A Year-Long Exploration of the Sermon on the Mount: Week 48

Chapter 48 – Two Ways

 

Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it. (Matthew 7:13-14) 

Throughout this book, there have been many great theologians, prophetic voices, and other inspirational sources. This chapter begins with quoting directly the first section of the Didache. This is not a source I recognized so I did a bit of Googling (yes, that’s now a verb.)

“The Didache (did-a-key), Διδαχή, or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, is an early Christian text that most scholars date to the first or early second century.” This document was used as a manual for basic Christian living. The first chapter of this document is titled “The Two Ways” and talks about the way of life and the way of death. The piece quoted in our book from page 303 to 305 comes from The Way of Life and sounds pretty much like reading Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. The Way of Life is to love God, love yourself, love your neighbour, and follow the commandments set out by God. The Didache lays out exactly how you would go about living The Way of Life.

The second way is The Way of Death. According to the Didache, the Way of Death is being sinful and doing all things that leads a person away from being righteous. Essentially the opposite of all the things found in the Way of Life. At the end of this section of the Didache, it says, “Beware, lest anyone lead you astray from this way of righteousness, for he teaches apart from God. For if you can bear the whole yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect; but if you cannot, do as much as you can.”

How often are we walking the thin line between perfection and failure? We expect so much out of ourselves. It’s hard to live up to our own expectations! But God doesn’t expect perfection. God expects us to try the best we can, ask for forgiveness when we fail, and then to get back on our feet and keep going.

If you're interested in reading The Didache for yourself, follow this link:

https://legacyicons.com/content/didache.pdf