19. Chapter 19: Crowds or Individuals?
Chapter 19 Crowds Or Individuals? Did Jesus as a moral and religious teacher make his appeals primarily to crowds or to individuals?
What is your first impression? Think it over carefully and note whether your first impression is confirmed. Which is the customary view—that Jesus worked mainly with crowds or with individuals? Is the question itself valuable enough to consider? It has some bearing on the method of any Christian worker—should he endeavor mainly to reach crowds or individuals? Does a great evangelist appeal primarily to crowds or to individuals? Was the work of Jesus of this type? Is the so-called “mass-movement” in India today primarily crowd action or individual? Should today’s program of the Church follow the method of Jesus?
Give some answer, however tentative, to these questions now. Our study may change some of these answers.
What are some of the crowd occasions in the life of Jesus?
Repeatedly he taught in the synagogues on the Sabbath day, especially in Galilee, including Capernaum and Nazareth. Many of his cures were wrought on these occasions, some of which we will note presently. Is it not significant that when his home city rejected him, he should choose as a center of operations a larger and more centrally located city—Capernaum? “So he came down to Capharnahum, a town in Galilee, where He frequently taught the people on the Sabbath days” (Weymouth, Luke 4:31. Cf. Matthew 4:13-17).
During the second year of his public ministry, “the year of popularity,” he was constantly accompanied by crowds, from Capernaum, from other parts of Galilee, from Decapolis (the Ten Towns), from Jerusalem and Judea, from beyond Jordan, from Idumea in the extreme south, and from Tyre and Sidon in the west. Just how large these “multitudes” were we cannot say, but the feeding of the four thousand, and the five thousand “beside women and children,” may give us some idea. There was a period when the new teacher gave every appearance of being backed by a popular movement. These crowds, it is true, for the most part did not really understand that his call involved sacrifice. They came to be healed, to see works of healing, to see the new rabbi, to hear his wonderful words, and even to eat of the loaves and fishes. Rumors and reports helped to bring them, in response to many-tongued social suggestion.
Jesus seems to have directed his work mainly toward the cities and villages (Luke 8:1-3). “I must go also into the next towns,” he would say. He worked by design in the centers of population, though not exclusively there. He would send messengers ahead to prepare the village for his coming. He saw cities, as he saw multitudes, as he saw women, as he saw children, as, too, he saw individuals. Some of these cities later he rebuked because they repented not, though, mighty works had been done in them—Bethsaida, Chorazin, Capernaum. At times Jesus suffered inconvenience because of the crowds. They thronged him, they kept him so busy that at times he and the disciples had not enough leisure to eat, they kept his mother and his brethren from getting at him, they followed him when he would try to leave them behind, they awaited his coming on the other side of the lake, they continued with him for days, they would even come to take him to make him a king. Was Jesus the master as well as the ministering servant of crowds? He had compassion on them as sheep scattered without a shepherd. He would have them sit down by companies and would feed them. He would send them away himself, after first telling his disciples where to go. By what method did he bid them depart? He would leave them behind unawares, and go up in the mountain to pray, or take his disciples away into a desert place and rest awhile. He would get in a boat and speak to them gathered on the lake-side. He would heal their sick, as many as came. He would speak to them the beatitudes and other wonderful words of life. A multitude was present when he healed the paralytic in the synagogue in Capernaum, and the man with the withered hand, and the servant of the centurion, and the dumb demoniac. Can you find other instances of healing when a multitude was present? A great multitude went with him to Nain when the widow’s son was raised, and to the home of Jairus when his daughter was raised, and to the home of Martha and Mary when Lazarus was raised.
Jesus attended the annual religious festivals (Passover, dedication, tabernacles) of the Jews in Jerusalem where there were always crowds. Once or twice he cleansed the Temple at such a time, as well as taught and healed.
