5. The Teaching of Jesus

Jesus was the greatest moral teacher this world has ever seen. From the grassy slopes of Galilee came teaching which was to revolutionise man’s relationships with his fellow man. It has influenced the thinking of people throughout the Western world, whether psychiatrists in the urban metropolis of New York, villagers in Papua New Guinea, or alternative lifestylers on the beaches of each continent.

The message of Jesus was initially similar to John the Baptist’s: ‘The right time has come and the kingdom of God is near! Turn away from your sins and believe the good news.’ 1 For those who had eyes to see and ears to hear, Jesus was really saying he was the Messiah, the promised rescuer of Israel.

Like many itinerant rabbis, Jesus taught in the synagogues that dotted the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Some of these synagogues can be still seen today. In these churches of the Jewish faith, Jesus took the Old Testament scrolls, read from them and gave the traditional passages a new meaning. 2

But it was out in the open, on the hills surrounding Galilee, that Jesus gave to the world his most important teaching. 3 It was on one hillside, known today as the Mount of the Beatitudes, that Jesus gave his most famous address, the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 to 8).

Once when a group of people asked Mahatma Ghandi the secret of his explosive power in India, he pulled from his robe a copy of the Sermon on the Mount and indicated that the most revolutionary teaching seen on earth was to be found in these words of Jesus.

This teaching of Jesus, whenever it has been studied with an eye for its freshness and originality, has brought a burst of power into the lives of people who have opened themselves to it.

The appeal of Jesus’ teaching

The teaching of Jesus wherever it was given had to do with how people should live, 1 how we were to deal with our anxieties and worries, and how we were to discover God’s will for our lives.

The teaching of Jesus was informal, that is, it was not inscribed in books or given in lectures in university halls. Jesus talked as he walked, as he sat upon a convenient rock or as people gathered together in the shade of a tree.

His teaching was also colourful. It had to do with life: weddings and funerals, 6 children playing, 7 patches of cloth on garments, 8 money lost in a house, 9 or a neighbour who had run out of food when unexpected guests arrived at midnight. 10 His teaching was very visual because his sayings were easily pictured. Jesus could speak about the lilies of the field 11 and the sparrows of the air, 12 about bread and fish, 13 about clothing and water. 14

Yet his teaching was authoritative. Whenever people heard him, they were surprised; he spoke not with the boring repetition of those puffed up with their own importance, but as a person with real authority. 15

The teaching of Jesus was simple in its format, so that even a child could understand much of it. It was instantly understandable and yet much of his teaching, when it is grasped and understood, is discovered to have a long fuse: its effects are delayed but explosive. Unlike many contemporary, laid-back counsellors, Jesus did not hesitate in telling people what they ought to do. His was not a non-directive or reflective approach. Rather, if you examine the verbs used by Jesus, you’ll discover powerful, motivational words like ‘come’, ‘go’, ‘tell’, ‘heal’, ‘love’, ‘pray’ and ‘forgive’.

Above all, the teaching of Jesus was about how we are to live right here. The theologians call this ‘existential’, a technical way of saying that his teaching has to do with the here and now. His teaching was not only about some far off existence, of a heavenly dwelling or a future life. It was also about how we are to pay our debts, 16 relate to the people who live next door to us, 17 cope with boring people who laud their authority over us, or handle living while unemployed and on low income. 18 The amazing feature of the teaching of Jesus is that every generation has found it vital and practical.

The content of Jesus’ teaching

Jesus taught about five subjects: about God, about ourselves, about the kingdom of God, about the new life that it is possible for us to achieve and about sin and salvation.

(a) God

When Jesus taught about God, he brought to the world a new understanding. The Jews understood God as Creator, Provider, Guide, Judge and Defender. They could speak about him as being the just and holy One; they could describe his wrath, his vengeance and his judgement. It was said that the ancients had ninety-nine different names for God, but Jesus brought a new name to man’s consciousness: he called God ‘Father’. 19 The most personal and intimate term of a relationship between a son and his father was the very word that Jesus used of our relationship with our Creator. God was to be ‘Abba’, a loving father.

In all of his teaching about God, Jesus stressed that our heavenly Creator was a loving God. Love was God’s central characteristic: he was a caring, unselfish, giving, universal Provider. 20 And God was not only loving; he was also good. He was good within himself and within his nature, and he intended goodness for us. To live a life of goodness was to live in conformity to his will – the most fulfilled and effective kind of life. It was his wish that we should be part of his kingdom. Jesus said: ‘Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.’ 21 The fact that God loved us as a Father was seen in the way he cared for us as a father would for a lost son, longingly looking forward to our return, yet giving us the freedom to reject him. 22 On the cross, Jesus demonstrated his own trust in God when, with his last words, he said: ‘Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.’ 23

Jesus pictured God’s love with some startlingly concrete images: God cares for us in the same way as he cares for even the sparrows for the air; 24 God searches for us as a farmer would search for one sheep that was lost. 25 God not only made us; he provides for us and seeks our personal welfare.

