MODERN PROBLEMS 
 AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 i ' F RriiilllilHl|!i HORNE
 
 MODERN 
 ^ JESUS SAW 
 
 BY 
 
 HERMAN HARRELL HORNE 
 
 (I 
 
 ASSOCIATION PRESS 
 
 NEW YORK: 124 EAST 28xH STREET 
 1919
 
 4K 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY 
 
 THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OP 
 
 YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 STUDY PAGE 
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 I. JESUS AND WAR i 
 
 II. JESUS AND CRIME 16 
 
 III. JESUS AND THE STATE 2O 
 
 IV. JESUS AND WEALTH 26 
 
 V. JESUS AND POVERTY 34 
 
 VI. JESUS AND LABOR 44 
 
 VII. JESUS AND MARRIAGE 58. 
 
 VIII. JESUS AND THE SABBATH 63 
 
 IX. JESUS AND THE RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES. 75 
 
 X. JESUS AND SOCIAL REFORM 102 
 
 XI. JESUS AND THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN ... I2O 
 
 XII. JESUS AND MISSIONS 126 
 
 A FEW SUGGESTED REFERENCES 136
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The aftermath of the great war has begun before 
 the conflict has ended, notably in the Russian revolu- 
 tion, in the German promise of a more democratic 
 electorate, and in the movements to insure a world- 
 peace. The processes of social reconstruction following 
 hard upon peace will probably settle many old problems 
 in new ways. The old order of things has been shaken, 
 in some instances destroyed, by the necessity of social 
 cooperation under the strain of war. Society will not 
 be satisfied to settle back into the old ways; indeed it 
 cannot do so. ^*New social habits will be formed based 
 on the most stirring national experience of this gen- 
 eration. In earth and sea and air new wonders have 
 been seen, new marvels accomplished, new manifesta- 
 tions of the power of cooperant man, both at the front 
 and at home. These new experiences have suggested 
 different, in some cases undoubtedly better, ways of 
 doing what society must doj 
 
 ^Following in the wake of the war, we may expect 
 new accomplishments in the preservation of peace ; new 
 definitions of international crimes; new methods of 
 police force to make international law physically as 
 well as morally effective ; new phases of state control of 
 public utilities; new participation by the people in the 
 art of self-government; new uses of money in the arts 
 of both peace and war; less disparity between the in- 
 come of the rich and the poor; the organization of in- 
 dustry in the interest of man rather than money; the 
 tightening of morals following the demoralisation nf 
 war ; and a better recognition of the true ends of living. 
 
 vii
 
 PREFACE 
 
 In all this social reconstruction, what part will Jesus 
 play? In the main, though perhaps unconsciously, the 
 new solutions will be inspired by his spiritJ The bitter 
 and the sweet experiences of man in war and peace 
 teach the same lessons of life that he exemplified and 
 announced. ^ Those who consciously and loyally accept 
 his leadership short-circuit the wander-years of life be- 
 fore man comes to himself. At such a time as this, 
 when human society is taking stock of life, when the 
 big problems are in process of solution and more sub- 
 ject to control, it is important to reexamine the socially 
 significant teachings of Jesus. ; 
 
 These short studies are intended to open the ear to 
 the guiding voice of Jesus in a time of social confusion 
 and transformation. fProbably the biggest question be- 
 fore the Christian churches today is, "Can Jesus save 
 society?" There is an individual gospel which puts 
 the person right with God and man, whatever the con- 
 ditions, and there is a social gospel which makes the 
 conditions of living right. The individual and the 
 social gospel are two phases of the one gospel of love. 
 The individual gospel emphasizes the love of man for 
 God, the social gospel the love of man for man. 
 
 Historically, the Church has emphasized the individ- 
 ual gospel; it is coming also to emphasize the social 
 gospel. The individual gospel, as inadequately preached, 
 has aimed to get souls into heaven after death; the 
 social gospel aims to get heaven into souls before 
 death. The individual gospel has aimed to keep souls 
 out of hell after death; the social gospel aims to keep 
 hell out of souls before death. The individual gospel 
 plucks souls as brands from the burning, the social 
 gospel puts out the fire. 
 
 Truly viewed, the individual gospel fills the soul with
 
 PREFACE 
 
 love to God and man which, in turn, makes one an 
 energy for righteousness in the world, which is social. 
 Usually, the individual gospel is the cause and the 
 social gospel is the effect. The reverse is sometimes 
 the case, in that the doing of a Christian job by a non- 
 Christian man tends to make of him a Christian. 
 
 Each phase of the gospel needs the other. The in- 
 dividual gospel gives inspiration and motive to the 
 social gospel and the social gospel gives direction and 
 accomplishment to the individual gospel. Without the 
 social gospel the individual gospel is mystical, other- 
 worldly, hopeless about human conditions; without the 
 individual gospel the social gospel is narrowly humani- 
 tarian and ultimately aimless. ' 
 
 The writer of these pages accepts the individual gos- 
 pel; he also accepts the social gospel. His proposition 
 is not to substitute a social program for individual 
 regeneration, but to set regenerated individuals to work 
 improving human conditions. The social gospel is 
 adequately based both in the life and teachings of Jesus 
 and in the scientific principle of the influence of en- 
 vironment on life. 
 
 It is an interesting, even a strange, thing that many 
 church people will have nothing to do with the social 
 gospel. In effect I quote the actual words of one of 
 the leaders of one of the largest Protestant denomina- 
 tions. He thanks God he is not "a brother to the man 
 in the mire"; he will not "secularize the teachings of 
 Christ"; he will have nothing to do with "community 
 uplift," "social betterment," "human welfare work," 
 "destroying poverty" ; he thanks God he has no "Christ 
 of the back alley." This attitude is actually none other 
 than that of the priest and the Levite passing by on 
 the other side, leaving the work of real ministry to the 
 
 ix
 
 PREFACE 
 
 non-ecclesiastical Good Samaritan. The "pure gospel" 
 is really an applied gospel. ^ 
 
 On the other hand, there are some social workers 
 who set about improving human conditions on the basis 
 of good fellowship and love of their kind without the 
 religious motive, whose results are necessarily handi- 
 capped by the incompleteness of their ministry. Life 
 is religious at the core. The following pages are a 
 protest equally against unsocialized religion and unreli- 
 gious sociality. 
 
 The Jesus here presented is he of the four evangel- 
 ists 
 
 "A light for revelation to the Gentiles, 
 And the glory of thy people Israel," 
 
 not the Christ of dogma, theology, or criticism. Into 
 his presence one comes even at the study table only 
 for better or for worse. If one says that the Jesus of 
 the gospel writers gives us no philosophy of life, I 
 reply he gives us in practice and precept a way of life. 
 If another says this Jesus of the evangelists is not the 
 historic person of Nazareth, I reply he, as portrayed, 
 is the ideal figure who has changed, is changing, and 
 will more mightily change, the course of human history 
 on our planet. If a reader of the following pages says 
 justice has not been done to Jesus as the Word of God 
 to man, I agree, and reply it was not attempted. These 
 pages are written only as studies in the social signifi- 
 cance of the life and teachings of Jesus, brief but surely 
 timely and, we trust, true as far as they go. 
 
 Facing a world bathed in its own blood and tears, 
 especially that part of the world which has named the 
 name of Christ and which we trusted should redeem 
 the whole, I record my conviction at the conclusion of 
 
 x
 
 PREFACE 
 
 these studies that, though Christians have failed, Chris- 
 tianity has not failed; that it is more vigorous in at- 
 tacking the gates of hell today than ever before; that 
 human society is undergoing a refining process by fire, 
 that the things which cannot be consumed may remain. 
 These remaining things will be the principles of social 
 reform as lived and taught by Jesus 
 
 H. H. H. 
 
 Leonia, New Jersey. 
 
 March i, 1918.
 
 STUDY I 
 
 JESUS AND WAR 
 It is easy today to discuss the subject of war, but Maya 
 
 it is difficult to say anything final concerning it. To 
 a great many people in our country, of whom I am one, 
 it is an important matter to know, if possible, what 
 Jesus thought about war. For our purposes a Chris- 
 tian may be defined as one whose life is controlled by 
 the spirit of Jesus, or one who loyally follows the prin- 
 ciples of Jesus as best he can. A Christian nation 
 would be one whose acts as a government were similarly 
 controlled by the spirit of Jesus. Our question is, 
 May a Christian man or nation under any circumstances 
 go to war? And we will seek an answer from Jesus 
 himself. 
 First, what experience did he have with soldiers as The Experience 
 
 a basis of his teaching about war? His life brought of ^ esus 
 
 . . . . . . . ,,. s with Soldiers 
 
 him in repeated contact with soldiers. 
 
 Even to John the Baptist, the Herald of the King- The Words of 
 dom, from whom Jesus himself received baptism, had & Baptist 
 soldiers on some kind of unknown service come, along 
 with other classes. Their question of John was : "And 
 we, what must we do?" And John, having in mind 
 the current abuses of the soldiers' occupation, said unto 
 them three things: "Extort from no man by violence, 
 neither accuse anyone wrongfully, and be content with 
 your wages." John did not tell the soldiers to dis- 
 band or lay down their arms. 
 
 There was a Roman centurion in Capernaum, a lover J and th 
 and benefactor of the Jewish nation, perhaps a proselyte
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Jesus 
 
 Arrested by 
 Soldiers 
 
 Struck by 
 an Officer 
 
 Smitten and 
 Mocked by 
 Officers 
 
 Mocked by 
 Herod and 
 his Soldiers 
 
 Suffered 
 Grossest 
 Indignities 
 from Pilate's 
 Soldier* 
 
 Crucified 
 by Soldiers 
 
 to Judaism, a man who was under authority himself 
 and who wielded authority over soldiers, at whose great 
 faith Jesus marvelled, and whose beloved bondservant 
 Jesus healed. 
 
 Jesus was arrested by a band of soldiers and officers 
 from the chief priests and the Pharisees and was car- 
 ried bound before his judges, who were also his ac- 
 cusers. 
 
 In the presence of Annas, the father-in-law of the 
 high priest, he was struck with the hand by one of the 
 officers standing by. 
 
 Likewise before the high priest, Caiaphas, the officers 
 smote him with the palms of their hands and mocked 
 him. 
 
 Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee, who was in 
 Jerusalem during the passover week before the cruci- 
 fixion, with his soldiers, perhaps his bodyguard, set 
 Jesus at naught and mocked him. 
 
 After Jesus had been condemned unjustly and 
 scourged by vacillating Pilate, the soldiers of the 
 Roman governor led Jesus into their own quarters, the 
 Praetorium, gathered the whole band, and brutally sub- 
 jected him to the grossest indignities, including strip- 
 ping him ; arraying him in a purple garment ; plaiting a 
 crown of thorns and putting it upon his head; putting 
 a reed in his right hand ; kneeling down before him and 
 mocking him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews"; spit- 
 ting upon him; and taking the reed and smiting him 
 on the head. 
 
 Roman soldiers led him away to crucify him, and, 
 having done so, four of them parted his garments 
 among them, cast lots for his seamless tunic, sat and 
 watched him agonize, and mocked him still. 
 
 After his death the Roman centurion in command
 
 JESUS AND WAR 
 
 of the crucifixion, and others, seeing his manner on Testified to by 
 
 the cross, testified in his favor. a Centurion 
 
 One soldier pierced his side with a spear to make Pierced by a 
 
 sure of his death, which did not have to be hastened by Sol<Uer>i 
 
 Spear 
 the breaking of his legs. 
 
 The chief priests and Pharisees, having so requested His Sepulchre 
 
 Pilate and at his direction, set a guard of soldiers at his " ded by 
 
 Soldiers 
 sepulchre to prevent, as they said, his disciples stealing 
 
 away the body and then saying he had risen from the 
 dead. At the sight of the Resurrection angel, these 
 "watchers did quake and become as dead men." Later 
 some of them reported to the chief priests what had 
 happened, and were bribed to say the body was stolen 
 by the disciples while they slept. 
 
 So at many points the life of Jesus and the occupa- 
 tion of the soldier were in contact. 
 
 Is there any evidence from the content of his teach- His Teaching 
 ing that he knew yet more about soldiers, war, and * eveals 
 
 , Knowledge 
 
 warfare ? of War 
 
 The injunction: "Whosoever shall compel thee to The Second 
 go one mile, go with him two," was probably occasioned Mfle 
 by the habit that Roman soldiers had of impressing the 
 service of a pedestrian and requiring him to carry the 
 soldier's burden a mile. 
 
 He described himself in a figure as having come not Not Peace, 
 to bring peace on earth but a sword, indicating the but * Sword 
 divisions of opinion concerning the Kingdom which 
 would even separate members of the same family. The 
 saintly Simeon had prophesied at the presentation that 
 a sword should pierce Mary's soul. 
 
 Just before his arrest he counseled his disciples that Counseled 
 he who had no sword should sell his cloak and buy 
 one, perhaps also in a figure, suggesting preparation in 
 soul for the tribulations awaiting them after his de- 
 
 3
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Two Swords 
 Among His 
 Company 
 
 A King's 
 Army 
 
 A King's 
 
 Council 
 of War 
 
 Prophesied 
 the Siege of 
 Jerusalem 
 
 Does Jesus 
 
 Countenance 
 
 War? 
 
 parture. They did not actually use swords during the 
 trials of the early Church. There were two swords 
 in the company at the time, perhaps for purposes of 
 defense on the road to Jericho and elsewhere, which 
 he said were enough. One of these was Peter's. 
 
 In the parable of the Marriage of the King's Son, 
 Jesus refers to the king, angry at the murder of his 
 servants, sending his armies, destroying the murderers, 
 and burning their city. We do not need to inquire here 
 the spiritual meaning concealed in this account of the 
 deeds of an Oriental tyrant's army or how Jesus came 
 to know about such. 
 
 In emphasizing and illustrating the importance of 
 counting the cost before entering the Kingdom, Jesus 
 describes a king's council of war concerning his ability 
 to meet twenty thousand with ten thousand, or, failing 
 that, an ambassage inquiring the conditions of peace. 
 
 Seeing the nationalistic spirit of the Jews arrayed 
 against the power of the Romans, Jesus foretold how 
 the enemies of Jerusalem (showing his military knowl- 
 edge) would cast up a bank about it, compass it round, 
 and dash it with its little ones to the ground. This 
 took place in the siege of Titus, A.D. 70. 
 
 So the content of the teaching of Jesus, drawn in 
 so many instances from military affairs, as well as his 
 actual experience with soldiers, indicates at least a 
 general familiarity with war. From his known famili- 
 arity with the Old Testament we might also infer 
 as much. 
 
 Now what, if anything, in the teachings or the prac- 
 tice of Jesus countenances war as a method of social 
 action? Presently we shall be asking how Jesus dis- 
 credits war. 
 
 The first thing that may surprise us is that, having 
 4
 
 JESUS AND WAR 
 
 so many relationships with soldiers and knowing so Jews Dos 
 
 much about war and its attendant horrors as an exist- Not Explicitly 
 
 Condemn 
 ent mode of settling difficulties, Jesus did not finally wr 
 
 and explicitly condemn all war. Jesus, like John, no- 
 where commands soldiers to lay down their arms. 
 That would have been an interference with the affairs 
 of state, which on every occasion he studiously avoided. 
 
 On the contrary, Jesus strictly enjoins that the Jews Rendering 
 should "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's." uato Caesar 
 The answer was given to the entrapping question con- 
 cerning paying tribute unto Caesar, the answer to which 
 the wily questioners thought would put Jesus in the posi- 
 tion either of political disloyalty to the Romans through 
 forbidding it, or religious disloyalty to the Jews through 
 allowing it. Doubtless his answer, showing that 
 patriotism and religion are distinct but compatible, in 
 contrast with their Jewish unification, would probably 
 have been similar in case the question had concerned 
 the lawfulness of a Jew's being conscripted to serve 
 in Caesar's army. 
 
 He specifically taught that before the end, the con- Prophesied 
 summation of the ages, nation should rise against nation Wars to 
 and kingdom against kingdom, and that there should 
 be wars and rumors of wars, thereby indicating that 
 wars were to be expected in the course of human events. 
 
 In cleansing the Temple, Jesus made a scourge of Cleansing 
 cords, thus acting deliberately and not impulsively, 
 cast out the sheep and oxen and all those that bought 
 and sold there, poured out the changers' money, and 
 overthrew their tables and the seats of those that sold 
 doves, and suffered no one to carry a vessel through 
 the Temple. Such action required physical as well 
 as moral force and courage, indicating doubtless not 
 merely the temporary cleansing of the Temple of the 
 
 5
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 A Hypo- 
 thetical 
 Question 
 about the 
 Good 
 Samaritan 
 
 The Fighting 
 Quality of 
 Jesus 
 
 profanation of a double system of graft, based on first 
 exchanging the money of visitors to the feast and then 
 selling them the sacrificial animals, but also sym- 
 bolically the permanent ending of the sacrificial system. 
 Here was, negatively, deliberate and aggressive physical 
 and moral attack thoroughly carried out, on a den of 
 robbers profaning the Temple, and, positively, rearing 
 in place of the abused sacrificial system the principle 
 of worship in prayer. 
 
 So Jesus felt about the desecration of the Temple by 
 the den of thieves. In this connection we may properly 
 raise the question, in telling the story of the Good 
 Samaritan, if Jesus had introduced the priest, the 
 Levite, and the Good Samaritan as coming on the scene 
 while the band of thieves were beating their victim 
 half to death, what would have happened? Would the 
 Good Samaritan have stood pacifically by, waiting to 
 remedy wounds he may have had the power to prevent ? 
 Could the Christ who single-handed cleaned out the 
 den of temple robbers present such a picture of inane 
 goodness facing highway robbers? Of what use were 
 the two swords carried by the company of disciples? 
 we may ask. Were they made of wood and only for 
 show? or, was the idea that of self-defense before 
 ruffians of the open country? 
 
 Jesus does not impress us as being anemic and pas- 
 sively good, but as strong with the strength of the 
 carpenter's frame, red-blooded from life in the open, 
 self-controlled always, but capable of a flaming right- 
 eous indignation against evil, which at times spent it- 
 self otherwise than in words. With all his mental and 
 moral force he opposed the religious legality, formal- 
 ism, superficiality, and hypocrisy of the religious leaders 
 of his day. It finally cost him his life, as he very well 
 
 6
 
 JESUS AND WAR 
 
 knew in advance that it would. He laid that down, not 
 without an agonizing struggle, but willingly, in the 
 fulfilment of his mission to bear witness to the truth. 
 He never compromised with evil, he never ceased to 
 make war on it, and he never made peace with it, 
 though at the Temptation he felt that the price offered 
 was temporal rulership of all the nations of the world. 
 
 While these facts may not clearly justify a Chris- No Clear 
 
 tian man or nation in going to war, they significantly Condemna- 
 -. ' r 11 , tion of All 
 
 prevent the quick condemnation of all war, so long War ^ ^ 
 
 at least as righteous principles require defense from Practice and 
 attack. When humanity, the true sanctuary of God, 
 is being desecrated, Christian men and nations may 
 well remember their Captain. 
 
 On the other hand, what in the practice and teach- What in Jesus 
 
 ings Of JeSUS Opposes war? Discredits War? 
 
 f He recognizes himself not as destroying but as ful- He is the 
 
 filling the law and the prophets, a part of whose dream Prop 1 "* 16 
 
 Fulfilment 
 had concerned the Prince of Peace who should come 
 
 and the time when the peoples "shall beat their swords 
 into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks : 
 nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither 
 shall they learn war any more" (Isa. 2:4). 
 
 At his birth the angels sang of "peace on earth among The Angels' 
 men of good will," the only kind of men on earth among Son s at *& 
 whom there can possibly be peace. This song of the 
 angels reflects the influence on the imaginative, poetic, 
 beloved physician, Luke, of the ultimate significance 
 of the coming of Jesus. And the song was for the 
 shepherds, one of the working classes, who suffer most 
 from war. 
 
 Between individual members of the Kingdom at Non- 
 least, he taught the doctrine of non-resistance to evil, 
 turning the other cheek to the smiter, giving the cloak 
 
 7
 
 Deeds 
 
 Interpret 
 
 Words 
 
 Lore of 
 
 Enemies 
 
 Perishing by 
 the Sword 
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 also to a man adjudged the coat in a suit at law 
 an injunction which caused the literalistic pacifist, 
 Count Tolstoy, to reject all courts of justice and 
 going a second mile voluntarily with the man who 
 compels one to go a mile with him. 
 
 However, in the trial before Annas, when one of 
 the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand and 
 said: "Answerest thou the high priest so?" Jesus did 
 not literally turn the other cheek, but, without physical 
 resistance, answered him, with moral resistance, "If 
 I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil : but if well, 
 why smitest thou me?" (John 18: 23). This incident 
 suggests to us that the deeds of Jesus must be used 
 in truly understanding his words, and also his own 
 saying: "The words that I speak unto you, they are 
 spirit and they are life" (John 6: 63). 
 f* Jesus rejected the very ancient law of retaliation, 
 an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and substituted 
 therefor the principle of love for one's enemies, which 
 he exemplified in declining to call down fire from heaven 
 on an inhospitable Samaritan village a method he 
 would not have used, even if he had desired to retaliate, 
 having at the Temptation definitely rejected such 
 draughts on the supernatural in self-service. Most 
 notably he exemplified his teaching of love for enemies 
 in praying on the cross for his executioners: "Father, 
 forgive them, for they know not what they do." This 
 principle would at least seem to exclude reprisals in 
 warfare. 
 
 He taught that those who appeal to the sword should 
 perish by the sword, probably stating a general prin- 
 ciple of the inefficiency of the appeal merely to physical 
 force, not applicable exclusively to Oriental tyrants. 
 The words were addressed to Peter at the arrest. 
 
 8 

 
 JESUS AND WAR 
 
 The worst to be done to a sinning brother who had Treatment 
 refused personal reconciliation, mediation through wit- * ^ 
 nesses, and even the counsel of the congregation, Brother 
 was to treat him as the Gentiles and the collectors 
 or renters of Roman taxes were commonly treated, that 
 is, have no dealings with him, or break off all rela- 
 tions (Matt. 18: 17). 
 
 In an age when breaking the peace was the usual The Peace- 
 way for a nation to secure what it wanted, Jesus pro- 
 nounced blessing on the peace-makers, who should 
 be known in the Kingdom as the children of God. It 
 is probable that the first intent of this beatitude con- 
 cerned peace-making between individuals. 
 
 Jesus himself, until he recognized that his hour for Jesus 
 personal surrender to the forces of evil had come, Avoided 
 
 ... ,!!, Personal 
 
 avoided personal physical violence by escaping the Physical 
 scene of disturbance. His fellow-citizens in Nazareth Violence 
 cast him forth out of the city in wrath at his first 
 sermon in the synagogue, but, when they would throw 
 him headlong down from the brow of the hill whereon 
 their city was built, he passed through the midst of 
 them and went his way. When the Jews took up 
 stones to cast at him because of his saying: "Before 
 Abraham was, I am," Jesus hid himself and went out 
 of the Temple (John 8: 59). Again when they sought 
 to take him following his refutation of the charge of 
 blasphemy, he went forth out of their hand (John 10: 
 
 39)- 
 
 Likewise he instructed his disciples, "when they Flee 
 persecute you in this city, flee into the next" (Matt. 10: 
 23). So would they be "harmless as doves." 
 
 On the occasion of his arrest by consent, he refused Kon-Resist- 
 to call for the twelve legions of angels he felt available 
 through prayer to his Father, in accordance with his 
 
 9
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 His 
 
 Kingdom not 
 Temporal 
 
 What 
 
 Shall We 
 Conclude? 
 
 No Physical 
 Force in 
 Self-Defense 
 Actually 
 
 Physical 
 Force in 
 Defense of 
 Principle 
 Against Evil 
 
 original decision at the Temptation to be a suffering 
 Messiah and not to use miracles in his own behalf. 
 He also refused to meet physical force with physical 
 force. He commanded the resisting Peter to sheath his 
 sword, and he healed the severed ear of Malchus, the 
 servant of the high priest. His hour had come. The 
 Scriptures must be fulfilled. He must drink the cup 
 which the Father gave him. 
 
 Before Pilate, the representative of the Roman em- 
 pire, Jesus testified : "My kingdom is not of this world : 
 if my kingdom were of this world, then would my 
 servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the 
 Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence" (John 
 18: 36). He was no temporal deliverer of the Jews, 
 winning his way by warfare against superior numbers, 
 as the Maccabees had done. The method of establish- 
 ing, maintaining, and extending his Kingdom was not 
 that of the sword. 
 
 Thus we have reviewed what in the practice and pre- 
 cept of Jesus seems to credit and what to discredit the 
 appeal to arms. What shall we conclude? Perhaps the 
 best thing is to let each Christian conscience decide for 
 itself. What follows must be viewed as a personal 
 conclusion, not binding on those unconvinced by it. 
 
 Jesus never used physical force to defend himself 
 from personal attack, though his company with the two 
 swords may conceivably have done so. When possible, 
 Jesus himself avoided such attacks by escape; when 
 not possible he used only moral, not physical, resist- 
 ance, rebuking such injustice. 
 
 Jesus did use physical, as well as moral, force once 
 at least in attacking entrenched evil. In defense of him- 
 self, non-resistance; in defense of his righteous prin- 
 ciples, resistance, and even aggressive attack. He 
 
 10
 
 JESUS AND WAR 
 
 voluntarily sacrificed his life in throwing himself with 
 all his intellectual, moral, and spiritual force against 
 the hypocritical religious leaders of his day. From 
 the nature of the case physical force here would have 
 availed nothing; he used the most effective forces. He 
 realized he was doing this to make the members of his 
 Kingdom free from legalism, and announced the prin- 
 ciple : "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man 
 lay down his life for his friends" (John 15: 13). His 
 sacrifice was in defense of his principles and in love 
 of others whom he would make free indeed from legal- 
 istic bondage. 
 Jesus gave not a set of rules, forbidding this, as Jesus Gave 
 
 though he had said, "You shall never go to war," or aS P5* 
 
 .. Tr . not Rules 
 commanding that, as though he had said, You shall 
 
 go to war under the following circumstances." His 
 contribution is the spirit of love as shaping human con- 
 duct. Love of one's brother is the counterpart of 
 hatred of whatsoever oppresses one's brother. Use your 
 Christian conscience and do as you must is perhaps the 
 final answer to the question. This is the liberty where- 
 with Christ hath set us free from religious legalism. 
 
 A Christian may fight, as Jesus used physical force A Christian 
 in cleansing the Temple, in case he fights in love May Fight 
 love of God, His righteousness on the earth, and one's 
 brother man. A Christian nation may fight, if animated 
 by the same motive of love. The love of righteousness 
 at any cost is not consistent with the cause of peace at 
 any price. It involves hatred of wrong, not of wrong- 
 doers, and consequent action of the most effective 
 quality against it. It is possible to fight evil and love 
 the evil-doer, though it is not easy, nor often the case. 
 
 This spirit of love of righteousness, though costly, Ultimate 
 
 will in time eliminate war. Such is our faith. Despite Elimination 
 
 of War 
 II
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Hypothesis 
 of a National 
 Crucifixion 
 
 The Sword 
 
 of Justice 
 
 World- 
 Solution 
 or None 
 
 the lack of any clear prohibition of war, the weight of 
 the position of Jesus is decidedly against war ultimately. 
 If all men and nations were real friends, there could 
 be no war. 
 
 It is possible that the world will not be rid of war till 
 a Christian nation, relying only on non-physical forces 
 of the highest spiritual quality, submits to crucifixion, 
 as it were that is, to unresisted violation of national 
 integrity. It is not clear that even this procedure 
 would be effective, as a cannibal does not cease to be 
 a cannibal through consuming an unresisting mission- 
 ary. A governess in the Tolstoy family relates the 
 incident of Tolstoy's little girl running in crying to 
 her father, with the entreaty that he do something to 
 the neighbor's boy who had badly beaten her. Tolstoy 
 took his little girl on his lap and persuaded her to give 
 the boy some bread, butter, and jam. The governess 
 was unable to follow up the influence of so ideal an 
 act on the character of the boy. A spiritual friend of 
 mine was yet so carnally minded as to suggest that 
 the boy knew what to do the next time he wanted jam, 
 bread, and butter. 
 
 Justice has a sword, and it is not made of wood. 
 Mercy forgives, but only at a cost. Only mushiness 
 forgives at no cost. Jesus was crucified, yet there are 
 murders still, perhaps even judicial ones like his. Yet 
 there is progress, though slow, and such progress might 
 be vastly accelerated by the shameful tragedy of a 
 national crucifixion. 
 
 The elimination of war can come about only on the 
 basis of good will among all men however brought 
 about universal Christianity in practice if not in form, 
 some plan of amicable internationalism. The earth 
 through modern invention is now so small and unified 
 
 13
 
 JESUS AND WAR 
 
 that no nation can either live or die to itself. As an 
 individual can be only partially saved m an unsaved 
 society, so a nation can be only partially saved in an 
 unsaved world. 
 
