01.09. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST: HIS METHODS
CHAPTER IX THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST: HIS METHODS In this and the succeeding chapter I purpose to consider what light the example and teachings of Jesus Christ throw upon the subject which the reader has been invited to examine with me in this volume, namely, the true methods of the Christian ministry and the secret of its power. Even those who do not accept Jesus Christ as a Master whose example and instruction possess a divine authority, may yet well think him the greatest religious teacher the world has ever seen, and his methods and spirit therefore worthy of the most thorough and reverent study. He " has founded absolute religion," Ernest Kenan says. " The genius of nineteen coming centuries," Goldwin Smith calls him. [1] In this chapter I ask the reader to consider the methods, in the next chapter the substance of the teaching of this founder of absolute religion, this genius of nineteen coming centuries.
1 "Pure Christianity still presents itself, after eighteen centuries, in the character of a universal and eternal religion... The foundation of true religion is verily his (Christ’s) work... All that may he attempted outside this grand and noble Christian tradition will be sterile... Jesus, on the other hand, has founded In entering upon this theme three cautions are necessary.
1. No man can fully understand or adequately interpret Jesus Christ; certainly I do not assume so to do. To me he is the supreme revelation in the terms of a human experience of the Infinite and the Eternal, the inspirer and the ideal for all men and for all ages; for the first century and the twentieth century, for men and for women, for the Occidental and for the Oriental, for the prince and for the peasant, for the philosopher and for the unlearned, for the aged and for the schoolboy, for the poet and for the man of affairs, for the merchant, the mechanic, the farmer, the soldier, the lawyer, the statesman, - in short, for men of every temperament, every vocation, and every type of character. Of course he who believes this cannot believe himself capable of furnishing an adequate interpretation of Jesus Christ. All that he can hope or even desire to do is to give one man’s view of Christ. Even that view it would be impossible for me adequately to present within the limits of these two chapters. For half a century I have been try absolute religion." - Renan: The Life of Jesus, pp. 410, 411.
" The Founder of Christendom, having no home of his own -wherein to lay his head, goes to find shelter for the night beneath some disciple’s lonely roof. Little did the owner of that roof dream that it was receiving as a guest the genius of nineteen coming centuries; perhaps of the whole future of humanity, unless the Spiritual as well as the Supernatural is doomed, and science is henceforth to reign alone." - Goldwin Smith: The Founder of Christendom, p. 44. ing to apply the precepts of Christ to the various problems of life, individual and social, and to learn myself, and teach others, how the spirit of Christ carried into life will make it harmonious, hopeful, joyous, divine. I should be sorry to think that I could put into a few pages the entire product of fifty years of serious thinking.
2. It must be remembered, also, that we have no biography of Jesus Christ; we have only memorabilia. They do not afford a continuous history of his life, nor represent any attempt to trace out the development of his doctrine, or his own intellectual or spiritual growth. Of the thirty-three years of his life we have, excepting for the account of his birth and one incident in his boyhood, only the record of three years, and this record only in fragmentary reports. In the study of these reports there is constant danger, on the one hand, of drawing too large deductions from slight premises, of reading into Christ’s life and teachings our own prejudices and making him sponsor for our own thoughts; on the other hand, danger of passing carelessly by incidents and sayings which have in them matter worthy of our careful attention. To preserve the golden mean between these two dangers is difficult, perhaps impossible.
3. We have also to bear in mind that not even the example and teaching of Jesus Christ are to be blindly followed. Jesus Christ did not teach in order that he might serve as a substitute for thinking, but that he might inspire us to think. We need not take the Lord’s Supper in an upper chamber because he took it in an upper chamber, or reclining because he reclined, or think that we may not be married because he was unmarried, or that our ministry must be an itinerant ministry because be was not settled over a parish. We follow a great leader, not by thinking his thoughts over again, or doing again the deeds he did, - we follow him by carrying into our own age the spirit which he carried into his, and applying to our own circumstances the principles which he applied to the circumstances of his life. To understand Christ’s principles, to appreciate Christ’s spirit, and then to apply those principles and exemplify that spirit in our own life - this is to follow Christ. With these preliminary cautions borne in mind, I ask the reader to consider with me in this and the succeeding chapter what were the methods of Christ as a preacher, what was the secret of his power, and what was the substance of his teaching, hoping that the hints given in these chapters may incite the reader to make a life study of the Four Gospels for himself, in an endeavor to secure more satisfactory answers to these questions.
Certain negative conclusions respecting Christ’s method seem very evident.
He did not depend for his power on dramatic effects. He did not act upon the counsel of Demosthenes, who declared that action was the first, the second, and the third condition of oratory.
He did not seek to win the attention of the people by any form of dramatic art or artifice. John B. Gough portrayed in action and in dialect every character he described, and acted upon the platform every incident he narrated. Henry Ward Beecher, with unconscious skill, imitated every act which he used in illustration. "We can be quite sure that this was not Christ’s method, because he habitually taught sitting down. He went into the synagogue at Nazareth to preach, the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he " sat down " to preach to them. He went into the mountain, the multitudes followed him to listen to his inaugural sermon, and " when he was set " he opened his mouth and taught them.
He came into the temple, all the people came unto him, "and he sat down and taught them." The people pressed upon him at the lake of Gennesaret, and he entered into a boat, and thrust it out a little from the land, and " sat down and taught the people out of the boat." [1] Nor did he move them by the oratorical splendor of his addresses. These addresses had none of the literary characteristics of great orations. They were not musical; there are no cadences in them.
They were not made splendid by beautiful ornamentation; they are without rich coloring. They were without striking introductions to attract 1 Luke 6:20; Matthew 5:1; John 8:2; Luke 5:3. attention, and without eloquent peroration to win applause; indeed, one can hardly think of them as having ever been received with applause. With very few exceptions they were not aflame with passion. They were simple in style as in substance, spontaneous, unartificial, practical and instructional rather than imaginative and emotional. No schoolboy wishing to find a fit piece of literature for a declamation would think of looking among Christ’s discourses for a suitable oration for oratorical display. Christ’s discourses are not declamatory, they are not oratorical, they neither surge with passion nor scintillate with antithesis nor sparkle with wit and humor. No teacher of rhetoric would go to them except for examples of lucidity and simplicity. They are simple, conversational, almost colloquial. Nor was the power of Jesus Christ, primarily, intellectual. The interest which he aroused was not dependent on skillful analysis and dialectical skill.
He did not play before men a game of chess, setting thought against thought with check and countercheck, while men looked on to see how the game would end. There is very little of the kind of intellectual interest in reading the discourses of Jesus Christ which the scholar finds in reading the dialogues of Plato. A profound philosophy of life underlies his teaching, but his teaching is not the exhibition or unfolding of a system of philosophy.
There is little in common in the method of the teaching between Jesus Christ and Hegel or Kant or Calvin or Edwards. [1], Most of his teaching was conversational; some scholars think it was all conversational. Probably it was largely fragmentary; certainly it comes to us in fragmentary reports. It is mainly colloquial - talk with men, rather than addresses to men.
Christ receives their inquiries and gives his reply, or seeks their responses to his own inquiries. It is often dialogue in fact, when it is not so in form, - an interchange of thought with thought, of life with life. On even the most conservative interpretation of the Gospels, there are not more than five discourses that can properly be called sermons, of which we have any report in the Gospels. These are the sermon at Nazareth, the Sermon on the Mount, the parables at the seashore, the sermon on the Bread of Life, and the Discourse on the Last Day. [2] The parables by the seashore I believe to have been given on different occasions, though at the same period of his ministry; the other sermons above referred to I believe to be real discourses, not merely collections of apothegmatic sayings; but upon this point scholars are not agreed. And yet, while he taught in conversational forms, and in apparently fragmentary utterances, he dealt with the greatest problems of human life.
[1] But see further on this aspect of his teaching, post, pp. 262-264.
[2] Luke 4:16-32; Matthew 5:1-48; Matthew 6:1-34, Matthew 7:1-29; Luke 6:17-49; John 6:25-71; Matthew 24:1-51 The questions which he discussed are such as these, What is the object of life? That question he answers in the sermon at Nazareth. We are here to serve one another, to lift men up, to comfort, to console, to illumine, to instruct, to redeem; not to be ministered unto, but to minister. What is the secret of happiness? That question he answers in the Sermon on the Mount. Character is the secret of happiness. Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers. Not what we have but what we are determines our happiness. What is the secret of character? How shall I possess a holiness (or wholeness or healthfulness) that will make me blessed? That question he answers in the sermon on the bread of life. The secret is communion with God, fellowship with him, feeding upon him, making him the substance of our life, the nourishment of our soul. What is the destiny of man, the issue of life, the outcome of this great drama of history of which we are a part? That he answers in his Discourse on the Last Day. It is the revelation of God, such a revelation that the deaf will hear, the blind will see, the dull will recognize. Or turn from these discourses to his conversations. These also are on great themes. Nicodemus comes to him by night. " Rabbi," he says, " we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." Christ instantly turns the conversation into a new channel. It is not, he tells him, a right opinion about miracles, nor a right opinion about myself that you need; you need a new life coming down from above. He talks with the woman at the well, and from a simple request for a drink of water turns the conversation into one of the prof oundest discourses respecting the nature and source of spiritual life. [1] Or, from the conversations, turn to his parables. They are never mere dramatic pictures to catch the attention and arouse the interest for the moment; they are interpretations of great spiritual truths. In the parables of the Good Samaritan and Dives and Lazarus, he exhibits the true test of character; in the parable of the Prodigal Son he exhibits the difference between the holiness that forgives sin and the holiness that only hates and resents it; in the parable of the publican and the Pharisee, the difference between the holiness that is satisfied with past achievement and that which aspires to a worthier future. [2]
Though in form fragmentary, in fact Christ’s teaching was systematic. It may be true that " Jesus, so far as we can conclude from our sources, has never aimed in any single discourse or any group of connected discourses at laying down his doctrine in systematic form; " [3] certainly his teach [1] John 3:1-12; John 4:1-30.
[2] Luke 10:25-37; Luke 16:19-31; Luke 15:11-32; Luke 18:10-14.
[3] Wendt: The Teaching of Jesus, p. 107. ing is in its form the farthest possible removed from the systematic theology of a Calvin, an Edwards, a Park, or a Hodge; but underlying his teaching is a system. He does not formulate it, but it exists. He presents no isolated truths, half thought out; every truth which he presents runs its roots down and finds connection with every other truth. For nineteen centuries his disciples have been studying his teachings; they have gotten some doctrines out of his teachings which are not there, and they have, doubtless, failed to get some doctrines out of his teachings which are there; but, despite their conflicting prepossessions and temperaments, they have agreed in finding certain great fundamental truths in his ministry. Roman Catholic and Protestant, Calvinist and Arminian, Episcopalian and Congregationalist, orthodox and heterodox, bitterly as they have fought one another on certain questions of doctrine, heartily agree with one another in certain fundamental faiths. They could not have thus agreed in discovering a system underlying the teachings of Jesus Christ if no system was there. Imperfectly understood by his disciples, imperfectly reported by them, constantly misinterpreted since, used by combatants as an arsenal for weapons of offense or defense, sharply criticised by skeptics of every type in all ages of the world, the teaching of Jesus Christ is more universally honored, more profoundly reverenced, and on the whole more loyally followed than ever before in the world’s history. This could not be if it had not unity. Teaching which is but a series of disjecta membra could possess no such immortality. But it was not the object of Jesus Christ to exhibit or maintain a system. He did not teach for the purpose of inculcating a philosophy; it was not his aim to found a school of thought. Still less did he seek to give specific rules for the regulation of conduct; it was not his aim to found a school of ethics. Both truth and rules of conduct were instrumental; the end of all his teaching was the production of character. Thus, his preaching was not in form philosophical or ethical; it was vital, and aimed at changing the sources of life, that is, at changing the character, not merely at the formation of opinions or the regulation of conduct. He therefore never measured men by their ecclesiastical practices, their intellectual opinions, or their emotional states. He never asked them whether they went to church, or what they believed, or how they felt. He never portrayed men as good because of their ecclesiastical practices or the orthodoxy of their opinions or the excitation of their emotions.
