13. Jesus, the Master Teacher/Preache
Jesus, the Master Teacher/Preacher
Preaching has fallen low enough in our own church and country sometimes,” said Alexander Whyte nearly a century ago, “but it has never sunk to such depths of imbecility as the preaching of the Scribes.”[1]
James Stalker, Whyte’s fellow minister in the Scottish Free Church, agreed with this evaluation when he wrote: “The scribes were their [the Jews’] accustomed teachers who harangued them week by week in the synagogues. No doubt there must have been differences among them; they cannot all have been equally bad; but, taken as a whole, they were probably the most barren and unspiritual set of men who have ever held sway over the mind of a nation.”[2]
As you study the Gospel records, you learn that the scribes and Pharisees opposed Jesus not only because of what He said but also because of the way He said it. It has often been said that the scribes spoke from authorities, while Jesus spoke with authority; and the common people recognized the difference. “When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law” (Matt. 7:28-29).
“Even if Jesus had no other claim to be remembered,” wrote William Barclay, “he would be remembered as one of the world’s masters of the technique of teaching.”[3] He was able to attract and instruct all kinds of people in all kinds of situations, and He did it without the aid of the “gimmicks” that we think are so necessary for ministry today. There was a vitality to our Lord’s messages that arrested the minds and hearts of His listeners. To quote Stalker again: “The Bible can be converted into a prison in which God is confined, or a museum in which the spiritual life is preserved as an antiquarian curiosity. But those who came to hear Jesus felt that he was in direct contact with the spiritual world and brought to them news of what He had Himself seen and felt.”[4]
One of the obvious characteristics of our Lord’s ministry is His effective use of imagination. He used similes, metaphors, epigrams, parables, and paradoxes as He transformed everyday objects and experiences into messages from heaven. Jesus did supremely what Hushai and Nathan and we preachers today do rather haltingly: He turned His listeners’ ears into eyes so they could see the truth and respond to it.
A Philosophy of Preaching
I think that our Lord’s “philosophy of preaching,” if I may be permitted to use that phrase, is revealed in these statements.
This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.” In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old. (Matt. 13:13-15, 52)
When asked why He taught the crowds in parables, Jesus gave a human reason in the verses quoted above, and Matthew, true to the purpose of his book, added a divine reason by quoting Psalm 78:2 and applying it to Jesus (Matt. 13:34-35).[5] Jesus taught in parables because of the commission of the Lord and the condition of the people. The stultifying influence of dull religious leaders, combined with the sinful tendencies of human nature, helped to make the people blind and deaf to spiritual truth. The people needed to be awakened, and Jesus knew how to do it.
Jesus didn’t “hide the truth” in order to condemn people who were already condemned. He “hid the truth” in parables and pictures so that the people might have their curiosity aroused and become interested enough to open their eyes and ears and start to understand the truth. “For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear” (Mark 4:22-23).
The Jewish people of that day had grown blind looking at God’s creation and not perceiving the messages it conveyed. They didn’t think of God’s Word when they sowed seed, or the new birth when they felt the wind, or faith when they gathered the tiny mustard seed; but Jesus did. Because they were blind to God’s message in the world around them, they had grown deaf to the messages in the Scriptures that they heard. In His teaching, the Lord Jesus united the truth around them in creation with the truth before them in the Scriptures, and in this way He was able to open their eyes and ears and penetrate their calloused hearts. The progression from sermon to salvation is clear: hear—see—understand—turn—be forgiven!
The neglected parable in Matthew 13:52 gives us another aspect of our Lord’s “philosophy of preaching.” I prefer the translation in The New Testament in the Language of the People: “Every scribe who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who can bring out of his storeroom new furnishings as well as old” (WMS).[6] There’s a definite sequence here: the scribe becomes a disciple, and then the disciple becomes a householder with treasures new and old to share with others.
The scribe is one who studies the Word, the disciple is one who practices the Word,[7] and the householder is one who shares the treasures of the truth with others. Scribes discover the truth and become disciples who do the truth and householders who dispense the truth; and it takes all three to have an effective and balanced ministry.
Scribes who learn the truth but never live it will have nothing vital to share. In fact, those people are really hypocrites (Matt. 23:1-4). People who try to live what they have not really learned are going to face difficult struggles, but those who keep the truth to themselves and fail to share it will also suffer. God wants us to be channels and not reservoirs; in fact, we only really keep that which we give away. Ezra is a perfect example of the kind of balance Jesus is asking for in our ministries: “For Ezra had devoted himself to the study [the scribe] and observance [the disciple] of the Law of the Lord, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel [the householder]” (Ezra 7:10).[8]
The householder brings out of his storeroom things new and old. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets,” said Jesus; “I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matt. 5:17). The scribes embalmed the old teachings, but Jesus fulfilled them by explaining the principles in them that are always new and applicable to every age.