 Meanwhile we rely on police force to prevent dis- Use of 
 
 turbance of the peace. There is no effective interna- Polic 
 
 Force 
 tional law, because there are no international police 
 
 and no adequate international sentiments. We rely on 
 our diplomats also not to jeopardize our patriotism by 
 putting our country in a wrong position. The men who 
 inspire diplomacy and movements for world peace with 
 Christian principles are themselves men inspired by 
 Christ. 
 We do not know what Jesus would have done had Certain 
 
 a band of ruffians attacked his sisters and his mother ^ esistan c 
 , . _. .... Inevitable 
 
 in their Nazareth home, but we can imagine. It is not 
 
 likely that even a converted and redeemed man will 
 ever tamely submit to such. It is certainly dirty busi- 
 ness attacking any human being, even one who is in- 
 juring the innocent and helpless; it is dirtier business 
 is it not? standing idly by, and, by inaction, con- 
 senting to the deed. 
 If a Christian ever shoulders a rifle or buckles on a Emotions 
 
 sword as a soldier, he does so with love and sadness f Fl 8i> tin 
 
 Christian 
 in his heart, but with a soul aflame in righteous wrath 
 
 against oppressive evil, and with a prayer to God that 
 the time be shortened. He bears no enmity against the 
 individual foe confronting him, whom he attacks only 
 as a misguided person representing an iniquitous sys- 
 tem. He is slain by his fellow, or slays him, a a part 
 of the world-tragedy of the conflict between good and 
 evil. If we may so express it, God will never make 
 peace with the Evil One except on the basis of uncon- 
 ditional surrender ; meanwhile the conflict goes on with 
 
 13
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 A Christian's 
 Conscience 
 His Guide 
 
 Historic 
 Aspects 
 of the 
 Question 
 Omitted 
 
 The 
 Christian 
 
 Soldier 
 
 men as agents, and the Devil has to be fought with 
 fire. 
 
 Of course, individual good men may mistakenly 
 represent an evil system and individual bad men may 
 represent a good system, but Christian men will go 
 to war only for righteous and against unrighteous prin- 
 ciples, as revealed by a clear conscience. In actual 
 war such a man may be relatively inefficient, in violating 
 any of the accepted rules of the game of death. 
 
 There is no occasion now for going into the historic 
 aspects of the question and showing how military 
 imagery has influenced the form of Christian teaching, 
 as when St. Paul says: "Fight the good fight of faith" 
 (I Tim. 6: 12); or how the famous Christian songs 
 bear the military stamp, as "Onward, Christian Sol- 
 diers," "Stand Up, Stand Up, for Jesus," "The Son of 
 God Goes Forth to War," etc., or how different bodies 
 of Christians have never accepted the doctrine of peace 
 at any price, except perhaps a few literalists like George 
 Fox and Count Tolstoy. 
 
 As indicative of the spirit in which it is possible for 
 a Christian to be a soldier, I append the following poem, 
 entitled "German Prisoners," by Joseph Lee, which 
 appeared first in the London Spectator: 
 
 When first I saw you in the curious street, 
 Like some platoon of soldier ghosts in gray, 
 My mad impulse was all to smite and slay, 
 To spit upon you tread you 'neath my feet. 
 But when I saw how each sad soul did greet 
 My gaze with no sign of defiant frown, 
 How from tired eyes looked spirits broken down, 
 How each face showed the pale flag of defeat, 
 And doubt, despair, and disillusionment, 
 
 14
 
 JESUS AND WAR 
 
 And how were grievous wounds on many a head, 
 And on your garb red-faced was other red; 
 And how you stooped as men whose strength was spent, 
 I knew that we had suffered each as other, 
 And could have grasped your hand and cried, "My 
 brother!" 
 
 15
 
 STUDY II 
 
 Sin and 
 Crime 
 
 Th.Lifs 
 of Jesus 
 and Crime 
 
 JESUS AND CRIME 
 
 Wherever Church and State are separate institutions, 
 it is important to distinguish between sin as violation 
 of divine law and crime as violation of human law. 
 Before the high priests Jesus was accused of saying 
 he was able to destroy the temple of God and build it 
 again in three days a garbled and misunderstood re- 
 port of his words about the resurrection, though the 
 priests and Pharisees who requested from Pilate a 
 guard for the sepulchre knew well what Jesus meant. 
 Before these he was also accused by the high priest 
 himself of speaking blasphemy in calling himself "the 
 Son of the Blessed" ( Mark 14:61). These were charges 
 of sin. Before Pilate he was accused of stirring up the 
 people, forbidding to give tribute unto Csesar, and mak- 
 ing himself a king (Luke 23: 2, 5) the second charge 
 being false, and the first and third misinterpretations. 
 These were charges of crime. It was only as a criminal, 
 not as a sinner, that Jesus was heard by Pilate, and even 
 so, Pilate tried to turn him over to the unwilling Jews 
 to be tried by their religious law. Under this theocratic 
 law all offenders were rated as "sinners," though today 
 some of these offenders would be ranked with criminals 
 and tried in the civil courts, e. g. the adulterous woman 
 (John 8: i-io). 
 
 Having in mind those offenses that today would 
 properly be regarded as crimes as well as sins, we say 
 that the life of Jesus was not unrelated to crime and 
 criminals. Even when he was an infant the jealous, 
 
 16
 
 JESUS ANtf CRIME 
 
 murderous Herod the Great had slaughtered the inno- 
 cents, seeking his life. At the outset of his ministry 
 he was himself tempted to sedition against Rome as a 
 temporal deliverer of his people. The wicked and 
 wanton murder by Herod Antipas of the Baptist, than 
 whom, said Jesus, none greater had arisen among those 
 born of women, so impressed him that he "withdrew 
 from thence" (Matt. 14: 13). For some two years, mur- 
 derous intent against his own life was cherished by the 
 hierarchy. His fellow Nazarenes sought to hurl him 
 headlong down their cliff. He was warned that Herod 
 Antipas, the "fox," sought his life. He came into 
 active conflict with the money grafters in the temple. 
 At the end he was the victim of a murderous con- 
 spiracy, the chief priests and the elders of the people 
 coming together in the very court of the high priest 
 Caiaphas and taking counsel together that they might 
 take Jesus by subtilty and kill him (Matt. 26: 3). 
 This iniquitous purpose, through base betrayal, was 
 accomplished. Annas sent Jesus to Caiaphas bound as 
 a common prisoner. So Jesus was personally not un- 
 acquainted with crime, as it intimately affected his own 
 life. 
 
 Besides, there were five criminals with whom he had Five 
 intimate associations, viz. the Samaritan woman; the Criminate 
 woman taken in adultery ; Herod Antipas, before whom 
 he was carried at the trial; and the two crucified 
 thieves. He must have known also of the release of 
 Barabbas and the fate of Judas. 
 
 The content of his teaching includes references to References 
 thieves breaking through and stealing, to robbers on to Crimes 
 the road to Jericho, to being cast into prison by the 
 officer, to persecutions and false charges, to being de- 
 livered up to synagogues and prisons, to the misap- 
 
 17
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Three 
 Teachings 
 Applicable 
 to Crime 
 
 How Jesus 
 Dealt With 
 Criminals 
 
 Summary 
 
 propriation of funds by the unjust steward, to the 
 tormentors into whose hands the unmerciful servant 
 falls, to the commandments which would enable the 
 young ruler to enter into life, namely, avoiding the 
 sins of murder, adultery, stealing, false witnessing, 
 and defrauding. 
 
 There are three general teachings of his which have 
 peculiar application to the criminal, viz. we are not to 
 judge (Matt. 7:1); out of the heart are the issues of 
 life, "For from within, out of the heart of men, evil 
 thoughts proceed, fornications, thefts, murders, adul- 
 teries, covetings, wickednesses, deceit, lasciviousness, 
 an evil eye, railing, pride, foolishness" (Mark 7: 21, 
 22) ; and the necessity of the new birth (John 3: 3). 
 
 What does the example of Jesus as he dealt with 
 criminals teach us? He dealt not so much with crime 
 as with individual criminals. He revealed her better 
 self to the Samaritan woman; he declined to condemn 
 the woman taken in adultery, though enjoining her to 
 go and sin no more (the sinner who anointed him at the 
 feast of Simon the Pharisee may have been another 
 such) ; he stood in silent condemnation before the mur- 
 derer Herod; he received in silence the reviling of 
 one crucified thief and encouraged the beginning of 
 good in the other. He identified himself with all those 
 in prison (Matt. 25: 43), thus indicating some goodness 
 in each most criminal heart, to which Peter adds that 
 Jesus went and preached to the spirits in prison (I 
 Pet. 3: 19). To John in prison he sent a comforting 
 message (Luke 7: 22). His life fulfils the promise of 
 the first sermon in Nazareth, that he came to proclaim 
 "liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison 
 to them that are bound" (Luke 4: 18). 
 
 To sum up, if we follow Jesus as standard, in deal- 
 18
 
 JESUS AND CRIME 
 
 ing with criminals we are not to judge; we are to work 
 for the cleansing of the heart; we are to uncover the 
 better nature and secure its rebirth; we are to forgive 
 and not condemn, which means the restoration of right 
 relationship, not necessarily the remission of penalty; 
 we are to encourage efforts at self-recovery; we are 
 to visit those in prison, brethren of his, as unto him. 
 Thus, without having been a prison-reformer, not even 
 condemning casting into prison for debt, Jesus is the 
 greatest inspirer of that prison reform, the simple 
 philosophy of which, according to Thomas Mott Os- 
 borne, is: every prisoner has a good side, find it, and 
 appeal to it.
 
 STUDY III 
 JESUS AND THE STATE 
 
 Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem on a mission of 
 state when Jesus was born, going there in accordance 
 with the decree of Caesar Augustus that all the world 
 should be enrolled. Every one in the Roman province 
 of Palestine went to his family city, according to the 
 Jewish custom, Bethlehem being the city of David, to 
 whose family Joseph belonged. Sages of the East, 
 whether kings or priests the story does not make clear, 
 are presented as worshiping the infant Jesus. Through 
 the jealous enmity of Herod the Great, king of the 
 Jews under Roman authority, the flight into Egypt is 
 pictured. Under the rule of Herod Antipas in Galilee, 
 the Nazareth home was established. The boyhood and 
 youth of Jesus were spent in a community governed 
 by a Jewish tetrarch under the authority of imperial 
 Rome. He became familiar with the import taxes, the 
 "customs," collected by Jews from their brethren for 
 their Roman masters, and with the social prejudice 
 against the collectors, "the publicans," which associated 
 them with "sinners." He became familiar also with 
 the land, property, and poll taxes payable by Jews as 
 Roman subjects into the imperial treasury, collected 
 through the agency of the Jewish courts, for which 
 purpose Joseph had been enrolled in Bethlehem, that 
 is, "the tribute to Caesar." He was familiar, too, with 
 the patriotic question arising therefrom in a theocratic 
 state, whether such tribute was right. 
 
 20
 
 JESUS AND THE STATE 
 
 He drew illustrations of his spiritual teaching from illustrations 
 the affairs of state. He contrasted the ideal of great- v***? from 
 ness as service in his Kingdom with that of lordship ^ e State 
 among the nations ; in showing the importance of count- 
 ing the cost before entering the Kingdom he refers to 
 a king's council of war; in teaching the lesson of set- 
 tling disagreements quickly with one's adversary he 
 refers to the actions of the council and the judge; he 
 knew about the custom of Roman soldiers compelling 
 pedestrians to carry their packs; he foretold the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem; he knew about the kings of 
 earth receiving toll or tribute from strangers, not their 
 own sons, about their making a marriage supper for 
 their sons, and about those in kings' palaces being 
 clothed in fine linen and purple. He was thus not only 
 acquainted with the general customs and machinery of 
 civil government, but also repeatedly drew illustrations 
 therefrom. 
 
 At the last, though studiously avoiding giving any Hi s Death 
 offense whatsoever to the civil power, seeing no neces- and **** 
 sary conflict between his Kingdom and Caesar's, the one tote 
 being spiritual and the other temporal though the one 
 was destined in time to "leaven" the other he had to 
 face as an arrested criminal the civil power in the 
 persons of Herod and Pilate, under the false charge 
 of forbidding to give tribute unto Caesar and the mis- 
 taken charge of "saying he is Christ, a king" (Luke 
 
 23: 2). 
 
 Before the immoral monster Herod, the drunken mur- Before 
 derer of the Herald of the Kingdom, Jesus was elo- Herod 
 quently silent, though Herod questioned him in many 
 words, having heard concerning him and for a long 
 time having desired to see him and perhaps witness a 
 miracle done by him (Luke 23:8, 9). Then Herod 
 
 21
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Before 
 Pilate 
 
 and his soldiers set him at naught, and mocked him, 
 and arraying him in gorgeous apparel sent him back 
 to Pilate. And the Jewish Herod and the Roman Pilate, 
 though at enmity before, became friends that day 
 (Luke 23: 12). 
 
 Before Pilate, in the presence of the whole Jewish 
 council accusing him of perverting the nation, for- 
 bidding to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he 
 himself is Christ, a king, Jesus answered nothing. When 
 Pilate in their presence said: "Hearest thou not how 
 many things they witness against thee?" Jesus did 
 not answer him one word, so that the governor 
 marvelled greatly (Matt. 27: 13, 14). Within the palace 
 alone with Pilate, Jesus answered his question with 
 dignity and respect, affirming that his Kingdom was not 
 of this world, else would his disciples fight that he 
 should not be delivered to the Jews; affirming also 
 that he was a king in the kingdom of truth, adding the 
 personal thrust : "every one that is of the truth heareth 
 my voice," which strengthened wavering Pilate for a 
 moment (John 18: 36, 37). Speaking for the state, 
 Pilate went out and announced to the Jews: "I find 
 no crime in him." But the urgent voices of the envious 
 that he be crucified prevailed over the judgment of the 
 judge, wishing to content the multitude. 
 
 By the soldiers of the state, at the command of the 
 reluctant though weak and favor-courting Pilate, Jesus 
 was scourged, mocked, spit upon, and smitten on the 
 head with a reed. After such cruel indignities Pilate, 
 superstitious and fearful, asked Jesus, "Whence art 
 thou?" to which Jesus gave no answer. Then Pilate 
 asked, "Knowest thou not that I have power to release 
 thee, and have power to crucify thee?" upon which 
 Jesus reminded him that he would have no power 
 
 22
 
 JESUS AND THE STATE 
 
 against Him, except it were given him from above 
 (John 19: 10, ii ). Pilate's effort to conciliate the chief 
 priests being in vain, when he might have freed an 
 innocent man by a word of authority, he delivered 
 him unto them to be crucified. The soldiers of the 
 state took off from Jesus the royal purple wherein in 
 mockery they had arrayed him, put his own garments 
 on him, and led him away to crucify him. At Golgotha 
 they offered him wine mingled with myrrh, but he 
 would not drink it, declining to meet death with a dim 
 consciousness. As they crucified him r Jesus prayed for 
 their forgiveness. 
 
 With his own hand Pilate wrote the accusation: The 
 "This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews," sug- 
 gesting his line of defense, should the matter come to 
 Caesar's ears, though thereby giving offense to the chief 
 priests. The soldiers divided his garments among them, 
 casting lots for the seamless tunic ; they sat and watched 
 him there ; they also mocked him, coming to him, offer- 
 ing him vinegar, and saying, in imitation of the chief 
 priests, rulers, scribes, and elders: "If thou art the 
 King of the Jews, save thyself" (Luke 23: 37). 
 
 The centurion and those with him watching Jesus, The Broken 
 when they saw how he gave up his spirit, testified: Body 
 "Certainly this was a righteous man" (Luke 23: 47). 
 The soldiers did not need to break the legs of Jesus to 
 hasten his death, he being dead already from a broken 
 heart, though one of the soldiers with a spear pierced 
 his side. Pilate granted the body of Jesus to Joseph 
 of Arimathea. 
 
 At the request of the chief priests and Pharisees, The Guard 
 the entombed body of Jesus was watched by a guard of **** 
 of soldiers set by Pilate, who were later bribed to say 
 the body was stolen by the disciples. "So they took the 
 
 23
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 His Good 
 Citizenship 
 
 His 
 
 Teaching 
 Concerning 
 the State 
 
 money, and did as they were taught" (Matt. 28: 15), 
 at which point the personal association of Jesus with 
 the civil power ceased, though his spirit is still trans- 
 forming it. 
 
 Here was a life begun, continued, and ended under the 
 influence of the civil state, whose fortunes were most 
 intimately interwoven with the ruling, though unpro- 
 tecting, temporal power, whose whole attitude was one 
 of conformity to the laws, paying the taxes, declining 
 to be a successor of the Maccabees, passing no con- 
 demnation upon the machinery of government; on the 
 contrary, using these things to illustrate spiritual truths, 
 thus recognizing their place in life; showing respect 
 to the office, if not the officer of the government in the 
 case of Herod; winning the sympathy of Pilate; sub- 
 mitting without other than moral protest to the mockery 
 of a just trial, to an unjust sentence of death, even to 
 death on the accursed tree, and in no respect failing 
 as a subject of Rome. It were vain to question his 
 good citizenship. 
 
 What did Jesus teach concerning the state? That 
 one could be patriotic and religious at the same time 
 without necessary conflict, that to be religious one does 
 not have to cease rendering tribute unto Caesar, that 
 to be patriotic, one does not have to cease rendering 
 unto God the things that are God's. Some things are 
 Caesar's and some things are God's. Each set of duties 
 is to be fulfilled. Jesus apparently carefully avoided 
 giving offense to the civil powers either in act or in 
 word. He gives no direct teaching whatever con- 
 cerning the state, except what is called out of him by 
 an entrapping question, though his answer indicates 
 definite thought and conviction on the subject. As so 
 often, St. Paul has given as direction what might be 
 
 24
 
 JESUS AND THE STATE 
 
 taken as literal description of the life of Jesus: "Put 
 them in mind to be in subjection to rulers, to authori- 
 ties" (Titus 3:1). Unlike Plato, Jesus was neither a 
 theoretical nor a practical reformer of government, 
 though, through the might of the new spirit he released 
 in human society, the Roman government within three 
 centuries was nominally Christian.
 
 STUDY IV 
 
 The Contact 
 of Jesus 
 With Wealth 
 
 Money a 
 Frequent 
 Theme in 
 His Teaching 
 
 JESUS AND WEALTH 
 
 The life of Jesus brought him into touch with a num- 
 ber of men of wealth and enabled him to observe the 
 influence of great possessions on character. Some of 
 the disciples themselves were not without means. Peter 
 owned a house in Capernaum in which he entertained 
 the Master. Zebedee, the father of James and John, 
 had a boat with nets on the Sea of Galilee and hired 
 servants. After the crucifixion Peter and six other 
 disciples returned to their fishing boats and nets. Jesus 
 abode one day at the house of Zaccheus, "a rich man," 
 and commended him for his use of his wealth, only 
 half of which Zaccheus retained. His friend Lazarus, 
 whom he loved, had a home in Bethany, and his sister 
 Mary made a costly offering to Jesus. Simon the 
 Pharisee and Simon of Bethany, who may be the same, 
 entertained him in their homes. He received minis- 
 trations from the substance of women of means, Joanna 
 and Susanna and "many others" (Luke 8:3). A rich 
 young ruler came to him for guidance in the way of 
 life. Nicodemus, who came to him by night for fear 
 of the Jews, brought a costly offering for his burial. 
 And Joseph, a rich man of Arimathea, begged his 
 crucified body from Pilate. So Jesus had intimate con- 
 tact with men of means. 
 
 The teaching of Jesus abounds in references to money 
 and its problems. He refers to those gorgeously ap- 
 parelled and living delicately in kings' houses. He 
 describes Dives as clothed in purple and fine linen and 
 
 26
 
 JESUS AND WEALTH 
 
 faring sumptuously every day. The father of the 
 Prodigal Son divides his living between him and the 
 elder brother. This parable incidentally shows the 
 misuse of money. The parable of the Unjust Steward 
 teaches the prudent use of money. The parables of the 
 Talents and the Pounds use financial relations to illus- 
 trate spiritual ones. Though Jesus and the disciples 
 had a common purse probably as a matter of con- 
 venience, hardly in imitation of the Pharisee sect of the 
 Essenes one of his parting injunctions to the disciples 
 was: "He that hath a purse, let him take it" (Luke 
 22: 36). He even pronounces woe on the rich and the 
 full (Luke 6: 24, 25), though such passages must be 
 correlated with the whole of his teaching. It is evi- 
 dent that money and its problems entered largely into 
 the content of his teaching. 
 
 Now what does Jesus teach about wealth? A num- Source 
 ber of things. First, as to the source of wealth. Both ot WeaWl 
 the talents and the pounds the capital with which they 
 begin business are conferred upon the servants by 
 their lord. To this capital, by their own effort, they 
 make additions. It was the ground of the rich man that 
 brought forth plentifully, causing him to pull down his 
 barns and build greater. Money is referred to in the 
 parable of the Unjust Steward as "that which is an- 
 other's" (Luke 16: 12). These teachings all indicate 
 that the effort of man in the production of wealth pre- 
 supposes the gift of God in initial capacities and en- 
 vironing opportunities. Similarly Jesus taught his 
 disciples to pray for the daily bread to God, who also 
 clothes even those of little faith. The origin of wealth 
 is thus human effort utilizing the gifts of God. 
 
 Closely connected with the origin of wealth is the Relative 
 
 question of its real value. "What shall it profit a Xf lu 1 c u of 
 
 Wealth 
 27
 
 man," asks Jesus, "if he gain the whole world and lose 
 his own soul? Or what shall a man give in ex- 
 change for his soul?" (Mark 8: 36, 37). One must 
 renounce all that he hath to follow Jesus (Luke 14: 
 33), including "lands," as Matthew, James and John, 
 and Peter and Andrew left all and followed, though 
 such shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, with 
 persecutions (Mark 10: 30). The rich but covetous 
 young ruler must sell all his goods and give to the 
 poor and then come and follow. A man is of more 
 value than a sheep and than many sparrows, two of 
 which are sold for a farthing. Money is the "very 
 little" in which we may prove ourselves faithful. The 
 treasures of earth are corruptible by moth and rust 
 and thieves; those of heaven are incorruptible. The 
 Rich Fool made the mistake of laying up treasure for 
 himself instead of being rich toward God. "A man's 
 life consisteth not in the abundance of things that he 
 possesseth" (Luke 12: 15). Seeing the newly pur- 
 chased field or proving the five yoke of oxen are un- 
 worthy excuses for slighting the invitation to the sup- 
 per. Going to one's farm or one's merchandise instead 
 of to the marriage feast of the king's son makes one 
 unworthy the invitation. A fat purse is no compensa- 
 tion for a lean soul. "The life is more than food" 
 (Matt. 6: 25). "Make for yourselves purses which wax 
 not old" (Luke 12: 33). It is evident that the value 
 of money to Jesus is relative, not absolute. However 
 much it may be a standard of physical values, to him 
 it is no standard of spiritual values. He does not 
 intimate that money is without value, but only that it 
 has no absolute value. 
 
 Some Right Since money does have a relative value, to what uses 
 
 Usei of Money ma y j t property be put ? One should give alms to the 
 
 28
 
 JESUS AND WEALTH 
 
 poor, even selling what one has for the purpose (Luke 
 12: 33); support one's needy parents without any 
 subterfuge of Corban (Mark 7: n); relieve those in 
 distress as did the Good Samaritan; minister to the 
 hungry, thirsty, and naked, as do the righteous as pic- 
 tured in the last judgment; buy food as did the disciples 
 in the Samaritan city ; cast it freely and generously into 
 the treasury as did the widow her two mites; make 
 friends with it as did the unjust steward; trade with 
 it and earn its double for the master as did the faithful 
 servants; make costly offerings in devotion not neces- 
 sarily utilitarian in character as did Mary (upon whose 
 precious spikenard the pilfering Judas set a value of 
 about fifty dollars) and the sinful woman in anointing 
 Jesus; provide hospitality, as did Zaccheus, Matthew, 
 Simon, and Martha, though such hospitality will not 
 be limited to those who can repay; provide festal 
 occasions, as the wedding in Cana and the wedding sup- 
 per of the king's son, and the supper of "a certain man," 
 though to be troubled about many things as was Martha 
 is not commendable; give fish, bread, and good gifts 
 to one's children; and render unto God the things 
 that are God's, as did the widow, the ministering 
 women, and the good and righteous Joseph. The uses 
 of money are thus many in glorifying God, relieving 
 the estate of man, and increasing the pleasures of life. 
 Jesus nowhere forbids the possession of money, even 
 the accumulation of wealth, provided only that the 
 eleven-talent man, who has profited by the natural law 
 of cumulative results, still regards himself as simply 
 his Lord's steward and owing what he owns. "Trade 
 ye herewith till I come" (Luke 19: 13) doubtless 
 primarily means, "Put to use all your God-given 
 powers," it being part of the parable of the Pounds, 
 
 29
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Praise of the 
 
 Economic 
 
 Virtues 
 
 Some 
 Abuses of 
 Money 
 
 though secondarily it may properly mean that it is the 
 Christian duty of some men to make money, to finance 
 the Lord's business on earth. So Jesus was fully ap- 
 preciative of the right uses of money. 
 
 Likewise the virtues associated with honest money- 
 getting receive unstinted praise from Jesus. "Good 
 and faithful" are the servants who use the banks to 
 ,double their capital in talents and pounds. "Wicked 
 and slothful" is the servant who hid his lord's money 
 away in a napkin. Even the fragments are to be 
 gathered up after a company of five thousand is fed, 
 that nothing be lost. Being faithful in the unrighteous 
 mammon is an indication of fitness to receive on trust 
 the true riches. Being unfaithful in the little matter 
 of money belonging to another indicates unfitness to 
 receive one's own. Even promotion and demotion in 
 service in the world to come are continuous with the 
 qualities of goodness and faithfulness or wickedness 
 and slothfulness displayed in the handling of the lord's 
 money during his absence. Jesus could not have set 
 higher approval upon the homely virtues of thrift, 
 industry, honesty, and fidelity. This phase of his teach- 
 ing must have been appreciated by a people like the 
 Jews who taught every youth a trade. 
 
 Though so highly appreciating both the uses of money 
 and the virtues of money-getting, Jesus did not fail 
 to recognize its grave abuses and its deadly perils. 
 Among the abuses of money appear these: Keeping it 
 to oneself, as did Dives, who would share with Lazarus 
 only the crumbs that fell from his table, failing thereby 
 to make a friend who would receive him in the heavenly 
 habitation, as also did the Rich Fool who communed 
 only with his own soul; giving only to those who can 
 repay in kind; giving even to the Temple instead of to 
 
 30
 
 
 JESUS AND WEALTH 
 
 one's needy parents; parading one's gifts before men, 
 sounding the trumpet as one gives, instead of not let- 
 ting the left hand know what the right hand doeth; 
 even punctilious tithing of mint, anise, and cummin, 
 coupled with neglect of the weightier matters of the 
 law; and failure to put it to use. 
 
 The deadly perils of monsy Jesus recognized in some Perils of 
 of his most striking teachings. "The deceitfulness of Wealtl> 
 riches" chokes the word as thorns the good seed by 
 the wayside. "Take heed and beware of covetousness" 
 (Luke 12: 15), says Jesus, uncovering the motive be- 
 hind the request that he divide an inheritance. They 
 that put their trust in riches can hardly enter the King- 
 dom. Farms, merchandise, and oxen may stand in 
 the way of attending the king's marriage supper. You 
 cannot serve God and mammon, though it is possible 
 to serve God and make mammon serve you. And, with 
 Oriental hyperbole, it is easier for a camel to go through 
 the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the 
 kingdom of heaven. Recall here that Abraham, a rich 
 man, received Lazarus in bliss. Woe is pronounced 
 upon the rich because they, like Dives, have received 
 their consolation. The trouble with the Rich Young 
 Ruler, who went away sorrowing from the source of 
 the eternal life which also he would inherit, was that 
 he did not own his great possessions, they owned 
 him, and he was unable to renounce his slavery. Treas- 
 ures are to be laid up in heaven, not on earth, for 
 where the treasure is, there is the heart also. Money 
 is to Jesus, because of its seductiveness, "the unright- 
 eous mammon" and "the mammon of unrighteousness." 
 Luke, the evangelist who especially discredits wealth, 
 writes in the Magnificat: "And the rich he hath sent 
 empty away" (Luke i: 53).
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Summary 
 
 Some Things 
 Jeaus Did 
 not Do 
 
 To summarize the results of our study, Jesus, being 
 acquainted with men of wealth and the influence of 
 wealth on men, recognized God as the ultimate source 
 of wealth, which could be increased by human enter- 
 prise; appreciated the great but subordinate value of 
 wealth ; indicated its proper uses ; praised its associated 
 virtues; pointed out its abuses; and warned against its 
 perils to the souls of men. Wealth to Jesus was a 
 thing of power, not to be held, hoarded, prized, or ex- 
 pended luxuriously for self, but to be received as from 
 above, increased, put to good use as a means to spirit- 
 ual ends, as by a good and faithful steward who should 
 render an account of his lord's money. 
 
