To God be the Glory FOREVER, AMEN AND AMEN! ! !

Then, to illustrate "how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God" he used this striking figure of speech. His hearers recognized it immediately to be a hard saying. It is not merely difficult, it is impossible for a rich man to get into the kingdom of God, just as it is not merely difficult but impossible for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle--even a needle of the largest size. The listeners were dismayed: "Who then can be saved?" they asked. ("Being saved" in the Gospels is a further synonym for entering the kingdom of God and inheriting eternal life.) The disciples themselves were not affluent. Peter spoke for the others when he said, "We have left everything to follow you" (Mk 10:28). But they had not realized, perhaps, just how stringent the terms of entry into the kingdom were--and are.

Not only those who heard the words when they were first spoken, but many others since have found the saying to be a hard one. Attempts have been made to soften it somewhat. The eye of a needle, we are sometimes assured, is a metaphor; the reference is to a small opening giving independent access or egress through a much larger city gate. Visitors are sometimes shown such a small entrance in one of the city gates of Jerusalem or another Eastern city and are told that this is what Jesus had in mind. If a man approaches the city gate on camelback when it is closed, he can dismount and get through the small entrance on foot, but there is no way for a camel to do so, especially if it is loaded; it must wait for the main gate to be opened to let it through. Even if a small camel, unloaded, tried to get through the small entrance, it would be in danger of sticking halfway. It is ordinarily impossible for a camel to get through such a narrow opening, but not so ludicrously impossible as for anyone to try to get it through the eye of a needle. But this charming explanation is of relatively recent date; there is no evidence that such a subsidiary entrance was called the eye of a needle in biblical times.

Others point out that there is a Greek word (kamilos) meaning "cable" very similar in appearance and sound to the word (kamelos) meaning "camel." In fact the word meaning "cable" appears in a few late witnesses to the Gospel text. Their reading is reflected in a version of the English New Testament entitled The Book of Books, issued in 1938 to mark the quartercentenary of Henry VIII's injunction requiring a copy of the English Bible to be placed in every parish church in England: "It is easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." The editors of The Book of Books did not commit themselves to the view that the word meaning "rope" or "cable" stood in the original text; they simply remarked that while the familiar form with "camel" would "doubtless be preferred by Eastern readers," their own chosen reading "makes a more vivid appeal to the West." This is doubtful. In any case, the substitution of "cable" or "rope" for "camel" should probably be recognized as "an attempt to soften the rigor of the statement." "To contrast the largest beast of burden known in Palestine with the smallest of artificial apertures is quite in the manner of Christ's proverbial sayings." In Jewish rabbinical literature an elephant passing through the eye of a needle is a figure of speech for sheer impossibility.

No doubt Jesus was using the language of hyperbole, as when he spoke of the man with a whole plank sticking out of his eye offering to remove the splinter or speck of sawdust from his neighbor's eye (Mt 7:3-5; Lk 6:41). But the language of hyperbole was intended to drive the lesson home: it is impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God--humanly impossible, Jesus concedes, for God, with whom nothing is impossible, can even save a rich man. But if so, then the rich man's heart must be changed, by having its attachment to material riches replaced by attachment to the true riches, "treasure in heaven."

It is not easy for anyone to enter the kingdom of God--"the gate is narrow and the way is hard" (Mt 7:14 RSV)--but it is most difficult of all for the rich. Jesus' absolute statement in Mark 10:24, "how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!" has been expanded in later witnesses to the text so as to read: "how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God!" This could be another attempt to soften the hardness of his words, making it possible for a reader to comfort himself with the thought "I have riches, indeed, but I do not trust in them: I am all right." But, according to Jesus' teaching, it was very difficult for people who had riches not to trust in them. They would show whether they trusted in riches or not by their readiness to part with them. But the inserted words "for those who trust in riches" are not so wide of the mark. What was it about riches that made Jesus regard them as an obstacle to entrance into the kingdom? Simply the fact that those who had them relied on them, like the rich farmer in the parable (Lk 12:16-21), who encouraged himself with the thought of the great wealth which he had stored up for a long time to come, or his counterpart today whose investments are bringing in a comfortable, inflation-proof income.

There is probably no saying of Jesus which is harder in the Western mind today than the saying about the camel and the needle's eye, none which carries with it such a strong temptation to tone it down.