A parallel to this verse occurs in Luke 17.33, with the exception that Luke does not include for my sake. On the meaning of for my sake, see comments on verse 18.

Finds, a literal rendering of the Greek verb, may also have the meaning indicated by Good News Translation: “tries to gain.” Certainly to translate finds literally can result in a wrong understanding. Nothing has been lost. “Tries to keep” or “tries to save” is better.

Life (so most modern translations) may also have the meaning of “soul” or “person”; in Luke 12.19-20, 22-23 there are four occurrences of the word which parallel its usage here. New English Bible has “by gaining his life a man will lose it,” Barclay “to find your life is to lose it,” New American Bible “he who seeks only himself brings himself to ruin.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates “Whoever tries to hold on to his life will lose it,” and Malay common language version has “Whoever places supreme importance on his own life will never experience true life.”

This rendering in Malay common language version of lose it as “will never experience true life” is a very helpful model. Lose it does not mean “he will die” but rather “will not have true life.”

And he who loses his life for my sake will find it states the opposite of the first clause. As one commentator notes: “… to ‘lose one’s life’ could mean ‘to die a violent death’ because of one’s faithfulness in following Christ; but it seems more likely that it vividly denotes self-denial….” Malay common language version translates “but whoever denies himself because of me will experience true life,” and for the first part of the sentence INCL has “whoever loses his life because of faithfulness to me.” The idea of self-denial seen in loses his life sometimes has to be rendered as “does not consider himself important” or “does not consider his life of great value.”

Will find it may be translated “will gain eternal life” or “… true life.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .