Strive to Enter

Repentance, Mercy, and the Narrow Door · Luke 13

Story guide: Travelers climb toward a narrow stone doorway while a larger crowd passes through a broad gate below. Jesus compares God's kingdom to a mustard seed and leaven.

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18So he was saying, “What is the kingdom of God like, and to what shall I compare it?”

19It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and threw into his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the sky nested in its branches.

20And again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?”

21It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until it was all leavened.

22And he was traveling through towns and villages, teaching and making his way toward Jerusalem.

23And someone said to him, “Lord, are only a few being saved?” And he said to them,

24Strive to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

25Once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know you, where you are from.’

26Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’

27And he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you workers of unrighteousness.’

28There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth there, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out.

29And they will come from east and west, and from north and south, and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.

30And behold, there are last who will be first, and there are first who will be last.

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