“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” John 14:6.

Jesus is the way. The way to the Father. The way of life. The way to salvation. Jesus lived on earth to show us the way. To follow Him on this way means that we are to walk as He walked. We are to follow in His footsteps, living as He lived. A way indicates progression. When we follow Him we come to where He is now.

Jesus calls this way “the narrow way.”

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” Matthew 7:13-14.

Entering the narrow way

How do we find this gate, the entrance to this narrow way? It’s not because we are exceptional people, or by doing something that makes us deserving of finding it. It is simply because God, in His love and mercy, puts a desire for the good in our hearts and draws us in the right direction.

But once we see that narrow gate, there is something we must do before we can start to walk on the narrow way that leads to life. Paul describes this perfectly in Philippians 3:7-8: “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”

It means we have to leave behind everything that God points out to us that will hinder us from walking on this way. Our own reasonings and ideas. Our belief in our own abilities. Relationships that hold us back. Status. Honor. Pride. Those have to be counted as loss and rubbish and left outside the gate; there is no room for them on the narrow way. If we can get our eyes opened to see, as Paul saw, the value of what it is to “gain Christ,” then we can see how it is possible to count everything else as loss.

“The Way” is mentioned several times in the book of Acts (Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22) in connection with early followers of Christ. It was to take prisoner men and women who “belonged to the Way” (Acts 9:2; 22:4) that Saul of Tarsus went to Damascus. After Saul was converted, he became a missionary and went by the name of Paul. In Ephesus, Paul met some in the synagogue who “became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way” (Acts 19:9). Paul left the synagogue and continued to preach the gospel where it would be heard rather than remain with those who denigrated the Way.

During his trial before Felix, Paul said, “I admit that I worship the God of our ancestors as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect” (Acts 24:14). We are also told that Felix knew about the Way (verse 22). It seems that the Romans considered the Way to be a sect of Judaism rather than a separate religion.

Presumably, the early followers of Christ referred to themselves as followers of the Way because of Jesus’ statement in John 14:6 that He is “the way and the truth and the life.” Luke says that Aquila and Priscilla explained to Apollos “the way of God” more fully (Acts 18:26). Peter refers to Christianity as “the way of truth” (2 Peter 2:2). And the writer of Hebrews says that Jesus’ broken body is the “new and living way” for us to enter the Most Holy Place (Hebrews 10:19–20).

Today there are various Bibles that include The Way in their titles. There is also a book by Josemaria Escriva, founder of the Catholic Opus Dei, titled The Way. Additionally, there is a cult called The Way or The Way International. For more information on this cult, please refer to our article “What is the Way International?”.