 Some things that Jesus did not do are : he never dis- 
 cussed the modern topic of the economic theory of the 
 state, though at least three occasions were suitable for 
 so doing, namely, the question of the tribute to Caesar, 
 paying the temple tax, and dividing the inheritance; 
 he never commanded community of goods, though he 
 and the disciples kept a common purse as a matter 
 of convenience, but some disciples, like Joseph of 
 Arimathea, did not share in it, and the later Jerusalem 
 Church had all things in common for a time as a mat- 
 ter of voluntary devotion a custom not followed in 
 the other churches, which in fact left the saints in 
 Jerusalem dependent (Acts n: 29, 30); he never de- 
 nied the right of private ownership, but evidently took 
 it for granted, using as illustrations the householder 
 planting a vineyard and leasing it, and a certain noble- 
 man going into a far country to receive a kingdom 
 for himself ; he never denied one's right to possessions, 
 though enjoining their renunciation (*'. e. willingness 
 to release them for the Kingdom's sake) upon all, and 
 in one case at least urging their voluntary surrender 
 
 32
 
 JESUS AND WEALTH 
 
 for sale and gifts to the poor; he never condemned 
 wealth as such nor a rich man because of his wealth, 
 but only because of his misuse of it; and he never 
 divided men into the contrasting and antagonistic 
 classes of rich and poor, but only into the wise and 
 foolish, the whole and sick, the righteous and sinners. 
 But it would also be a mistake to say that he forbade 
 communism, collectivism, or any specific form of eco- 
 nomic production and distribution. He was concerned 
 in cultivating free spirits and in making the souls of 
 men rich toward God, trusting these to find the eco- 
 nomic system best expressive of universal brotherly 
 love.
 
 His Life and 
 Poverty 
 
 The Offering 
 at the 
 Presentation 
 
 Modest 
 Means in 
 
 Nazareth 
 
 A Simple 
 Lif o Witfc- 
 out Money 
 Beyond 
 KM* 
 
 J 
 
 STUDY V 
 JESUS AND POVERTY 
 
 In what relations did the life of Jesus stand to the 
 goods of this world? When in his infancy his parents 
 presented him to the Lord in the Temple according to 
 the law of Moses, their offering was not the lamb and 
 turtledove, or pigeon, regularly prescribed for those 
 who could afford it, but a pair of turtledoves, or two 
 young pigeons, indicating that their means sufficed not 
 for a lamb. 
 
 Joseph's trade was that of a carpenter, which was 
 given to Jesus in turn. Thus the living, independent, 
 though doubtless simple, was made in the Nazareth 
 home. Jesus was educated in letters in the village syna- 
 gogue, and thereafter was self-taught. The family 
 apptared at a wedding in the neighboring town of Cana, 
 some fur miles northerly from Nazareth, and later 
 moved to Capernaum, some twenty miles away, sug- 
 gesting some freedom of movement. We do not know 
 whether Mary wove for Jesus his seamless robe. 
 
 As the firstborn, he would receive by inheritance the 
 largest share of Joseph's property, which, however, he 
 doubtless left behind him on beginning his public work. 
 From the cross he committed his mother to John, but 
 mo pr6perry to her. As the disciples had a common 
 bag or box for their money, he probably carried no 
 money on his person. He said, "Shew me a penny" 
 (Luke 20: 24), not taking the tribute money or the 
 temple-tax of the half-shekel from his pocket. The 
 
 34
 
 JliUS AND POVERTY 
 
 disciples drew from the common purse to purchase the 
 necessities of life and to give alms to the poor. At 
 the time of paying the temple tax of the half-shekel, 
 or thirty-two cents, there was evidently not so much 
 in the bag, and Peter was sent back to his old occupa- 
 tion as fisherman for it. At the time of feeding the 
 five thousand, two hundred penny-worth of bread, about 
 thirty-four dollars, seemed an incredible amount to the 
 disciples. 
 
 The company was the recipient of gifts of money, 
 not as mendicants or objects of charity, but as the hire 
 for their spiritual labor and for distributing to the 
 needy. It was clearly a matter of choice, not of neces- 
 sity, that the Son of Man had not where to lay his 
 head. Jesus was hungry at Jacob's well, but meat 
 at the time was being purchased; again he was hungry 
 before the barren fig-tree, but there is no indication 
 that means of satisfaction were unavailable. We have 
 seen that Jesus had well-to-do friends who were only 
 too glad to extend him their hospitality, of which, too, 
 he availed himself. His disciple John was known to 
 the high priest. Some one, possibly Zebedee, the father 
 of two of the disciples, kept a boat awaiting his con- 
 venience while preaching near the Sea of Galilee. A 
 friend, or friends, in Jerusalem provided him with an 
 ass on Palm Sunday, with a lodging with his disciples 
 during the last week of his life, and with an upper 
 room in which to keep the passover, for which, how- 
 ever, the common purse purchased the supplies. He 
 was buried in the tomb of a rich friend. Here was a 
 life simple both in fact and from choice, not possessed 
 of riches nor yet one of grinding poverty. 
 
 What of poverty did Jesus see in the lives of others? Scene* of 
 His soul was moved at the sight of the scribes devour- 
 
 35
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Meaning of 
 "the Poor" 
 
 The Com- 
 passion of 
 Jesus for 
 the Poor 
 
 ing widows' houses, even while for a pretence mak- 
 ing long prayers. He saw true generosity in the poor 
 widow casting all her living into the treasury. The 
 blind beggars of Jericho received his healing sympathy. 
 The blind, the lame, the deaf, the lepers, the paralytics, 
 whom he healed were probably also poor in this world's 
 goods, not being able under existent social conditions 
 to earn their way. The woman with the issue of blood 
 had vainly spent all that she had. So Jesus knew 
 about the poor and their social and natural hardships, 
 coupled as these often were with physical misfor- 
 tunes. Afflicted Lazarus in the parable may have been 
 a real character. 
 
 What did Jesus teach concerning poverty? It may 
 be said at the outset that when Jesus refers to "the 
 poor" he uses the term primarily in a spiritual, and only 
 secondarily in an economic sense, and that the term 
 when used in the economic sense is not equivalent to 
 "penurious," but includes all persons who have no more 
 than they need. Jesus found the Jewish economic poor 
 with hearts open toward God, in fact, as a class, "poor 
 in spirit." "The poor" of the gospels thus stand in 
 a double contrast, first, spiritually, with their formally 
 religious and really oppressive leaders, and, second, 
 economically, with the wealthy, who had grossly abused 
 their privileges to deserve such criticisms as Jesus 
 passed upon them. 
 
 The first thing to note is that Jesus, himself not 
 wealthy, coming with a message of love and brother- 
 hood for all, having been brought up among the poor, 
 was always moved with compassion at the sight of the 
 hungry multitude which was not sure of its next meal, 
 always ministered to their needs both individually and 
 collectively, always spoke with great tenderness of them 
 
 36
 
 JESUS AND POVERTY 
 
 and to them, even when rebuking them for following 
 him for the loaves and fishes. 
 
 To Jesus it was the divine seal of his ministry that The Gospel 
 the poor had the Gospel preached to them, not that the for ** Poor 
 good tidings were for any social class exclusively. He 
 began his ministry in Nazareth with the text from 
 Isaiah : "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he 
 anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor : he hath 
 sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and re- 
 covering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them 
 that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the 
 Lord" (Luke 4: 18, 19). The burden of his sermon 
 on this text was : "To-day hath this scripture been ful- 
 filled in your ears" (Luke 4: 21). The Gospel was 
 not too good for the poor and the poor were not too 
 bad for the Gospel. 
 
 When John the Forerunner was in prison and heard The 
 the works of Jesus, realizing that Jesus was not in fact ^ C T S ^* 
 thoroughly cleansing his threshing-floor, fan in hand, 
 gathering the wheat, and burning up the chaff, that he 
 was in fact not at all a figure of violence but of gentle- 
 ness, John's faith in Jesus as the prophesied Messiah 
 wavered. He called two of his disciples to him, for 
 he was not in close confinement in the prison of 
 Machaerus, and sent them to Jesus with the question: 
 "Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another?" 
 (Luke 7: 19). These messengers found Jesus in the 
 act of curing many of diseases, plagues, evil spirits, 
 and blindness. He answered their question not cate- 
 gorically but characteristically, guiding thereby John's 
 thinking to his own conclusion, and again associating 
 the Gospel with the poor: "Go and tell John what 
 things ye have seen and heard; the blind receive their 
 sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the 
 
 37
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good 
 tidings preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever 
 shall find no occasion of stumbling in me" (Luke 7: 
 22, 23). The incident profoundly affected Jesus, as 
 his words to the multitudes following the departure of 
 John's messengers show. He was continuing to exem- 
 plify his Nazareth sermon, leading to his rejection there. 
 He was moved to think John too might stumble; "he 
 that is but little in the kingdom of God is greater 
 than he" (Luke 7: 28). Unfortunately we are not told 
 John's conclusion, if any, before his beheading. 
 
 Since the Gospel was for the poor and sinners, not 
 for those who received their consolation in wealth and 
 for the self-righteous, it is not surprising that specially 
 urgent invitations are sent out to the poor, who had 
 not regarded themselves as worthy to come to the 
 gospel feast. "Go ye therefore unto the partings of 
 the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the 
 marriage feast" (Matt. 22 : 9). The invitation extended 
 by Jesus himself is: "Come unto me all ye that labor 
 and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 
 n: 28). These are the poor, not merely of the op- 
 pressed body but of the oppressed spirit, weighted with 
 Pharisaic legalism. 
 
 As Jesus pronounced woe on the rich and the full 
 who are satisfied, so he pronounced blessing on the 
 poor and the hungry who are not satisfied, either in 
 body or in spirit. Luke, the beloved physician, whose 
 labors brought him into intimate contact with the needs 
 of the poor, stresses the physical poverty and hunger; 
 Matthew, the man of affairs, on whom the Beatitudes 
 made an even profounder impression, stresses the 
 spiritual poverty and hunger. Says Luke : "Blessed are 
 ye poor," "Blessed are ye that hunger now," "Blessed 
 
 38
 
 JESUS AND POVERTY 
 
 are ye that wep now" (Luke 6: 20, ai). Says Mat- 
 thew: "Blessed are the poor in spirit," "Blessed are 
 they that hunger and thirst after righteousness," 
 "Blessed are they that mourn" (Matt. 5: 3, 4, 6). 
 Luke is more specific, Matthew more general. The two 
 sides go together, as body and mind. There is no praise 
 of poverty for its own sake, as there is no condemnation 
 of riches as such. These blessings on the poor stand 
 in contrast with the characteristic attitude of the chief 
 priests and Pharisees: "This multitude that knoweth 
 not the law are accursed" (John 7: 49). 
 
 Why did Jesus pronounce blessings on the poor? Reasons 
 
 Because theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Because it toT Blessln 
 
 the Poor 
 was easier for them not to lay up treasures on earth 
 
 and just as easy at least for them to lay up treasures 
 in heaven. Because, having little, they were not tempted 
 to give anxious thought to eating, drinking, and wearing 
 apparel, but were able sincerely to pray day by day for 
 sufficient bread. Because they were not tempted to 
 put their trust in riches, and could not suffer from the 
 deceitfulness of that which they did not possess. Hav- 
 ing no mammon to serve, they find it easier to serve 
 God. Escaping the perils of wealth, they do not have 
 to pass through the needle's eye, which the rich young 
 ruler was unable to do. But their estate has its own 
 temptations, not indeed peculiar to it, in envy and covet- 
 ousness. When one out of the multitude asked him: 
 "Teacher, bid my brother divide the inheritance with 
 me" (Luke 12: 13), he not only declined, not having 
 been appointed to that work, but said unto them : "Take 
 heed and keep yourselves from all covetousness ; for 
 even in a man's abundance his life is not from the 
 things which he possesseth" (Luke 12:15, margin). 
 Repeatedly Jesus commands that alms be given to 
 39
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 the poor. These poor were usually afflicted in some 
 way and in those days unable to earn a living, though 
 we cannot be sure that this was always the case. "Give 
 to him that asketh thee" is the general direction for 
 those simple days which knew not the work of asso- 
 ciated charities "the condensed milk of human kind- 
 ness," as they have been called and the gift of one- 
 self, one's services, is still necessary. "Lend, never 
 despairing," he says (Luke 6:35). "From him that 
 would borrow of thee turn not thou away" (Matt. 
 5:42). "Distribute unto the poor" (Luke 18:22) was 
 the personal instruction given to the rich young man, 
 following upon his selling all that he had. A part of the 
 conversation between Jesus and this rich young ruler as 
 it has survived in a fragment of "The Gospel of the 
 Hebrews" is: 1 
 
 "And the Lord said unto him: How canst thou say 
 I have kept the law and the prophets, as it is written 
 in the law, Love thy neighbor as thyself? Behold, 
 many of thy brethren, sons of Abraham, lie in dirty 
 rags and die of hunger, and thy house is full of many 
 goods, and nothing comes out of it to them." 
 
 The Jesus and the disciples were themselves as a com- 
 
 oflkas* pany accustomed to give something to the poor from 
 
 their common fund. At least Judas, the pilfering treas- 
 urer of the company, complained at the anointing of 
 Jesus by Mary that the ointment was not sold for a 
 sum equivalent to about fifty dollars and given to the 
 poor. Likewise, when Jesus told Judas to do quickly 
 what he had planned to do, some thought he should give 
 something to the poor. The company of the disciples 
 thus set the example of the giving, as well as the out- 
 giving, life. There is no record of Jesus individually 
 1 Quoted from Harnack, "What is Christianity?" p. 107, N. Y., 1902. 
 40
 
 JESUS AND POVERTY 
 
 having given alms. His individual treatment of afflicted 
 persons, restoring their lost powers, made the unfor- 
 tunate recipient of alms no longer dependent. Such 
 relief was not the prolongation of misery, but its 
 abrogation. 
 
 Special rewards attend giving. "Give, and it shall Reward 
 be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, forAlms 
 shaken together, running over, shall they give into 
 your bosom" (Luke 6: 38). Here is a superabundant 
 return for giving. "Freely ye have received, freely 
 give," he says (Matt. 10: 8). That Jesus stressed such 
 ministration is further indicated by the fact that his 
 only scriptural saying not in the gospels, preserved 
 by Paul, touches this point : "It is more blessed to give 
 than to receive" (Acts 20: 35). This saying suggests 
 some sense of peril in receiving, as the warnings 
 against ostentatious giving suggest its peril, too. 
 
 Such giving is plainly from a brother to a brother Hospitality 
 in need, and not at all from a superior to an inferior. to &* Poor 
 Not merely alms are to be given but hospitality is to 
 be extended to the poor and unfortunate. "But when 
 thou makest a feast, bid the poor, the maimed, the lame, 
 and the blind" (Luke 14: 13), the recompense for which 
 comes not from those served but in the resurrection of 
 the just, at which time the sheep and the goats are 
 separated by the exclusively practical test of ministry 
 and hospitality to the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, im- 
 prisoned, and strangers. The wealth of imagery 
 lavished on the scene of the last judgment indicates 
 that such giving of self in service to the poor, needy, 
 and unfortunate is not an incident of the Gospel, but 
 is of its essence. 
 
 Jesus unquestionably felt drawn to the lower classes, NO Condoning 
 who heard him gladly, in tender sympathy and loving Economic Vices
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 deed*. Yet in his teaching there is not one word of 
 encouragement to idleness, shiftlessness, mendicancy, 
 or pauperism. "Why stand ye here all the day idle?" 
 asks the householder of laborers in the market-place 
 (Matt. 20: 6). The repeatedly commended "good and 
 faithful servants" possess the homely economic virtues. 
 The "slothful" servant is also "wicked." The disciples 
 of Jesus were mainly workingmen. 
 
 Those who see in the Gospel a condemnation of all 
 wealth as such and the glorification of poverty as such 
 curiously trip over words and miss the spirit of the 
 whole as revealed in the things Jesus did. Though "ye 
 have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will 
 ye can do them good" (Mark 14: 7), poverty as a 
 state is not something to be acquiesced in or to glory 
 in, but it requires relief through compassion, alms, and 
 personal service. Nothing should come between us and 
 the Kingdom, not even wec!ch and its luxuries; noth- 
 ing can come between us and the Kingdom, not even 
 poverty and its deprivations. Wealth should not, 
 poverty need not, hinder our entrance, into the King- 
 dom. Wealth is no curse, nor poverty; poverty is no 
 blessing, nor wealth. The advantage, however, is with 
 poverty, as its perils to the soul are fewer and its con- 
 ditions favorable to the reception of the good news of 
 the Father's providential care and of human love and 
 brotherhood. 
 
 The seventy evangelists sent forth by Jesus were in- 
 structed: "Get you no gold, nor silver, nor brass in 
 your girdles" (Matt. 10: 9). "Carry no purse," says 
 Luke. They were to throw themselves upon the hos- 
 pitality of the neighboring villages, as spiritual laborers 
 worthy of their hire and living by the Gospel they pro- 
 claimed. They could count on being favorably re- 
 
 42
 
 JESUS AND POVERTY 
 
 ccived. In contrast, in the farewell conversation, he 
 said : "When I sent you forth without purse, and wallet, 
 and shoes lacked ye anything? And they said, Noth- 
 ing. And he said unto them, But now, he that hath 
 a purse, let him take it and likewise a wallet" (Luke 
 22: 35, 36). In this he suggested the times of persecu- 
 tion ahead, following his being reckoned with the 
 transgressors, when they could no longer count on a 
 hospitable hearing. That is, the Christian evangelists 
 carry no purse, or purse, according to the requirements 
 of the situation. Thus there was no general rule about 
 money for the primitive evangelists, except that they 
 would not have money beyond their need. Likewise 
 Christians, giving and lending freely, not owners but 
 stewards and administrators of money, naturally do 
 not possess money beyond their reasonable needs. For 
 Judas, there was more money in betraying than in 
 following his Master. 
 
 In conclusion, concerning poverty, Jesus teaches that Summary 
 the Gospel is for the poor, too, who as sinners feel 
 their need of it; the poor are especially urged to at- 
 tend the gospel feast; blessings are pronounced on the 
 poor, because of the easy accessibility of the Gospel 
 to them; alms and friendly and unselfish hospitality 
 are to be given to the poor and unfortunate; the poor, 
 however, are not encouraged to consent to their poverty, 
 put a premium upon it, and make a luxury of it ; poverty 
 is as such neither a blessing nor a curse; and money 
 for ministers and other followers of Christ will not be 
 possessed beyond need. Evidently the teaching of Jesus 
 contains no social program for the suppression of 
 poverty and distress; no remedial legislation is specifi- 
 cally proposed; it contains only the living germ of all 
 social reform love, helpfulness, and brotherhood. 
 
 43
 
 STUDY VI 
 
 The An- 
 nouncement 
 of the Nativ- 
 ity to the 
 Shepherds 
 
 The Carpen- 
 ter's Family 
 in Nazareth 
 
 The Work 
 of Mary 
 
 JESUS AND LABOR 
 
 How was the life of Jesus related to labor? 
 
 With appropriate poetic imagination, Luke, sensing 
 the lowliness of the life of Jesus, presents us the pic- 
 ture of an angel of the Lord announcing the birth of 
 Jesus to shepherds in the field, keeping watch by night 
 over their flock. The good tidings of great joy were 
 for all the people. The lowly sign was a babe wrapped 
 in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. To the 
 same company of shepherds about their task, perhaps 
 that of providing sacrificial animals for the temple serv- 
 ice, the multitude of the heavenly host sang of peace on 
 earth among men of good will. That peace was un- 
 limited, and might well include freedom from industrial 
 as well as political warfare. 
 
 It was a laborer's family into which Jesus was born. 
 Joseph was the carpenter of the village of Nazareth. 
 Joseph must have been the kind of man, giving good 
 gifts to his children, to make it easy for Jesus to think 
 of God as Father. To his neighbors he was known as 
 a righteous, considerate, and unpretentious man. 
 
 Mary, the mother of Jesus, highly favored of God, 
 pious, earnest, and reflective, was doubtless an indus- 
 trious and otherwise suitable helpmeet for Joseph. 
 Judging by the later teachings of Jesus, some of the 
 things he may have seen Mary doing are : sweeping 
 diligently for a lost coin, putting leaven in three meas- 
 ures of meal, grinding grain with the small mill of two 
 
 44
 
 JESUS AND LABOR 
 
 stones with the assistance of another woman, bringing 
 forth things both new and old, selecting old cloth to 
 cover holes in old garments, lighting the candle and 
 putting it on the stand, and perhaps even rejoicing that 
 a man-child was born into the world. It was an in- 
 dustrious, perhaps frugal, home. 
 
 Reared in a laborer's home, Jesus himself became a Jesus as 
 laborer, adopting Joseph's trade of carpenter, and be- Carpenter 
 coming himself in time the well-known village car- 
 penter. And a carpenter he remained for some eigh- 
 teen years after saying that he must be about his 
 Father's business, thereby suggesting that honest toil, 
 coupled with self-improvement, is a part of the Father's 
 business. 
 
 At about the age of thirty Jesus ceased to be a manual The Public 
 worker and became a spiritual worker, for the short Workof 
 remaining fragment of his life, something less than 
 three years. He did not cease to labor, he only changed 
 the field of his labor. Though no longer practicing 
 carpentry, he did not drop the carpenter's habit of 
 mind, but continued to speak of corner-stones, founda- 
 tions on rock and sand, beams and motes, ploughs and 
 yokes, building towers, counting the cost, how people 
 spent the time building in the days of Noah before the 
 flood, and how he would build his Church upon the 
 rock of such faith as Peter's. The Gospel is a car- 
 penter's call. 
 
 Something of the economic sense developed during xh 
 the many years of manual labor continued during the Economic 
 few years of spiritual labor. Twice, after the exhibition 
 of the greatest profusion of simple food in feeding mul- 
 titudes of four and five thousand men, besides women 
 and children, he commanded : "Gather up the fragments 
 that remain, that nothing be lost" (John 6: 12), thus 
 
 45
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THKM 
 
 His Practical 
 Turn of Mind 
 
 Jesus 
 Learned of 
 Labor from 
 Observation 
 
 Illustrations 
 from Agri- 
 culture 
 
 saving from waste at one time twelve and at another 
 time seven baskets full. To what useful purpose these 
 were put we do not know. 
 
 It may not be going too far to say that in his spirit- 
 ual labor Jesus exhibited a quality of reality, directness, 
 freshness, with aphoristic and epigrammatic statement, 
 commonly found in workers with things rather than in 
 workers with words. In his case there is wealth of 
 meaning in few words instead of dearth of meaning in 
 many words. A bookish man who had not shaped 
 things with his muscles would surely have been less 
 original and less radical than Jesus. The fact that 
 Jesus for so long had done things in wood no doubt 
 assisted him in doing things in religion. 
 
 But, of course, Jesus learned much about labor and 
 its many fields from observation of the life about him, 
 in addition to that knowledge accumulated by personal 
 experience. It has been estimated that of the nearly 
 three years in the public labor of Jesus, only fifteen 
 different months are referred to by the gospel writers, 
 and of these fifteen months, only thirty-five different 
 days altogether are indicated. Evidently only a small 
 fragment of the deeds and words of Jesus have come 
 down to us. Yet, if we look into the content of this 
 fragment of his teaching for evidence of his knowledge 
 of the facts of labor, we shall probably be surprised at 
 the amount of it. 
 
 Of all the current occupations of his time, he makes 
 most frequent reference to agriculture, after which 
 follow in order commerce, industry, and brain-work. 
 Perhaps this order roughly reflects the relative size of 
 these occupations in his day. Among his illustrations 
 drawn from agriculture, or closely related pursuits, are 
 the sower; the vineyard, including the hedge and the 
 
 46
 
 JESUS AND LABOR 
 
 winepress; the field containing a hid treasure; two 
 men in the field; a man going to his farm; laborers 
 waiting to be employed ; the porter watching ; the wheat 
 and the tares; old and new wine-skins; the dying 
 grain of wheat; the vine and its branches; the two 
 sons in the vineyard; planting in the days of Noah; 
 the servant ploughing or keeping sheep; the good 
 shepherd; the lost sheep; the sheepfold; the hireling; 
 the fertilizing dung-hill ; the ox or ass in the well ; the 
 barren fig-tree; the cumbering fig-tree; the budding 
 fig-tree; the harvest plenteous; the fields white; the 
 laborers few; reaping and receiving wages; the tree 
 and its corresponding fruit; the blade, the ear, and 
 the corn; the mustard seed, repeatedly used; drinking 
 old wine; the hand to the plough; the easy yoke; the 
 light burden ; the fertile land of the rich fool ; the fruit 
 of the vine ; the hen and her brood ; the crowing cock ; 
 the drag-net ; casting the net on the other side ; putting 
 out into the deep; and fishers of men. In this list, as 
 well as illustrations, we find some incidents in his 
 life; also, with the agricultural are associated the pur- 
 suits of the shepherd and the fisherman. 
 
 Turning to the field of commerce, we note Jesus talk- illustrations 
 ing about profit: the pearl merchant; the purchase of frmCom- 
 a field; one going to his merchandise; tax-gatherers; 
 servants trading with talents and pounds; the selling 
 of two and five sparrows; stewards of various kinds, 
 faithful, unfaithful, and unjust; two types of debtors; 
 hiring the unemployed ; and selling sheep. 
 
 Among industrial occupations, we note his references illustrations 
 to tailoring, grinding, and building. from industry 
 
 Several other occupations are those of the scribe, &tm other 
 lawyer, physician, soldier, judge, and of the rulers of 
 the Gentiles. 
 
 47
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Labor 
 Symbolizes 
 the Kingdom 
 of Heaven 
 
 Praise of the 
 
 Economic 
 
 Virtues 
 
 The Reward 
 of Labor 
 
 Our lists may be incomplete, yet they include prob- 
 ably all the occupations of his day, whether of hand- 
 work or brain-work. Here is a body of teaching 
 epitomizing the vocational side of life. We must con- 
 clude that Jesus was familiar with the types of labor 
 and laborers of his day. We turn to his teaching about 
 labor with real and earnest expectation. 
 
 The first obvious and outstanding thing to notice is 
 that labor to Jesus symbolizes the heavenly Kingdom. 
 He does not condemn any form of labor; he does not 
 condemn the relationship of master and servant, but 
 rather stresses it; he does not protest against either 
 riches or poverty; he just presupposes the complex 
 world of labor; but he sees spiritual meaning in it 
 all ; it suggests to him the ways of God with man. 
 
 Further, fidelity, industry, thrift, and good judgment 
 in fact all the virtues pertaining to labor are dis- 
 tinctly recognized, encouraged, and praised. No busi- 
 ness virtue is discouraged. On the other hand, unfaith- 
 fulness, sloth, disobedience to orders, and poor judg- 
 ment in fact all the vices attendant on the non-use 
 or abuse of labor he censures without qualification. 
 No business vice goes uncondemned. Ill-gotten gain, 
 idleness, and avarice are rebuked. One looks in vain 
 into the teachings of Jesus for any depreciation of busi- 
 ness success or any appreciation of business failure. 
 To succeed in whatever one undertakes is so far forth 
 good, and to fail brings discredit upon oneself. Jesus 
 does not excuse personal failure through appeal to 
 bad environment. 
 
 Further, labor should have its due reward. The 
 laborer is worthy of his food and of his hire. This is 
 true in both the physical and spiritual realms. He 
 laid it down as a principle in sending out the twelve 
 
 48
 
 JESUS AND LABOR 
 
 and the seventy. Not merely the wages due, but 
 promotion in the field of attainment belong by right 
 to labor. "Thou hast been faithful over a few things, 
 I will make thee ruler over many things" (Matt. 25: 
 21 ) is the principle upon which the master acts with 
 his servants. And the promotion is proportionate to 
 the attainment. "To him that hath shall be given." 
 Progress in attainment is expected, and the lack of it 
 is penalized: "From him that hath not shall be taken 
 away even that which he hath" (Matt. 25: 29). 
 
