The way of Christ; studies in discipleship

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The "Set" of a Life 9

II. The Beginnings 23

Chapter I The "set" Of A Life

Biblical Material.

1. Read Luke 1:5, 6; 46-55, 67-79. Try to characterize this group of people.

2. Look for evidence of Jesus' acquaintance with the great prophets; Cf. Isaiah 29:13 with Mark y:6; Hosea 6:6 with Mt. 9:13; Isaiah 61: iff with Luke 4:i6ff, etc.

3. Read and study Luke 2 :40-52.

I. The Importance of Getting a Good Start.

1. Read the preface of Luke's gospel (1:1-4), noting the care with which he has selected his materials. Why did he pick out this one incident (Luke 2 :40-52) from the early years of Jesus' life?

2. When is Jesus usually said to have begun his life work? Is there any sense in which we may say that He began his life work before his entrance upon the public ministry? In what sense did He begin his life work as a boy of twelve?

3. Why was it important that Jesus set the compass of his life so early?

4. Why is a good start of such importance in any field of endeavor? Why is it important from the point of view of the individual? Of those with whom he lives? Of the task he may have to do ?

II. What Constitutes a Good Start?

i. Name the elements which entered into Jesus' experience in the temple. Which was the most important, his . home training, his own awakening understanding, or a sense of the world's need?

2. Just what did Jesus do to start his life work? What is the significance of the silence of the records at this point? Was this "start" marked by outer achievement or inner attitude ?

3. What constitutes a good start for any life? Is there any world need to-day comparable to the need of Jesus' world? Is there any "hope" to-day as widespread as the Kingdom hope in Jesus' day?

I. The First Picture of Jesus.

We know almost nothing about the boy Jesus. Just a few sentences sum up the story of the first thirty years. Into those obscure years of his boyhood and young manhood legend and myth have sought to peer, but the gospel history grants us only one clear picture. Luke, the artist of the evangelists, has drawn it for us with a few swift strokes of his pen, and it is a priceless treasure. We could not do without it, for the features of its central figure are drawn with such sure, firm lines that we know Him better from this single picture than a score of less revealing sketches could have told us.

Read again the familiar story of the boy Jesus in the

THE "SET" OF A LIFE

temple (Luke 2:41-50). We have reason to be thankful for it, not because it shows what an abnormal lad Jesus was to be there listening to the deep talk of theologians and asking them from time to time questions that amazed them. Jesus always had that gift. He could ask questions that searched honest men's s-ouls and bared the plots of scoundrels and it is not so astonishing that as a boy of twelve He had that faculty. Most twelve-year-olds ask questions that go straight to the heart of things and leave older folk with no adequate answers.

But read on. He becomes so interested in what these graybeards are talking about that He actually forgets the home journey and the home-going kinsfolk, and the hour set for departure comes and goes. His parents leave, thinking Him in the company. They discover their mistake and hurry back to find Him in the temple sitting at the feet of the rabbis, listening to them and asking questions. Then, the half hesitant reproach, "Son, why have you treated us in this way? Think how anxiously your father and I have been searching for you !" And He turns to them, this twelve-year-old peasant boy, and asks, "Why have you been searching for me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" It seems a strange answer. Can we hope to understand it and the boy who uttered it?

II. What People Thought About Religion in Jesus' Day.

Was Jesus' reply to his parents simply the answer of a

strange and wonderful boy, with a halo around his head?

May we not come at it from another angle? What could

those graybeards have been discussing as they talked there

in the temple — the latest scribal interpretation of what

Rabbi So-and-so had said concerning Rabbi So-and-so's explanation of a dry-as-dust legal tradition? Such talk would never have caused any boy to forget father and mother and home. But there was one subject which would enthrall every earnest Jewish boy, — the Kingdom, the coming Kingdom.

Just as so many hearts are athrill with the hope of a coming world democracy to-day, so the coming Kingdom was the dream of every Jewish patriot and the hope of every pious home. It was the silver thread woven into the dark fabric of Jewish history. In the blackest night great prophets told of the dawning of a better day when David's glorious reign should be equaled and indeed surpassed, and Messiah should come to rule the world and restore the Jews to their rightful dominion. What other subject could have engaged the thoughts of those wise theologians and that eager peasant boy? What more natural than that the boy Jesus should have asked, When and how will this day come ?

