Hodos: “I Am the Way”

Word of the Week

July 25, 2026

 

Hodos: “I Am the Way”

 

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.”

John14:6 NASB

 

When I was a child growing up in Los Angeles, our family took a vacation to northern California.  This was in the pre-GPS era, and we navigated with fold-out paper maps.  Finding the correct route could be tricky, and on this trip we managed to choose a road that landed us at the city dump – three times (in three different towns)!

Whether you’re hiking through the woods or speeding along the interstate, you constantly face the need to pick the right route.  Make a mistake and you can end up far from your intended destination.

The same principle holds true in our journey through life.  The choices we make now determine where we end up – and what shape we’re in when we get there.

It’s no surprise that the Bible has something to say about this important fact of life.  God provides detailed instructions about the way we should follow, and we can begin to learn more by investigating the Greek word for “way.”

The Greeks used the word hodos [haw-DAWSS] for “way” or “road.”  It occurs over 100 times.  About half of these verses describe a literal route from one place to another.  A hodos could be a dirt-packed pathway along the edge of a field, as in the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:4).  It could be a major trade route or one of the Roman highways, like the road to Gaza where Philip met the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26).  It might describe the “road trip” that a person took.  In one of Christ’s parables, a man asks for bread for a friend “who has come to me from a journey” (hodos) (Luke 11:6).  Jews were familiar with the concept of a “Sabbath journey,” literally “a Sabbath hodos, the maximum distance that a person could travel on the Sabbath (about 2000 paces) (Acts 1:12)

The common thread in all these uses is the fact that a person always started somewhere and had to select a route that would lead to the desired destination.

That idea led easily to a variety of figurative uses of the word. From birth to death, we each move through life making constant choices about the route we will take.

• According to Jesus, everyone faces a choice of two pathways, one that leads to life and one that leads to destruction.

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.  For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it (Matthew 7:13-14).

• Scripture is filled with descriptions of these two roads:

The ways of life (Acts 2:28)

The way of salvation (Acts 16:17)

In contrast, the way of Balaam the false prophet (2 Peter 2:15)

The way of Cain, who murdered his brother (Jude 13).

• The gospel of Christ calls people to commit themselves to the narrow way. In fact, the early church was sometimes described as “the Way,” because people who believed in Jesus were entering a path that would guide their directions all through life.

About that time there occurred no small disturbance concerning the Way (Acts 19:23).

But Felix [the Roman governor], having a more exact knowledge about the Way . . . (Acts 24:22).

 Perhaps the most revealing passage in the New Testament for our understanding of “way” occurs in John 14 with its account of the conversation at the Last Supper.  Only hours remain before the Lord is arrested and led away to face the series of courtroom hearings that would condemn him to the cross, and now he chooses his words carefully as he prepares the disciples for the grueling experience to come.

“Don’t let your heart be troubled,” he urges.  “There are many rooms in my Father’s house, and I am going there to prepare a place for you.  I will return and take you to be with me there” (see John 14:1-3).

Then he adds, “And you know the way where I am going” (14:4).

Thomas, ever the logical member of the group, protests:  “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how do we know the way?” (14:5).

You can see that Thomas takes Christ’s statement in a literal sense.  Jesus is going somewhere like Joppa or Damascus, but he has specified the destination.  If we don’t know the destination, how can you pick the right route?  As usual, the disciples have missed the point.

Jesus, however, sets him straight:  “I am the way – I am the hodos.”

The destination is God the Father – eternal life with Him in the heavenly home, the ultimate kingdom.  And the pathway, the highway to life with God is not a physical roadmap or even a set of moral instructions.

Jesus himself is the pathway.  Attach yourself to Him, and you will end up at the destination He has planned for you all along.  In short, “Stick with me and I will get you where you need to go.”  You don’t need to know all the twists and turns in the trail.  You don’t need to memorize the interstate turnoffs.  You just need to follow Me.

And when you do, you won’t end up in the city dump!

 

Study Hint:

When a word occurs this frequently, we can’t cover everything in a short article.  So I would like to suggest two ways to follow up more thoroughly.

1. Use a Bible study app like Bible Hub or Blue Letter Bible to look up all 101 occurrences of the word hodos. Make a note of each reference and write down at least one phrase to summarize what you find in each verse.  Is it a literal path or a figurative one?  How is it described?
2. Take advantage of the fact that a verse like John 14:6 uses figurative language. We know that Jesus Christ is not literally a dirt path or an asphalt highway.  However, he is like a path in certain ways.  You can meditate more deeply on this by thinking of all the characteristics of a path that you can think of.  Then check with Scripture to see which of your descriptions are also true of Jesus.  Be careful not to use this process to shove ideas into the verse that Jesus never intended, but you can use it as fuel for your personal meditations on the Christian life, looking for useful lessons.

Coming Up

Jesus said, “I am the way,” but that’s not all he said.  Next week we will look at the two other descriptions he gave to his troubled disciples.

©Ezra Project 2026