“Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. How narrow is the gate, and how pressing is the way that leads to life! Few are those who find it.”
According to St Matthew (7:13-14, PT)
What Jesus describes here in the Gospel is not a completely novel concept or idea that he just made up on the spot. This dichotomy between a narrow and broad gate — one leading to “life” and the other to “destruction” — was likely already very much a part of Second Temple Jewish (and therefore early Christian) apocalypticism.
One of the most distinguished characteristics of the Orthodox Church is the nuanced (some might say “eastern” or “Greek”) understanding of “symbol” that is transcendant and goes beyond mere externals or the recesses of one’s brain. The concept of “symbol” for most people in the west today is — in the words of the reposed Fr Alexander Schmemann: “an illustration whose purpose can be termed pedagogic or educational.” In other words, a symbol merely points to or teaches about an idea or concept, but offers no real or transcendant connection to anything beyond itself. In Orthodoxy, however, a symbol is a gateway or “window” to something beyond itself; it is something that truly connects the person with the thing signified.
A friend of mine recently forwarded an email with a few questions on the canon and the textual tradition of the Church my way, and I was happy to attempt a satisfactory answer to said questions.
Today is actually Palm Sunday.
When a Protestant approaches the scriptures in order to rightly interpret them and apply them to their lives, the approach is typically that of a scientist and a historian – they are attempting to abstract and be removed from the context of today’s western world and be found within the culture, language and context of the original authors of divine literature. There is rooted in this approach not only a reliance upon Nominalism (as with all things Western and/or Protestant) but also the fundamental belief that we are “separate from” both these original authors and from God Himself (He is the “Man upstairs” and Protestant worship focuses on asking God to be present or “show up”). As such, Protestant hermeneutics, if you will, is an exercise in textual archaeology.
I’ve been slowly making my way through Lester Grabbe’s Introduction to Second Temple Judaism. Grabbe is a professor of Hebrew Scripture and Judaism at the University of Hull (UK), and he is what most conservative, Orthodox people would call “a liberal.” That might be an understatement for the more fundamentalist amongst us, as many would take some of his beliefs to be the utmost of heresy.
Raphael and Tobias continue on their journey and come to the Tigris River. When there, “a fish jumped up from the river and was determined to swallow the young man” (Tobit 6:2). This is an interesting turn of phrase, considering these events occurred during the time of Jonah’s prophecy about the destruction of Nineveh (mentioned later in this book by Tobit himself). Raphael instructs Tobit to catch the fish and make use of it, however: “Take the heart, the liver, and the gall and put them in a safe place” (6:4). They cook and eat the rest, of course (6:5).
Among those who adhere to a radical “end times” philosophy (especially in our day), there is much attention paid to the Apocalypse to St John, or the book of Revelation.
Chapter Four – Dying Wishes