There were Pharisees among the teachers in the temple that day, and we know pretty well how a spokesman from that party would have answered the question. "The kingdom," he would have replied, "belongs to another world order than this. We cannot bring it in by political revolt against Rome or by social revolution, for it is the Kingdom of the age that is to be. We know not when it will come, but this we do know, that it will be inaugurated by signs and portents. The sun will be darkened; the moon will become bloody, the stars will drop from their places. There will be a terrible catastrophe. The forces of Jehovah will battle victoriously with the evil spirits and then will the new world come. It will be let down out of the heavens upon the earth. Messiah will rule upon the throne of David and the

THE "SET" OF A LIFE

sons of Abraham will inherit the kingdom prepared for them. All our enemies will have been slain by the sword of Jehovah, and the Jewish nation, revived, restored and glorified, will come into its own. And if we hope to share in this glorious day we must be good Jews. Observe the law with scrupulous exactness, every jot and tittle. And the traditions of the elders and the interpretations of the scribes, these are of vital importance. Tithe and fast and pray and sabbatize with meticulous care."

And then perhaps a representative of the sect of the Essenes, clad in spotless white, would speak. "I agree with the Pharisee as to the nature of the Kingdom and its coming," he would say, "but that we may prepare for participation in it we would do well to withdraw from the world with its sordid cares and material ambitions and live in meditation and prayer. Ceremonial purity is essential for entrance into the coming Kingdom and one must renounce worldly concerns and business affairs, trade, gain and the like."

There might even be a Sadducee present who would venture to speak. His remarks would run like this, "I care little for theology. It's a mistake to fill the heads of the people with such wild ideas as these. I take no stock in any fanciful notions of a coming Kingdom. Affairs are going well as they are. So long as the Sadducees hold the priesthood, the nation is in good hands. The poor will always grumble, but it is the part of wisdom to make the best of things as they are. Rome is a powerful state and we had best live on good terms with her. The Sadducees are setting the best example."

Only voices such as these would have been heard in that group that day, but they were not the only voices in the

!3

Palestine of Jesus" day. Though but a boy, He would have heard in Galilean Nazareth and on the journey to Jerusalem the cry of the poor. "Oh, that some deliverer would appear! We common folk would hear him gladly. We would make him king and follow him in any attempt to cast off the Roman yoke and set up a Jewish political state here and now. The Pharisee and the Sadducee can afford to wait and speculate about a Kingdom in the far distant future, but we, who feel the burden of poverty and who know what it is to be hungry and cold, want, relief now."

And still another voice would be sounding in Jesus' ears as He listened to the scholars in the temple that day. He would be remembering the hopes and ideals of the home circle from which He had come. The quiet, devout spirit of Mary, his mother, and her kinswoman, Elizabeth, would not be forgotten. He would have been told of the words of Zacharias (Luke 1 168-79) and of the aged Simeon (Luke 2:29-32). We need to remember when we think of the Jews of Jesus' day that they were not all like the formal Pharisee and the worldly Sadducee. The first pages of Luke give us a picture of very different folk, simple and devout. They named their sons after the old Hebrew patriarchs. Note the names of the sons in Jesus' home: James (or Jacob) , Joseph, Simon, Judas (Mt. 13:55). In such quiet lives the noblest spirit of the Old Testament lived on.

The boy Jesus would be thinking, too, of the lessons He had learned in the village synagogue school. The great opening words of the Jewish confession of faith, "Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah, and thou sh'alt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might" (Deut. 6:4), were perhaps the first words He

THE ''SET" OF A EIFE

had been taught to repeat. He would be remembering the words of the great prophets with their insistence upon justice, mercy, love and righteousness, such words as Amos spoke, "Hate the evil and love the good and establish justice in the gate" (5:15); and Hosea. "I desire goodness and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings" (6:6); and Micah, ". . . what doth Jehovah require of thee but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walkhumbly with thy God" (6 :8) ; and the new covenant of Jeremiah (31 131-34) ; and the Servant Poems of Isaiah.

Is it too much to suppose that ideals and hopes were the subject of discussion in the temple that day and that widely divergent opinions were even then confronting the boy Jesus ? See how such a background lights up the puzzling answer He gave his mother.

III. The Dawn of a Great Purpose.

And He said to them, "Why have you been searching for me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" The halo fades from the picture. We no longer see the boy Jesus in the dim half-light of magic and mystery. His is neither the wan. drawn face of an ascetic nor the precocious face of a prodigy. But Luke has drawn for us the earnest, strong features of a manly peasant lad. It is a face alight with hope and glorified with a dawning purpose. He is saying to his father and mother, These things I have been hearing, and the noble prophetic ideals and the hopes which you have told me of at home — all this is my Father's business. And to-day I know, as you. too, cannot help knowing, that I must be about this, my Father's business. This is to be my life task.