Jesus compared the Word of God to seed (Luke 8:11), and there are three ways to destroy a seed: (1) you can guard it but never plant it; (2) you can pound it to bits with a rock or hammer; or (3) you can plant the seed and let it fulfill itself by producing more seed. Today, people like the scribes take the first approach and become devoted keepers of religious museums. Those who worship novelty and make “contemporary” their buzz word, take the second approach; but in their quest for the new, they ignore the old, forgetting that the new always grows out of the old. After all, the Word is like seed; and the purpose of the seed is the perpetuation of successive harvests.[9]
Our Lord took the third approach. He planted the seed (the old) and cultivated it in such a way that it bore a harvest (the new). He reached back into the Old Testament and took familiar figures like wind, leaven, thieves, harvests, salt, sheep, gates, roads, all of which were a part of the everyday life of the people, and He “planted” these seeds in such an imaginative way that they were rescued from the scribal museums and bore fruit.
This is what preaching with imagination is all about. We’re not inventing new things; we’re discovering new things in the old things and new applications of old principles. We’re seeing with new eyes and hearing with new ears. We’re following the example of our Lord as expressed by E.P. Boys-Smith: “His thoughts were always concrete, not abstract; His intellectual processes were intuitive, not argumentative; His views were ever positive, not negative.”[10]
This summary of our Lord’s approach to preaching reminds me of the first three principles of preaching espoused by F.W. Robertson.
First. The establishment of positive truth, instead of the negative destruction of error. Secondly. That truth is made up of two opposite propositions, and not found in a via media between the two. Thirdly. That spiritual truth is discerned by the spirit, instead of intellectually in propositions; and, therefore, truth should be taught suggestively, not dogmatically.[11]
The first principle certainly doesn’t rule out the necessity for exposing error and engaging in apologetics. All it’s saying is that nobody knows where he or she is going if the street signs read “This road does not go to Boston” or “This freeway does not lead to Los Angeles.” Drivers want to know where the route is taking them; and once they know where they’re going, they’ll be glad to discuss alternate routes with you. Knowing positive truth is the best way to detect error.
The second principle, that truth is made up of two opposite propositions, doesn’t deny absolutes (after all, the statement itself is an absolute), but it warns the preacher against the sin of one-sidedness. It’s possible to so emphasize human responsibility that we end up weakening or denying divine sovereignty, and vice versa. In spite of what our tidy analytical minds may crave, there are doctrinal paradoxes in Christian theology; and the mature response of faith is to accept both sides. God is both transcendent and immanent; Jesus Christ is both God and man; the Bible is an inspired book expressing divine truth in human language; believers are imperfect people with a perfect standing before God.[12]
Robertson’s third proposition, that truth is taught suggestively and discerned intuitively, is not a rejection of propositional truth but a recognition of the poetical side of human intelligence, the right brain, if you please. Nicodemus wanted Jesus to explain everything to him, but our Lord instead only gave him pictures: birth, wind, the brazen serpent, light and darkness. Twentieth-century homiletics has so emphasized analysis and explanation that we’ve forgotten synthesis and illustration. Thomas Carlyle wrote, “It is the heart always that sees, before the head can see.” It’s unfortunate that the computer has become a metaphor for the human mind, because this image, if followed to its conclusion, could lead to more “mental mechanization” and, therefore, a possible diminution of human creativity. Science writer Isaac Asimov reminds us that “if insight, intuition, creativity, the ability to view a problem as a whole and guess the answer by a ‘feel’ of the situation, is a measure of intelligence, computers are very unintelligent indeed.”[13]
Lewis Mumford wrote, “One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely in the intelligence.” Jesus didn’t bypass or insult the intelligence of His hearers, but neither did He present His message only to the intelligence. He reached into the heart, the intuition, and used the key of images to unlock the imagination and reach to the will.
Parables[14]
At least one-third of our Lord’s teaching as recorded in the Synoptics is comprised of parables. “At its simplest,” wrote C.H. Dodd, “the parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.”[15] I like to think of a parable as a picture that becomes a mirror and then a window.
A parable starts out as a picture of something in life, something recognizable that at the same time contains something different and, to use Dodd’s phrasing, “arresting.” The owner of the vineyard hires workers all day long (So what?) but pays all his workers the same wage for their day’s work and starts with those last hired. (How strange!) The crooked steward gives his master’s customers big discounts and his master commends him for it. (That’s unusual!) The owner of the vineyard sends his only son to get payment from the tenants even after they had beaten and killed the other agents. (Why did he do that?)
The longer we look at the “parable picture,” the more it becomes a mirror and we start to see ourselves. When the chief priests and Pharisees heard our Lord’s Parable of the Tenants, they saw themselves in it and wanted to arrest Him (Matt. 21:33-46). Jesus didn’t simply use parables as “illustrations,” the way preachers tell stories to explain their points, but as illumination, the kind of light that pierced the very hearts and minds of the listeners and made them aware of their own needs. Parables are not entertainment; they’re powerful shock therapy.