He never portrayed them as bad because they did not conform to ecclesiastical rules or orthodox standards, or did not possess prescribed emotions. His measurements of men were always real, practical, vital; character was the end of his teaching, conduct was his measure of character. His preaching, therefore, is concrete. His illustrations are never mere ornaments, introduced to relieve a wearied audience or lighten the strain upon their attention; they are concrete expressions of vital truth; and the only truths with which he concerns himself’ are those capable of concrete interpretation. An abstract truth which exists only in the realm of pure intellect has apparently for Jesus Christ no interest; it certainly has no place in his teaching. The only Christianity which Jesus Christ inculcated was applied Christianity.
Seeking thus to change the sources of character, he seeks to make men think for themselves, answer their own questions, or ask questions of themselves which they had not thought to ask before. A lawyer asks him, "Who is my neighbor?" Christ tells him the story of the good Samaritan, and then returns his question to him, " Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among thieves?" He tells the story of two sons, one of whom promised to work in his father’s vineyard but did no work, the other of whom refused to work in his father’s vineyard and repented and went to work, and then puts to his auditors the question, " Whether of them twain did the will of his father?" A young man comes running in his eagerness, kneels to him reverently, and in words acknowledging his authority says, " Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Christ throws him back upon himself: What do you mean by "good Master"? Why do you call me good? and the young man is silent; he has used the phrase without significance. [1] This method is characteristic with Christ. He seeks by concrete statement, by parabolic illustration, by searching question, to get behind the intellectual conception, behind the ethical rule, behind the ecclesiastical formulary, into the very springs and sources of man’s being. This combination of profundity of thought and concreteness of statement gives his sayings a hidden meaning. His thoughts are seed thoughts. His teaching abounds in epigrams. Whole systems of truth lie concealed in them. " I say unto you, Love your enemies " has in it the secret of the Christian system of penology. The function of society is not to punish but to redeem the enemies of society. " Say, Our Father " has in it a complete system of theology. What true fatherhood means to us on earth interprets the relationship of God to humanity. " Take my yoke upon you " contains the whole secret of human development. Yoke yourself to God and your work is easy. This is the secret of civilization, - that we have learned how in the natural realm to avail ourselves of the divine forces in nature and work cooperatively with them. This is the secret of Christian development, which we shall have acquired when we have learned how to enter into spiritual companionship with God and work in the spiritual realm cooperatively with him.
[1] Luke 10:36; Matthew 21:31; Matthew 18:17. This compacting of fundamental principles of life into brief and pregnant aphorisms gives great crispness of style to the teachings of Jesus. "With what measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you." " Many that are first shall be last, and the last first." " Many are called but few are chosen."
" The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." "He that is greatest among you shall be your servant." " It is more blessed to give than to receive." The teachings of Jesus abound with aphorisms of this description. [1] They constitute more than a characteristic of style, they are evidences of profoundness of thought and carefulness of preparation. Such coin as these are not minted without study of form as well as of substance, of expression as well as of truth. It is for the preacher to ponder these aphoristic sentences, meditate upon them, search for the truth which is contained in them, study the life that is about him, and by this combined study learn how to apply the truths concealed in these aphorisms to the circumstances and conditions of modern life.
There are also certain elements in Christ’s life which bear directly on his teaching, and which, in any consideration of him as a teacher, must be taken account of.