 Inequality in endowment, leading to inequality in inequality 
 attainment, and so to inequality of reward, is plainly 
 taught in the parable of the Talents. The servants 
 start with unequal amounts, they gain unequal amounts, 
 though each doubles his capital, and they are promoted 
 according to their proven ability. In the case of the 
 parable of the Pounds, there is equal distribution of 
 property at the outset each of ten servants receives 
 one pound. Inequality in ability shows itself in trad- 
 ing with equal amounts one servant gains ten pounds, 
 another five pounds. Promotion to rulership over cities 
 is proportionate to attainment, not to original capital. 
 To Jesus there is no dead level in the capacity of 
 workers, in the accomplishment of workers, or in the 
 promotion of workers, but each worker is treated as 
 an individual. To each work is given to do accord- 
 ing to his ability, from each returns are expected ac- 
 cording to his ability, and to each promotion is given 
 according to his accomplishment. The laborer is not 
 rewarded according to his needs. Jesus stated these 
 principles of inequality in the field of labor as matters 
 of truth, right, and life, not as matter of theoretical 
 economics, but with difficulty can any system of sound 
 economics reject them. 
 
 49
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Equality This principle of economic justice based on payment 
 
 according to work done is tempered by the principle 
 of voluntary generosity, as it appears in the parable 
 of the Laborers hired to work in the vineyard. It was 
 a twelve hour day, from six to six. In the morning 
 laborers were hired by a householder for seventeen 
 cents each. At nine, twelve, three, and even five 
 o'clock, other laborers found unemployed in the market- 
 place were sent into the vineyard, the wage being un- 
 specified. "Whatsoever is right I will give thee." The 
 steward paid each laborer seventeen cents. Those 
 hired first began to murmur. But the householder said 
 to one of them: "Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst 
 thou not agree with me for seventeen cents? Take 
 up that which is thine, and go thy way; it is my will 
 to give unto this last even as unto thee. Is it not lawful 
 for me to do what I will with mine own? or is thine 
 eye evil because I am good?" (Matt. 20: 13-15). The 
 point here seems to be that the first received in justice 
 that for which they had bargained. The others received 
 the same as a matter of voluntary goodness on the 
 part of the employer, because (i) through no fault of 
 their own they were unemployed in the market-place, 
 and (2) they worked in faith that they would receive 
 what was right. The comment of Jesus on the parable 
 is, "So the last shall be first and the first last" (Matt. 
 20: 16). The heavenly meaning in this earthly story 
 seems to be that in the Kingdom of God those who 
 work for specified wages receive them, but those who 
 for lack of opportunity come late into the Kingdom and 
 work for unspecified wages receive equally. The oc- 
 casion for the teaching was the question of Peter: 
 "What then shall we have?" (Matt. 19: 27). Jesus 
 tells him about judging the twelve tribes of Israel, but 
 
 SO
 
 JESUS AND LABOR 
 
 warns him in advance not to murmur if late-comers 
 who work faithfully, not knowing what they shall re- 
 ceive, are given the same reward. In the field of the 
 employment of labor this principle of voluntary gen- 
 erosity provides not for collective bargaining but for 
 collective paying. In this parable the solution of the 
 labor problem is the good employer. He keeps his 
 word, he seeks out the unemployed, he provides them 
 with work, he rewards them generously. No doubt 
 such a vineyard would not lack for laborers. 
 
 The employer's being good involves no divorce of Religion and 
 religion and business. This, too, is one of the views Busmess 
 of Jesus regarding spirituality and work. The fact 
 that the world of employment is so largely drawn upon 
 for his teachings concerning the Kingdom indicates 
 the unity of life to him. If labor can be used to in- 
 terpret the Kingdom, then there is no impossibility of 
 the Kingdom's being used to interpret labor. A divorce 
 between the two does violence to each. The wither- 
 ing scorn of Jesus is provoked by the hypocritical 
 scribes "who devour widows' houses, even while for a 
 pretence they make long prayers; these shall receive 
 greater condemnation" (Mark 12: 40 margin). He 
 condemns to the tormentors the merciless, avaricious 
 servant who had received forgiveness for a debt of 
 ten million dollars from his king, but would not in 
 turn forgive a fellow-servant his debt of seventeen dol- 
 dars. Similarly he rejects the inconsistency of calling 
 him "Lord" and not doing the things that he says. It 
 is the single gold standard of sincerity that Jesus 
 advocates in the worlds of religion and business. It 
 was the doing of the truth whereby one came to the 
 light. Happiness consists, according to Jesus, not in 
 knowing these things but in doing them. 
 
 Si
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 The Continuity 
 of Labor 
 
 The principle of the continuity of labor Jesus also 
 recognized and specifically stated. He was sending 
 out his disciples to reap where they had not sown, to 
 gather where they had not strewn. "Other men labored, 
 and ye are entered into their labors" (John 4: 38). 
 The lord of the servants he likened to an austere man 
 gathering where he had not scattered. Not only do 
 men enter into each other's labors but each man in his 
 future promotion enters into his own past labors. He 
 has gained five pounds, he rules five cities. There is 
 social, there is also individual, continuity in labor. 
 
 Jesus gives us a method of settling difficulties be- 
 tween individuals that would apply also to labor dis- 
 putes. It involves the introduction of personal dealings 
 in industry. First, "show him his fault between thee 
 and him alone." Failing this, "take with thee one 
 or two more." Failing this, "tell it unto the congre- 
 gation." Failing this, "let him be unto thee as the 
 Gentile and the publican." Thus the four steps of pro- 
 cedure are (i) personal conference, (2) social con- 
 ference, (3) organization conference, and (4) sever- 
 ing relations. This method is equally applicable be- 
 tween a capitalist and offending labor, and an offending 
 capitalist and labor. It is competent for whichever 
 side is sinned against to take the initiative. A strike 
 in the extreme case might sever relations, but there 
 would be no violence. 
 
 Jesus clearly teaches that personality is above profit. 
 "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world 
 and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in 
 exchange for his soul?" (Mark 8: 36, 37). "A man's 
 life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which 
 he possesseth" (Luke 12: 15). A man is of more value 
 than the grass, the sparrow, the sheep. The trouble 
 
 52
 
 JESUS AND LABOR 
 
 with Dives was not that he made money but that he 
 unmade himself. The trouble with the money-changers 
 was not that they were changing and making money, 
 but that they substituted the house of merchandise 
 for the house of prayer. The trouble with Martha 
 about her household cares was that in making a good 
 dinner she spoiled herself. The trouble with the hus- 
 bandmen was that, in order to gain the vineyard as an 
 inheritance, they slew the servants and the son of the 
 owner, sacrificing their own fellows in the greed for 
 gain. We are not to labor for the meat that perisheth. 
 We are to make for ourselves purses that wax not old. 
 We are to lay up treasure in heaven. We are to use 
 the fruits of labor to make us friends who will receive 
 us in the eternal habitation. Labor is good; its ob- 
 jective is not money but men, not cash but character. 
 The question is not, Will it pay in profits? but, Will it 
 pay in persons? 
 
 Jesus felt the great urgency of his spiritual work. The Urgency 
 He must work the works of Him that sent him while ofWork 
 it was day before the night came when no man could 
 work. He had a baptism to be baptized with, and was 
 straitened until it was accomplished. He must preach 
 also in the next towns, for thereunto also was he sent. 
 He must need pass through Samaria, though the Jews 
 commonly avoided that route. He came forth to bear 
 witness unto the truth. He had meat to eat that the 
 disciples knew not of. His work was his life, it alone 
 mattered. Almost his last words from the cross ex- 
 pressed a sense of relief: "It is finished" (John 19: 
 30). His was a life to condemn idleness, slackness, 
 and purposelessness. He was a worker. He did good 
 even on the Sabbath day. He justified so doing ulti- 
 mately by referring to the nature of his Father: "My 
 
 S3
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Father worketh hitherto and I work." Thus work 
 he viewed as characteristic of the Divine Being. He 
 could not have placed any higher esteem upon work. 
 Labor and Rest Despite the sense of urgency in his work, Jesus was 
 not driven by it. He took time for refreshment of body 
 and spirit. Schiller has said the life of man swings 
 between labor and indulgence. The life of Jesus swings 
 between labor and retreat. Just before or just after 
 some trying experience, Jesus would retreat from the 
 world of work to a desert place or the mountain for 
 rest, meditation, and prayer. Thus did he at the out- 
 set of his ministry, following his baptism, for forty 
 days in the wilderness while rejecting false Messianic 
 methods. Thus did he each Sabbath day in the syna- 
 gogue. In the morning after a hard Sabbath day of 
 teaching and healing in Capernaum, "a great while 
 before day, he rose up and went out, and departed 
 into a desert place, and there prayed" (Mark i: 35). 
 Once seeing the multitudes following him, "he went 
 out into the mountain to pray; and he continued all 
 night in prayer to God" (Luke 6: 12), on the morning 
 following which he chose the twelve apostles. After 
 feeding the five thousand, when Jesus saw they were 
 about to come and take him by force to make him 
 king, he sent his disciples before him to the other side 
 of the lake, dispersed the multitude, and "he went up 
 into the mountain apart to pray: and when even was 
 come, he was there alone" (Matt. 14: 23). Before 
 asking his disciples the critical question: "But who 
 say ye that I am?" (Luke 9: 20) he was praying apart 
 on the way to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. When 
 he was transfigured, he was praying with Peter, James, 
 and John in a high mountain apart by themselves. 
 When the twelve apostles returned from their mission 
 
 54
 
 gathered about him, and told him what they had done 
 and taught, he said: "Come ye yourselves apart into a 
 desert place, and rest awhile" (Mark 6: 31). Only 
 by alternating expenditure with recovery could he go 
 from strength to strength. He labored not to exhaustion 
 of body or unsteadiness of soul. 
 
 Such are the main teachings of Jesus about labor. Summary 
 Knowing about work with hand and brain both from 
 experience and observation, he made of it parables of 
 the Kingdom; praised success in it; censured personal 
 weaknesses in it; said it should be suitably rewarded; 
 recognized inequalities in capacities, attainments, and 
 rewards ; recognized equality of reward for unequal at- 
 tainment as a matter of voluntary generosity; scorned 
 the divorce of business and religion; pointed out the 
 principle of continuity in labor; gave a method of set- 
 tling difficulties ; estimated personality above profit ; felt 
 the divine urgency of work; and took periods of rest 
 from and preparation for work in both body and soul. 
 
 There are many things about the modern labor ques- Jesus as Social 
 tion of which he did not speak, such as the conflict of Reformer 
 capital and labor, the economic interpretation of history, 
 minimum wage scales, the eight-hour day, compulsory 
 arbitration, collective bargaining, profit-sharing, co- 
 operation, class consciousness, publicity of accounts, 
 woman and child labor, sweat-shops, strikes, lock-outs, 
 government ownership of public utilities, and the like. 
 Many of these questions did not exist at all in his day. 
 So Jesus is no social revolutionist, no economic agita- 
 tor, no advocate of a panacea, like the single tax, but 
 just a brother among workers, treating workers as fel- 
 low human beings, seeing the divinity of labor, doing 
 as he would be done by, and practicing love to all men. 
 Jesus reforms society by paying no attention to social 
 
 55
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 reform. He reforms the individual, and reformed in- 
 dividuals take care of the social reforms. He does 
 not improve men from the outside by improving human 
 conditions, but he improves human conditions from the 
 inside by improving men. The wisdom of this method 
 of procedure commends itself to second thought. Right 
 social conditions depend on good men more than good 
 men depend on right social conditions. Jesus has no 
 class consciousness, consequently no class hatred. His 
 consciousness includes the individual and the universal, 
 and excludes no social group. When individuals are 
 Christians, social problems vanish of themselves. 
 
 This solution of labor problems seems so simple 
 
 and so ideal that, lest it may seem visionary, a few 
 
 quotations will be appended in order to enforce its 
 
 practicability. 
 
 Principle of In a privately printed pamphlet by John D. Rocke- 
 
 johnD.Rocke- fel i er j r on The p ers onal Relation in Industry," 
 feller, Jr. * j ' J> 
 
 he says: "If I were to sum up in a few words what I 
 
 have been endeavoring to say to you in regard to the 
 personal relation in industry, I should say, apply the 
 Golden Rule." 
 
 Within a few years the news of the day from London 
 contained this item: 
 
 A Working- "In these days of conflict between labor and capital, 
 
 man's Wfli a particularly striking story is told by A. Bruce-Joy, 
 the sculptor, whose colossal statue of the late W. H. 
 Hornby has just been unveiled at Blackburn. 
 
 Among the workmen in the Hornby factory at Black- 
 burn was one who became a foreman and saved from 
 his wages a large amount of money. This man, John 
 Margerison, and his father before him each worked 
 in the mill for fifty years. At his death about three 
 years ago it was found that he had left by will more 
 
 56
 
 JESUS AND LABOR 
 
 than 3,000 ($15,000) for erecting a statue in Black- 
 burn to the memory of his master and benefactor." 
 
 One of the rich men of America, William B. Dickson, A Miiiion- 
 of the Midvale Steel Company, recently printed his aire ' s Creed 
 "Twentieth Century Creed" as follows: 
 
 "First Every human being has an inherent, in- 
 alienable right to life, liberty, and a reasonable op- 
 portunity for the attainment of happiness. These are 
 human rights as distinguished from property rights, 
 and are limited only by similar rights of all other 
 persons. 
 
 Second These rights can be curtailed only as a re- 
 sult of the act of the individual himself. 
 
 Third Human life being dependent on close and 
 continuous contact with natural resources, the exercise 
 of human rights necessarily implies free access to these 
 resources. 
 
 Fourth There are no inherent, exclusive property 
 rights in the natural resources, such as land, water, 
 air, minerals, oil, gas, natural forests, etc., all of which 
 exist not as the result of man's labor or thought, but 
 as a gift direct from the hand of the Creator of the 
 Universe. 
 
 Fifth As a corollary to the foregoing, exclusive in- 
 dividual property rights are limited to the products of 
 man's labor or thought. 
 
 Sixth Where human rights and property rights con- 
 flict, the former must always prevail." 
 
 This creed caused one of the metropolitan dailies to 
 comment: "The perfected millionaire, hammered into 
 shape by sledges of denunciation, seems upon us." 
 
 The course of social evolution is bringing it about 
 that "the kingdom of the world is become the king- 
 dom of our Lord, and of his Christ" (Rev. u: 15). 
 
 57
 
 STUDY VII 
 ^ JESUS AND MARRIAGE 
 
 The family is the basal institution of society as at 
 present organized. There are insidious attacks being 
 made upon it by some social reconstructionists. We 
 need the aid of the moral and social insight of Jesus 
 on this question. 
 
 Jesus himself was reared in a home among his kins- 
 folk and acquaintance, of which he later became the 
 head. This home he moved from Nazareth to Caper- 
 naum near the beginning of his ministry, his mother 
 and "brethren" going, the sisters, to whom tradition 
 has assigned the names of Salome and Mary, apparently 
 remaining behind (Mark 6:3), perhaps being married. 
 In order more effectively to carry on his work for the 
 Kingdom, he himself then left the Capernaum home, 
 and had not where to lay his head, though the home 
 of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus was open to him in 
 Bethany. His brothers, James, Joses, Judas, and Simon, 
 did not accept his claims during his lifetime, challenged 
 him to show himself to the world at the feast, suggest- 
 ing that, though skeptical, they would be convinced by 
 a sign. His mother recognized his power, as shown 
 by her presumptuous suggestion that he use it at the 
 wedding and begin by this method to come into his own ; 
 he made the water wine, not, however, as a part of 
 the work of his "hour," the ruler of the feast not 
 knowing whence the wine came, but as a gracious act 
 of a guest relieving the embarrassment of his host. 
 Both Mary and his brothers thought him beside him- 
 
 58
 
 JESUS AND MARRIAGE 
 
 self at one time and came to take him. Mary, though 
 apparently wavering in her allegiance for a while 
 (Mark 3: 21, 31), stood at the cross and received his 
 provision for her, James beheld the risen Christ, and 
 both Mary and his brethren form part of the company 
 praying in the upper chamber after the Ascension. 
 So he knew from experience the fire he had kindled 
 on the earth, the sword he had sent, the variance be- 
 tween members of the same family he had caused, and 
 the necessity of "hating" family ties at times for the 
 sake of the Kingdom of God. 
 
 He himself never married, making himself a volun- views ot 
 tary, not physical, eunuch for the Kingdom's sake ; had M^nw 
 so far as we know only one married disciple ; would 
 not allow one follower first to bury his father, and 
 another first to say farewell to those of his house; 
 held that whosoever loved father or mother more than 
 himself was not worthy to be his disciple; said that no 
 man should be called father on the earth; subordinated 
 his own family ties to spiritual relationships; said he 
 had come to set those of whatsoever family relationship 
 at variance with each other ; that one must be ready to 
 leave behind all family ties, even those of the wife, 
 for his sake and the Gospel's; that having married 
 a wife was used as an excuse for not attending the 
 king's supper; and that it was expedient for those to 
 \vhom it was given not to marry. Yet he nowhere for- 
 bids marriage. 
 
 On the contrary, he attended a wedding with his Takes Marriage 
 disciples, having been invited, rendered a gracious serv- for Granted 
 ice to the bridegroom, likened himself to a bridegroom, 
 healed Peter's wife's mother, likened the Kingdom of 
 heaven to a wedding supper prepared by a king for 
 his son, and to wise and foolish virgins awaiting the 
 
 59
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 procession of the bridegroom, likened the coming of 
 the Son of Man to that of the bridegroom at midnight, 
 and said that in the days of the Son of Man as in those 
 of Noah, though great and sudden changes were at 
 hand, the common human occupations of eating, drink- 
 ing, marrying, and giving in marriage, would be going 
 on. So Jesus takes marriage for granted. But more, 
 he reforms marjiage. 
 
 Reforms The Jews of Jesus' day were sometimes polygamous, 
 
 Mamage Herod the Great having had ten wives; they divorced 
 
 their wives for trivial reasons, the JiahbjJHiliel allow- 
 ing divorce "if she cook her husband's food badly by 
 salting or roasting it too much," and Rabbi Akibah 
 "if he sees a woman fairer than she," though Rabbi 
 Shammai allowed it only for unchastity; and did not 
 in turn allow wives to divorce their husbands. It was 
 a mooted point in the interpretation of the law. The 
 Pharisees brought it to Jesus. He taught, reaffirming 
 Genesis, that God made male and female, that a man 
 should leave father and mother and cleave to his wife, 
 that the two, not several, should become one flesh, 
 that what God had joined together man should not 
 put asunder, that divorce is not divinely ordained but 
 permitted by Moses because of the hardness of man's 
 heart, that to put away one's wife (Matthew alone al- 
 lows adultery as a reason for so doing) and to marry 
 another is to commit adultery, that to put away one's 
 husband and marry another is to commit adultery, that 
 to marry a divorced woman is to commit adultery. 
 Jesus put the standard of faithfulness in marriage so 
 high that the disciples hastily and mistakenly con- 
 cluded: "If the case of the man is so with his wife, 
 it is not expedient to marry" (Matt. 19: 10), thus re- 
 flecting the prevailingly low standards of the time. Yet 
 
 60
 
 JESUS AND MARRIAGE 
 
 an institution thus divine in its origin is not a supreme 
 good in itself, nor yet eternal in its character: not a 
 supreme good in itself, for at times it must be left for 
 the sake of the Kingdom of God, a sacrifice rewarded 
 by manifold more in this time, and in the world to 
 come eternal life ; nor eternal in character, being physi- 
 cal, for in heaven there is neither marrying nor giving 
 in marriage, the angels in the presence of the Father 
 being spirits without death and birth. 
 
 The purity of the home Jesus safeguarded by stig- Safeguards 
 matizing mental adultery (Matt. 5: 28), in contrast P "** 
 with gazing on the heel or little finger of a woman 
 forbidden by the rabbis ; by teaching that only innocent 
 men should stone guilty women; by redeeming the 
 lives of sinful women; by considering the case, con- 
 trary to Jewish custom, of the woman putting away 
 her husband; by attacking a sign-seeking generation 
 as adulterous, not merely because of the absence of 
 spiritual religion but because of lax standards of 
 morality; and by enjoining severely radical means of 
 securing self-control (Matt. 5: 29, 30). 
 
 Undoubtedly he thought of the sphere of woman as NO Discrimina- 
 being in the home, grinding at the mill preparing the tin Against 
 meal for the daily bread, putting leaven into the meal, 
 bringing water from the village fountain, hunting for 
 a lost coin, and mending rents in old garments, though 
 among the company of ministering women was Joanna, 
 the wife of Chuza, the steward of Herod Antipas, who 
 also, with other women, went to the sepulchre to em- 
 balm the body of Jesus. Though the rabbis taught 
 that "he who talked with a woman was qualifying for 
 Gehenna," Jesus talked with women, made them his 
 friends, and rendered them service. There is nothing 
 in the teaching of Jesus sanctioning discrimination 
 
 61
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 The Family 
 a Type of 
 the Kingdom 
 
 A Question 
 
 against woman, polygamy, polyandry, universal celibacy, 
 free love, a double standard of morals, marriage as "an 
 association terminable at the will of either party"; 
 nothing sacrificing the family in the interest of the 
 ideal, as did Plato; or making the family obligatory 
 upon all. Those who should not marry are the physi- 
 cally unfit and the spiritually devoted who can receive 
 it. 
 
 Jesus taught the duty of children to honor father 
 and mother, exposed the hypocrisy of the Pharisees 
 in offering as gifts to the Temple money with which 
 they should have supported their parents, knew about 
 fathers selecting good gifts for their children, drew 
 illustrations from obedient and disobedient and prodigal 
 sons, called God the Father of man, regarded all men 
 as sons of God and so as brothers, transfigured family 
 life in the prayer taught the disciples, took the family 
 virtue of love rather than the state virtue of justice 
 for the first and second commandments, and himself 
 became the bridegroom of the Church in the thought of 
 Paul and John. Thus the religion of Jesus may be 
 translated "the family of God." 
 
 We have spoken of Jesus, not as a social reformer 
 but as an inspirer of social reform, as giving not a 
 social system but a social spirit, as providing not details 
 of practice but principles. Shall we regard his teach- 
 ing about divorce as an exception to, or an illustration 
 of, his usual procedure? It would appear to be an 
 exception, for once specific legislation, and as such 
 tremendously significant of the importance Jesus at- 
 tached to the monogamic union which is indissoluble, 
 save for one cause (if indeed for that), and then is 
 not to be followed by remarriage, except that that is not 
 forbidden to the innocent party. 
 
 62
 
 STUDY VIII 
 JESUS AND THE SABBATH 
 
 This subject is one phase of the succeeding topic, Why Treated 
 treated separately here because of its largeness and 
 importance. 
 
 Our purpose does not require us to consider the Omitted Phases 
 origin of the Jewish Sabbath, the cause of its develop- of * Q uestion 
 ment, its festival character in Jewish religion, its strict 
 legalistic observance in the time of Jesus, the minutiae 
 with which its observance was celebrated, or the cur- 
 rent notion of the religious leaders that acceptance 
 with God depended on observing the requirements 
 of the law and also the tradition of the elders which 
 had grown up about the law. Some of these things 
 will briefly appear in the course of the discussion. 
 Jesus was born in an age that trusted the formal 
 observance of ritual for salvation, or acceptance with 
 God. The two main occasions of ritual were the Sab- 
 bath and the sacrificial system. 
 
 Under these circumstances the question of Sabbath Why important 
 observance must needs arise in the life and teachings 
 of Jesus. The question is important also for moderns, 
 for it is one phase of the abiding contrast in religion 
 between the outer and the inner. 
 
 To begin with, the life of Jesus was naturally asso- His Sabbath 
 ciated in a very intimate manner with the Sabbath. 
 He formed as a youth the habit of going to the syna- 
 gogue for instruction and worship, which continued 
 during his public ministry. The synagogue had a 
 keeper of the sacred roll, or book, of the Old Testa- 
 
 63
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Two Questions 
 
 Preaching 
 in Nazareth 
 
 ment. Any male member of the congregation might 
 take it, read, and comment. His fellow-citizens in 
 Nazareth were not surprised that he should stand up 
 to read perhaps he had done so many times before; 
 they were surprised only at what he said this time. 
 Jesus observed the Sabbath according to the law of 
 Moses throughout his public work, as he understood 
 the law, not according to traditions that had grown up 
 about it. He both healed and taught on the Sabbath. 
 He even recognized the tradition that one was per- 
 mitted to travel only a short distance, about a mile, 
 on the Sabbath, in his injunction to his disciples that 
 in view of the severity of the end they should pray that 
 their flight be not in winter, nor on a Sabbath (Matt. 
 24: 20). The approach of the Sabbath, which in this 
 case was also the Passover, hurried the preparations 
 for his crucifixion and his burial, which must be done 
 before sunset on Friday when the Sabbath began. He 
 lay in the tomb on the Sabbath, but his appearances 
 to his disciples were thereafter only on the first day 
 of the week. Such in brief indicates how his life was 
 outwardly related to the Sabbath. 
 
 What use did Jesus make of the Sabbath? And 
 how did this use in some instances scandalize the 
 Jews ? These two questions can be considered together, 
 Among the things Jesus did on the Sabbath, the follow- 
 ing are recorded as of note. 
 
 He preached in the synagogue in Nazareth, certainly 
 once, perhaps twice. This was on the Sabbath day, the 
 natural time for him to receive a hearing. He was 
 rejected, not because of any violation of the Sabbath, 
 but because of the content of his message. His fel- 
 low-citizens thought they knew him too well to justify 
 them in acknowledging his claims. 
 
 64
 
 JESUS AND THE SABBATH 
 
 The first conflict between Jesus and the Jews regard- The Bethesda 
 ing Sabbath observance was occasioned by his curing Cr >PP le Cured 
 the cripple at Bethesda. The man had been an invalid 
 for thirty-eight years. Jesus saw him lying near the 
 pool, knew he had been in that condition a long time, 
 had compassion on him, and asked him: "Do you wish 
 to have health and strength?" The sufferer replied 
 respectfully to the sympathetic stranger that he had 
 no one to put him into the pool when the water was 
 moved, but while he was coming some one else would 
 step down before him. Jesus said, "Rise, take up your 
 mat, and walk." The man did as he was told and was 
 restored. It was the Sabbath. 
 
 The Jews objected to the man's carrying his mat objection of 
 on the Sabbath day. If he were in danger of death, he toe jews 
 could be carried on his mat on the Sabbath day, but as 
 a cured man to carry his mat was to be carrying a 
 burden, so doing work, and so violating the Sabbath. 
 A man must empty even his pockets before the Sabbath, 
 lest he carry a burden. The man's defense was that he 
 who cured him told him to do so, but he could not tell 
 them who it was, and Jesus had passed out unnoticed, 
 the place being crowded. Later Jesus made himself 
 known in the Temple to the man, who reported now 
 to the Jews that it was Jesus who had restored him 
 to health. Then the Jews began to persecute Jesus 
 because, first, he had bidden a man carry a burden on 
 the Sabbath day and, second, had healed a man not in 
 imminent danger of death. 
 
 The significant reply of Jesus to their accusation was : Rebuttal 
 "My Father works unceasingly and so do I." This of J esras 
 reply meant the Jews were mistaken in supposing God 
 rested the seventh day after the six days of creation, 
 that his nature was unceasing activity, that similar 
 
 65
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 activity on the part of Jesus was unobjectionable. His 
 reply made the Jews all the more eager to put him to 
 death because he both broke the Sabbath and spoke 
 of God as his own Father. 
 
 Casting Out Once in Capernaum on the Sabbath day he entered 
 
 an Unclean j n t o t h e synagogue and taught. Unlike the scribes, 
 quoting opinions, he taught with authority, that is, 
 with independent interpretation and individual pro- 
 nouncement of truth. There was a man in the syna- 
 gogue who had a spirit of an unclean devil, that is, 
 vile speech proceeded out of his mouth, and Jesus 
 healed him. No objection was made, possibly none 
 of the ritualistic Jews were present, but amazement 
 came upon all, and there went forth a rumor concern- 
 ing him into all Galilee. 
 
 Healing Peter's That same Sabbath, on leaving the synagogue, he 
 Mother-in-Law went to the house of Simon Peter and Andrew, with 
 James and John. The mother of Peter's wife was sick 
 with a high fever. They besought him for her and he 
 healed her. Then in turn she ministered unto them. 
 That Sabbath of two cures was over at sunset, after 
 which many others, perhaps detained by religious 
 scruples hitherto, appeared at the door and were healed. 
 Plucking Ears Once in autumn Jesus was going through the grain 
 of Grain fields on a Sabbath day. His disciples were hungry, and 
 
 doubtless having learned from preceding experiences 
 that Jesus was no legalistic observer of the Sabbath, 
 began to pluck the ears of grain, rub them in their 
 hands, and to eat. There would have been nothing 
 improper in so doing on a week day. The law said : 
 "When thou comest into thy neighbor's standing grain, 
 then thou mayest pluck the ears with thy hand; but 
 thou shall not move a sickle unto thy neighbor's stand- 
 ing grain" (Deut. 23: 25). But on a Sabbath day the 
 
 66
 
 JESUS AND THE SABBATH 
 
 Pharisees held that plucking was reaping and rubbing 
 was threshing, things not lawful on the Sabbath. They 
 complainingly asked Jesus why his disciples did so. 
 
