language, a Gentle language.

A humbling thought for Jewish Believers, no doubt, but one I'm sure they'll eventually embrace once they realize that even if they themselves speak Hebrew, they now think like Greeks, rather than ancient Israelites. They, like Joseph's brothers, have also come around to the Messiah's way of thinking.

Strait is the Gate

¹³ Εἰσέλθετε διὰ τῆς στενῆς πύλης, ὅτι πλατεῖα ἡ πύλη καὶ εὐρύχωρος ἡ ὁδὸς, ἡ ἀπάγουσα εἰς τὴν ἀπώλειαν καὶ πολλοί εἰσιν οἱ εἰσερχόμενοι δι᾽ αὐτῆς· ¹⁴ὅτί στενὴ ἡ πύλη καὶ τεθλιμμένη ἡ ὁδὸς, ἡ ἀπάγουσα εἰς τὴν ζωήν, καὶ ὀλίγοι εἰσὶν οἱ εὑρίσκοντες αὐτήν.

Matthew 7:13-14

We are all familiar with the gate and the way that lead to life in Matthew 7:13-14—or, at least, we think we are. For most of us over 30, the words of the KJV are the standard:

¹³ Enter ye in at the strait gate...¹⁴because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

I wonder if I was the only one to grow up hearing the word strait but thinking it was straight, of thinking of the gate as upright and regular, without any warping. Reading it, I just supposed the spelling was archaic. For years I imagined the narrow way was a long, one-person-at-a-time path heading straight for the horizon, like a single rail of track heading for the rising sun. These ideas naturally lead me to believe that Jesus was telling us that the way to Heaven was restricted to straight-laced, upright people, who kept their eyes forward, focused on the goal—Eternal Life—all the while eschewing the temptations on either side.

Of course, even if you were one of the more astute among us, who realized that strait meant confining, as in straitjacket, it is still likely that you were mislead into thinking the straitening was to come from your own conscience and the restricting of your own behavior, that you forced yourself to lead a life of self-abnegation in order to stay on that thin road running right through the middle of the wide way of the heathens. Unfortunately, however well that idea might appear to mesh with the Doctrine of Self-denial, it isn’t what these verses are saying.

Let’s take a look at the words translated strait and narrow in the Greek NT; these are στενός [stenos] and θλίβω [thlibo] respectively. In Matthew 7:13-14 stenos is an adjective; thlibo is a perfect passive participle: στενος is from the root στεν—, as in στεναζω, “to groan,” στεναγμος, "groaning"; as well as στενοχωρεω, “to be straitened, compressed”; and στενοχωρια, “narrowness, anguish, distress”. θλιβω means “to press (as grapes), press hard upon, or compress”. The noun form θλιψις is the word translated as “tribulation” throughout the KJV.

The singular impression both of these words give is of a great difficulty pressing you in on both sides, as though you were being funnelled through a gradually narrowing channel. They are not words denoting the physical dimensions of the gate and way, per se, but rather the experience to be found there. In much the same way, in the poetic expression “they met at a dark hour”, the word dark is not used so much to describe the lack of light, but rather to convey the unsavory nature of the meeting. In the strait gate and along the narrow way you are like a grape being squeezed out in a winepress—a common Biblical metaphor for the operation of God’s wrath (see Lamentations 1:15; Joel 3:13; Haggai 2:16; Isaiah 63:3; Jeremiah & Rev 14:19-20, 19:15 et al) and, more significantly, because God's Word is written for Believers, His method of getting the best of the fruit (Numbers 18:27, 30; Deuteronomy 15:14; Isa 5:2; Matthew 21:33).

By the way, another small note on the translation in the KJV: The Greek preposition translated in at in the phrase “Enter ye in at the strait gate” is διὰ [dia] which actually means “through” or “by means of”.

So, now we can see that these verses, in telling Believers to “enter through the painful gate”, not the easy one, then describing why—“because painful is the gate and tribulation the way which leads unto the Life Eternal”—they are, in actuality, encouraging us to stay the course, rather than exhorting us to change. Jesus is telling us to recognize that we are on the right road when we are beset on both sides, that we are not cursed but blessed when being persecuted, and to know that, contrary to appearances, those who are persecuting us are the ones destined for ἀπώλεια [apoleia], destruction.

Persecution is necessary; there must be no doubt of this in the Christian’s mind. From our daily cross (Luke 9:23), to the hatred from our families (Luke 12:51-53), time and again the Lord tells us of the price we will pay in this world to be His disciples (Matthew 10:38). And, without fail, the means by which God beats (Deuteronomy 8:5; Hebrews 12:6) and persecutes us is at the hands of the ungodly. He lets our enemies persecute us and subject us to fiery trials (1 Peter 4:12) in order to refine us. He beats the Hell out of us; and fills the space left with Heaven (1 Peter 4:1).

Further to this, look carefully at the following screen-capture of the Thayer’s Lexicon entry for στενός found at Blue Letter Bible. Notice what it says about the Septuagint (abbreviated Sept.):

So, the equivalent word for στενός in Hebrew is צר [tsar]. Interestingly enough, this is the basis of the Hebrew name for Egypt, מצרים [mitsrayim]. Here’s Jeff A. Benner, of the Ancient Hebrew Research Center, unpacking the word מצרים in his e-magazine’s Name of the Month section:

The Hebrew word for Egypt is מצרים (mitsrayim / meets-rah-yeem). The first occurrence of this name is in Genesis 10:6 - And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim (mitsrayim), and Phut, and Canaan. (KJV). Mizraim is the grandson of Noah and evidently settled in the land that came to be known as Mitsrayim to the Hebrews and Egypt to us today.

The root to this name is צר (tsar Strong's #6862) meaning "pressed in" and can be translated several different ways; "enemy" as one who presses in; "trouble" as a pressing in; "strait" as a canyon with the walls pressing. A common method of forming nouns is to add the letter "mem" to the front of a root. In this case the "mem" is placed before the root forming the noun מצר (metsar Strong's #4712). The prefixed "mem" can be understood as "what is...", hence metsar means "what is pressed in" and is usually translated as trouble or straits. The suffix of the name mitsrayim is the masculine plural suffix ים. The normal pronunciation for this suffix is "eeym", usually a multiple plural, but can also be "yeem" and is the double plural as in the name mitsrayim.

The name mitsrayim can be interpreted many different ways; two straits (possibly referring to the two sides of the Nile river), double straits, two enemies, double pressing, or even double trouble. While we cannot determine for certain what this name originally meant, we can see some interesting parallels between Egypt and their relationship with the nation of Israel.

Incidentally, the English name “Egypt” comes from the Greek Αἴγυπτος [Aiguptos] which, according to the touregypt.net site, was the Greek transliteration of the Ancient Egyptian Hwt-ka-Ptah (Ht-ka-Ptah, or Hout-ak Ptah), meaning “House of the Ka of Ptah”; Ptah being one of the pagan Egyptians’ earliest gods.

With that, here’s another interesting screen grab from Thayer’s Lexicon entry for Αἴγυπτος found at Blue Letter Bible (Αἴγ. is the abbreviated Αἴγυπτος “Egypt”):

As with the entire Book of Revelation, there is a marvelous circularity to this idea of the inhabitants of physical Jerusalem being as hostile to the inhabitants of spiritual Jerusalem as the Ancient Egyptians were to the Israelites. As Moses literally lead the genetic Chosen of God out of the physical bondage of Egypt, so too does Christ lead the spiritual Chosen of God out of the bondage of spiritual Egypt. Likewise, both deliveries are through strait gates and along refining roads of tribulation!