Will You be Saved?

by Dcn Bob Evans  |  08/21/2025  |  Pastor's Letter

In the Gospel reading for this Sunday [Luke 13:22-30], we encounter a cultural norm of the ancient Middle East that does not exist in the Western World. It's called an "honor challenge," and the Gospels are full of honor challenges. "Honor" was regarded as the highest virtue in the ancient Middle East; it was held above all else. But "honor" in the ancient Middle East did not have to do with one's personal integrity; rather it was the esteem others held you in. In the ancient Middle East, and to some extent today, personal identity was group-centered; one's worth was defined by the "witness" of those around them, not by one's character or deeds.

A question posed to someone in public was always, initially, regarded as a challenge to that person's honor, an attempt to embarrass the one being questioned. The challenge must be defended in the culturally appropriate way. The culturally appropriate way to respond to an honor challenge was to push back with an even more challenging question. The more subtle the question, the more effective the pushback. And the pushback question was never directly stated, catching the challenger in silence as they pondered how to reply. To them, silence was the sign of surrender.

Luke recounted this encounter as a way of posing the same unspoken question to us. The challenger called out, "Lord, will only a few be saved?" The expectation, at the time, was that all observant Jews would be saved and no one else. So, this was clearly an honor challenge. Jesus' response to the challenger focused on what the answer to the pushback question must consider. Jesus began with, "Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many will attempt to enter but not be strong enough." Here, Jesus referred to their familiar practice, at the end of each grazing season, of each shepherd claiming his herd in order to pay the grazing fees based on headcount. Each herd had both sheep and goats, but grazing fees were due only for the sheep, so they had to be separated from the goats, before they went to market.

In the roundup pens, there was a passageway leading in that had a narrow gate on the right side where the shepherd would personally pull the goats in, and a wider gate on the left where the sheep passed in. The goats quickly learned that they must strive hard to be near the shepherd on the right in order for him to reach them and pull them through the narrow gate and thus be saved from going to the slaughterhouse.

For us to be saved, we too must strive to be close to the Shepherd. Although salvation is freely offered, accepting it requires lifelong effort on our part. This is in striking contrast to the disservice of those who teach "salvation by faith alone" or those in academia who teach that basically everyone is going to heaven. Jesus went on to say that those who claim "we ate and drank in your company, and you taught in our streets" were only just showing up, going through the motions. That would not get them through the narrow gate.

Clearly, Jesus' unspoken question to the challenger, and to us, was: "Will you be saved?" Knowledge of how many or how few will be saved is of no value to us. Our concern must be on our own salvation and on how we strive throughout our lives to be close to Jesus, the Good Shepherd, when our time comes for Him to reach out and pull us through the narrow gate.