 The answer of Jesus on this occasion was full and justified 
 explicit, as though he fully realized the gravamen of by J esus 
 the offense. First, physical need justified the conduct 
 of the disciples, as illustrated by the example of David 
 who, being hungry, ate the shew-bread in the house of 
 God, and gave to those with him, though only the 
 priests could legally partake of it. Physical need justi- 
 fied the violation of a ritualistic custom otherwise un- 
 lawful. Second, he asked, "Have ye not read in the law 
 how that on the Sabbath day the priests in the temple 
 profane the Sabbath, and are guiltless 7^ (Matt. 12: 
 5). That is, the law required the temple service which 
 involved carrying burdens on the Sabbath, though that 
 the law forbade. But the greatness of the Temple and 
 the importance of its service was held to justify break- 
 ing the law. "But I say unto you that one greater than 
 the temple is here" (Matt. 12: 6). That is, the service 
 of persons, who are of supreme value, leaves guiltless 
 those who break the Sabbath regulation. Third, he 
 continues, "If ye had known what this meaneth, I 
 desire mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have con- 
 demned the guiltless" (Matt. 12: 7). That is, in rais- 
 ing their objection, they were putting the letter of 
 sacrifice, prescription, and regulation above the spirit 
 of mercy, which relieves need even on the Sabbath. 
 Fourth, he sums up the three answers given in an 
 aphorism: "The sabbath was made for man, and not 
 man for the sabbath: so that the Son of Man is lord 
 even of the sabbath" (Mark 2: 27, 28). That is, even 
 so valuable an institution as the Sabbath existed not 
 for itself nor to be served, but to serve man, so that 
 
 67
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Restoring a 
 Withered Hand 
 
 Defense of 
 Jesus 
 
 the Son of man, sensing universal human need, could 
 use the Sabbath for his own purposes. It was a won- 
 derful statement of the case. Unfortunately we do not 
 know how the Pharisees received it. Probably they 
 were puzzled, though not convinced. Two opposing 
 views of religion were in conflict legalism and service. 
 
 On another Sabbath he entered again into one of 
 their synagogues and taught. There was a man pres- 
 ent with a withered right hand. The man was not in 
 mortal peril, otherwise healing him would have been 
 no offense. No doubt, too, the man could have waited 
 till after sunset to be healed, when the Sabbath would 
 be over, but it was convenient to heal him then and 
 there. The scribes and the Pharisees watched Jesus 
 to see whether he would heal him. They were seeking 
 for some accusation to lodge against him. Jesus knew 
 their thoughts, and he knew what he would do without 
 fear or compromise. He said to the man: "Rise up, 
 and stand forth in the midst." Then came their ques- 
 tion : "Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day ?" 
 
 The reply of Jesus in this case was : "I ask you, is it 
 lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do harm? to 
 save a life or to destroy it? What man shall there 
 be of you, that shall have one sheep, and if this fall 
 into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on 
 it, and lift it out? How much then is a man of more 
 value than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do good 
 on the sabbath day." The argument here is by analogy 
 from the precedent of a case which they allowed, that 
 is, lifting a sheep from a pit on the Sabbath. How 
 much more should a man be lifted out of his infirmity? 
 
 In this case we know the effect of his argument : they 
 held their peace. There was no answer in reason. 
 (Luke 6: 9; Matt. 12: n, 12.) 
 68
 
 JESUS AND THE SABBATH 
 
 Then Jesus "looked round about on them all with 
 anger, being grieved at the hardening of their heart" 
 (Mark 3:5). He healed the man. 
 
 This so infuriated the Pharisees that they took coun- 
 sel together what they might do to him, and went out 
 and joined with their own enemies, the Herodians, who 
 as a political party were ready to oppose any Messiah 
 who would dethrone the Herods, that religion and 
 politics combined might destroy him. 
 
 Jesus was cognizant of this plot, and its occasion. Further 
 Later, at the feast of tabernacles, Jesus defended him- 
 self in the Temple against the charge of Sabbath-break- 
 ing as follows : "I did one work, and ye all marvel 
 because thereof. Moses hath given you circumcision 
 (not that it is of Moses but of the fathers) ; and on 
 the sabbath ye circumcise a man. If a man receiveth 
 circumcision on the sabbath, that the law of Moses may 
 not be broken, are ye wroth with me, because I made 
 a man every whit whole on the sabbath?" (John 7:21- 
 23). The argument here is similar to that of the temple 
 service above, vis. if it is guiltless to violate the Sabbath 
 in performing circumcision that the law may be kept, 
 how much more is it guiltless to violate the Sabbath 
 in a work of mercy that a man may be made whole? 
 The contrast is between legalism and personality. 
 Helping a man is no more violation of the Sabbath than 
 keeping a law. 
 
 On another Sabbath Jesus spat on the ground, made Healing a Man 
 clay of the spittle, anointed the eyes of a man born blind, Bom BUnd 
 and sent him to wash in the pool of Siloam. Here 
 was a case similar to that of the invalid on his mat 
 there was healing of a person not sick unto death and 
 work involved in making and applying the clay. The 
 man came seeing. His interested neighbors recognized 
 
 69
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Healing a 
 Bowed Woman 
 
 The Objection 
 
 Reply of Jesus 
 
 this as a case for Pharisaic consideration. They 
 brought him to the Pharisees, not knowing where Jesus 
 was. To them the man repeated his story. Some of 
 them said: "This man is not from God, because he 
 keepeth not the Sabbath." Others, however, said: 
 "How can a man that is a sinner do such signs?" On 
 this occasion they were unable to come at Jesus, but 
 they excommunicated the man for defending him. To 
 them making the blind see could not counteravail for 
 making clay of spittle. Ritualistic restraint outweighed 
 human service in their religion. 
 
 On another Sabbath he was teaching in one of the 
 synagogues. There was a woman present who for 
 eighteen years had been bowed together without being 
 able to lift herself up. Jesus healed her by laying his 
 hands upon her. This was a case unattended by any 
 offending circumstance like carrying a mat or making 
 clay of spittle, but was simply healing a person not 
 near death. 
 
 The ruler of the synagogue, steeped in the legalism 
 of the Pharisees, was indignant because Jesus had 
 healed on the Sabbath, and addressed the multitude: 
 "There are six days in which man ought to work: in 
 them therefore come and be healed and not on the day 
 of the sabbath" (Luke 13: 14). His language recalled 
 the six days of creation and suggested that coming 
 and being healed was work. 
 
 His address aroused the spirit of Jesus to reply : "Ye 
 hypocrites, doth not each one of you on the sabbath 
 loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him 
 away to watering? And ought not this woman, being 
 a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound, lo, 
 these eighteen years, to have been loosed from this 
 bond on the day of the sabbath?" (Luke 13: 15, 16). 
 
 70
 
 JESUS AND THE SABBATH 
 
 The law allowed them to loose ox or ass for watering, 
 but not to loose a woman for healing. Such religion 
 was deceptive, hypocritical. This clever thrust of Jesus 
 was not without effect, for his adversaries were shamed 
 and the multitudes rejoiced. 
 
 A sixth case of healing was that of the man with the Healing a 
 dropsy. Five of these cases are reported by the physi- Man With 
 
 T i J 4. ^ u u- i T Iu- the Dropsy 
 
 cian Luke, and two of them by him only. In this 
 instance Jesus was not in the synagogue but in the 
 house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees, whither 
 he had gone to eat bread. He was being watched, as 
 usual. "And behold, there was a certain man before 
 him that had the dropsy," who had probably made free 
 to come in. This time Jesus took the initiative and 
 asked the lawyers and Pharisees : "Is it lawful to heal 
 on the sabbath, or not?" (Luke 14: 3). Perhaps 
 through caution born of past experience, they held 
 their peace. Jesus healed the man and let him go. 
 Then he defended himself by an argument similar to 
 that of the one sheep in the pit, as follows : "Which of 
 you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a well, and 
 will not straightway draw him up on a sabbath day?" 
 (Luke 14: 5). If an ass is released, why not a man? 
 They could not answer him. In fact, in all the cases 
 of supposed breaking of the Sabbath, no answer is 
 given to his position. 
 
 So far we have noted that among the deeds done by i^pes of 
 Jesus, or his company, on the Sabbath day were these : S* 01 * 111 
 attending the synagogue service, reading the Old Testa- 
 ment roll, commenting on it, teaching, plucking ears 
 of grain as they walked through the fields, and healing 
 the sick and afflicted. There is still another type of 
 deed of Jesus on the Sabbath to be noted, namely, par- 
 taking of the festive meal.
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 A Sabbath 
 Meal 
 
 The Supper 
 in Bethany 
 
 Sabbath 
 Hospitality 
 No Offense 
 
 The incident noted above of healing the man with the 
 dropsy occurred on the Sabbath in the house of one 
 of the rulers of the Pharisees. Jesus was being watched 
 at the time, and he showed himself a most unusual 
 guest. Not only did he work a deed of healing, but 
 he spoke a parable against those who were choosing 
 out the chief seats for themselves at the meal, gave 
 instructions to his host as to inviting to his feast those 
 who could not recompense him, and spoke also the 
 parable of the slighted invitation to supper. These 
 topics were all appropriate to the occasion and spon- 
 taneously given by Jesus. We do not know the effect. 
 
 Another illustration of the social festive meal on 
 the Sabbath was that of the supper in the Bethany home. 
 It was the Sabbath before the triumphal entry into 
 Jerusalem on the following day. Lazarus, who had 
 been raised from the dead, reclined at meat with them, 
 Martha served, and Mary anointed his feet with a 
 pound of "very precious" nard, and wiped them with 
 her hair, filling the house with the odor of the oint- 
 ment. Judas, the thieving treasurer, complained that 
 the ointment was not rather sold and given to the poor. 
 Jesus defended the generous expression of gratitude 
 and hospitality in view of his burying, occurring the 
 following Friday, which would soon remove him from 
 them, while the poor always remained. Hearing of 
 his presence in the Village, the common people of the 
 Jews came to see both him and Lazarus, on whose ac- 
 count many of the Jews believed on Jesus. On this 
 account the chief priests included Lazarus also in the 
 counsel of death. 
 
 In accepting hospitality on the Sabbath Jesus did 
 not violate any law or tradition of the elders. And 
 though the accusation of Sabbath-breaking was one of 
 
 72
 
 JESUS AND THE SABBATH 
 
 the chief causes of conflict between Jesus and the Jews, 
 it was not a capital offense, and so did not appear in 
 the charges against him at the trial. His use of the 
 Sabbath caused other charges to be preferred against 
 him, but was not itself a charge. 
 
 From this review of the deeds of Jesus on the Sab- Points of 
 bath we may derive his point of view regarding its A* 1 "** 61 * 
 
 and Dis- 
 
 observance, and the points wherein he agreed and dis- agreement 
 agreed with the Jewish observance of the day. With his 
 enemies he accepted the Sabbath as a religious insti- 
 tution, and criticised, not its existence, but the mode of 
 its observance. The things he did on the Sabbath which 
 excited no criticism were attending the synagogue, 
 reading, preaching, teaching, and being entertained in 
 homes. It is very probable that Jesus and his com- 
 pany did not violate "the Sabbath day's journey" tradi- 
 tion, that one should not travel on a Sabbath more than 
 two thousand cubits about a mile (cf. Matt 24: 20). 
 On the other hand, the things he did which commanded 
 criticism were: allowing the disciples to pluck and rub 
 ears of grain, healing, commanding a man to carry his 
 mat whereon he had been lying ill, and making clay of 
 spittle. 
 
 From his defense in these latter cases we can find no Conclusions 
 encouragement to Sabbatarianism, but the use of the 
 Sabbath to do good to the bodies and spirits of men 
 according to their need, and the recognition of religion 
 not as legalism, but as divine and human service. Jesus 
 himself kept the law in spirit, but rejected the tradi- 
 tions of the elders as heavy burdens grievous to be 
 borne. It is thoroughly in keeping with the practice 
 and teaching of Jesus that he should actually have 
 spoken the words attributed to him by one of the manu- 
 scripts, as follows: "On the same day [as the incident 
 
 73
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 of the grain fields] seeing one working on the Sabbath, 
 he said unto him, 'O man, if indeed thou knowest what 
 thou doest, thou art blessed; but if thou knowest not, 
 thou art accursed, and a transgressor of the law.' " 
 Jesus was no antinomian, nor yet a legalist, but a serv- 
 ant of the spirit. 
 
 The Lord's It remains only to note that it is in full keeping with 
 
 D *y the free spirit with which Jesus observed the Sabbath, 
 
 with his rejection of the idea that God rested on the 
 seventh day or ever rests, with his teaching that the 
 Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath, with his resurrec- 
 tion on the first day of the week, with his five ap- 
 pearances to his disciples only on the first day of the 
 week, that the observance of the seventh day should 
 have early passed to the first day of the week, and 
 that this day even in the apostolic age should have 
 come to be known as "the Lord's day" (Rev. 1 : 10). 
 
 This study will help us in the following one on the 
 ittitude of Jesus toward the religious authorities. 
 
 74
 
 J 
 
 STUDY IX 
 JESUS AND THE RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES 
 
 This is the appropriate title, suggested by the cir- The Question 
 cumstances of the life of Jesus, under which to discuss 
 the theme and have in mind the relation of Jesus to the 
 church of his day. It will throw light on the question 
 of the relation of followers of Jesus to the church of 
 our day. The church, state, business, home, and school 
 are our greatest social institutions. The public life of 
 Jesus was spent in constant service of "publicans and 
 sinners" under constant cross-fire from "the righteous," 
 in ministering physically and spiritually to the multi- 
 tudes while combating intellectually the scribes and 
 Pharisees. 
 
 The outward life of Jesus was spent in continual The Law 
 contact with the influence of the synagogue and the and ffis Life 
 leaders of the Jewish religion. The chief priests and 
 scribes were able to tell Herod the Great that the 
 Christ should be born in Bethlehem. According to the The Law and 
 law of Moses, eight days after his birth he was cir- His Infanc y 
 cumcised; and again after forty days he was presented 
 in the Temple. At the Presentation the righteous and 
 devout Simeon blessed him and told Mary he was set 
 for the falling and rising up of many in Israel, and 
 for a sign which is spoken against. Likewise, the aged 
 prophetess Anna spoke of him to all them that were 
 looking for the redemption of Israel. "And when they 
 had accomplished all things that were according to the 
 law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their 
 own city Nazareth" (Luke 2: 39). 
 
 75
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 The Law and 
 His Boyhood 
 and Youth 
 
 Public 
 Contact 
 with the 
 Religious 
 Authorities 
 
 His parents, being devout persons and obedient to 
 the law, were accustomed to go every year to the feast 
 of the Passover. Tesus_was__brought up to anticipate 
 his own celebration of this feast when he should be 
 twelve. When the time came, he was prepared for 
 it. The experience was an absorbing one to him. In 
 his Father's house he saw the doctors of the law, heard 
 them, asked them questions, and astonished them by 
 his own understanding and answers. He derived from 
 this experience something to think about henceforth. 
 Thereafter, doubtless every year he observed the family 
 habit of attending this feast. Without doubt also as a 
 boy he had attended the village school in the syna- 
 gogue where he learned to read the law and to write. 
 Also he formed the habit of attending the synagogue 
 service of instruction and prayer on the Sabbath. 
 
 During his short public ministry he was constantly 
 in even closer contact with the established religious 
 life and leaders of the time. He ate twice, or per- 
 haps three times, in the homes of Pharisees. He healed 
 the daughter of Jairus, one of the rulers of the syna- 
 gogue. Though regarding himself as free from the 
 obligation, he nevertheless paid the half-shekel temple 
 tax (Matt. 17: 24-27). He commanded the ten lepers 
 to go and show themselves to the priests, as the law 
 required cleansed lepers to do. He revealed to the 
 rich young ruler his one weakness. He taught Nico- 
 demus, a teacher in Israel, a ruler of the Jews, con- 
 cerning the new birth necessary for the Pharisaic class, 
 as for all. 
 
 Once when the Pharisees heard that the disciples of 
 Jesus were baptizing more than John, he left Judaea, 
 the scene of possible trouble, for Galilee. He taught 
 in the synagogues in Galilee, especially in Nazareth 
 
 76
 
 JESUS AND RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES 
 
 and Capernaum, and preached that the Kingdom was 
 at hand. This did he also in the synagogues through- 
 out Palestine. He answered the question of the Phari- 
 sees concerning the time when the Kingdom of God 
 should come. 
 
 V I* is evident that the outward life of Jesus was spent Jesus Re- 
 in intimate contact with the religious authorities and ^P 6046 * *** 
 
 - : , -, - r ; -f Law and its 
 
 .their influence. It is also already apparent that Jesus offices, not 
 kept the requirements of the Jewish law, and sought its Officials 
 to avoid giving offense to the ecclesiastical powers. As 
 we proceed, we shall see that his work brought him 
 inevitably under their criticism, against which Jesus 
 defended himself, then moved to the attack, which he 
 correctly anticipated would cost him his life. 
 
 Passing from contacts to conflicts, one of the main Sources of 
 occasions of their hostile criticism was his works of Conflict 
 mercy on the Sabbath day, previously considered. The Sabbath 
 
 Another was the demand for a sign. The religious The Demand 
 leaders wanted Jesus to work some supernatural and for a Si s n 
 convincing wonder in their presence as proof of his 
 Messiahship, or even religious leadership, such as 
 casting himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple 
 while being borne up by angels a temptation he once 
 for all rejected, at least until his second coming. He 
 was working signs all the time in wonderful healings 
 through compassion, with no intent of thereby being 
 accepted as Messiah, but the Jews wanted something 
 openly and obviously done to convince even skeptics. 
 Thus, after cleansing the Temple, he was asked by the 
 Jews: "What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that 
 thou doest these things?" (John 2: 18). Likewise in 
 the borders of Magadan the Pharisees and Sadducees 
 came and, tempting him, asked him "to show them a 
 sign from heaven" (Matt. 16: i). It was a repetition 
 
 77
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 His Reply 
 
 (i) 
 
 The Resur- 
 rection 
 
 (a) 
 Jonah 
 
 (3) 
 
 "An Evil and 
 
 Adulterous 
 
 Generation" 
 
 (4) 
 
 Weather Signs 
 
 Meaning of 
 His Reply 
 
 of the temptation in the wilderness. Likewise, after 
 his healing the dumb demoniac, the scribes and Phari- 
 sees in the presence of the multitude said : "Master, we 
 would see a sign from thee" (Matt. 12: 38). 
 
 Jesus never acceded to the demand for a sign. In- 
 stead he referred them to his resurrection, which they 
 did not understand, though they and the disciples re- 
 membered the saying later, when they asked for the 
 guard for the sepulchre and the disciples were con- 
 fronted with the empty tomb. "Destroy this temple 
 and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2: 19), 
 he said. 
 
 He also referred them to the sign of Jonah the 
 prophet, in connection with his own resurrection. 
 Twice he gave them this reference. 
 
 Twice also he condemned the search for a sign as 
 characteristic of "an evil and adulterous generation." 
 
 Once, with withering sarcasm, he rebuked them for 
 not being able to discern the signs of the times when 
 their weather-lore allowed them to discern the face 
 of the heaven. 
 
 What is the inner unity in these four answers to the 
 demand for a sign? His resurrection was future; 
 Jonah was past; the evil and adulterous generation, 
 and the reading of weather-signs were present. The 
 inner unity is that a generation doing wickedness and 
 guilty of adulterous irreligion had only material but 
 no spiritual insight. To accede to a demand for a 
 materialistic wonder would likewise be ineffective. "If 
 they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither would 
 they believe, though one rose from the dead," Abraham 
 says to Dives (Luke 16: 31). However, those who 
 look for signs may some day remember the analogy 
 between Jonah in the fish and Jesus in the tomb. These 
 
 78
 
 JESUS AND RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES 
 
 occurrences were not given as signs, but may be taken 
 as signs. In short, the order of existence itself is divine 
 and no possible interference with it is effective with 
 those devoid of spiritual insight. Jesus said, in effect, 
 to the sign-seeking Jews: if you do not see God in 
 what I am doing, still less would you see Him in what 
 you demand that I do. It was the asseveration of inner 
 spiritual insight against outer material eyesight. 
 
 Another cause of conflict between Jesus and the His For- 
 religious authorities was his forgiveness of sins. The gi*" 1 * 8 "" 
 occasion was when four friends of a man sick with 
 palsy had let him down before Jesus through the tiles 
 from the roof. Jesus saw their faith and doubtless The sick of 
 also understood that the disease of the man was largely the Palsy 
 nervous, due to sins committed. Going to the root of 
 the matter, Jesus said unto the sick of the palsy : 
 "Man, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee." 
 This caused certain of the scribes and Pharisees sitting 
 there to reason within themselves, saying, "Why doth 
 this man thus speak? He blasphemeth. Who can for- 
 give sins but one, even God?" (Mark 2:7). 
 
 On another occasion Jesus was anointed by a sin- Anointing by 
 ful woman in the house of Simon the Pharisee as he aSmner 
 sat at meat. She brought a flask of ointment, perhaps 
 the same she had used in enticing lovers in the city, 
 stood behind Jesus weeping as he reclined at table, 
 wet his feet with her tears, wiped them with the 
 hair of her head, kissed his feet over and over again, 
 and anointed them with the ointment. It was a gracious 
 and humble expression of her penitent love, and Jesus 
 appreciated it. But it scandalized Simon, his host, 
 that a man considered a prophet should allow himself 
 to be even touched by a sinful woman. By the parable 
 of the two debtors and by contrasting what the woman 
 
 79
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 His Reply 
 
 His Disciples to 
 Forgive Sins 
 
 had done with what Simon had failed to do for his 
 guest, Jesus justified her. "Wherefore I say unto thee, 
 her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved 
 much." And to the woman he said, "Thy sins are 
 forgiven" (Luke 7: 47, 48). Those who reclined at 
 meat with him began to say within themselves, "Who 
 is this that even forgiveth sins?" 
 
 We have the reply of Jesus to the complaint only 
 in the case of the man sick of the palsy, an incident 
 reported by all the synoptic writers. He said: "Why 
 reason ye these things in your hearts? Wherefore 
 think ye evil? Whether is it easier to say to the sick 
 of the palsy, Thy sins are forgiven thee, or to say, 
 Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? But that ye 
 may know that the Son of Man hath authority on earth 
 to forgive sins (he saith to the sick of the palsy), I 
 say unto thee, Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto 
 thy house" (Mark 2: 8-n). The points in the reply 
 are, first, it is evil to think he could not forgive sin; 
 second, it was as easy to cure the soul as to cure the 
 body, though, third, the cure of the body may give 
 convincing proof of his authority to cure the soul. 
 
 It should be recalled in this connection that Jesus 
 shared the power of forgiving sins on earth with Peter 
 and the other disciples. At the time of the great con- 
 fession, when Peter had answered: "Thou art the 
 Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16: 16), 
 Jesus said among other things: "I will give unto thee 
 the keys of the kingdom of heaven : and whatsoever 
 thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven : and 
 whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed 
 in heaven" (Matt. 16: 18, 19). Again, in the con- 
 versation with the disciples on true greatness and for- 
 giveness, Jesus used the same language in speaking to 
 
 80
 
 JESUS AND RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES 
 
 all of them : "Verily I say unto you, What things soever 
 ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and 
 what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be 
 loosed in heaven" (Matt. 18: 18). Still again, the 
 risen Christ addressed his disciples: "Peace be unto 
 you: as the Father hath sent me, even so send I you" 
 (John 20: 21) ; and then, breathing on them, he con- 
 tinued: "Receive ye the Holy Spirit: whose soever 
 sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them; whose 
 soever sins ye retain, they are retained" (John 20: 22, 
 23). He also taught that God would not forgive one 
 who did not forgive, and that God would forgive one 
 who forgave. The view of Jesus was that one sent 
 of God expressed or withheld God's forgiveness. So 
 he pronounced forgiveness, commissioned Peter and 
 the other disciples to do the same, and also denned the 
 sin which could not be forgiven, of which more pres- 
 ently. 
 
 Another criticism they passed on him was calling "My Father" 
 God his own Father. In defending himself against the 
 charge of violating the Sabbath in healing the invalid 
 at the pool of Bethesda, Jesus had said: "My Father AtBethesda 
 worketh even until now and I work" (John 5: 17). 
 The Jews sought then all the more to kill him, be- 
 cause in addition to breaking the Sabbath he "also 
 called God his own Father, making himself equal with 
 God" (John 5: 18). The offense here was not in 
 calling God "Father" but "My Father." 
 
 Again, at the feast of the dedication, Jesus asserted At the Feast of 
 his sonship and unity with the Father. "I and the the Dedication 
 Father are one" (John 10: 30). When the Jews took 
 up stones to stone him, Jesus answered them: "Many 
 good works have I showed you from the Father; for 
 which of those works do ye stone me?" The Jews 
 
 81
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 His Reply 
 
 No Blasphemy 
 in Sonship 
 
 In League with 
 Beelzebub 
 
 answered: "For a good work we stone thee not, but 
 for blasphemy; and because that thou being a man, 
 makest thyself God" (John 10: 32, 33). They had 
 charged him with blasphemy also when he spoke the 
 word of forgiveness to the man sick of the palsy. 
 
 Jesus justified himself as the Son of the Father, 
 first, by being able to do nothing of himself, and doing 
 only as he first saw the Father doing, as quickening 
 the dead, judging, receiving honor, and having life in 
 himself; second, by not bearing witness of himself, but 
 having the witness of John the Baptist, his own works, 
 the witness of the Father Himself (at the baptism), 
 and of the Scriptures. Jesus explained their rejec- 
 tion of him through their not having the love of God 
 in themselves and receiving glory one of another. Both 
 this charge and the answer of Jesus to it are contained 
 only in John's gospel, the philosophical interpretation 
 of the life of Jesus. 
 
 Against the charge of blasphemy in calling himself 
 the Son of God, Jesus replied by quoting the Scrip- 
 tures they accepted: "Ye are gods" (Psalm 82: 6). 
 If they to whom the word of God came were truly called 
 "gods," could not he, sanctified and sent into the world 
 by the Father, without blasphemy call himself "Son 
 of God"? A careful study of the defense of Jesus 
 against the charge of blasphemy in calling God his 
 own Father indicates to me that Jesus meant by his 
 Sonship that he worked in unison with the will of God, 
 that he meant something functional and practical and 
 nothing substantial or metaphysical. To the Greek 
 philosophers doing was a form of thinking; to Jesus 
 thinking was a form of doing. 
 
 The false charge against Jesus that wounded his 
 sensitive nature most deeply and rankled most in his 
 
 82
 
 JESUS AND RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES 
 
 memory was the charge that he was in league with the 
 
 evil one. In his third temptation he had especially 
 
 rejected such a league, though it might win him the 
 
 world. The charge was first made just after the very 
 
 unusual cure of one possessed with a blind and dumb A Blind and 
 
 demon. The multitudes marveled and were asking the Dujnb Demon 
 
 Messianic question: Can this be the Son of David? 
 
 But some of the scribes and Pharisees who had come 
 
 from Jerusalem, hearing the question, said : "This man 
 
 doth not cast out demons but by Beelzebub, the prince 
 
 of the demons" (Matt. 12: 24). 
 
 Again, on another occasion he healed a dumb man A Dumb 
 possessed of a devil. The multitudes marveled and Demon 
 said, "It was never so seen in Israel." But the Phari- 
 sees said : "By the prince of devils casteth he out devils" 
 (Matt. 9: 34). 
 
 Once in Jerusalem, at the feast of the dedication, At the Feast of 
 when he said, "My teaching is not mine, but his that *"* Dedication 
 sent me. . . . Why seek ye to kill me?" the mul- 
 titude caught up the cry of their religious leaders and 
 said, "Thou hast a demon: who seeketh to kill thee?" 
 (John 7: 20). This charge, however, hardly meant 
 more than that they thought he was beside himself, as 
 indeed even his friends and relatives once thought. 
 At the same feast the charge was twice repeated by 
 the Jews, as follows: "Say we not well that thou art 
 a Samaritan and hast a devil?" (John 8: 48), and 
 again, "Now we know thou hast a devil. Abraham 
 is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man 
 keep my word, he shall never taste of death" (John 
 8: 52). 
 
 Once again, after his discourse on himself as the good "He hath 
 shepherd, many of the Jews said: "He hath a devil aDemon " 
 and is mad; why hear ye him?" though others said: 
 
 83
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 His Reply 
 
 Insanity 
 
 Denied 
 
 Refutation 
 of Charge of 
 League with 
 Beelzebub 
 
 "These are not the sayings of him that hath a devil. 
 Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?" (John 10: 
 20, 21 ). 
 