It is not given us to know how much or little He understood of his own life that stretched out before Him, but these were the words He spoke. The compass of his life was set. He could return now to Nazareth to be "obedient to them."

IV. The Silent Years.

For eighteen years He lived in Nazareth. Not a word do we have from the records about those years save the very general statement of Luke that He "advanced in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man." Yet we may picture the Jesus of the silent years with reasonable certainty, for his teaching and life during the three years of public ministry reveal what manner of boy and man He must have been in Nazareth of Galilee.

They were years of labor. We have been wrong in thinking that his trade was an aside which merely occupied his hands while brain and heart were up in the clouds. In all probability He was a builder of houses and not simply a small carpenter who did repair work in his father's shop.

"His interest in the foundations of the temple, his parable of the houses built on the rock or on the sand (Mt. 7:24-27), his allusions to the destruction of the temple and to its being rebuilt (John 2:19, 20), to the man who pulled down his granaries that he might build larger (Luke 12:18), and to the builder who exhausted his resources before completing his work (Luke 14:28-30), all imply that Jesus was a master builder." *

We may picture his social life in that small city, Nazareth.

* Kent : Life and Teachings of Jesus, p. 55.

THE "SET' OF A LIFE

Nowhere is there a better chance of coming into contact with all kinds of folk, genuine and hypocritical, generous and selfish, queer and conventional, than in a small town. Was it in these years that Jesus acquired his marvelous knowledge of human nature? Men do not suddenly learn after reaching the age of thirty years to be equally at home with rich and poor, learned and ignorant, nor are they welcomed at wedding feasts if for thirty years they have been living hermit lives. Jesus must have known and liked his townspeople and in turn He must have been liked by them.

We may with all confidence think of Him as rejoicing in the great out-of-doors in these eighteen years, for as Paul loves illustrations from cities and soldiers and athletics, so Jesus' teachings are full of birds and flowers and fields.

We may think of Him as in close touch with the larger world of men. Had He world problems to face in those silent years? Was He confronted with anything comparable to the surging world issues which challenge young people to-day?

"It has been a common mistake to think of Nazareth as a quiet spot far from the life of the great world, where Jesus was nurtured in seclusion. That is far from the truth. . . . The smiling waters of Galilee lay scarce more than fifteen miles to the east. Only a few miles farther to the northwest was the Mediterranean. Nearby ran, north and south, the great highway which for centuries joined the ancient kingdoms of Egypt and Babylonia. . . . Just below, to the south, was the great plain of Esdraelon, where so many of Israel's battles had been fought. All about was the teeming life of Galilee with its numberless villages and cities. . . . From the hills above his home He must have seen at times the

Roman legions on their march, and Roman rulers with their brilliant f ollowing." *

Nazareth was far less provincial in its interests and associations than many an American city.

But what of his inner life? Did He sometimes ask Himself during those long years, When will my time come? As He stood at dusk or sunrise on the hills above Nazareth and looked out over the Galilean plains or caught a glint of the blue waters of the Mediterranean far to the northwest, did He ask, Will all my life be like this ? Did He sometimes forget the great purpose which He had expressed in those boyhood days of awakening understanding? No, He never forgot or wavered. How do we know? Because when his hour struck He was absolutely ready. When the call came for a larger service, He heard a voice saying, "Thou art my beloved Son, in Thee I am well pleased." Well pleased at what? we may ask. He had neither preached nor healed nor ministered in any public way. He must have been well pleasing to his heavenly Father in the unrecorded toil as a carpenter, in his daily dealings with the people of Nazareth, in the commonplace routine of daily living. Even there He felt the imperative to "be about my Father's business."

This single purpose dominated his life from first to last. Always the direction of his life was the same. As the little trickle of water gathers moisture from this slope and that and widens, deepens, broadens, growing in power and momentum until in majesty it pours its mighty waters into the ocean, so through Jesus' life there flowed this stream of purpose, broadening, deepening, widening as the years went on

* Rail : New Testament History, p. 36.

THE U SET" OF A LIFE

but ever making in the same direction, his Fathers business, his Father's will for Him.

