The Narrow Way

The Narrow Way

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship opens with one of the most quoted lines in twentieth-century Christian literature: 'When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.' Bonhoeffer was thirty-nine when he was executed for his resistance to Hitler. He had chosen the narrow way multiple times: staying in Germany when he could have remained safely in New York, refusing to take oaths to the Nazi state, ultimately participating in the plot against Hitler. Each narrowing was a choice. Each choice cost something. He described the narrow way not as grim duty but as the only road worth walking: 'Costly grace is the only real grace. Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of the church.'

Matthew 7:13-14 is a two-road parable compressed into two sentences. The wide gate and broad road: easy entry, spacious travel, many travelers — and destruction. The small gate and narrow road: difficult entry, constrained travel, few travelers — and life. Jesus doesn't make the narrow way attractive in the usual sense; He describes it accurately. It is genuinely hard. The gate is small — not everyone fits through without shedding something. The road is narrow — there is not room to wander freely. But it leads to life. The broad road is the path of least resistance. The narrow road is the path of deliberate choice. You are choosing your road by the accumulation of daily decisions. Which road are you on?