{"id":483,"date":"2014-11-26T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2014-11-26T12:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?p=483"},"modified":"2014-11-16T00:03:26","modified_gmt":"2014-11-16T00:03:26","slug":"matthew-713-14-the-narrow-and-wide-gates-geographical-backgrounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-713-14-the-narrow-and-wide-gates-geographical-backgrounds.html","title":{"rendered":"Matthew 7:13-14; The Narrow and Wide Gates (Geographical Backgrounds)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cBroad is the road that leads to destruction,\u201d Jesus said near the end of his Sermon on the Mount. As with other references in this sermon, Jesus likely used a literal, visual cue as a symbolic example when he made this statement.<\/p>\n<p>In a general sense, most roads in ancient Palestine were common travelling paths, worn smooth over the years from travelers (and their livestock) walking the shortest distances between towns, cities, and nations. \u201cNarrow roads\u201d were a different from common paths; they typically referred to difficult to traverse mountain pathways used by local travelers instead of more well-traveled roads used by outsiders.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the Romans of Jesus\u2019 time had created and maintained an impressive series of international trade routes that could accommodate all kinds of merchant and tourist traffic\u2014and even legions of soldiers. These \u201cbroad roads\u201d were well-traveled, well-kept, and commonly-known to anyone living in Israel. One of these Roman trade routes was laid out over the coastal plains and valleys of the Middle East, connecting Israel to Africa, Asia, and Europe.<\/p>\n<p>A section of that Roman highway, situated in the plain of Magdala, was actually visible to Jesus and his hearers at the time when he delivered his Sermon on the Mount. Thus, when he said, \u201cBroad is the road that leads to direction,\u201d Jesus may have gestured toward that Roman road for visual emphasis.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/workscited.html\">Works Cited<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>[VGG, 64-65]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2126\u2126\u2126<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Bible Study Nerds\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-for-bible-study-nerds.html\">About: For Bible Study Nerds\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"About: Mike Nappa\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/about-mike-nappa.html\">About: Mike Nappa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2014 to present by\u00a0<a title=\"Nappaland Communications Inc. official website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nappaland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nappaland Communications Inc<\/a>. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cBroad is the road that leads to destruction,\u201d Jesus said near the end of his Sermon on the Mount. As with other references in this sermon, Jesus likely used a literal, visual cue as a symbolic example when he made this statement. In a general sense, most roads in ancient Palestine were common travelling paths,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":571,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,2],"tags":[205,204,206],"class_list":["post-483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geographicalbackgrounds","category-matthew","tag-broad-road","tag-narrow-road","tag-roman-road"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Matthew 7:13-14; The Narrow and Wide Gates (Geographical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-713-14-the-narrow-and-wide-gates-geographical-backgrounds.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matthew 7:13-14; The Narrow and Wide Gates (Geographical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cBroad is the road that leads to destruction,\u201d Jesus said near the end of his Sermon on the Mount. As with other references in this sermon, Jesus likely used a literal, visual cue as a symbolic example when he made this statement. 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As with other references in this sermon, Jesus likely used a literal, visual cue as a symbolic example when he made this statement. In a general sense, most roads in ancient Palestine were common travelling paths,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-713-14-the-narrow-and-wide-gates-geographical-backgrounds.html","og_site_name":"For Bible Study Nerds","article_published_time":"2014-11-26T12:00:38+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-11-16T00:03:26+00:00","author":"Mike Nappa","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-713-14-the-narrow-and-wide-gates-geographical-backgrounds.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-713-14-the-narrow-and-wide-gates-geographical-backgrounds.html","name":"Matthew 7:13-14; The Narrow and Wide Gates (Geographical Backgrounds) - For Bible Study Nerds","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-11-26T12:00:38+00:00","dateModified":"2014-11-16T00:03:26+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-713-14-the-narrow-and-wide-gates-geographical-backgrounds.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-713-14-the-narrow-and-wide-gates-geographical-backgrounds.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/2014\/11\/matthew-713-14-the-narrow-and-wide-gates-geographical-backgrounds.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Matthew 7:13-14; The Narrow and Wide Gates (Geographical Backgrounds)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/","name":"For Bible Study Nerds","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Mike Nappa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/#\/schema\/person\/a0ce37903172885871b0c504c6694575","name":"Mike Nappa","description":"Mike Nappa is an entertainment journalist at FamilyFans.com, a bestselling author\u2014and a notorious Bible Study Nerd. He's a former youth pastor who shepherded kids on staff at Chuck Swindoll's church in Southern California\u2014and he's a bestselling and award-winning author with more than a million copies of his books sold worldwide. Plus, he holds a degree in Christian Education with an emphasis in Bible Theology. So, you know, he\u2019s got that going for him. Mike is also a pop culture dork who watches too much TV, reads too many comic books, utters too many bad words, laughs at all the wrong jokes, and often gets in trouble because he says whatever he happens to be thinking at the moment\u2014like quoting an R-rated movie in the middle of a sermon. Yeah, he\u2019s a mess (just like you!), but he kind of likes it that way. Most of all, Mike Nappa loves Jesus, and he figures that covers over a multitude of sins. Learn more at nappaland.com\/mikenappa.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.biblestudynerds.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/author\/mnappa"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":489,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions\/489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/forbiblestudynerds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}