V. The "Set" of a Life.

The first picture we have of Jesus reveals Him as a boy who at the age of twelve had a single clear-cut purpose. There is not the slightest hint that He knew where that purpose would lead him, nor is there a suggestion that He had a solution to offer for the tangled religious and political problems of the day. He was but a lad, and the marvelously revealing story which Luke has left us does not picture Him as rebuking the Sadducee or correcting the Pharisee or sympathizing with the Revolutionist. But He did hear the call of the Kingdom, and in response to that call He promised but one thing for the needs of humanity and that was — Himself. He gave the supreme gift that any human being can offer to the world, — an unexhausted, untainted, potential personality, strong with the strength of gathering energies, buoyant with the hope and promise of youth. That was his gift when He said, "I must be about my Father's business."

Our study is to be about citizenship in the great democracy of God that is to be, but so far we have not explained who the citizens are or indeed what constitutes citizenship. Ought we not to begin by denning and discussing and speculating about these things? Or, on the other hand, was this just the mistake the Pharisees made? They put theory and theology first and personal dedication to the needs of the world and the cause of righteousness, second. Jesus reversed the order. He gave his life to the cause of God and let that lead Him where it would. He was not committed to any theory or program save the program of God as that would unfold itself to Him through the eighteen years of obscurity which followed.

Citizenship to-day begins where Jesus began, with a personal dedication to the things that are right and clean and true, to the things the world needs, to the things of God. It involves in the first instance not the acceptance of a theory but simply the resolute "set" of the soul toward the "right as God gives us to know the right." A goodly heritage and high ideals, a rich background of home influences, these values are as priceless to-day as they were when the boy Jesus first faced the great world and its need, but they are not enough. Behind all this, using it all and building upon it, there must be an unswerving personal purpose. If there be such a regnant purpose in the beginning of life, men and issues fall into line behind it. or are judged by it and rejected.

The man or woman, though neither brilliant nor talented, whose life is organized by a sufficient purpose, moves steadily through the years, making every opportunity for study, every bit of experience, every social and athletic achievement, every single individual encountered, pay tribute to that purpose. There is not a human vocation which does not call for such singleness of aim. The initial achievement for any task is not the mastering of the task but the mastering of the self, the "set of the soul" to some sufficient goal.

It is not otherwise in the Kingdom of God.

While the self-same breezes blow. 'Tis the set of the sails and not the gales

That bids them where to go. 20

THE U SET" OF A LIFE

"Like the winds of the sea are the ways of the fates

As we voyage along through life, Tis the set of the soul that decides the goal

And not the storm or the strife."

VI. The Purpose Tested.

If we are to form any true estimate of the power and meaning of Jesus' boyhood purpose, we must look for just a moment down the vista of the years, those three tumultuous years. Through what a maze of passion and human need, hostility and adulation, triumph and disaster, He moves undisturbed ! Temptations real and powerful assail Him. He checks them up with his purpose. Has this anything to do with God's plan for me? He seems to say. If not, He sweeps it aside. It is powerless to touch Him. Easy popularity lies within his grasp but He deliberately rejects it, because personal popularity in itself does not mean the accomplishment of his purpose. Just as deliberately He antagonizes the most powerful forces in the land because they block the way to the accomplishment of that purpose.

He moves among social outcasts and moral degenerates but they do not pollute Him; rather He saves them. With equal freedom He associates with people of wealth and culture and they do not rob Him of his purpose or cause Him to "ease down."

Even the last terrible temptation to turn aside from the path which leads to the Cross prevails not. "He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem" (Luke 9:51).

"He steadfastly set his face" — these words constitute an epitome of his life. He was mastered by a mighty purpose, a consuming, dominating, organizing purpose. As a boy of twelve, little comprehending, perhaps, what was before Him, He uttered the words, "Do you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" In the garden of Gethsemane, after He knew it all, He said, "My Father — thy will be done."

To seek to understand what those three tumultuous years in the life of Jesus have meant to humanity and should mean to us to-day — this is the purpose of our study.

CHAPTER II Biblical Material

i. John the Baptist.

a. His birth and silent years. Luke 1 15-25, 57-80.

c. His last message, Mt. 11:2-11, and his death, Mt.

14:1-12.

2. The baptism of Jesus. Mt. 3:13-17, Mk. 1:9-11, Luke

3. The temptation of Jesus. Mt. 4:1-11, Mk. 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-13.

I. Preparing for Citizenship.

1. Characterize John.

2. In what way did his silent years differ from the silent years of Jesus? How did his wilderness experience fit him for announcing the Kingdom?

3. Suggest some reasons why John was simply the great herald of the New Order and not a citizen of it (cf. Mt. 11 :n).

4. Recalling the contrast between the silent years of Jesus and John, enumerate the different elements which make up an ideal preparation for citizenship in the New Order.