He freely attended festive social gatherings, as the wedding at Cana, or the great feast made for him in Capernaum by Matthew Levi, one of his chosen disciples, or the dinner in the home of Simon the Pharisee in Bethany. And something always happened when he was guest. Or was it the case that no record was made of the social occasions he graced when nothing happened? Can you find other such occasions of a social nature? To the multitude he praised the faith of the Roman centurion, eulogized John the Baptist, spoke the parables as a mode of selection from the crowd, addressed the Sermon on the Mount, told them to believe on him whom God had sent, uttered the allegory on “the bread of life,” justified healing on the Sabbath, extended the invitation at the feast of the tabernacles to come unto him and drink, and warned them against the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. What else did he say upon different occasions to the multitudes? Note particularly Luke 14:25-35. In what esteem did the social mind of the multitudes hold Jesus? It was very different at different times. They were amazed at his works, they heard his words gladly because of their note of authority, they held that a great prophet had arisen among them, that God had visited his people, that he had done all things well, that it was never so seen in Israel, that the Messiah himself could not do more wonderful signs, that he was John the Baptist, or Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the old prophets, or the Son of David, that he was a Samaritan and had a devil, that he was beside himself, that he should be crucified. Can you find still other expressions of the popular mind concerning him?
What do you think as to whether Jesus preferred to appeal to crowds or individuals?
Let us see some of the individuals to whom he ministered. Recall as many as you can. They include each of the Twelve, Nicodemus, the woman of Samaria, the son of the nobleman at Capernaum, the man with the spirit of an unclean devil, Peter’s wife’s mother, the leper, the paralytic, the thirty-eight-year invalid at Bethesda’s pool, the man with the withered hand, the servant of the centurion in Capernaum, the son of the widow of Nain, the sinful woman who anointed him, Simon the Pharisee, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, the dumb demoniac, the woman of the multitude who blessed the womb that bore him, the two Gadarene demoniacs, the daughter of Jairus, the two blind men, the daughter of the Syrophoenician, the deaf stammerer, the blind man of Bethsaida, the demoniac boy, the woman taken in adultery, the seventy sent on a mission two by two, the questioning lawyers (two), the Pharisee who dined him, one of the lawyers who felt that Jesus cast a reproach on his class, one of the multitude who wanted Jesus to divide an inheritance for him, the bowed woman, Herod, the man with the dropsy, the ten lepers, the rich young ruler, Martha, Mary, Lazarus, one born blind, the mother of James and John, the two blind men at Jericho, one of whom was Bartimaeus, Zaccheus, Caiaphas, Pilate, the thief on the cross, and his mother. Are some omitted? How many are here?
What had Jesus done for these individuals?
How many of these individuals had Jesus served in the presence of a crowd? How many privately?
Why did he sometimes take the afflicted individual out of the city or crowd in order to effect a cure? Was any group cure effected? (Would that of the ten lepers be such?) Is it fair to say that in some way personal relations had been established with each of the seventy who were sent forth two by two?
What shall we now say as to whether Jesus dealt by preference with crowds or individuals? Can we be sure of our answer? Does the “Great Commission” put the emphasis on the crowd or the individual? Which was more abiding, his work with crowds or with individuals? Does the resurrected Christ of the record still minister to crowds or only to the disciples? In the teaching concerning the mote and beam in the eye, some think Jesus underestimated the value of public judgment and social criticism. What do you think?
Doubtless for some persons it is better to work with crowds, for others it is better to work with individuals. Recall Billy Sunday and Miss Margaret Slattery. Can you distinguish the type of person who should work with crowds from the type that should work with individuals? With whom was his most careful work done, crowds or individuals, if we can distinguish, degrees of carefulness in his work? Of course, it is true that often he reached crowds by means of individuals, when any act of healing or word of teaching was done for an individual in the presence of a crowd. And it is, of course, also true that often he reached individuals by means of the crowds to whom he spoke. Some who came to scoff remained to pray. Others who came to take him went away charmed by his matchless words. A personal conclusion: Jesus began with individuals, continued with crowds, and ended with individuals, during the three successive main periods of his ministry. He worked by preference and most successfully with individuals, because of the very nature of crowds. In fact, he did not trust crowds, nor himself to them, as he trusted individuals.
References:
Taylor, R. B., Art. “Crowd” in “Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels.”
Dundas, W. H., Art. “Multitude,” “Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels.”
Omun, John, Arts. “Individual,” “Individualism,” and “Individuality” in same Dictionary.
Le Bon, G., “The Crowd.”
Baldwin, J. M., “The Individual and Society.”
Fite, Warner, “Individualism.”