Matthew 19:25

Who then can be saved? — There is an almost child-like naïveté in the question thus asked by the disciples. They, whether among their own people or among strangers, had found the desire of wealth to be the universal passion. Even they themselves, when they had forsaken their earthly goods, had done so (as Peter’s question showed but too plainly, Matthew 19:27) as with a far-sighted calculation. They were counting on outward riches in that kingdom as well as outward glory. And now they heard what seemed to them a sweeping condemnation, excluding all who possessed, and, by implication, all who sought after, riches from the kingdom. The feeling which thus showed itself in the disciples has, curiously enough, affected the text of the narrative in St. Mark. What seems an explanatory and softened statement, “How hardly shall they that trust in riches enter into the kingdom of God!” (Mark 10:24), is not found in the best MSS. The omission may have been an accidental error of the copyists, but it is scarcely probable; and its absence from St. Matthew and St. Luke, not less than that it is not our Lord’s usual method to soften or explain His teaching, leads to the conclusion that a marginal note, added by some one who felt as the disciples felt, has here found its way into the text.