(b) Ourselves

The teaching of Jesus about how we are to live is summarised best in the Sermon on the Mount. 26

There he discussed the nature of true happiness: that happiness was not found in things that we possess, but in the way we live. 27 True contentment consists in living a life of humility and dependence on God, in showing mercy, being pure in heart, working for people and turning others’ persecution to good effect. Jesus contrasted the old law given by the prophets with the new law he gave his disciples. This included how we should handle our anger against others, about committing sexual adultery with our mind as well as our body, about the one basis for divorce, and about checking those feelings of revenge that can inwardly destroy us.

Jesus then spoke positively about the way we were to do acts of charity and how God rewards deeds of goodness done anonymously. He taught us about praying and fasting, and not being anxious or worried about our possessions. 28

Jesus spent some time speaking about our relationships with other people – about not looking down upon them, but instead judging people as we do trees by the fruit they produce. 29

Finally, Jesus ended this remarkable sermon by telling a simple parable about people building two identical houses near each other. Looking at them, one could not tell the difference, except that when storms came and floods washed against their foundations it was found that one house had been built upon sand and it collapsed, while the other was built upon rock and it stood the test of the storm. Jesus simply stated: ‘Anyone who hears these words of mine and obeys them is like the wise man who builds his house upon a rock.’ 30 His words are designed for building life on a sure foundation.

In his teaching Jesus frequently used parables – simple stories that illustrated a spiritual truth. Frequently, the parables could be understood at two levels. There is the obvious, self-evident meaning of the story, but there is sometimes a deeper meaning which contained some secret concerning the kingdom of God.

Once when Jesus told the story about a farmer who sowed seed on various kinds of land, resulting in the seed producing a variety of crops, his disciples asked him in private to explain its meaning. Jesus replied: ‘You have been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but the others, who are on the outside, hear all things by meaning of parables, so that they may look and look, yet not see; they may listen and listen, yet not understand. For if they did, they would turn to God and he would forgive them.’ 31 He then went on and explained the parable to them.

The point Jesus was making was that only those who were really willing to be honest with God had the right to understand the full meaning of his truth. Those who would twist or use it for their own purposes would only see the surface truth.

Jesus told some of the most memorable stories ever to enter the literature of humanity. 32 No one who stands by the road wending its way from the height of Jerusalem down to Jericho by the River Jordan could ever fail to understand the significance of the story of the Good Samaritan. 33 This old road, travelling from Jerusalem 2,500 feet above sea-level down to Jericho 820 feet below sea-level, descends 3,500 feet in fifteen twisty miles. It was here that a traveller was mugged by some brigands. The whole point of the story came as a result of a tricky question asked by a lawyer who wanted to trap Jesus. Jesus replied that the lawyer, better than any, knew the answer. The law stated we should love God and our neighbour as we love ourselves. But the lawyer, seeking to justify himself, asked, ‘Who is my neighbour?’

Jesus told this most memorable story with the greatest economy of words. He concluded: ‘In your opinion which one of these three acted like a neighbour towards the man attacked by the robber?’ 34 The teacher of the law was obliged to declare that it was a despised foreigner who acted in the way that God requires more than the respected lawyer or religious priest. In one simple story, Jesus forever attacked racial prejudice and indicated that true religion had to be expressed in deeds of kindness.

In the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus expressed the loving care that God shows when he seeks for each one of us. As God is pleased when we return to him, so the shepherd who sought the lost sheep rejoiced when it was found. 35

There are forty parables of Jesus that are preserved for us. They concern our abilities and talents, our deeds of gratitude, our need to work hard and to exercise our intelligence, our duty to pray and to do acts of kindness. 36

Frequently, in a simple epigram, Jesus reminded us of a great truth: ‘No man who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’ 37 Who could forget the picture of placing new wine into old skins, the skins bursting as a result of the pressure of the fermenting wine? 38 Jesus was saying that the old regulations and forms were not enough to contain the newness of his teaching.

(c) The kingdom of God

The kingdom of God was central to all of Jesus’ teaching. Matthew, who as a good Jew refrained from using the term ‘God’, referred to it as ‘the kingdom of heaven’. 39 Jesus gave us an insight into the nature of God’s rule in the heart of those that believed in him. There are more than one hundred references to the kingdom of God in the four Gospels. He described it as like a hidden treasure, 40 as like a pearl only attainable for a great price, 41 or as like a huge tree that keeps on growing. 42 The ordinary people flocked in great numbers to hear about how the reign of God was to work out in their lives.