 To the charge repeatedly made by the Jews and once 
 made by the multitude that he had a demon of insanity, 
 Jesus uttered a categorical denial : "I have not a demon ; 
 but I honor my Father, and ye dishonor me" (John 
 
 8: 49). 
 
 To the charge that he was in league with Beelzebub, 
 a stinging charge that cut to the quick, he answered in 
 parables. How can Satan cast out Satan? A king- 
 dom, city, or house that is divided against itself cannot 
 stand. 
 
 Besides, in retort, Jesus asked, "By whom do your 
 sons cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges" 
 (Luke II : 19). 
 
 Further, Jesus was spoiling Satan's goods, which he 
 could not do unless, being stronger, he had first over- 
 come Satan. Not being with Satan, he must be against 
 him. 
 
 In this connection Jesus, who, "by the finger of God," 
 through the Holy Spirit had done his work which 
 was falsely attributed to an unclean spirit, said the 
 charge was an eternal sin which should never be for- 
 given, neither in this world nor in that which is to 
 come. All other sins, even speaking against the Son 
 of Man, should be forgiven. 
 
 From this definition of the unpardonable sin, Jesus 
 passed on to sternest rebuke in the words: "Ye off- 
 spring of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good 
 things?" (Matt. 12: 34). 
 
 Then he likened "this evil generation" to a man 
 cleansed of one unclean spirit who later receives it 
 back with seven others more evil than the first. No 
 
 84
 
 JESUS AND RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES 
 
 other charge against Jesus does he so elaborately re- 
 fute. 
 
 The sum of his refutation is (i) it is absurd that 
 Satan should be his own enemy; (2) Jesus as the 
 enemy of Satan in working cures is stronger than he; 
 (3) to attribute deeds inspired by the Holy Spirit to 
 Satan is an unforgivable sin, showing a dead soul in- 
 capable of forgiving and so receiving forgiveness; (4) 
 such evil things proceed out of an evil heart; and (5) 
 the evil heart of this generation is due to a self-right- 
 eous legalism, a religion of emptiness, harboring not 
 only uncleanness but seven other spirits more evil still. 
 Thus he returned the charge of having an unclean 
 spirit on his accusers seven times over. 
 
 But that the charge rankled still in his memory is Recalling 
 seen from the fact that one thing he said among many the Char e 
 in sending out the twelve, having given them authority 
 over unclean spirits, was : "If they have called the mas- 
 ter of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they 
 call them of his household?" (Matt. 10: 25). 
 
 Another charge brought against him by the religious Association 
 authorities was associating with sinners. We saw Wlth Sinners 
 above how Simon the Pharisee thought Jesus could 
 not be a prophet because he allowed a penitent sinful 
 woman to touch his feet. 
 
 At the feast made for Jesus by his publican disciple, 
 Matthew Levi, in his house in Capernaum, a great mul- 
 titude of publicans and sinners came and sat at meat 
 with them. On seeing it, the Pharisees and their scribes 
 murmured against his disciples and said: "Why eateth 
 your master with publicans and sinners?" (Matt. 9: 
 11). 
 
 On another occasion, when all the publicans and 
 sinners were drawing near unto him to hear him, both
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 His Reply 
 
 Not Fasting 
 
 His Reply 
 
 (i) The 
 Bridegroom 
 
 the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, "This 
 man receiveth sinners and eateth with them" (Luke 
 15: 2). 
 
 The reply of Jesus to these criticisms, so obvious now 
 to us that its significance for his period is somewhat 
 dulled, was first, the sick, not the whole, have need 
 of a physician ; second, God desires mercy, not sacrifice ; 
 and third, the three parables of the one lost sheep 
 from the flock of one hundred, the one lost piece of 
 silver from the collection of ten pieces, and the lost 
 younger son of two. There is doubtless some satire 
 in the saying "I came not to call the righteous" (Matt. 
 9: 13) only in their own esteem were the Pharisees 
 righteous. The three parables teach that the Pharisees 
 and scribes, so far from being critical and surly, should 
 imitate the angels and rejoice over one repentant sin- 
 ner. In the parable of the lost son, the attitude of the 
 Pharisees and scribes is portrayed in the elder son 
 while the younger son represents the "sinners." 
 
 Another criticism was that his disciples did not fast. 
 Both the disciples of John and the Pharisees were fast- 
 ing. Jesus himself reports the criticism as follows: 
 "John came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; 
 and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of Man is come 
 eating and drinking, and ye say, Behold a gluttonous 
 man and a wine-bibber" (Luke 7: 34). The difficulty 
 impressed itself upon John's disciples also, some of 
 whom came to Jesus and said: "Why do we and the 
 Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not?" (Matt. 
 9: 14). 
 
 Jesus replied to this difficulty by likening himself 
 to a bridegroom and the disciples to the sons of the 
 bride-chamber. The Gospel was the occasion of festive 
 joy. 
 
 86
 
 JESUS AND RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES 
 
 On another occasion Jesus used a similar figure when (2) A Wed- 
 he likened the generation which rejected both John ding 
 and himself to children in the market-place who would 
 play neither funeral nor wedding. 
 
 But the day would come, he told the disciples of (3) A Time to 
 John, when the bridegroom would be taken away, and Fast 
 then his disciples would fast. 
 
 Further, he told them that the Gospel was like new (4) New Cloth 
 cloth or new wine, not to be used on old garments andwine 
 or put in old wine-skins, such as fasting. 
 
 He also explained their difficulty very tactfully to 
 them in observing "no man having drunk old wine 
 desireth new" (Luke 5: 39). Jesus neither proscribed 
 nor prescribed fasting; he allowed and encouraged it 
 under certain conditions of need, and gave instructions 
 concerning it, as a secret observance to the Father, in 
 the Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 Once upon his disciples and once upon himself criti- Eating 
 cism was passed for eating without first washing the Wlthout 
 hands. Such washing to the Pharisees was a part of 
 ceremonial cleanness; today it would be a part of 
 hygienic cleanliness. The Pharisees and some scribes Complaint 
 who had come from Jerusalem observed that the disci- A J * ai ? s * the 
 pies ate their bread with defiled, that is, unwashen 
 hands. This was against the tradition of the elders, 
 kept by the Pharisees and all the Jews, who washed 
 their hands up to the elbow before eating; otherwise, 
 they ate not. On returning from the contaminating 
 market-place, they bathed before eating. Other things 
 they received from the elders to hold were the cere- 
 monial washings of cups, pots, and brazen vessels. 
 So these Pharisees and scribes, seeing the disciples 
 eat bread without first washing their hands, asked 
 Jesus: "Why walk not thy disciples according to the 
 
 87
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Complaint 
 Against Jesus 
 
 His Reply 
 Defending 
 His Disciples 
 (i) Hypocrisy 
 
 (a) Corban 
 
 (3) True 
 Defilement 
 
 His Reply 
 Defending 
 
 Himself 
 
 Pharisaic Sys- 
 tem Denounced 
 
 tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with defiled 
 hands?" (Mark 7:5). 
 
 The other occasion was just after having spoken the 
 parable of the Good'Samaritan. A Pharisee asked Jesus 
 to dine with him. The invitation was accepted and 
 Jesus went in and sat down to meat without having 
 first washed. No doubt he intentionally and purpose- 
 fully omitted observing the traditional ceremony of 
 oblation. But when the Pharisee saw it, he marveled 
 that Jesus had not first washed before dinner. 
 
 How did Jesus defend his disciples and himself 
 against the charge of ceremonial defilement? He said, 
 first, it was hypocrisy to hold fast the tradition of men 
 and leave the commandment of God. Such service was 
 of the lip, not of the heart. 
 
 Second, an example of such hypocrisy, whereby the 
 word of God was made void by the tradition, was the 
 Corban, in which a gift to the Temple took the place 
 of honoring one's father and mother in a practical way. 
 "And many such like things ye do" (Mark 7: 13). 
 
 Third, true defilement is not from without in, through 
 the mouth, but from within out, from the heart. This 
 instruction Jesus gave to the multitude as well as to 
 his disciples and the Pharisees. It caused the Pharisees 
 to be offended, and the meaning of it had to be ex- 
 plained privately to the disciples. 
 
 In further defense of himself, Jesus said to his host, 
 the astonished Pharisee, first, that a religion of externals 
 was foolish, cleansing the outside of cups and platters, 
 and, second, that a religion of inward purity was essen- 
 tial, without extortion and wickedness. All outward 
 things are clean to those clean within. 
 
 At this point the indignation of Jesus against the 
 whole Pharisaic system of ritualism, legalism, formal- 
 
 88
 
 JESUS AND RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES 
 
 ism, and externalism rose to the pitch of woeful denun- 
 ciation. The Pharisees tithed mint, rue, and every herb, 
 legal minutiae properly observed, but omitted justice 
 as between man and man and the love of God. They 
 loved the chief seats in the synagogues and the saluta- 
 tions in the market-places. "Woe unto you! for ye 
 are as the tombs which appear not, and the men that 
 walk over them know it not" (Luke n : 44). 
 
 The eight main sources of conflict between Jesus and Summary 
 the religious authorities accordingly are: Sabbath ob- of Sources 
 
 j r XL r of Conflict 
 
 servance, the demand for a sign, the forgiveness of 
 sins, his Sonship to the Father, how he cast out devils, 
 eating and drinking with publicans and sinners, not 
 fasting, and not washing before eating. The eight are 
 all phases of the one contrast between religion of outer 
 form and inner fact. 
 
 In addition to these conflicts in religious opinion intellectual 
 and practice between Jesus and the ecclesiastical au- Traps 
 thorities, there were intellectual conflicts due to their 
 animosity and their desire to discredit him in the eyes 
 of all. They set traps for him, usually in the form of 
 a dilemma. Should the adulterous woman be stoned? 
 "Yes" meant forfeiting his influence with "sinners"; Stoning a 
 "no" meant the religious offense of rejecting Moses. Sinner 
 
 Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? "Yes" Divorce 
 meant sanctioning the adultery of the adulterous gen- 
 eration he had condemned; "no" meant the rejection 
 of Moses who provided for divorce. 
 
 Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar or no? "Yes" Tribute 
 meant lack of Jewish patriotism; "no" meant Roman 
 sedition. 
 
 "Whose wife shall she be in the resurrection?" The 
 asked the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection and Resur f ection 
 were ready to show the absurdity of her being the wife 
 
 89
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 of any one or all of the seven brothers who had her. 
 Jesus rejected their presupposition. 
 
 From these and other entangling puzzles Jesus ex- 
 tricated himself quickly and successfully through his 
 moral insight and surpassing intellectual skill, sometimes 
 taking the bull by both horns, as in the case of the 
 tribute; sometimes escaping between the horns, as in 
 the question concerning the resurrection. The reli- 
 gious authorities tried, but did not succeed in entrapping 
 him in his talk. They were clever, but he, though not 
 learned in their schools, and trusting to what it should 
 be given him to do and say, was more clever. Each 
 entangling question and his reply might be studied in 
 detail with profit. 
 
 At times, desiring to justify themselves, they put to 
 him straight but difficult questions. Such was the 
 question, "Who is my neighbor?" of the lawyer, who 
 was doubtless ready to love his Jewish neighbors, but 
 not the half-Jewish Samaritans. The parable of the 
 Good Samaritan was the answer Jesus gave. 
 
 Following the cleansing of the Temple, when Jesus 
 was walking in the Temple, teaching the people, and 
 preaching the Gospel, a similar question was put to 
 him by the chief priests, scribes, and elders of the 
 people: "Tell us, by what authority doest thou these 
 things? and who gave thee this authority?" Jesus 
 answered with one of their own kind of questions 
 the dilemma: "The baptism of John, whence was it? 
 from heaven, or from men?" (Matt. 21: 25). He 
 had caught them either they had rejected a heavenly 
 baptism or they would be stoned by the people for 
 calling it earthly. With intellectual insincerity they 
 retreated from the difficulty by denying that they knew 
 whence the baptism was. They having refused to an- 
 
 90
 
 JESUS AND RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES 
 
 swer him, Jesus refused to tell the source of his au- 
 thority. But he had suggested to them that, had they 
 treated John aright, and received his baptism, they 
 would have known the source of his own authority. He 
 could answer their questions, but they could or would 
 not answer his. 
 
 His final silencing question was, "If David then call How He 
 him Lord, how is he his son?" (Matt. 22: 45). The SUenced 
 answer they could not find, because their materialistic 
 conception of the Christ was such that they could not 
 think of David as calling his physical son his Lord. It 
 was the way Jesus had of indicating the spiritual, not 
 temporal, character of the Messiah. The Jewish pre- 
 conceptions prevented their seeing the point. No one 
 was able to answer him a word. From that day they 
 did not dare ask him any more questions. The intel- 
 lectual combat was over, and only the common people 
 still heard him gladly. He could not be discredited 
 by fair means, they would resort to foul. Before pass- 
 ing, however, to the base strategy whereby the reli- 
 gious authorities finally got him in their power, we 
 must briefly review his teaching, general in character 
 and other than the preceding events, concerning them. 
 
 Jesus combined respect for the law of Moses and Teaching 
 obedience to it with rejection of its living official repre- 
 sentatives. He went behind the letter of the law to its 
 spirit and he surpassed the law in his requirements, 
 as in the matters of retaliation, forgiveness, murder, 
 adultery, forswearing. This he regarded not as destroy- 
 ing, but as fulfilling the law. He rejected the tradi- 
 tional accretions to the law, made all meats clean, 
 cleansed the Temple of the sacrificial system, and said 
 Jerusalem as the capital of a theocratic state should 
 be destroyed. He taught respect for those that sit in 
 
 91
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Moses' seat, yet one was not to do as they did. Even 
 the Sabbath day's journey he respected, which perhaps 
 is his nearest recognition of one of the traditions of 
 the elders. Only the Gentile, not the Jewish, Chris- 
 tians in the early Church were exempted from the 
 law of Moses in circumcision, etc. He repeatedly called 
 for the view of Moses as his point of departure in an- 
 swering a question. "What is written in the law? 
 How readest thou?" (Luke 10: 26). "What did Moses 
 command you?" (Mark 10: 3). With his two major 
 commandments he summarized Moses and the prophets. 
 He took the text for his social mission from Isaiah. 
 Twice he recognized in John the Elijah who was to 
 come, though John himself had said he was not Elijah. 
 He recognized that a scribe who had been made a disci- 
 ple of the Kingdom would, like a householder, bring 
 forth out of his treasure things new and old. 
 
 Jesus was thus conservative on the essentials of the 
 law, progressive in substituting the spirit for the letter 
 and the inner virtues for the sacrificial system, and 
 radical in rejecting the traditions of the elders. John 
 sums up the situation thus: "For the law was given 
 by Moses, but grace [spirit] and truth [sincerity] came 
 by Jesus Christ" (John i: 17). 
 
 Yet Jesus recognized in his sense of unity with the 
 Father, and so in his personal witness to spiritual truth, 
 something greater than anything that had preceded 
 him. This greater thing was the fulfilment of the law; 
 it was new cloth, new wine; it was greater than the 
 Temple, than Solomon, than Jonah; it existed before 
 Abraham; it was God's idea of what a man ought to 
 be; according to John, it was in the beginning, it was 
 with God, it was God. The consciousness which Jesus 
 had of God as Father and the results flowing there- 
 
 92
 
 JESUS AND RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES 
 
 from made even the jots and tittles of the law pass 
 away for him and his true followers. 
 
 There is development in the attitude of Jesus toward Changes in 
 the religious authorities from avoidance of giving ***** 
 offense, to defense against criticism, to victorious in- Authorities 
 tellectual combat, to open denunciation and public pil- 
 loring in parables. He early anticipated that his posi- 
 tion would in the end cost him his life, according to 
 the Scripture. We have now to consider his warning 
 against their practices and his denunciation of them. 
 
 For his disciples he laid down the principle : "Except The Principle 
 your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of 
 the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter from the 
 into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5: 20). The Kingdom 
 essential difference was between righteousness before 
 men and before God. Three illustrations are given 
 alms, prayer, and fasting. In giving alms, instead of 
 sounding the trumpet, the left hand is not to know what 
 the right hand doeth. In praying, instead of standing 
 in the synagogues and on the street corners, one is to 
 enter into his inner chamber and shut the door. In 
 fasting, instead of disfiguring the face, the face is to 
 be washed and the head anointed. "Else ye have no 
 reward with your Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 
 6 : i ) . Righteousness done before men to be seen of 
 them is hypocrisy. This principle and its applications 
 appear as part of the charter of the Kingdom in the 
 Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 On hearing the words of faith of the Roman cen- "The Sons of 
 turion, Jesus marveled at him, and said to the multi- 
 tude that he had not found so great faith even in 
 Israel, that many should come from the east and the 
 west and recline with the patriarchs in the Kingdom of 
 heaven, but that "the sons of the kingdom," that is, 
 
 93
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 The Rulers 
 not Shep- 
 herds, nor 
 Harvesters 
 
 Maltreatment 
 of Prophets 
 
 Blind Guides 
 
 the privileged ones in Israel, from whom more than 
 self-righteousness was due, should be cast into the 
 outer darkness. 
 
 The religious authorities were to Jesus no shepherds 
 of the people. Repeatedly he had compassion on the 
 multitudes as sheep having no shepherd. So it was 
 before sending forth the twelve. The multitudes "were 
 distressed and scattered, as sheep not having a shep- 
 herd" (Matt. 9: 36). Among them he saw a plenteous 
 harvest, but few laborers. The Lord of the harvest 
 should be entreated to thrust forth laborers into his 
 harvest. The twelve were to go two by two "to the 
 lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt. 10: 6). So 
 it was before feeding the five thousand ; he had compas- 
 sion on the multitudes, because they were as sheep not 
 having a shepherd; and he welcomed them, and spoke 
 to them of the Kingdom of God, and healed them. To 
 the Canaanitish woman crying after them in the borders 
 of Tyre and Sidon, Jesus said at first that he himself 
 was "not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of 
 Israel" (Matt. 15: 24). 
 
 On sending forth the twelve on their mission, Jesus 
 warned them to beware of men who should deliver them 
 up to councils and scourge them in their synagogues. 
 Likewise the hypocrites were warned to their faces 
 against killing, crucifying, scourging, and persecuting 
 prophets and wise men. And there was the lament 
 over Jerusalem. 
 
 When the disciples reported that the Pharisees were 
 caused to stumble at his teaching concerning inward 
 cleansing, he said that every plant not planted by his 
 heavenly Father should be rooted up. "Let them alone : 
 they are blind guides. And if the blind guide the 
 blind, both shall fall into a pit" (Matt. 15: 14). 
 
 94
 
 JESUS AND RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES 
 
 Having just refused the demand of the Pharisees and The Leaven 
 the Sadducees for a sign, he charged his disciples to * the Re- 
 take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees 
 
 and the Sadducees and of Herod. At first they thought Rulers 
 he was rebuking them for having forgotten to take 
 bread, but he made them understand that he spoke not 
 of the leaven of bread, but of their teaching. Later 
 he defined the leaven of the Pharisees as hypocrisy. 
 
 Jesus rejected the hint of legalism among his disci- Legaiism 
 pies. Peter wanted to count the number of times that ^J"*** 1 
 a sinning brother might be forgiven. "Until seven 
 times?" Jesus replied that seven times was a measure 
 of forgiveness for a sinning, repentant brother for 
 only one day. Then, transcending the numerical view- 
 point, he added, "Until seventy times seven." Then 
 he spoke the parable of the king reckoning with his 
 servants, showing that man's offenses against man are 
 small, and should be forgiven from the heart, in order 
 that forgiveness for great offenses against the heavenly 
 Father may be received. 
 
 When Jesus pronounced woe upon the Pharisees, as Woe Upon 
 concealed tombs because of their outer cleansing and * e ^ aw f er 
 
 . , (Scribes) 
 
 inner extortion and wickedness, the lawyers pres- 
 ent felt themselves reproached also. Jesus then pro- 
 nounced woe upon the lawyers because first, they put 
 grievous burdens on men without assisting in carrying 
 them; second, they built the tombs of the prophets 
 whom their fathers killed, thereby witnessing and con- 
 senting to such deeds; and third, they took away the 
 key of knowledge, not entering themselves and hinder- 
 ing those that were entering. The class afflicted by 
 the lawyers' reading of the law Jesus doubtless espe- 
 cially had in mind in his invitation to those that "labor 
 and are heavy laden." 
 
 95
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 The Woes of 
 the Hypocrites 
 
 Teachings 
 Against the 
 Rulers in 
 Parables 
 
 Jesus used the term "hypocrites" of the two classes, 
 the Pharisees and the scribes, who were the same as 
 the lawyers. After putting the Sadducees to silence in 
 his answer to their question about the resurrection, 
 and also the Pharisees with his question about the 
 Christ as the son of David, Jesus warned both the mul- 
 titudes and his disciples against the "hypocrites." Their 
 religion was only a show; they devour widows' houses 
 while for a pretence making long prayers ; their words 
 must be obeyed, since they sit on Moses' seat, but their 
 deeds must not be imitated; they impose, but do not 
 lift, burdens; they love to be called of men "Rabbi"; 
 they shut the Kingdom of heaven against men; they 
 victimize their proselytes; they are blind fools and 
 guides to distinguish between the Temple and its gold, 
 the altar and its gift, in the oath ; they tithe mint, anise, 
 and cummin, and leave undone justice, mercy, and 
 faith, thus straining out the gnat and swallowing the 
 camel; they cleanse the outside of cups and platters, 
 but themselves within are full of extortion and excess ; 
 they are "whited sepulchres," beautiful without and 
 unclean within; they build the sepulchres of the 
 prophets slain by their fathers self-righteously in each 
 case. And then, with a final crack of the whip of 
 violent denunciation: "Ye serpents, ye offspring of 
 vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell?" 
 (Matt. 23: 33). 
 
 Such warnings ' were open and direct. Jesus also 
 used the method of parable in attacking the religious 
 leaders. To certain ones that trusted in themselves, 
 that they were righteous and set all others at naught, 
 he spoke the parable of the Pharisee and the publican 
 praying in the Temple. The barren fig tree, having the 
 leaves of promise but no fruit, he cursed as typical of 
 
 96
 
 JESUS AND RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES 
 
 the showy but empty religion of the leaders. The 
 parable of the man with the two sons sent to work in 
 his vineyard showed them that the publicans and har- 
 lots precede them in the Kingdom. The parable of the 
 householder and the wicked husbandmen taught them 
 that the Kingdom should be taken away from them and 
 given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. 
 The parable of the marriage feast taught them that 
 many are called but few are chosen. 
 
 Hearing these parables, the chief priests, scribes, Safety for 
 and Pharisees perceived he was speaking of them. Only J esus 
 their fear of the multitudes, who took Jesus for a esenc * 
 
 prophet, restrained them from laying hold on him then Multitudes 
 and there. For the people repeatedly noticed that he 
 taught as one having authority, speaking his own in- 
 dependent mind, not as the scribes, quoting the opinions 
 of others. 
 
 Though fearing to lay hands on him, the leaders Objections 
 
 dogged his steps. The Hosanna song of the multitude *the 
 
 , oc Hosanna 
 
 of the disciples at the humble triumphal entry into song 
 
 Jerusalem they could not abide. Some of the Pharisees 
 from the multitude said unto him, "Master, rebuke thy 
 disciples" (Luke 19: 39). They even complained to 
 him when some of the children in the Temple caught 
 up and continued the same song: "Hearest thou what 
 these are saying?" (Matt. 21: 1 6). He gave them no 
 comfort by denying that he was the "King of Israel" 
 in the sense the palm-waving singers meant it. He 
 stopped their objections by reference to the sympathy 
 of the stones and the perfect praise of the children. 
 
 Not that all the Pharisees were opposed to him or he Good Pharisees 
 to them. Nicodemus was one of the rulers of the Jews. 
 It was certain Pharisees who once warned him to 
 escape the domain of Herod who was seeking his life. 
 
 97
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Base 
 
 Strategy and 
 Violence 
 
 Secret of the 
 Hostility 
 to Jesus 
 
 To one of the scribes, answering discreetly, he said: 
 "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God" (Mark 
 12 : 34) . Many even of the rulers believed on him, but 
 confessed it not, fearing excommunication from the 
 synagogue by the Pharisees, still loving the glory from 
 men more than the glory from God. To the separatist 
 Pharisees it seemed a thing incredible that any of their 
 sect or of the rulers should believe on him. 
 
 The religious authorities, having had their open 
 criticisms parried successfully, having failed to entrap 
 him in his talk, being unable to answer his questions 
 in intellectual combat, having been openly excoriated, 
 and suffering from the sting of his parables the more 
 effective because veiled finally resorted to base 
 strategy and physical violence. Even so, he might 
 easily have escaped from their hands, as indeed he had 
 done many times before, had he not recognized that 
 his hour was now come. They were Pharisees till the 
 end, being murderers at heart and in fact, but not on 
 a feast-day, fearing the people, nor on the Sabbath, nor 
 would they enter Pilate's palace, fearing defilement for 
 the passover. 
 
 What was the secret of the hostility of the Pharisees 
 to Jesus? It was self-preservation. At a council held 
 by the chief priests and the Pharisees the question was : 
 "What do we? for this man doeth many signs. If 
 we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him; 
 and the Romans will come and take away both our 
 place and our nation" (John n : 47-50). It was at this 
 council that the high priest himself, Caiaphas, who was 
 later to be his judge, deliberately suggested death as 
 the answer to their question. This counsel was ac- 
 cepted. At the triumphal entry the Pharisees said 
 among themselves: "Behold how ye prevail nothing; 
 
 98
 
 JESUS AND RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES 
 
 lo, the world is gone after him" (John 12: 19). It 
 was evident to Pilate that through envy the chief priests 
 had delivered him up. 
 
 In studying the relation of Jesus to the religious Final Events 
 authorities, it is not necessary to trace in detail how 
 they accomplished their purpose through the betrayal 
 by Judas; the arrest without resistance; the farcical 
 trial before Annas, Caiaphas, and the Council; the 
 double set of religious and political charges falsities 
 and misunderstanding; the Council's acting as his ac- 
 cusers before Pilate; stirring up the multitude to de- 
 mand the release of the robber Barabbas, not Christ; 
 their failure to secure from Pilate the superscription 
 desired; their mockery of him on the cross; his burial 
 by two of their rulers, his secret disciples; and their 
 request of Pilate for a guard for the sepulchre. The 
 request for the guard, their last act concerning their 
 victim, carries tacit admission that the crucifixion was 
 wrong: if his disciples should steal him away and say: 
 "He is risen from the dead," "the last error will be 
 worst than the first" (Matt. 27: 64). Under all these 
 unparalleled circumstances Jesus bore himself with the 
 submission of strength before those who so disgrace- 
 fully sat on Moses' seat. 
 
 Thus we have briefly traced the long story of the Summary 
 relations of Jesus to the religious authorities of his day. 
 It was one of the two or three major factors in his 
 public life. We have seen how the religious life of 
 his day shaped his early years; how he sought to 
 avoid giving offense to the religious authorities; how 
 they criticised his conduct and teaching and his self- 
 defense; how he escaped their intellectual traps; how 
 in turn they were caught in the toils of his questions; 
 how he openly denounced them sternly, and spoke many 
 
 99
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 His Social 
 Attitude 
 Toward 
 Religion 
 
 parables concerning them; and how finally through 
 baseness, violence, and the miscarriage of justice, they 
 overcame him, he surrendering himself. 
 
 We undertook this study of the social attitude of 
 Jesus toward the most important interest of human life 
 as officially organized in his day with a view to apply- 
 ing it, though briefly, to the social attitude of his fol- 
 lowers today toward organized religion. As the scribes 
 and Pharisees regarded themselves as sons of Abra- 
 ham, so the churches today regard themselves as Chris- 
 tian. What would Jesus say to the churches? And 
 what to us? 
 
 His attitude has nothing in it of religious stand-pat- 
 ness or of religious peace at any price. His was a 
 bold though gentle spirit, aroused to energetic attack 
 by the formal, external, ceremonial, and legal religion 
 of his day. He conserved essentials, he relegated 
 non-essentials, he advanced to a position of freedom 
 and individual initiative in religion. This he did under 
 the sense of constant and immediate inspiration from 
 the Father above. He respected the law and its offices, 
 though transcending it. He received criticism and re- 
 joiced in meeting it. He recognized verbal nets spread 
 to entangle him and was able to avoid them. He met 
 question with successful counter-question. He warned 
 against the leaven of his enemies privately and de- 
 nounced them publicly. He did not hesitate to alienate 
 easy friends and to make enemies of critics by witness- 
 ing to the truth. He made no compromise with evil 
 and played no trick on his soul. He foresaw death as 
 the price of his position, cheerfully paid the price, con- 
 sidered he had overcome the world, and comforted his 
 friends the while. Such was his social attitude to- 
 ward religion. To his followers he says: "Have salt 
 100
 
 JESUS AND RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES 
 
 in yourselves" (Mark 9: 50), "Follow me" (John 12: 
 26), "As the Father hath sent me, so send I you" 
 (John 20: 21 ). 
 