But that isn’t the end: the mirror must then become a window so that the listeners see God and His truth and receive the message by faith. Our Lord’s enemies never got to this third stage. Having seen themselves reflected, they then tried to break the mirror by resisting the truth. The “shock of recognition” was too much for them. But the purpose of parables is to reveal some truth about God and His kingdom that will help us know Him better and do His will.
In thinking through the stages, we might present them as follows:
The picture
The mirror
The window
We see life
We see ourselves
We see God
Sight
Insight
Vision
Information
Intimidation
Invitation
Somebody else
Me!
God and I
I’m interested
I’m shattered
I’m healed
It isn’t necessary for us to go through the four Gospels and list every simile, metaphor, and parable, since most of them are rather obvious and there are excellent volumes available that do this.[16] Many of the images used have already been commented on from Old Testament texts. What I want to do is mention some of the less obvious pictorial images that have special value for the expositor.
Matthew
2:6—“who will be the shepherd of my people Israel”
3:3—The preacher as a roadbuilder. See 2 Timothy 2:15 where the phrase “correctly handles” (orthotomeo) means “to cut a straight path.”
3:7—”brood of vipers” connects with the serpent in Genesis 3; and see Matthew 12:34, 23:33, John 8:44, the Parable of the Weeds, and Revelation 12.
4:19—“Fishers of men” was not a new phrase coined by Jesus. It had been used by philosophers to describe their “catching” of disciples by casting out the net of truth.[17]
6:22—Outlook determines outcome. A single eye (Matt. 6:23) brings in light, but double vision brings in darkness. The tragedy is, double-visioned people think they’re receiving light when it’s really darkness!
7:7—Open doors generally speak of service for the Lord. See Acts 14:27, Revelation 3:8.
9:9-17—Jesus used three illustrations to answer His critics: the physician, the bridegroom, and the wine merchant. He came to heal sinners, not praise the righteous; He came to bring joy, not sorrow; He came to give newness and wholeness and not merely to patch up the old.
11:16—The people were childish but not childlike. See 11:25-26.
12:20—The verse seems to refer to Christ’s enemies rather than to the weak and needy to whom He ministered. His enemies were weak and about to be extinguished, but He would be gracious to them and give them opportunity to repent. See Isaiah 7:4.
15:13-14—The plants probably refer to the Pharisees rather than to their teachings. See Isaiah 60:21.
16:18—The city gate was the place where the leaders met and exercised civil power. The phrase stands for “the authority of Hades” and suggests that the church is on the offensive.
16:24—The phrase “take up his cross” is obviously not literal since Christians don’t carry crosses the way people do once a year in Holy Week processions. Discipleship and cross-bearing are images of the Christian life, speaking of devotion and denial. Crucifixion is a form of death that people can’t perform on themselves; they must yield to another. There is a once-for-all surrender and then a daily death to self.
23:32—The measuring of gradually increasing sin; see Genesis 15:16, 1 Thessalonians 2:16.
Mark
9:49—Salt was important in the sacrifices the Jews brought to the Lord (Lev. 2:13; Num. 18:19; 2 Chron. 13:5; Ezek. 43:24).
Luke
1:78—Our Lord’s coming to earth meant the dawning of a new day. See Luke 2:32, Malachi 4:2, Matthew 4:15-16.
7:24—John was not a weak reed easily swayed by people or circumstances. See Ephesians 4:14, James 1:6, Jude 12.
10:3—“Lambs among wolves” is a proverbial saying. See Acts 20:29, Jeremiah 11:19.
12:32—This sentence appears to be a terribly mixed metaphor involving a flock, a family, and a kingdom. But in the light of the Eastern way of life, where a sheik would be a king, a father, and a shepherd, the sentence glows with imagery.
12:50—Our Lord’s baptism of suffering on the cross was prefigured by His baptism in the Jordan. “All your waves and breakers have swept over me” (Ps. 42:7; Ps. 69:2; Jonah 2:3). Jonah is a type of Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.
John is the “poet” among the Gospel writers and in his selection and presentation of the material he makes creative use of symbolism. In both his Gospel and his epistles, John contrasts darkness and light as well as life and death, and he makes much of the figure of spiritual birth. The phrase “born of God” is used eight times in his first epistle. Wine, water, bread, marriage, the temple, the lamb, sheep and shepherds, the vine, wind, and seed are among the images used in John’s Gospel.
It’s significant that most of the images John uses are universal in their meaning. Except for the temple of His body (2:19), shepherds (John 10), and the vine (John 15), the images John uses can be understood in most cultures. This goes along with John’s purpose in writing a Gospel for the whole world.
