The Pulpit Commentary - Matthew 7:14
The initial difficulty of all good enterprises. "Strait is the gate … which leadeth unto life." Dean Plumptre gives the similar figure, taken from what is known as the "Tablet of Cebes, the Disciple of Socrates:" "Seest thou not a certain small door, and a pathway before the door, in no way crowded, but few, very few, go in thereat? This is the way that leadeth to true discipline". Buckingham, the traveller among the Arabs, has a striking illustration: "Close by the sarcophagus is a curious... read more
The Pulpit Commentary - Matthew 7:14
Because ( ὅτι ); for (Revised Version); "many ancient authorities read, How narrow is the gate , etc.". The reading, "how" ( τί ) is much easier, as avoiding the difficulty of the connexion of this verse with the preceding, but probably ὅτι is right. The connexion is either that it is parallel to the first ὅτι , and thus gives a second reason for decision in entering through the narrow gate; or , and better, that it gives the reason for the statement in Matthew... read more