II. The Call of the New Order.

i. Look for the principal points in John's message. Just what was it that drew Jesus to John?

2. Does John's message meet the world situation to-day, with regard to the hope of a new world order, the desire for social and political justice, the need for Christ-like leadership?

3. Grapple with the problem of what Jesus' call meant to Him. Is there a sense in which conditions to-day constitute a like call?

4. How are the temptations of Jesus typical of our temptations as we face worthy life aims? Is the temptation to self -gratification real in daily experience? How does popularity constitute a temptation? Think of concrete ways in which the temptation to compromise manifests itself.

I. The Herald of the New Order.

John, than which man a sadder or a greater Not till this day has been of woman born :

John, like some lonely peak by the Creator Fired with the red glow of the rushing morn.

The name John carries with it a certain atmosphere of rugged sincerity and strength, of honesty and serviceableness. No single individual ever did more to give this common name its honest fearless sound than did John, "the Baptizer," who from his desert solitude stepped into the midst of men with a challenging message which caught the attention of all Palestine.

He was known in those days for his own sake, but we must always think of him in connection with Jesus. And perhaps it is by setting John over against Jesus that we shall come to understand him. Like Jesus, John had breathed in the quiet, devout spirit, the earnest expectations which characterized the very finest type of Jewish home (Luke 1*5-25; 57-8o). He must have known how his own birth had been associated with the noblest patriotic hopes of the day (Luke i:i5ff and 68ft).

But aside from this, the lives of Jesus and John were sharply contrasted. John's father was a priest and as a boy he doubtless spent long hours studying the priestly lore, while Jesus during those same years was learning the builder's trade. John lived in the "hill country" of Judea (Luke i*39)> where nature was far more severe than the friendly Galilean country. Judean hills made men independent and fearless, but they did not tend to draw them close together. At any rate, John left the haunts of men and went out into the desert "till the time came for him to appear publicly to Israel." (Luke 1 :8o, Weymouth.) And during those days and years when Jesus was leading the busy life of a master carpenter in Galilee, John was alone in the desert, feeding his soul on the sterner elements of Old Testament prophecy. His school was the solitude, his companions the wild beasts, his teacher the God of the prophets of old.

When John broke silence he quickly became the outstanding figure of the day. Like the great prophets who had gone before him he was extremely sensational. He could afford to be sensational because he had something to say. Prophecy was a mission, not an occupation, with John. Just as Isaiah caught the ear of the Judean grape growers by appearing as a ballad singer with the song of his friend's vineyard (Isaiah 5), just as Amos must have drawn rounds of applause by condemning Israel's unpopular neighbors (Amos 1, 2), so John got a hearing by appearing in the uncouth garb of the wilderness (Mk. 1:6), strangely like the dress of the great Elijah (II Kings 1:8), whose return, many believed, was to usher in the Kingdom.

Instantly there was tremendous excitement in the land. Crowds flocked to hear him (Mark 1:5). And the message he had to give was no less sensational than his appearance. It was no pleasant word, for as he saw these multitudes pouring out from Jerusalem and all Judea he did not say, "I'm glad to see so many of you here to-day." Rather, he pointed out their sins. "O vipers' brood, who has warned you to flee from the coming wrath?" (Luke 3:8, Weymouth) were the words he used to describe the Pharisees. People must have winced under the lash of his tongue, but they stayed to hear and be baptized, common folk, proud Pharisees, aristocratic Sadducees, for there was a compelling authority about this prophet and he had something to say that thrilled every heart.

II. The Message of John.

The remarkable outpouring of people to hear this rude man of the desert was due in the first place to his announcement that the Kingdom of God was at hand. It was a call to hope. That was a welcome word to every Jew. It meant that Jehovah was coming to judge the nations and to deliver his people; that the hated Roman rule was to be cast of! and

Israel restored. There were many who longed for "the day," there were some who may have timidly believed it was close at hand, but here was a ringing authoritative voice announcing its imminence.

Yet John's message was more than a call to hope, it was a call to conscience. With stinging words he cut into their national complacency and racial exclusiveness. They were given no opportunity to gloat over the reversal of things which was to be — Jew exalted, Roman subjected — for like a pistol-shot rang out John's word, repent ! "Repent," said John, "in view of the coming Kingdom ! Get ready ! For judgment will not be upon Gentiles alone, but upon Israel." This call to conscience was disconcerting, but underneath the layers of formalism which the Pharisees had superimposed, the moral genius of the Hebrews still lived. They heard again the great formula of the prophets, Religion means Righteousness. How it challenged them Luke graphically tells us.