“The eye of the needle was a low gate in Jerusalem that a camel could squeeze through on its knees.”

There is no evidence such a gate ever existed, and Scripture says nothing about one. Jesus meant an actual sewing needle, and His hearers understood Him to be describing something impossible.

This explanation has been passed along in commentaries and sermons for generations, and it survives because it makes a hard saying manageable. If the needle is a gate, then a rich man merely has to stoop a little. But the gate has no support in Scripture, in archaeology, or in any writer before the Middle Ages. The strongest evidence against it is in the passage itself. When the disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved? Nobody reacts that way to a story about kneeling camels. They understood Jesus to have described an impossibility, and He did not soften it when they protested. What He said instead was that with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. The saying was never meant to be made easier. It was meant to drive the listener to the only place where salvation is possible at all.

One word, every week.

Scripture, reflection, and one thing to carry with you.