 In the synagogues, the Temple, and among the reli- What He 
 gious rulers of his day he saw men making long Sa win th 
 prayers and devouring widows' houses, observing the Religion 
 Sabbath but not relieving the sick and needy, praying 
 before men but not before God, meeting purchasers 
 but not God in the Temple, tithing vegetables but neg- 
 lecting justice and mercy, adulterers avoiding cere- 
 monial defilements, extortioners washing the outside 
 of cups, doctors of the law dishonoring its spirit and 
 letter, ostentatious alms-givers and fasters a religion 
 of leaves without fruit. "Howbeit, when the Son of 
 Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" That 
 was his question of the future. By "faith" he meant 
 life in vital touch with the heavenly Father. "Why call 
 ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say?" 
 (Luke 6: 46). 
 
 What would Jesus say to us and to the churches? Spirituality 
 It is a large question and we cannot be sure, but my 
 impression is that in his real presence we should first 
 spiritualize and then socialize our lives, and our 
 churches would first spiritualize their vision and then 
 socialize their programs. 
 
 101
 
 STUDY X 
 
 Principles, not 
 Programs 
 
 JESUS AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 Social reform according to Jesus derives from prin- 
 ciples, not expedients or programs. Though Jesus no- 
 where enumerates these, we may reduce them to nine. 
 They are principles, that is, unaffected by the social 
 conditions to which they apply; they are not an in- 
 elastic social constitution. They are the mustard seed 
 growing into the greatest of man's sheltering religions ; 
 they are the leaven leavening the whole lump of human 
 society. Jesus nowhere gives a systematic statement 
 of them; he simply lives them and when the occasion 
 demands, he voices them. 
 
 Nine Principles These principles are: (i) love to God and man; (2) 
 the fatherhood of God; (3) the brotherhood of man; 
 (4) the infinite worth of the individual; (5) as a con- 
 sequence of all the preceding, full recognition of women 
 and children; (6) an ideal of divine perfection; (7) 
 life as achievement for God; (8) the influence of per- 
 sonality; and (9) progress by growth. 
 
 A few words concerning each of these. When the 
 scribe asked Jesus one of the much-debated questions 
 among the students of the law, namely, Which is the 
 greatest of all the commandments? Jesus replied, pur- 
 posely using the language of the Old Testament : "Thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
 with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and with 
 all thy strength" (Mark 12: 30). But, being unwill- 
 ing to separate in either thought or fact the love of 
 God from the love of man, Jesus went on to add : "The 
 102 
 
 Love to God 
 and Man
 
 JESUS AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 second is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" 
 (Mark 12: 31), thus bringing together what Deuter- 
 onomy and Leviticus separate, and forever uniting in 
 Christianity the claims of religion and morality. Against 
 the Jews he lodged the charge: "But I know you, that 
 ye have not the love of God in yourselves" (John 5: 
 42). No other commandment is greater than these 
 inseparable two. The scribes and Pharisees were hypo- 
 crites because they rightly tithed mint, anise, and cum- 
 min for God, but wrongly left undone justice and 
 mercy for man "the weightier matters of the law" 
 (Matt. 23: 23). They were hypocrites, "making void 
 the word of God" (Mark 7: 13), because they gave to 
 the Temple money with which they should have sup- 
 ported their parents. The Pharisees, objecting to the 
 disciples' plucking the ears of corn on the Sabbath 
 day, did not know the meaning of Hosea's words put 
 in the mouth of Jehovah: "I desire mercy and not 
 sacrifice" (Matt. 12: 7). The ethical service of man 
 is better than the ceremonial service of God. The gift 
 is not to be offered before the altar of God until one's 
 offended brother is reconciled. The parable of the Good 
 Samaritan seems to teach that the neighbor we are to 
 love as ourselves is any one in need whom we can 
 benefit. So far from hating any human being, even 
 our enemies are to be the objects of love and prayer. 
 The Golden Rule is not limited in its statement to race 
 or place. Such love for God and man will inevitably 
 effect social as well as individual transformation. 
 
 "We love because he first loved us," says John (I The Father- 
 John 4: 19). The parable of the Unforgiving Servant hoodof God 
 teaches that, in view of God's forgiveness to man, it 
 is man's simple duty, and not a matter of magnanimity, 
 to forgive one's brother. Supporting the love of man 
 103
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 to man is the love of God to man, who makes his sun 
 shine and sends the rain on the evil and the good. 
 From the time Jesus as a lad of twelve spoke of God in 
 the Temple till he commended his spirit to Him on 
 the cross as a young man of nearly thirty-three, God 
 was regarded as Father. In the five recorded prayers 
 of Jesus, God is addressed only as Father. God is 
 referred to once as "the Great King" (Matt. 5: 35), 
 and once as "the Lord of the harvest" (Luke 10: 2). 
 The very nature of God is fatherliness, giving good 
 things to them that ask him, even the Holy Spirit. 
 If men, who are evil, give good gifts unto their chil- 
 dren, Jesus' argument was, how much more shall the 
 heavenly Father do so? The parable of the Prodigal 
 Son teaches that the Father watches and longs for the 
 wandering boy's return and finally welcomes him with 
 kisses, raiment, and merry-making. Jesus regarded 
 God as the Father not because He is the Creator of 
 all, but because He loves all, as John caught from him 
 the idea that "God is love." The word "Father" occurs 
 forty-five times in Matthew, five in Mark, seventeen in 
 Luke, and ninety in John. The Father seeks worshipers 
 in spirit and in truth. Jesus taught his disciples to 
 pray the social prayer beginning "Our Father," and he 
 sent them the message: "I ascend unto my Father and 
 your Father" (John 20: 17). The earthly kingdom was 
 that of the Father. It is difficult to single out the 
 primary principle in the thinking of Jesus ; perhaps we 
 should not be far wrong in making it the universal 
 Fatherhood of God. Jesus took the idea of God as the 
 Father of Israel or of some individual Israelite and 
 widened it into the absolute Father, "Our Father," 
 the Father of all men everywhere. It is a socializing 
 conception. 
 
 104
 
 JESUS AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 There are three senses of the term brotherhood, first, The Brother- 
 a family relation; second, a spiritual relation; third, hood of Man 
 a natural universal human relationship. Of these three 
 the first is due to heredity, the second to the perform- 
 ance of the Father's will, the third to the all-Father- 
 hood of God. Of these the first is the closest physically, 
 the second is the most intimate, and the third is the 
 widest. Jesus had brothers (or relatives) in the 
 Nazareth home, spiritual brothers in the circle of his 
 disciples, and human brothers among all the sons of 
 men he "the Son of man." Jesus subordinates the 
 family to the spiritual relationship ("Call no man your 
 father on the earth, one is your Father, even he who 
 is in heaven," Matt. 23: 9; "Whosoever shall do the 
 will of my Father in heaven the same is my brother and 
 sister, and mother," Matt. 12: 50), though illustrating 
 and emphasizing filial duties, and presupposes as well 
 as clearly teaches the universal brotherhood of man. 
 This third meaning of the term is the one with social 
 dynamic in it. We are to love not merely our brothers 
 in the flesh, as even "the Gentiles" do; not merely our 
 brothers in the spirit, as even the Jews were ready to 
 love their Jewish "neighbors," not recognizing the 
 despised half-Jewish Samaritans as neighbors to be 
 loved; but our brothers in nature as fellow human 
 beings. Whosoever is angry with such a "brother" is 
 in danger of the judgment; whosoever uses to such a 
 "brother" the contemptuous term Raca is in danger of 
 the council; whosoever has offended such a "brother" 
 must first placate him before offering a gift at the 
 altar; the mote in such a "brother's" eye is not to be 
 noticed when there is a beam in one's own eye, but 
 first the beam is to be cast out of one's own eye before 
 one can see clearly to cast the mote out of one's 
 105
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 "brother's" eye. The same teaching on the hill that 
 presents God as the Father of all mankind (Matt. 5: 
 45), not merely the Father of the Jews, or even of 
 the members of the Kingdom, presents our fellow 
 human being as our brother, whom we are to treat 
 in the ways indicated, "that ye may be sons of your 
 Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 5: 45). The "brother" 
 is to be forgiven not formally seven times, but, in- 
 definitely, seventy times seven. The Father in anger 
 will punish those who do not from their hearts forgive 
 every one his "brother" (Matt. 18: 34, 35). That the 
 term "brother" is here used universally and not merely 
 with reference to the Christian brotherhood is clear 
 from the social safe-guard of the "Lord's prayer": 
 "For if ye forgive men their trespasses your Heavenly 
 Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men 
 their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your 
 trespasses" (Matt. 6: 14, 15). The parable of the Good 
 Samaritan widens the narrowly construed Jewish term 
 "neighbor" to mean "brother-man." The parable of the 
 Lost Son shows that the publicans and sinners, typi- 
 fied by the younger brother, are brothers really of the 
 scribes and Pharisees, typified by the elder brother, the 
 father, typifying God himself, saying to the elder 
 brother : "This thy brother was dead and is alive again ; 
 and was lost and is found" (Luke 15: 32). In the 
 picture of the Last Judgment drawn by Jesus the sheep 
 are separated from the goats by deeds of mercy to "one 
 of the least of these my brethren" (Matt. 25: 40). In 
 saying this Jesus made himself one with all, the Brother 
 of man ; it is implied also in the title by which he most 
 frequently designates himself, "the Son of man"; im- 
 plied also in his being the Son of Mary, David, Abra- 
 ham, and Adam (Luke 3: 38). The real sensing of 
 106
 
 JESUS AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 such a principle of brotherhood means release of tre- 
 mendous social motive, whereby men may be won to 
 doing the will of God and loving one another, in con- 
 sequence of which they become members of the new 
 spiritual brotherhood in Christ and subjects of the 
 Kingdom of God. The spiritual brotherhood is co- 
 extensive with the Kingdom of Heaven already dis- 
 cussed. 
 
 The fourth principle of Jesus germinal of social re- infinite 
 form is the infinite worth of the individual soul. A Worth of t 
 
 Individual 
 
 man is not profited by gaining the whole world and soul 
 losing his own soul. There is no suitable exchange for 
 the soul. We are not to fear those who can destroy 
 the body but Him who can destroy both body and soul 
 in hell. The Rich Fool in the parable made the mis- 
 take of providing for his body, but not for his soul. 
 By its nature the soul is eternal and one of two 
 destinies awaits it (Matt. 25: 46). In his conduct, in 
 the face of the worth of each individual soul, Jesus 
 took little account of social distinctions, accepting an 
 invitation to dine with Simon, the Pharisee, and receiv- 
 ing there at the same time the worshiping woman who 
 was a sinner. The striking argument for the im- 
 mortality of the soul, upon which its infinite worth 
 depends, as stated by Jesus, is recalled by all three of 
 the synoptic writers: "He is not the God of the dead, 
 but of the living" (Mark 12: 27). Man is better than 
 a sheep! The Pharisees regarded the multitude, not 
 knowing the law, as accursed, but Jesus, individualizing 
 the multitude, warned his disciples to call no brother 
 Raca. He teaches that God is unwilling that even one 
 soul should be lost in the three parables of the Lost 
 Sheep, the Lost Piece of Money, and the Lost Son. 
 The great institution of the Sabbath was made for man, 
 
 107
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 not man for the Sabbath. This principle of the worth 
 of the individual has a leveling, a democratic influ- 
 ence in society, and tends to make each one in a true 
 sense his brother's keeper. 
 
 Recognition The recognition of women and children is a kind 
 
 of corollary of the principles of brotherhood and in- 
 dividuality. "Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, 
 and Lazarus" (John n: 5). Evidently Jesus treated 
 the sisters as in no way inferior to the brother. He 
 especially enjoyed conversing with Mary. Jesus gave 
 his profoundest thought about God to the Samaritan 
 woman, even his speaking with whom caused his disci- 
 plies to marvel, though they said nothing. He received 
 sustenance from a company of ministering women. He 
 performed a work of mercy for a Syrophoenician woman. 
 Until the time of the wedding in Cana his mother 
 Mary had evidently freely directed his life, w.hich 
 henceforth she could not do. His readiness to help 
 sinful women laid him open to misunderstanding (Luke 
 7: 39). He shielded the woman that was a sinner from 
 her accusers and himself would not condemn her. He 
 elevated the position of the wife with the teaching that 
 "the twain shall be one flesh" (Matt. 19: 5) and that 
 fornication alone is a ground for divorce. How lofty 
 his position was in contrast with contemporary prac- 
 tice is voiced in the surprised comment of the disciples : 
 "If the case of the man is so with his wife, it is not 
 expedient to marry" (Matt. 19: 10). The great Hillel 
 allowed divorce if the wife spoiled the husband's din- 
 ner. Jesus forgave the penitent sinner, "for she loved 
 much" (Luke 7: 47). He justified the grateful Mary 
 in anointing him with costly nard against the day of 
 his burial, showing his comprehension of the feminine 
 soul. In the house of Simon the leper he associated 
 1 08
 
 JESUS AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 forever the gracious deed of one woman with the Gos- 
 pel itself. He had compassion on the bereaved widow 
 of Nain. He noted and commended the generosity of 
 the poor widow who gave her two mites. He openly 
 assured the woman afflicted with the issue of blood, 
 who had been healed by secretly touching his garment 
 in the crush, that her faith had made her whole. So 
 far as we can detect, Jesus makes no discrimination 
 whatsoever against women as a class, but accords them 
 exactly the same recognition given to men, understand- 
 ing their hearts intuitively, through a feminine quality 
 in his own soul. 
 
 Paul wrote: "There can be no male and female; Feminine Traits 
 for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3: 28). of Jesus 
 The Apocryphal Gospel of the Egyptians records that 
 on "being asked by Salome when his kingdom should 
 come, he is reported to have answered, 'when the two 
 shall be one, and the male with the female, neither male 
 nor female.' " The feminine quality in the soul of 
 Jesus is shown by the womanly graces of his character 
 and certain womanly virtues in his teaching, such as, 
 warning against the lustful eye; his modest unwilling- 
 ness to shame the sinful woman by looking at her; 
 the strength of his emotions, to be considered later; 
 his tenderness, forbearance, patience, long-suffering, 
 his undying loyalty to his own, his receptiveness to ex- 
 pressions of affection, his endurance, his submissive- 
 ness, his quick and reliable moral judgments, his in- 
 tuitions of truth, his subjection of legality to the de- 
 mands of his soul, the reference to the mother's joy 
 after travail that a man is born into the world (John 
 16: 21 ), and his fondness for children. These all show 
 the womanliness of the soul of Jesus, something quite 
 other than effeminacy. 
 
 109
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 Responsive- 
 ness of 
 Woman to 
 Jesus 
 
 Jesus and 
 
 Children 
 
 Jesus Blessed 
 Children 
 
 These feminine traits, coupled with no failure in 
 manhood, help us to understand the responsiveness to 
 him of women then, and through the centuries to the 
 present day. A list of the names of women figuring 
 in the gospel stories written by men is significant: 
 Mary, the mother of Jesus ; Mary, the wife of Cleopas ; 
 Mary, the sister of Lazarus ; Mary of Magdala ; Martha 
 of Bethany; Salome, the mother of James and John; 
 to which may be added many unnamed women, his 
 "sisters," the sinner who anointed him, the company of 
 ministering women, the woman who called out bless- 
 ings on his mother from the crowd, and the many 
 for whom he did works of mercy. He was born of 
 woman, nurtured by woman, followed by woman, minis- 
 tered to by woman, anointed by woman, bewailed by 
 woman on the way to the cross, attended by woman 
 at the crucifixion, sought by woman at the sepulchre, 
 attested by woman at the resurrection, and witnessed 
 by woman at the ascension. Yet he married no woman, 
 chose no woman as a disciple, and claimed as his sister 
 and mother any one who did the will of the heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 Jesus himself was an infant, a child, a young man. 
 We have the beautiful picture of his infancy with 
 angels' singing, his mother's tender care, the gifts 
 of the wise men, and the gladness of all who saw him. 
 We have the graphic and naturalistic picture of his 
 childhood as he grew, became strong, became wiser, 
 with the favor of God resting on him. We have the 
 Temple scene in his youth, showing him eager to learn, 
 already knowing much, and thinking of God as his 
 Father. 
 
 As a man Jesus blessed little children. It made such 
 an impression on his followers to see him turn aside 
 no
 
 JESUS AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 from his regular work of healing and teaching to re- 
 ceive little children in his arms from their mothers and 
 bless them, that Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record 
 the incident. He saw in their simplicity, love, depend- 
 ence, and trustfulness characteristics of his Kingdom. 
 He thanked his Father, the Lord of heaven and earth, 
 for hiding the truths of the Kingdom from the wise 
 and understanding and revealing them unto babes. By 
 his power he fed the children as well as the women 
 in the company of five thousand men. 
 
 Jesus healed little children, among whom were the Jesus Healed 
 demoniac boy, the nobleman's son, the daughter of ChUdren 
 Jairus, the daughter of the Canaanitish woman, and 
 the servant of the centurion. In addressing the daugh- 
 ter of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, he used a 
 diminutive form of the Aramaic word for lamb, 
 "Talitha," expressive of the appeal of children to him, 
 as though he had said in our language, "Lambkin, 
 arise." 
 
 Jesus understood the ways of little children. He Jesus 
 had observed them playing wedding and funeral in the 
 market-place (Luke 7: 32). He makes one father who 
 does not want to rise and serve a friend in need give 
 as excuse: "my children are with me in bed" (Luke 
 ii : 7). And he knew about parents, though evil, 
 giving good gifts to their children. What a father to 
 Jesus Joseph must have been that Jesus adopted the 
 term for God ! 
 
 Jesus gave a great many teachings about little chil- Teachings 
 dren, though so few of his words have come down to 
 us. In fact, he used a little child as an object-lesson 
 for the grown disciples, setting him in their midst, and 
 taking him in his arms, and saying emphatically to 
 them: "Except ye turn, and become as little children, 
 
 in
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. 
 Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself as this little 
 child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of 
 heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child 
 in my name receiveth me (and whosoever receiveth 
 me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me. Mark 9: 
 37). Whoso shall cause one of these little ones that 
 believe on me to stumble, it is profitable for him that 
 a great millstone should be hanged about his neck, and 
 that he should be sunk in the depth of the sea. . . . 
 See that ye despise not one of these little ones; for 
 I say unto you that in heaven their angels do always 
 behold the face of my Father who is in heaven. . . . 
 It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that 
 one of these little ones should perish" (Matt. 18: 3-6, 
 10, 14). Some of these teachings about offending and 
 despising little ones apply to those young in faith as 
 well as to children. 
 
 Children Is it not small wonder that the mothers wanted to 
 
 Praised Him bring their children to Jesus, that they were glad to 
 come, and that they praised him in song after the 
 second cleansing of the Temple, catching up the re- 
 frain they had heard from their elders on Palm Sunday 
 and saying "Hosanna to the son of David"? (Matt. 
 21 : 15). To the complaining scribes and chief priests 
 Jesus justified the song of the children, quoting from 
 their Scriptures : "Yea : did ye never read, Out of the 
 mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected 
 praise?" (Matt. 21: 16). He told the women of Jeru- 
 salem who were lamenting him : "weep not for me, but 
 weep for yourselves, and for your children" (Luke 
 23: 28). One of his last injunctions to Peter was, 
 "Feed my lambs" (John 21: 15). 
 At times Jesus applied the term children to adults, 
 
 112
 
 JESUS AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 in some cases with very tender significance. To his Adults Called 
 disciples at the last supper he says, "Little children, Children 
 yet a little while I am with you" (John 13: 33) a 
 phrase taken up by John in his epistles several times, 
 as in, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols" 
 (I John 5 : 21). The risen Jesus addresses his disciples 
 by the sea of Galilee, "Children, have ye aught to eat?" 
 (John 21 : 5). He laments over Jerusalem: "How oft 
 would I have gathered thy children together!" (Luke 
 *3 : 34)- He anticipated the days when the enemies 
 of Jerusalem should dash her to the ground, "and thy 
 children within thee" (Luke 19: 44). The peace- 
 makers he thought of as the children of God. He 
 likened the children of the Kingdom to good seed, and 
 enjoined upon such the love of enemies "that ye may be 
 the children of your Father in heaven" (Matt. 5: 45). 
 
 It was characteristic of the social method of Jesus 
 to give a new conscience and attitude toward children, 
 but not to give regulations for rearing them, as did 
 Plato. In view of the recognition he accorded women 
 and children in both his life and his teaching, it is 
 only natural that wherever Christianity spreads, there 
 women and children come finally into their own. 
 
 The sixth of the principles of Jesus conducive to The ideal 
 social reform is the ideal of divine perfection. "Ye of Divine 
 therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is 
 perfect" (Matt. 5: 48). The future indicative has the 
 effect of an imperative. The statement comes out at 
 the end of one section of the Sermon on the Mount. 
 It summarizes an argument. The preceding thought 
 makes clear what is meant by this counsel of perfection. 
 The Father in heaven is loving and serving all men, 
 making his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and 
 sending rain on the just and the unjust. Even so men 
 "3
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 are to be the sons of their Father who is in heaven, 
 by loving their enemies and praying for their perse- 
 cutors. The peacemakers are blessed, for they shall 
 be called sons of God. The pure in heart are blessed, 
 for they shall see God. The Kingdom of God and His 
 righteousness are to be sought first, after which ma- 
 terial benefits will follow (Matt. 6: 33). As God gives 
 light to all by making his sun to rise, so are the disci- 
 ples "the light of the world" (Matt. 5: 14). The per- 
 fection of man consists in his godlikeness in loving and 
 serving both the evil and the good. Such individual 
 worth produces social well-being. 
 
 Life is Seventh, human life is regarded by Jesus as achieve- 
 
 Achievement m ent for God. The agents of God require the soul 
 of the Rich Fool, who laid up treasure for himself 
 without being rich toward God. The giving and lend- 
 ing life, not the hoarding and withholding life, Jesus 
 urges (Matt. 5: 42). Talents are given by God for 
 use, and their neglect receives severest condemnation : 
 "Thou wicked and slothful servant. . . . Take ye 
 away therefore the talent from him. . . . Cast ye out 
 the unprofitable servant" (Matt. 25: 26, 28, 30). The 
 condemnation of Dives was, not that he had wealth, but 
 that he did not share it. The servant who abuses his 
 position, eating and drinking, and beating his fellow- 
 servants, shall be severely scourged and have his por- 
 tion appointed with the hypocrites. Servants good and 
 faithful in that which is another's are given rulership 
 over many things of their own and enter into the joy 
 of their Lord. When life is grasped as stewardship, 
 there is developed at once social motive and purpose. 
 The deepest reason perhaps that Jesus ever gave for 
 healing on the Sabbath was: "My Father worketh 
 hitherto and I work" (John 5: 17). 
 114
 
 JESUS AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 Eighth, Jesus relied on the influence of personality influence of 
 in the spread of the Kingdom. Two of John's disci- Personality 
 pies asked him, after John's testimony concerning him, 
 where he abode, and he bade them come and see. These 
 two were Andrew and probably John. The first thing 
 Andrew did after being with Jesus one day was to find 
 his brother Simon and bring him to Jesus, whom 
 Andrew already acknowledged to be the Messiah. 
 Jesus attached Simon to himself by changing his name 
 to Cephas, or Peter. The next day Jesus called Philip 
 to follow him, and Philip, being convinced that Jesus 
 was the one of whom Moses and the prophets wrote, 
 found Nathanael. When Nathanael hesitated because 
 Jesus came from Nazareth, Philip used effectively the 
 earlier words of Jesus: "Come and see" (John i: 46). 
 Jesus attached Nathanael unto himself by recognizing 
 his guileless character and through having noted him 
 under the fig tree. The faith of the early disciples was 
 deepened after the sign at the wedding feast in Cana. 
 Jesus conversed by night, perhaps in the open on the 
 Mount of Olives, with Nicodemus, the ruler of the 
 Jews, who was so impressed that later he objected when 
 the chief priests and Pharisees would condemn Jesus 
 unheard and do contrary to their law, and after the 
 crucifixion he brought a hundred pounds of myrrh and 
 aloes for the body. Jesus conversed with the woman 
 of Samaria and she became an evangelist to the men 
 of her city. Standing by the sea of Galilee, he saw two 
 brothers, James and John, sons of Zebedee, mending 
 their nets in the boat; he called them; and they left 
 the boat and their father with the hired servants, and 
 followed him. Jesus saw a tax-collector, a publican, 
 named Levi, the son of Alphseus, called Matthew, sit- 
 ting at the place of toll and called him, saying: "Fol- 
 
 "5
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 low me," and Matthew arose, forsook all, and followed 
 him. After continuing all night in prayer to God, Jesus 
 called his disciples unto him, chose and appointed 
 twelve from among them, whom he named apostles, 
 that they might be with him and that he might send 
 them forth. Without the aid of his disciples who were 
 not yet converted to the idea of a spiritual kingdom, he 
 sent the multitudes away who would take him by force 
 and make him king, the crowd not being responsive to 
 his highest appeals, but following him for the loaves 
 and fish. Likewise, after feeding the four thousand, 
 he sent them away. After healing the blind man of 
 Bethsaida, he sent him home with the injunction not 
 to enter into the village, fearing a following who looked 
 for outward signs. He elicited from his disciples 
 through Peter the confession that he was the Christ 
 and then charged them that they should tell no man, 
 lest his following grow by hearsay evidence. Jesus 
 took with him Peter, James, and John and brought them 
 up with him in the high mount of Transfiguration. A 
 certain scribe who would follow him anywhere he 
 warned of the difficulty of following one who had 
 not where to lay his head. To a really quickened and 
 sensitive soul who would follow him after first burying 
 his father Jesus said, "Leave the dead [spiritually] 
 to bury their own dead ; but go thou and publish abroad 
 the kingdom of God" (Luke 9: 60). To another who 
 would follow after bidding farewell to his relatives, 
 Jesus said : "No man, having put his hand to the plough, 
 and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 
 9: 62). Not superficial, but binding, personal attach- 
 ment would he have. He appointed seventy others, and 
 sent them two by two before his face into every city 
 and place, whither he himself was about to come. He 
 116
 
 JESUS AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 taught that men are spared from calamities, such as 
 overcame the Galilaean martyrs and the eighteen upon 
 whom the Tower in Siloam fell, in order that they may 
 repent and bear fruit. Jesus, loving the rich and good 
 young ruler, pointed out to him the one thing lacking 
 to his being perfect. Jesus found the poor blind man 
 excommunicated by the Pharisees, and established his 
 belief in the Son of God. The cursing of the barren 
 fig tree is a parable of the withering away of Pharisaic 
 and all fruitlessness. The visit of the Greeks caused 
 trouble to the soul of Jesus at the prospect of the 
 crucifixion, which was relieved, however, by the vision 
 of all men being thereby drawn unto him. From the 
 multitude who rejected the idea that the Son of Man 
 must be lifted up, Jesus departed and hid himself, as 
 from the multitude who would make him king, being 
 reminded thereby of his temptation. In the same way 
 Jesus did not commit himself to those who believed 
 on him at the feast of the passover because of the signs 
 which he did, and which he performed not to win fol- 
 lowers, but in compassion. Selected individuals he care- 
 fully instructed that he was a suffering and spiritual 
 Messiah; crowds who rejected these ideas, holding that 
 the Christ abides forever as a temporal ruler, and be- 
 lieving him to be such because of his works of mercy, 
 he sent away, escaped from, and refused to trust. Two 
 most striking things in conformity with his refusal to 
 cast himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple are 
 first, he never worked a miracle to win a follower, and 
 second, he never allowed the beneficiary of a miracle 
 to follow him, though he received tokens of gratitude 
 from such. "Go thy way," he would say, as to the 
 accused woman whom he did not condemn, the grateful 
 one of the ten cleansed lepers, and blind Bartimaeus. 
 
 117
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 The risen Christ continues to emphasize the same prin- 
 ciple of the spread of influence by personal contact, 
 saying to the disciples: "As the Father hath sent me, 
 even so send I you" (John 20: 21). The Great Com- 
 mission lays the obligation on disciples to make disci- 
 ples, and the last recorded sentence of the ascending 
 Lord contains the words: "Ye shall be my witnesses" 
 (Acts i: 8). Thus the social Kingdom comes through 
 the influence of individual contact. 
 
