The Eye of the Needle

Luke 18: 25 this is the famous verse where Christ comdemns all wealthy people to hell, right? for everyone know you cannot put a camel into a needles eye...Well that depends.... so often people get confused when reading the word or even teaching it because they are not aware of the cultural and religious ways of the Hebrews... this is one of those time... I am a Jewsih believer and have studied under many wonderful teachers who have given me lesson on the culture , idioms and language of the Hebrews and I hope you enjoy these as much as I have.
Luke 25:18
For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Jesus was talking to the rich young ruler who wanted to follow Christ and asked him
what he should do in order to do so... when Christ told him to sell all he owned and give it to the poor, it says that the young man left very sorrowful... and then Christ made the comment in verse 18..

But I want to tell you that camels went through the eye of the needle every day during
this time and so did men and probably children and women too... IN fact the eye of the needle was a small gate in the wall of the city of Jerusalem.. it was built to be easy to guard at night when the large gates were all shut tight and locked. The gates of Jerusalem are famous even today and there were many used for every kind of occasion you can think of, there was so much done in and around these gates by all the inhabitants of the city.. but after dark, they were all closed , but one was manned by guards and that was the only one you could enter into or go out of the city through. It was not tall like the other gates, more the size of a door we would use on our homes in modern times. Easy enough for a man to walk through, but a camel, well, a camel was another thing... it could be done and it was done , but in order for that camel to get through you had to do two things... first, you have to remove every thing from off the camel.. you had to take the goods that you were packing off his back... and then this camel had to have enough discipline to get on his knees and schooch through this small opening ( I hope you know what schooch is, its when Aunt Gladys wants to sit next to your mom on the church pew, and all the kids have to schooch down to make room) With a camel its a lot more work and its still a tight squeeze and really a lot of work.. but it was done all the time... I think the important part of the analagy is that you have to get everything
off that camel... In order to have a mind for spiritual things, wordly things cannot be your focus, you have to be willing to let go of the stuff weighing you down...

I hope you enjoyed that, I will try to share more at a later time.. those Hebrews, OY VEY!