The kingdom of God was seen in three aspects. First, there was the kingdom as it was expressed in Judaism. This was the culmination of Jewish teaching about the coming of the Messiah. The trouble was that the people for Jesus’ day were looking for the kingdom in terms that were material – a political Messiah, a kind of folk hero who would bring them liberty from foreign oppressors. 43

Second, Jesus taught that within Judaism there would be one born who, through suffering, would redeem his people. Then, as now, the people were not wanting to hear this message. People would much rather have a flamboyant, popular rebel to bring them victory, than one who would suffer on their behalf. Every generation prefers Barabbas to Jesus. Instead of a nationalistic kingdom in which the chosen people would live in political might and material splendour, Jesus taught that the kingdom of God dwelt in the heart of every believer. 44 His kingdom would be wherever a person allowed God to reign in his life. That kingdom was at hand; the time was fulfilled and ready now. That kingdom could come within any person, wherever God’s will ‘is done in earth as it is in heaven’. 45

There is a third aspect concerning the kingdom of God which appears in the teaching of Jesus. The kingdom is not only within us now, but will be recognised even by those people who do not acknowledge God as King. 46 The day will come when his kingdom will be seen by all people, and they will be judged on how they have lived in response to the needs of others.

Some of Jesus’ teaching concerning the coming kingdom obviously applied to the destruction of Jerusalem itself by the Romans – this took place some forty years after his death in AD 70. But other aspects of his teaching apply to the end of all time when this world itself will be destroyed, but God’s kingdom will continue for ever to be shared by those who have trusted in him. 47

The kingdom of God, then, represents the reign of God in the hearts of people. It is already a reality for all who accept him as King; it is yet to be realised by others.

Saint Augustine, looking at the civilised world of his day falling beneath the marauding Vandals form the north, stressed that, while the kingdoms of men might collapse, the kingdom of God cannot be shaken.

We work best for his kingdom when we start living out his kingdom in our own lives. The Russian writer, Count Leo Tolstoy, once spoke to an enthusiastic young reformer: ‘You sweat too much blood for the world. Sweat some for yourself first. For if you want to make the world better, you have to be the best you can. You cannot bring the kingdom of God into the world until you bring it into your own heart first.’

Regardless of what the rest of the world might think or do about God’s way of living, Christian people live within the rules of the kingdom. As one student replied to a Russian judge, who had imprisoned him for refusing military service on the grounds that he belonged to the kingdom of God: ‘Sir, the kingdom for God may not have come for you, but it has come for me, and I cannot live as if it had not.’

(d) New life

A further aspect of the teachings of Jesus concerned how we were to live the new life. Jesus did not come with any new laws for living – he had no ten commandments or formalised code of ethics. Instead, he gave us a way of life – a lifestyle so distinct that it was just like being born anew. 48

On a summer’s evening, with the wind gently blowing in the leaves, Jesus discussed with one of the leading theologians of his day, Nicodemus, the necessity to allow God’s Spirit to remake us from within.

This new life was discussed not only with the religious and circumspect. To a prostitute at the well at Sychar, Jesus spoke about the need to take living water into our lives and find the new life that God offered. 49 The well had been used since the time of Jacob two thousand years earlier. The woman, regarded as disreputable in the community, came on her own in the heat of day – only to find Jesus seated there. He asked from her a drink, commenting:

‘Whoever drinks this water will get thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring which will provide him with life-giving water and give him eternal life.’ 50 That woman was so changed by the teaching of Jesus that she went and brought the entire township out to hear him, telling them that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.

Many of the Samaritans in that town believed in Jesus because of what the woman had said and many more believed because of his message. They told the women: ‘We believe now, not because of what you said, but because we ourselves have heard him, and we know that he really is the Saviour of the world.’ 51 They had discovered the true source of spiritual life.

It was an entirely different scene at Jericho. As Jesus was passing by, he stopped and looked up into a sycamore tree. A small, despised tax collector by the name of Zacchaeus has climbed it to get a better view of Jesus as he passed by. Jesus called him down and asked if he could go to his house to talk to him. Zacchaeus tumbled out of the tree and raced into the house to make this remarkable teacher welcome.

We don’t know what was said in the house. Whatever it was, the people outside grumbled that Jesus should have gone into a house with a man who was so obviously publicly rejected. A short while later, as Jesus placed an arm around the shoulder of Zacchaeus, Jesus stood on his doorstep and said: ‘Salvation has come to this house today, for this man also is a descendant of Abraham. The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.’ 52 So another person was welcomed back into the family of God and Jesus gave to us the key to his mission: to seek and to save those who were lost.

