Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Matthew 7:13-29, Two ways, false prophets, two builders
Jesus ends his sermon with the narrow gate, a warning about false prophets known by their fruit, and two houses built on rock and on sand. The crowd is struck by his authority.
Matthew 7:13-29, in every translation this tool compares.
Jesus closes the sermon with a set of choices: a narrow way or a broad one, true teachers or false ones known by what they produce, a house on rock or a house on sand. Calling him Lord counts for nothing without doing what he says. The crowds notice that he teaches on his own authority instead of leaning on others, as their scribes did.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/parables\/","n":"Parables and riddles","s":"Short stories that compared one thing to another. Jewish teachers used them to make a point plain, and without the point stated they worked as riddles.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/teachers-of-the-law\/","n":"Teachers of the law","s":"Trained experts in the law of Moses, also called scribes, some local and some from Jerusalem, who taught by citing earlier teachers.","r":""}
Two roads were a common picture in Greek, Roman and Jewish writing, and the idea that few are saved appears in 4 Ezra (Keener). A later rabbinic saying builds the wise man's house on the Torah; Jesus puts his own words in that place. Bailey explains that villagers build in summer, when clay ground is hard as bronze, so a lazy builder can set his walls on the surface instead of digging to rock, and the winter rains turn it to mud. Blomberg treats the story as a parable with two main points. Wilkins sets the builders on the lakeshore instead, where alluvial sand is hard in summer and the wise builder digs down, sometimes ten feet, to bedrock.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Matthew 7:13-14, 7:15, 7:24-27 and 7:28-29
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Matthew 7:13-14, 7:15, 7:24-27 and 7:29
- Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, ch. 25, The Parable of the Two Builders
- Craig L. Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables, 8.1.2 The Two Builders
- Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Matthew 7:24-27