First is his industry. Judged simply as other
[1] Matthew 7:2; Matthew 19:30; Matthew 20:16; Matthew 23:11; Mark 2:27; Acts 20:35. Wendt, in The Teaching of Jesus, gives three pages of sayings of this description, vol. i, pp. 139-142. men are judged, it is safe to say that no man in the history of the human race has accomplished anything commensurable with what Jesus Christ accomplished in the three years into which his life ministry was condensed. But his habits of industry antedated his public ministry. He began life working as a carpenter at his father’s bench. His appreciation of nature, his familiarity with the Bible, and his profound knowledge of life, all indicate a thoughtful boyhood. In the beginning of his ministry he gathered workingmen about him, and from them chose his apostles. An itinerant ministry was his, and his journeys were all performed on foot; he walked hundreds of miles in the course of his life.
Mark has given us the story of one of his days. [1], It was a typical day; multiplied, it affords a picture of his busy life. It is said of him at one period of his ministry that he had not time so much as to eat. [2] And his work was of a kind that exhausts men; and it exhausted him. Virtue went out of him, it is said. [3] He was so worn by the calls upon his sympathies that bystanders looking on him said to one another, We see now what the prophet meant when he said of the Messiah, " Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." [4] These evidences of his industry lie on the surface of his life. But as the greater part of an iceberg lies below the [1] Mark 1:21-45.
[2] Mark 6:31; Mark 3:20; Matthew 8:20.
[3] Luke 6:19; Luke 8:46; Mark 5:30.
[4] Matthew 8:17. water line, so the greater part and the best part of a teacher’s industry lies out of the world’s sight.
Christ could not have taught the truths he taught without much time given to meditating; he could not have been the master of the Hebrew literature, not of its words only, but of its inner spiritual meaning, without much study of that literature; and he could not have thrown out those aphoristic sentences that sparkle like diamonds, those perfectly wrought parables, profound in the truth they reveal, perfect in the lucidity and simplicity of the form in which it is revealed, without much study expended both upon the substance and the expression. As a teacher he was free, unconstrained, unconventional. He neither resented the conventions of his time nor submitted to them. He used them when they were useful; he disregarded them when they interfered with his work. He preached in the synagogues as long as the synagogues would permit him to do so. The fact that his teaching was revolutionary of the religious opinions of the rulers of the synagogues did not deter him from using their pulpits so long as their pulpits were open to him. When the rulers thought to prevent his preaching by prohibiting him the only recognized religious gathering-place of the time, he found other places in which to preach. A house, a field, a shore, a hillside served as a synagogue; a seat, a stone, the prow of a boat, served as a pulpit. And he never waited for a congregation. Sometimes he talked to a single woman coming to the well to draw water; sometimes to a houseful, while others crowded about the doors and the windows; sometimes to a group of fishermen casually on the shore of the lake; sometimes to the crowds passing and repassing in the outer court of the Temple at Jerusalem; sometimes to thousands who had flocked from the villages to hear him on some plain among the hills of Galilee. Any soul served as a congregation, any spot as a church, any opportunity as a sacred occasion. [1], The reason for this it is easy to see: he had a mission to fulfill, a message to deliver. After a day of ministry his friends find him in his retreat, and desire to bring him back to enjoy the sweets of popularity. He refuses. " Let us go into the next towns," he says, " that I may preach there also, for therefore came I forth." His message was the expression of his own life, and its expression was necessary to him. He foresees what it will cost, not to him only, but to his friends and to the world, and he shrinks from these consequences, yet he cannot, will not draw back. " I am come to send fire on the earth, " he says: " and what will I if it be already kindled? I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! " The message has been given to him by his Father, and he cannot be still. " The words that I speak unto you," he says, " I speak not of [1] John 4:6-7; Mark 2:1-2; Luke 5:1-3; Luke 20:1; Matthew 6:1. myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." The mission is one which has been laid upon him; and he cannot lay it down until he can say to his Father, " I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." [1], Because his ^message was the expression of his life it was emphasized by his life. His actions interpreted his words. " I am," he said, " the way, the truth, and the life." [2] He bade his disciples take no thought for the morrow. He took none. When the multitude was hungry, he asked what provisions the little band had provided for their own use, as one who had given himself no concern before upon the subject, then gave it all away to the throng who attended his ministry, in seeming oblivion of his own needs, in real trust in the Father who cares for the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field.