(e) Sin and salvation

The final aspect in the teaching of Jesus concerned our understanding of sin and salvation. How we have twisted what Jesus meant by sin. Ask anybody what sin means and they will immediately give you a list of wrong actions. But Jesus never sought to enumerate all the wrong things that we might do – these were all the result of sin. His concern was not primarily with sexual or spiritual sins, but with sin in its essence – our separation from God. Our basic purpose for living was spoilt because we separated ourselves from our Creator. Sin is knowing what is right and what we should do and yet failing to do it – not living a life in harmony with God. As James, the brother of Jesus, later wrote: ‘The person who does not do the good he knows he should do is guilty of sin.’ 53

Separation from God can only be overcome by reconciliation to God. The lost had to be found; the wandering had to be brought back home; the prodigal had to return to his father. Reconciliation brings wholeness to our lives, enabling us to fulfil the purpose for which we were made.

Psychiatrists in every major city of the world have their offices filled with an endless stream of people feeling alienated, lost and unloved. They enquire into various aspects of their patients’ upbringing and childhood: when they first felt rejected, were abused or lacked the love they needed. Such concern is well-meaning, even useful, but still inadequate if it fails to recognise the root cause of the problem: our separateness from God and our inability to do his will.

Jesus pin-pointed the crucial difference between our needs and our wants, reminding us that God can and will provide for our needs when we get our spiritual priorities right:

‘Why are you worrying about your food and your drink and your clothes? Your Father in heaven knows you need all of these things. Instead, be concerned above everything else with the kingdom of God and with what he requires of you and he will provide you with all these other things. So do not worry about tomorrow; it will have enough worries of its own. There is no need to add to the troubles each day brings.’ 54

This is surely practical wisdom, as relevant for the bustling tempo of today as for the more leisurely pace of first-century Palestine. When Jesus preached the kingdom of God, he touched the deepest need in the hearts of people. We enter that kingdom by repenting of our past wrong and by believing the good news about Jesus. The kingdom of God is his gift to us, given freely out of his grace. All we need to do is turn and receive it. That is the good news that Jesus taught and brought.

Endnotes:

1. Mark 1:15
2. Luke 4:17-21; Isaiah 61:1-2
3. Matthew chapters 5-7
4. e.g. Luke 6:1, 6 and 17
5. Matthew 5:1
6. Matthew 9:15 and 11:17; Luke 5:34-35 and 9:59-60
7. Matthew 11:16
8. Matthew 9:16; Luke 5:36
9. Luke 15:8
10. Luke 11:5-8
11. Matthew 6:28
12. Matthew 6:26
13. Matthew 7:9-10
14. Matthew 6:30-33
15. Matthew 7:28-29
16. Matthew 18:23-24; Luke 16:1-9
17. Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27
18. Matthew 7:1 and 15, 9:20
19. Matthew 5:16 and 6:9
20. Matthew 7:7-12
21. Luke 12:32
22. Luke 15:11-32
23. Luke 23:46 RSV
24. Matthew 6:26
25. Luke 15:1-7; Matthew 18:12-14
26. Matthew chapters 5-7
27. Matthew 5:1-12
28. Matthew 6:25-34
29. Matthew 7:15-20
30. Matthew 7:24; compare Luke 6:47-49
31. Matthew 13:10-15, author’s paraphrase
32. e.g. Luke 14:15-24, 15:1-32 and 16:1-13
33. Luke 10:29-37
34. Luke 10:36
35. Luke 15:4-7; Matthew 18:12-14
36. Matthew 25:14-30 and 20:1-16; Luke 18:1-8 and 10:25-37
37. Luke 9:62 RSV
38. Matthew 9:16-17; Luke 5:37-38
39. Matthew 13:24-33
40. Matthew 13:44
41. Matthew 13:45
42. Matthew 13:32
43. John 6:15
44. Luke 17:21
45. Matthew 6:10
46. Matthew 24:30
47. Mark 14:25; Mark 9:1
48. John 3:3
49. John 4:10
50. John 4:13-14
51. John 4:42
52. Luke 19:10
53. James 4:17
54. Matthew 6:31-34

For personal reading

Theme: The Qualities of a Disciple

Monday : The marks of true joy (Matthew 5:1-20)
Tuesday : Appointing the disciples (Mark 3:13-19 and Matthew 9:9-13)
Wednesday : Not childish, but childlike (Matthew 18:1-11)
Thursday : Water for living (John 4:1-14)
Friday : Release for captives (Luke 4:14-32)
Saturday : When religion becomes a barrier (Matthew 15:1-20)
Sunday : Finding true faith (John 3:1-17)

For group reading

Topic: The Teaching of Jesus

1. Why did his hearers perceive in Jesus the voice of authority?

2. The most powerful words in the teaching of Jesus were simple ones. Why are his simple instructions the most difficult to follow?

3. Jesus taught a new way to contentment. What are the essential ingredients for a happy life?

4. Can you develop a modern parable that illustrates a Christian truth?

5. What does the kingdom of God mean to you?

6. How can our deep sense of personal alienation from God be overcome?

Thursday, 30th July, 2009, 11:13 am | Bible Studies