 The ninth and last of Jesus' principles of social re- 
 form is progress by growth. "First the blade, then the 
 ear, then the full corn in the ear" (Mark 4: 28) is his 
 own statement of the principle. He likens the Kingdom 
 to seed cast upon the earth, springing up and grow- 
 ing one knows not how; he likens the word of the 
 Kingdom to the seed of the sower, some of which 
 falls on good ground, grows up, increases, and 
 brings forth some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, some a 
 hundredfold. Again he likens the Kingdom to wheat 
 and tares growing together until the harvest; and 
 again to the small mustard seed growing up and becom- 
 ing greater than all the herbs ; and still again to leaven 
 hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened. 
 The end should not come until the Gospel of the King- 
 dom had been preached in the whole world for a testi- 
 mony unto all the nations. The end was measured 
 not by days and years, but by. the completion of the 
 process of growth. The thinking of Jesus on this point 
 is by analogy from nature. The significance of this 
 principle is that the transformation of human society 
 into the Kingdom of God is a developmental process, 
 not coming by observation. 
 
 Such are the nine social principles of Jesus, to the 
 effectiveness of which in changing the complexion of 
 118
 
 JESUS AND SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 human society the course of succeeding human history, 
 dating itself from the birth of Jesus, is itself witness. 
 They show Jesus as a reformer, not by a program, 
 which is local, but by the social spirit, which is uni- 
 versal. 
 
 \ 
 
 9
 
 STUDY XI 
 JESUS AND THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 
 
 its importance The Kingdom of Heaven was one of the constant 
 and central themes of the teaching of Jesus. He began 
 his ministry with the message of repentance, "for the 
 Kingdom of Heaven is at hand," as did John the Bap- 
 tist, but Jesus put a less violent meaning into the term 
 than did John; and the evening before his death he 
 spoke of drinking the wine new in the Kingdom of 
 God. During the intervening interval of almost three 
 years, the term was frequently on his lips, it being re- 
 corded forty-eight times by Matthew, thirteen times 
 by Mark, and thirty-four times by Luke. In John the 
 synonymous term, "eternal life," is used, except in the 
 conversations with Nicodemus and Pilate. The Twelve 
 and the Seventy are sent out to announce the same 
 message of John and of Jesus, that the Kingdom is 
 at hand. One of the preaching tours of Jesus was 
 devoted to "the gospel of the kingdom" (Matt. 9: 
 35). John was the dividing line between "the law and 
 the prophets" and "the gospel of the kingdom of God" 
 (Luke 16: 16). Many of the parables are symbols 
 of the Kingdom. And the disciples are taught to pray 
 for the coming of the Kingdom. It is obvious that this 
 subject was one of the essentials in the teaching of 
 Jesus. 
 
 its Meaning What does the term mean? In the prayer Jesus 
 
 taught his disciples we find his thought expressed in his 
 own words : "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on 
 
 120
 
 JESUS AND THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 
 
 earth as it is in heaven." The Kingdom is composed 
 of persons who do the will of God on earth. It is 
 an individual as well as a social conception; it is an 
 inner as well as an outer fact. It is not outer in the 
 sense of any particular political, economic, or social 
 organization; it is outer only in the sense that there is 
 nothing hidden that shall not be revealed. All outer 
 systems are to be gradually transformed by the working 
 of the inner rule of God in the individual soul, as the 
 leaven leavens the whole lump. It does not come with 
 observation. To the Pharisees Jesus said: "The king- 
 dom of God is in the midst of you" (Luke 17: 21, 
 margin) or, "within you," with the second reading of 
 which accords one of the new sayings of Jesus: "The 
 kingdom of heaven is within you and whosoever shall 
 know himself shall find it," reminding us also of the 
 saying chosen by Socrates from the Delphic oracle as 
 the motto of his life : "Know thyself." Jesus meant you 
 would find the fact of the spiritual within, Socrates 
 meant you would find your rational universality within ; 
 or, in short, Jesus meant you would find God, and 
 Socrates meant you would find man. Jesus was refuting 
 the formalism of the Pharisees, Socrates the individ- 
 ualism of the Sophists. So, by the Kingdom of Heaven 
 Jesus meant the reign of God in the hearts of men. 
 This is its quality. As such, it is an earthly pattern 
 of a heavenly model, just as, in Plato's "Republic," 
 justice in the state is an earthly imitation of a heavenly 
 idea, the main difference being that the thought of Jesus 
 is relatively more individual and personal, while Plato's 
 is more social and impersonal. 
 
 But the Kingdom of Heaven in the teaching of Jesus A Quality 
 is not only a quality, it is also a place. To enter it andaplace 
 with only one eye is preferable to being cast into 
 
 121
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 The Magna 
 Charta of 
 the Kingdom 
 
 Gehenna with two eyes. One does not enter it by 
 saying "Lord, Lord," but by doing the will of the 
 Heavenly Father. In it many who have come from 
 the east and the west shall recline with Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob. In it, "the kingdom of their Father," the 
 righteous shall shine forth as the sun. It is that 
 heavenly place where the subjects of the Kingdom on 
 earth shall be after death. 
 
 Jesus took the Old Testament conception of a politi- 
 cal theocracy and enthroned it in the hearts of individ- 
 uals, who in turn should rectify the abuses of human 
 society. The Sermon on the Mount is the Magna 
 Charta of the Kingdom of Heaven. In it Jesus pro- 
 nounced blessings on certain classes of people not com- 
 monly regarded as blessed by the great ones of earth; 
 called his disciples salt of the earth and light of the 
 world; described himself not as destroying but ful- 
 filling; illustrated this principle in the eight cases of 
 murder, adultery, forswearing, retaliation, hating the 
 enemy, alms-giving, prayer, and fasting, showing in 
 each case how the righteousness necessary for enter- 
 ing the Kingdom exceeded that of the scribes and 
 Pharisees; gave instruction concerning the heavenly 
 treasure, judging, seeking, and finding; stated the 
 Golden Rule; contrasted the wide and narrow gate; 
 warned against false prophets; and contrasted the wise 
 and foolish man. Each one of these subjects has its 
 striking social significance in the mind of Jesus. One 
 might regard forswearing and prayer as strictly in- 
 dividual matters, but in the one case Jesus introduces 
 the "Yea" and "Nay" of social communication, and in 
 the other the social safeguard of forgiving each other's 
 trespasses. Thus the Sermon on the Mount exhibits 
 the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven in its inner 
 
 122
 
 JESUS AND THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 
 
 aspect of righteousness and its outer aspect of cor- 
 responding social relations. 
 
 The Kingdom of Heaven, as viewed by Jesus, has Contrasts 
 certain striking contrasts with the Reign of the Messiah, ^ ith Scriba i 
 as viewed by the scribes and others. In fact, the one 
 great temptation of Jesus was to be the kind of Messiah 
 his contemporaries were expecting, and so to win ac- 
 ceptance. They looked for a Messiah who would serve 
 himself physically by his great power, win his people 
 by a supernatural sign, and establish his temporal reign 
 on earth over all peoples. But he chose a Messiahship 
 of service to others rather than self, winning allegiance 
 by personal rather than super-physical means, and 
 establishing a spiritual reign in the hearts of his fol- 
 lowers. After the feeding of the five thousand Jesus 
 perceived the people would make him a king by force 
 and withdrew alone into the mountain, the place of 
 victory, with no disciple to urge him to yield. Even 
 James and John wanted places at his right and left 
 hand. On Palm Sunday the people fatuously cried out 
 blessing on the coming kingdom of their father David. 
 Even after the resurrection the disciples still obtusely 
 ask about the restoration of the kingdom to Israel 
 (Acts i : 6). So was he beset and tempted both before, 
 during, and after his ministry by the material and 
 temporal views of his own people. In contrast his 
 Kingdom was spiritual, inner, non-political, non- Jewish, 
 universal, the filial companionship in all things of man 
 and God. 
 
 We may properly wonder that Jesus is the trans- jesusGave 
 forming agent of society without having given any aSocial 
 
 " , Conscience, 
 
 social system ; that he did not, like Plato, arrange the y Qt a social 
 classes of men in order of philosophic rulers, patriotic System 
 defenders, and menial workers in the state; that he 
 
 123
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 never forbade war in so many terms, but drew one 
 of his illustrations from a king's council of war; that 
 he used such practices as selling into slavery, self- 
 mutilation, and casting into prison for debt as illustra- 
 tions, without condemning the practices themselves; 
 that he would have the will of God done on earth with- 
 out specifying the resulting social program; that he 
 himself, so far from being a king, would not serve as 
 arbitrator in the matter of an inheritance; that he did 
 not tell the soldiers to lay down their arms; that he 
 did not tell the slave-owners to free their slaves; that 
 he did not propose improved imperial legislation for 
 the province of Palestine; that in no sense was he a 
 social agitator. Second thought on these matters re- 
 veals the surpassing wisdom of Jesus as a social re- 
 former. He did not care for the machinery of society, 
 he would only make men perfect in love to God and 
 man, and these perfected men would salt the earth and 
 light the world, in whatever age and under whatever 
 social conditions. Jesus gave a spirit of love and serv- 
 ice and left systems to his followers of every age. This 
 makes his teaching of universal application, while that 
 of Plato, his close competitor in the field of theoretical 
 social reconstruction, is mainly local. Jesus taught a 
 way of life for any system, and walked in it himself. 
 Our wonder passes and we cease to be surprised that 
 in the name of Jesus nations like the Argentine and 
 Chile have made perpetual peace; that war is being 
 internationally attacked as a mode of settling national 
 disputes; that first slaves, then serfs, and now peons 
 are being freed ; that enlightenment has spread, democ- 
 racies have triumphed, women and children have had 
 their hours of labor lightened, the daily bread has been 
 made more pure and wholesome, preventive medicine 
 124
 
 JESUS AND THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 
 
 is emphasized; that debtors are no longer cast into 
 prison; that inheritance legislation is enacted; that 
 capital and labor approach each other; and that Jesus 
 is becoming King of kings and Lord of lords. 
 
 The principle of Jesus is, regenerate the individual, Theindi- 
 and regenerated individuals will regenerate society. !**; 
 Those who miss this second emphasis in Jesus fail to 
 note the significance of his teaching about saying 
 "Lord" and not doing as the Lord says. He improves 
 individuals by dynamic connection with God; these he 
 leaves to improve their own physical and social en- 
 vironment. His prayer was not that his disciples should 
 be taken out of the world of which they were the 
 salt, and the light, and the leaven but that they should 
 be kept from evil. It is the individual in society he 
 reaches. His social gospel is the immediate and neces- 
 sary consequence of his individual gospel. 
 
 125
 
 STUDY XII 
 
 The Question 
 
 Foreign 
 Associations 
 of His Infancy 
 
 John's View 
 
 Faith of a 
 Roman 
 
 An Alien 
 Woman'! Faith 
 
 JESUS AND MISSIONS 
 
 What was to be the extent of the Kingdom of heaven 
 on earth? No limits whatsoever are finally put on its 
 growth. This is the point of view from which to ap- 
 proach the study of Jesus and missions. As heretofore, 
 we will look first at his life, and then at his teachings, 
 in relation to missions. 
 
 Even his infancy is associated in story and prophecy 
 with foreign personages, countries, and people. Wise 
 men from the East come to worship him who was 
 born king of the Jews. As an infant he is carried into 
 Egypt. The righteous and devout Simeon saw in the 
 infant Jesus the salvation of God "prepared before the 
 face of all peoples ; a light for revelation to the Gentiles, 
 and the glory of thy people Israel" (Luke 2: 31, 32). 
 
 At the outset of the ministry John the Baptist, as 
 reported by John the evangelist, strikes the universal 
 note in the mission of Jesus : "Behold, the Lamb of God, 
 that taketh away the sin of the world!" (John I: 29). 
 
 Early in his ministry the faith of the Roman cen- 
 turion caused Jesus to marvel and to turn and say to 
 the multitude following him : "I have not found so great 
 faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, that 
 many shall come from the east and the west, and shall 
 sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the 
 kingdom of heaven." There were to be no racial or 
 geographical boundaries to the Kingdom. 
 
 After having given offense to the ceremonious Phari- 
 sees in his teaching concerning inward cleansing, Jesus 
 126
 
 JESUS AND MISSIONS 
 
 withdrew into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, seeking 
 retirement, but he could not be hid. He was besought 
 by a Canaanitish woman, a Greek, a Syrophoenician 
 by race, in behalf of her little daughter with an unclean 
 spirit. Falling at his feet, she said: "Lord, help me." 
 His reply was not a refusal, he did in fact heal her 
 daughter, but he tested her faith with the reply: "Let 
 the children first be filled : for it is not meet to take the 
 children's bread and cast it to the dogs" (Mark 7: 27). 
 Here an order of blessing is indicated, beginning with 
 the children. There is no intimation that only the 
 children will be fed. The healing of the afflicted daugh- 
 ter is the best evidence that the Gospel is for those in 
 need, not those of a certain race. 
 
 The Samaritans were half Jews. So far from avoid- Labors in 
 ing the route through Samaria in journeying from 
 Judaea to Galilee, as was customary by the Jews, Jesus 
 felt an inward compulsion to pass through Samaria. 
 He spoke living words to a sinning woman in Sychar, 
 and at the request of the Samaritans abode there two 
 days, and many believed on him. Again, in going up to 
 Jerusalem, he passed through Samaria. One village 
 did not receive him because of his evident destination, 
 the Jews and Samaritans having no dealings with each 
 other, but he, rejecting the counsel of "the sons of 
 thunder," James and John, to bid fire to come down 
 from heaven and consume the villagers, simply went 
 on to another village. Once again, in journeying to 
 Jerusalem along the borders of Samaria and Galilee, 
 Jesus healed ten lepers, one of whom turned back from 
 his mission to the priest to glorify God and give thanks 
 to Jesus, and he was a Samaritan. Jesus signalized 
 this act of gratitude with the words: "Were not the 
 ten cleansed? but where are the nine? Were there 
 127
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 The Temple 
 
 none found that returned to give glory to God, save 
 this stranger?" (Luke 17: 17, 18). Not only by these 
 three recorded instances of labor in Samaria but also 
 by the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus illustrated 
 the absence of race antipathy in religion. The Jews 
 even accused him of being a Samaritan and having a 
 devil. 
 
 In his teaching following the cleansing of the Temple 
 
 The Coming of 
 the Greeks 
 
 for All Nation* Jesus struck the universal note again when he asked : 
 "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of 
 prayer for all the nations?'" (Mark n: 17). In fact, 
 his soul was too steeped in the message of the prophets 
 for him to fail to stress both the social and the world 
 viewpoints. 
 
 Jesus actually faced the Gentile world in vision when 
 the Greeks presented themselves to Philip as interpre- 
 ter with the request: "Sir, we would see Jesus" (John 
 12: 21 ). What effect did this request have on Jesus? 
 First, it caused him to realize that the hour of his 
 sacrifice, which was also the hour of his glorification, 
 had come. He saw the first fruitage from a foreign 
 field that should be borne by the grain of wheat fallen 
 into the ground and dying. By hating his life in this 
 world he would keep it unto Life eternal. Those who 
 serve him were to follow him in so doing, that they 
 might both be with him and be honored by the Father. 
 Then, at this prospect of his physical death, though 
 leading to such fruitage, his soul was troubled, he ques- 
 tioned whether he should pray for deliverance from it, 
 only to check the rising question with the affirmation 
 that for this very cause he had come to this hour, and 
 then prayed that the Father would glorify His name. 
 So mightily did the prospect of harvest in the Greek 
 world affect his soul. 
 
 128
 
 JESUS AND MISSIONS 
 
 The idea of making converts was familiar to the Proselytes of 
 disciples through the active zeal of the Pharisees in ** P*"*" 
 proselyting. Jesus pronounced woe upon the "scribes 
 and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye compass sea and land 
 to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, ye 
 make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves" 
 (Matt. 23: 15). Jesus never told his disciples to make 
 no converts; on the contrary they were called to be 
 "fishers of men." So in this passage he is not de- 
 nouncing missionary activity as such, but its association 
 with Pharisaic ends. Such a proselyte was worse off 
 than the Pharisees themselves, having received only 
 the husks of the Jewish religion and being without its 
 antecedent roots in themselves. 
 
 Jesus himself in fact sent forth two by two both the The Mission ot 
 twelve and the seventy. It was when he saw the multi- the TwelTe 
 tudes, and was moved with compassion for them, be- 
 cause they were distressed and scattered, as sheep not 
 having a shepherd, that he told his disciples the harvest 
 was plenteous and the laborers few, and enjoined upon 
 them to pray the Lord of the harvest that He would 
 thrust forth laborers into His harvest. Then he called 
 his twelve disciples, gave them authority to cast out 
 unclean spirits and heal all manner of sickness, charged 
 them in detail, and sent them forth two by two to preach 
 and to heal. For others it was missionary work, for 
 themselves it was both missionary and educative work. 
 
 When he set his face to go to Jerusalem, he sent The Mission of 
 messengers before his face, in Samaria, to make ready the SeTent J 
 for him. This mode of work so developed that he 
 "appointed seventy others, and sent them two and 
 two before his face into every city and place, whither 
 he himself was about to come" (Luke 10: i). These 
 likewise he reminded of the plenteous harvest and few 
 
 229
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 laborers and the need of prayer, and gave them their 
 charge. The report of the seventy on their return is 
 recorded, as well as the effect of this report on Jesus. 
 They came back elated at their power to subject devils 
 in the name of Jesus. There was danger of pride in 
 spiritual power. Jesus reminded them that he had be- 
 held Satan fallen, as lightning from heaven, perhaps 
 at the Temptation, that they indeed had power over the 
 enemy, but that they should rejoice, not because the 
 spirits were subject unto them, but because their names 
 were written in heaven. Thus he let them down by 
 lifting their thoughts up. Then Jesus himself, seeing 
 the harvest gathered by the laborers he had sent forth, 
 rejoiced in the Holy Spirit, and thanked the Lord of 
 heaven and earth that it was well-pleasing in His sight 
 to hide these wonderful things, denied to prophets and 
 kings, from the wise and understanding and to reveal 
 them unto babes of meek and lowly hearts. Here was 
 a missionary enterprise of considerable magnitude and 
 full of instruction in the spirit of missions. 
 
 The Charge to The charge given to the seventy is shorter and re- 
 the Twelve peats that given to the twelve, though the twelve were 
 apparently not of the seventy "others." The charge 
 to the twelve restricts the field of operation to "the 
 lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt. 10: 6); 
 provides the text of the preaching: "The kingdom of 
 heaven is at hand" (Matt. 10: 7) ; includes the service 
 to all the needs of the body ; states the principle motiv- 
 ating the work: "freely ye received, freely give" (Matt. 
 10 : 8) ; states also the principle of reward for service 
 rendered: "The laborer is worthy of his food" (Matt. 
 10: 10) they were to go dependent not on themselves, 
 but on those served; a worthy house was to be made 
 headquarters while in any city or village; those not 
 130
 
 JESUS AND MISSIONS 
 
 hospitable to the messengers were to be testified against 
 by shaking off the dust under the feet. Being as sheep 
 in the midst of wolves, they were to be "wise as serpents 
 and harmless as doves" (Matt. 10: 16). Persecution 
 from men was to be expected, but it should be given 
 them from the Father what to say in that hour. The 
 Gospel would bring cruel family separations, and hatred 
 to themselves, but endurance to the end was necessary 
 for salvation. Persecution should lead not to resist- 
 ance but to flight, for the Son of Man should come 
 before the cities of Israel had been compassed. Such 
 persecution of the members of the household of him 
 whom his enemies had called Beelzebub was to be ex- 
 pected. But they were to fear God, and have no other 
 fear, for the truth shall be known, and the Father who 
 marks the sparrow's fall has numbered the very hairs 
 of the head. Confession before men is necessary if 
 one would be confessed before the Father. Jesus re- 
 turns to the idea of the family divisions that will result 
 from the sword of the Gospel, and requires the sub- 
 ordination of family ties to love of Jesus himself. His 
 last thought is the sense of unity of himself with his 
 messengers and with the Father: "He that receiveth 
 you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth 
 him that sent me" (Matt. 10: 40). The detail of this 
 charge indicates the thoroughness with which Jesus 
 planned out the first experience of the twelve as mis- 
 sionaries. There is no additional point in the charge 
 to the seventy. 
 
 The concluding idea in the charge that Jesus was jesusWas 
 sending them even as he himself was sent, is a familiar Himself Sent 
 one in the gospels. No less than fifty-three times Jesus 
 is described by himself or others in the four gospels as 
 having been sent. Both the origin and the spread of 
 131
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 the Christian religion is in the sense of mission. Jesus 
 came on a mission from the Father; he called others 
 to be with him a while, until they were ready for him 
 to send them on the same mission. It is of the essence 
 of the love of God for the world that Jesus should be 
 sent and should send. 
 
 His Missionary If we turn from his missionary life and his guidance 
 Teachings o m i ss i onar y activities to his specific teachings, there 
 
 is a surprising amount of evidence that the whole world 
 was in his thought and plan. "The field is the world," 
 he said, interpreting the parable of the tares in the 
 field (Matt. 13: 38). The whole of the three measures 
 of meal is to be leavened. The least of all seeds is 
 to become the greatest of all trees. 
 
 He recalled two prophetic mercies to foreigners : 
 in the long famine over all the land of Israel, Elijah 
 was sent only to the widow in Zarephath, in the land 
 of Sidon; and of all the lepers in Israel in the time 
 of Elisha, only Naaman, the Syrian, was cleansed. 
 Such illustrations incited his fellow-citizens in Naza- 
 reth to wrath. 
 
 His disciples he regarded as the salt of the earth, 
 the light of the world, not of Israel only, and this con- 
 ception is expressed near the outset of his ministry in 
 the Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 In defending the gracious act of the woman in anoint- 
 ing his head with an alabaster cruse of exceeding 
 precious ointment in the house of Simon the leper in 
 Bethany against the indignant criticism of the disci- 
 ples at such "waste," he said in part: "Wheresoever 
 this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that 
 also which this woman hath done shall be spoken of 
 for a memorial of her" (Matt. 26: 13). 
 
 The twelve apostles on their mission were to be 
 132
 
 JESUS AND MISSIONS 
 
 brought before governors and kings for a testimony 
 to them and to the Gentiles. In harmony with this 
 idea, he told the chief priests and the elders that the 
 Kingdom of God should be taken away from them and 
 given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. 
 
 In the parable of the slighted invitation, the king 
 bids his servants go unto the partings of the highways, 
 and bid to the marriage feast as many as they should 
 find. In answering the question of the disciples con- 
 cerning the end of the world, he said: "And these 
 good tidings of the kingdom shall be preached in the 
 whole world [Gr. inhabited earth] for a testimony 
 unto all the nations" (Matt. 24: 14). Likewise in 
 the judgment scene there shall be gathered before the 
 Son of man "all the nations." 
 
 To the Pharisees he said plainly that he had other 
 sheep, not of his fold, whom also he must bring, who 
 should hear his voice, and there should be one flock, 
 one shepherd. Again he taught, signifying by what 
 manner of death he should die, that, if he should be 
 lifted up from the earth, he would draw all men unto 
 himself. He came not to judge the world, but to save 
 the world. The world is to know that he loves the 
 Father, the world is to believe that the Father sent 
 him. As it was into the world the Father sent him, 
 so it was into the world that he sent his witnesses. 
 
 It is thoroughly in keeping with these universal mis- The Great 
 sionary conceptions that the risen Christ should give Commission 
 the great commission, with its four universals, to the 
 eleven disciples, claiming all authority, sending them 
 to all nations, to teach them all his commands, and 
 promising his presence all the days until the end. 
 Finally, the risen and ascending Christ speaks to his 
 chosen apostles: "Ye shall be my witnesses both in 
 133
 
 MODERN PROBLEMS AS JESUS SAW THEM 
 
 The In- 
 spiration of 
 Missionaries 
 
 Temporary 
 Limits 
 
 Urging of 
 Social and 
 Universal 
 in Missions 
 
 Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto 
 the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts i: 8). 
 
 In the clarity and the power of all these words of 
 mission in the good tidings brought by Jesus, the souls 
 of all missionaries from St. Paul till now have been 
 inspired and upheld. Followers of Jesus have no doubt 
 about it his Gospel is for all. So it was intended and 
 so the centuries have proven it to be. 
 
 Such is the unlimited extent of the Kingdom as 
 indicated by the missionary sweep of the life and 
 teachings of Jesus. The limits he set to the field of 
 labor were evidently temporary. "Go not into any 
 way of the Gentiles, and enter not into any city of 
 the Samaritans" (Matt. 10: 5), words spoken to the 
 twelve apostles; "I was not sent but unto the lost 
 sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt. 15: 24), words 
 spoken to the Canaanitish woman ; these limitations are 
 evidently transitory. The field of the twelve was 
 doubtless limited that their experience might prove 
 most successful and educative. That their first field 
 was limited for them shows they might naturally have 
 entertained the idea of a wider service. The Syro- 
 phoenician mother had her faith tested. It was only 
 "first," not exclusively, that the children were to be fed. 
 And she received her boon. 
 
 At this point the social aspect of the Gospel becomes 
 universal. Since the days of the life and teachings 
 of Jesus, the history of man has had to record mainly 
 the gradual increase of his social leaven. The mean- 
 ingful thing in life viewed historically is the steady 
 perfecting of humanity after the pattern of divinity. 
 The rule of man is growing into the rule of God. 
 Men are becoming brothers in mutual service, children 
 of a common Father, members of one family. 
 J34
 
 JESUS AND MISSIONS 
 
 At no time is this clearer than at the present moment The Present 
 when the world is at war, testing whether righteous- World-struggle 
 ness and justice between nations are to prevail now 
 or must yet wait a while. They will prevail in the end. 
 Man's wrath, even if victorious, can but delay their 
 ultimate triumph. For any government opposing these 
 ideas there is bound to be downfall, not world-power, 
 later, if not sooner. It is already written in the record 
 of divine and human nature what the end is to be 
 that liberty and justice are to prevail, though the time 
 of this coming is hidden. Human society may delay, 
 but not thwart, its destiny. Millions of witnesses to 
 the truth of God and man are now, in Colonel Roose- 
 velt's phrase, "paying with their bodies for the desires 
 of their souls." Other millions are ready to do the 
 same. It is God's fight against the prince of this world. 
 
 A modern prophet, 1 writing under the strain of the 
 world-war, with a keen sense of abiding realities, 
 speaks thus of the final outcome: "I conceive myself 
 to be thinking as the world thinks, and if I find no great 
 facts, I find a hundred little indications to reassure me 
 that God comes. Even those who have neither the 
 imagination nor the faith to apprehend God as a reality 
 will, I think, realise presently that the Kingdom of 
 God over a world-wide system of republican States is 
 the only possible formula under which we may hope to 
 unify and save mankind." 
 
 H. G. Wells. "Italy, Prance, and Britain at War.;: 
 
 135
 
 A FEW SUGGESTED REFERENCES 
 
 HARNACK, A., "What Is Christianity?" Tr., T. B. 
 Saunders. Lectures given in the University of 
 Berlin. 
 
 HASTINGS, JAS., ED., "A Dictionary of Christ and the 
 Gospels." 2 Vols. An invaluable aid, containing 
 articles on every important topic in the gospels. 
 
 HILLIS, N. D., "The Influence of Christ in Modern 
 Life." By the pastor of Plymouth Church, Brook- 
 lyn. 
 
 HYDE, W. D., "From Epicurus to Christ." Popular 
 studies in five philosophies of life by the President 
 of Bowdoin College. 
 
 JENKS, J. W., "The Social Significance of the Teach- 
 ings of Jesus." Arranged as a text for daily study 
 for twelve weeks. 
 
 KENT, C. F., "The Social Teachings of the Prophets 
 and Jesus." Shows that the prophetic founders of 
 Judaism and Jesus were preeminently social teach- 
 ers. 
 
 MATHEWS, SHAILER, "The Social Teaching of Jesus." 
 One of the standard texts. 
 
 MONTGOMERY, H. E., "Christ's Social Remedies." 
 Makes applications of the teachings of Jesus to 
 present problems. 
 
 PEABODY, F. G., "Jesus Christ and the Social Question." 
 A thorough and reverent examination of the teach- 
 ings of Jesus in relation to modern social problems. 
 
 RAUSCHENBUSCH, WALTER, "The Social Principles of 
 Jesus." Arranged for daily study, with weekly 
 comment for twelve weeks. 
 136
 
 A FEW SUGGESTED REFERENCES 
 
 ROSADI, G., "The Trial of Jesus/' Ed., Dr. Emil Reich. 
 A brilliant review of the life and teaching of Jesus 
 in the first hundred pages. 
 
 SIMPSON, P. C, "The Fact of Christ." Lectures by a 
 Glasgow minister, mainly on the Gospel for the 
 individual. 
 
 SPEER, R. E., "The Principles of Jesus." Interpreta- 
 tions by an eminent student leader. 
 
 STEVENS, G. B., "The Teaching of Jesus." A sys- 
 tematic exposition. 
 
 THOMS, C. S., "The Working Man's Christ." A simple 
 and effective presentation. 
 
 VAUGHAN, BERNARD, Father, S. J., "Socialism from the 
 Christian Standpoint." Ten conferences opposing 
 socialism as the settlement of the social question.
 
 85 
 
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