He bade his disciples love their enemies and pray for those who despitefully used them. His enemies he loved. His last words to the disciple who betrayed him were pathetic words of friendly reproach, - a final effort to save the traitor from his self destruction, and not in vain, since they awakened a remorse that we may at least hope was the beginning of a true repentance. [3] Among his last words was a prayer for the forgiveness of those who crucified [1] Mark 1:38; Luke 12:49-50; John 14:10; John 17:4.
[2] John 14:6.
[3] Mark 6:34-41; Matthew 5:44; Matthew 6:25-31; Luke 22:48; Luke 23:34. him. Thus Christ lived as he preached, because he preached what he was, - no reporter of other men’s thoughts, no repeater of other men’s faiths was he, but the exponent of his own innermost, sacred, divine life. This inner life of his, compelling his lips to utter and his hands to do, inspired a courage which halted at no danger and hesitated at no obstacle. I send you forth, he said to his apostles, as sheep in the midst of wolves; be wise; be harmless, but fear not. Going himself as a sheep in the midst of wolves, neither courting danger nor avoiding it, he never feared. In vain his mother and his brethren endeavored to dissuade him from the seemingly unequal contest into which he had entered with the ruling powers of his time. In vain his disciples warned him of the danger of his death and besought him to avoid it. History affords no more dramatic illustration of heroism than is afforded by his going up to Jerusalem to his passion, with the shame and spitting, the betrayal, the mock trial, the angry mob, the crucifixion all before him; and there in the Temple courts challenging the Scribes and Pharisees with an invective against their false religious pretense covering evil hearts and evil deeds, as a whited sepulchre covers " dead men’s bones and all uncleanness." Yet parallel to it is that other scarcely less dramatic incident in the beginning of his life, when he turned the applause of his Nazarene congregation into murderous hate by his rebuke of the national sin of provincial pride and narrowness. [1], Of the essential spirit of his ministry - its spirit of self-control surpassing all asceticism, its spirit of conscience surpassing all Puritanism, its spirit of piety surpassing* all mysticism, its spirit of hopefulness surpassing all optimism - I shall speak in the next chapter. Yet the most important characteristic in the method of his ministry would be ignored if I were to pass by in silence his habit of retreating from time to time, not only from the crowd but from his nearest and most intimate friends, to be alone with himself and his God.
" When thou prayest," he said to his disciples, " enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret." His closet was sometimes the wild eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, sometimes a recess high up among the hills, sometimes a garden in the environs of Jerusalem. 2 Eager as he was to help men, thronged as he was by men eager for his help, with a work too large to be accomplished in a lifetime, and a life too short for anything but the merest beginning of that work, yet he never was so busy that he could not get away from men for hours whose occupation is hidden from our vision, and can be interpreted only by our experience. How intimate [1] Matthew 10:16; Mark 3:21, Mark 3:31-35; Mark 8:31-33; Mark 10:32; John 11:16; Matthew 23:13-39; Luke 4:16-32.
[2] Matthew 6:6; Luke 5:16; Luke 6:12; Mark 1:35; Mark 14:32-35. was his companionship with his Father in those hours, how far back into the ages which preceded his birth that companionship may have reached, it is not for us to know. But this we may surely know, - that we who are trying to do Christ’s work in Christ’s way, whose aspiration it is to emulate his industry, his freedom, his spontaneity, his reality, his courage, his self-control, his conscientiousness, his piety, and his hopefulness, must have our hours of solitude that are also hours of most intimate companionship, our hours of silence and repose, given not to study, not even to petition, but to that communion which can neither be analyzed nor described, hours when perhaps our only prayer is, Speak, Lord, for thy servant is listening, and perhaps the only answer we hear is, Be still and know that I am God.