John does refer to some Old Testament images: Jacob’s ladder (stairway) at Bethel (1:51; Gen. 28); the brazen serpent (3:14; Num. 21); the manna (chap. 6; Ex. 16); and the vine (15:1-8; Isa. 5). But it would appear that he is presenting life in Christ as God’s “new creation” in contrast to Moses and the Law (1:17). The seven days marked out in chapters 1–2 suggest the seven days of Genesis 1.
Jesus is the new temple (2:19) and He gives a new birth that doesn’t depend on one’s parents (1:12-13; 3:1-16). The two Sabbath miracles (chaps. 5 and 9) indicate that He is ushering in a new Sabbath of rest, and the sermon in chapter 6 presents Christ as the life-giving manna. Israel was God’s flock, but now there is a new flock led by the Good Shepherd (chap. 10). God gave Israel water from the rock, but Jesus gives living water (chap. 4; 7:37-39). He gave new meaning to Passover and also to the vine. The image of “eating flesh and drinking blood” in chapter 6 must not be taken literally, as the Jews took it, or even sacramentally. It’s difficult to understand why Jesus would discuss a sacrament with a group of rebellious, unbelieving Jews. The manna came down from heaven and Jesus came down from heaven, sent by the Father. The manna sustained life for the Jews, but Jesus gives life to the whole world, a life that triumphs over death. Just as they had to receive the manna within, so we must receive Christ within by faith as we receive His Word. “The Spirit gives life,” said Jesus; “the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life” (6:63). In receiving the Word, we receive the Word that was made flesh (1:14).
John selected five images of the death of Jesus Christ: the sacrifice of the lamb (1:29); the destruction of the temple (2:19); the lifting up of the serpent (3:14); the volunteer death of the shepherd for the sheep (10:11-18); and the planting of the seed (12:20-25). In all but two of these images—the lamb and the serpent—His resurrection is incipient in the figure.
Pictures of the Church
In the record of the four Gospels, our Lord uses the word church only twice, once in the universal sense (Matt. 16:18) and once with a local reference (Matt. 18:17). The Greeks recognized ekklesia as the lawful assembly of citizens in a free city, called together to transact civic affairs. There was no such thing as “the ekklesia” in a universal sense, as we today speak of “the church.” The ekklesia was local and autonomous, and it didn’t think of itself as belonging to a “larger” ekklesia.
In the New Testament, most of the references to an ekklesia are local. Paul writes to “the ekklesia of God which is at Corinth” or some other city. However, Peter wrote to believers in five different provinces (1 Peter 1:1) and yet gave them titles that were singular and not plural: “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God” (1 Peter 2:9). The saints in each province assembled in a local ekklesia, but they all were a part of a larger ekklesia that included all of God’s people everywhere. Passages like Ephesians 1:22, 3:10 and 21, 5:23-32, Colossians 1:18 and 24, and Hebrews 12:23 seem to speak of something bigger than a local assembly.
The statement “I will build my church” pictures the church as a temple, and the reference to “the gates of Hades” suggests conflict. Our Lord’s statement to Peter presents the church as an assembly, a building, and an army; and all three metaphors are expanded in the epistles.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus compared His disciples to salt, light, and a city set on a hill (Matt. 5:13-16); and we usually apply these images to the church collectively.
We have already considered the image of the flock and will have occasion to notice it again when we survey Acts and the epistles. Jesus referred to “the lost sheep of Israel” (Matt. 10:6; 15:24) as well as the “one flock” and “one shepherd” (John 10:16; see 11:52). Christ’s commission to Peter in John 21 uses the metaphor of the flock.
The word translated “disciple” (mathetes) is used over 260 times in the Gospels and Acts, but never in the epistles; and the record shows that our Lord used it sparingly (Matt. 10:2; 28:19; Mark 14:14; Luke 14:26-27, 33; 22:11; John 8:31; 13:35; 15:8). The verb manthano is used twenty-five times but doesn’t always refer to learning as a disciple. Believers were often called “disciples,” but there is no indication that the title was used in a universal sense as was ekklesia. The church was composed of disciples, but the church was not a “discipleship” or a “discipledom.”
The church as the bride is suggested in John 3:29, Matthew 9:14-15, Mark 2:18-20, and Luke 5:33-35.
In John 15, Jesus used the image of the church as branches in the vine, a figure we touched upon when we considered Ezekiel 15. Israel was God’s choice vine (Isa. 5), but it produced “wild grapes.” Today, God’s people are branches in the true vine; and as we abide in Christ, we produce fruit for His glory. But there’s a third vine, “the vine of the earth” (Rev. 14:14-20), which seems to represent society ripening for judgment.
“You must hear the bird’s song without attempting to render it into nouns and verbs.”
“What is experience but a wealth of parallels upon which our imagination can draw?”
“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.”