Life of Christ 40
The custom of the rabbis
of His day was to do little more than quote a bunch of previous rabbis in order
to lend authority to their scriptural interpretation and application. Only
rarely did they ever express their own exposition forcefully. In fact, there
are extant quotes in the rabbinical literature of the day in which certain
rabbis assert with pride that they never had anything original to say. In a
sense, there is wisdom here, for a preacher who always says things no one else
has ever said is probably preaching error, if not outright heresy, and there is
great profit to be gained by gleaning the studies of those who have gone before
us. But the rabbis, as was their wont, took a good concept to a rather awful
extreme. In the Jewish mind, the rabbi was tied to tradition very tightly. In
fact, the rabbi's very credentials were directly tied to which rabbi had taught
him, and ever back to another rabbi in a chain that supposedly went all the way
back to Moses. This chain, and the weight of its tradition, was to them the
safeguard of all good preaching.
At the same time, there
were certainly disputes among various rabbis, each with its own school of
thought about a particular doctrine or issue. Thus, not only was the preaching
of the day little more than the citing of some other esteemed rabbi, that same
preaching often disagreed with another rabbi's teaching. This played out in
excruciating detail over the most minute aspects of scriptural instruction. For
instance, Edersheim illustrates this very well with the theological disputes in
Jesus' day over how to properly say the blessing before a meal:
Bread was regarded as the
mainstay of life, without which no entertainment was considered as a meal.
Indeed, in a sense it constituted the meal. For, the blessing was spoken over
the bread, and this was supposed to cover all the rest of the food that followed,
such as the meat, fish, or vegetables - in short, all that made up the dinner,
but not the dessert. Similarly, the blessing spoken over the wine included all
other kinds of drink. Otherwise it would have been necessary to pronounce a
separate benediction over each different article eaten or drunk. He who
neglected the prescribed benedictions was regarded as if he had eaten of things
dedicated to God, since it was written: "The earth is the Lord's, and the
fulness thereof." Beautiful as this principle is, it degenerated into
tedious questions of casuistry. Thus, if one kind of food was eaten as an
addition to another, it was settled that the blessing should be spoken only
over the principal kind. Again, there are elaborate disputations as to what
should be regarded as fruit, and have the corresponding blessing, and how, for
example, one blessing should be spoken over the leaves and blossoms, and
another over the berries of the caper. Indeed, that bush gave rise to a serious
controversy between the Schools of Hillel and Shammai. Another series of
elaborate discussions arose, as to to what blessing should be used when a dish
consisted of various ingredients, some the product of the earth, others, like
honey, derived from the animal world. Such and similar disquisitions, giving
rise to endless argument and controversy, busied the minds of the Pharisees and
Scribes.
In an environment like
this the preaching not only majored on minors, but unless the rabbi could fence
himself in with a billion quotes from other rabbis he could not assert anything
forcefully. The end result was sermons that were little more than the setting
forth of various sides of an issue, and the reading of long quotations from
other rabbis.
But Jesus was remarkably
and noticeably different in His preaching. 'And they were astonished at his
doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes'
(Mark 1.22). The classic example of this is found in the greatest sermon ever
preached, The Sermon on the Mount. In it, Jesus often lays out an erroneous
interpretation of some key commandment by saying, 'ye have heard that it hath
been said' quoting the common rabbinic take of the day. He then contrasts it
directly with what God actually meant by that particular commandment using the
phrase, 'But I say unto you.' That pattern is repeated six times in that one
sermon. Well, where did He get the authority to assert a completely different
opinion than the commonly understood one of His day? From the Word of God. He
did not go the rabbis or the fathers; He went directly to the source. He quoted
Scripture at least 78 times directly the sermons of His that are recorded in the
New Testament. This was a habit that the Apostles learned well, as they would
quote Scripture directly at least 209 times in their messages.
We can see, then, how
Jesus established a new pattern, indeed, introduced a new paradigm even, into
preaching. He untied it from an obsessive reliance on what were essentially
commentaries, and retied directly onto the Word of God. I will say again and
again this year in this blog that Jesus was a revolutionary, not a reformer,
and one of the things He revolutionized was preaching. The difference between
Himself and His peers in the ministry was not merely a matter of style, rather it
was a fundamental shift regarding the source of sermonic authority. In a day
filled with hesitant opinions, differing interpretations, and excessive citations,
His was authoritative preaching tied directly to Scripture.
In the immortal words of
a previous pastor of mine, Jack Hyles, the rabbis of Jesus' day were ear tickling, penny
pinching, nickel nipping, soft soaping, pink tea and lemonade kinds of
preachers delivering wishy washy milk toast kinds of sermons. Jesus, on the
other hand, was a barn storming, window rattling, shingle pulling, hell fire
and damnation preacher of the type that hearkened back to the Old Testament
prophets and their 'Thus saith the Lord.' 'For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes' (Matthew 7.29).
No wonder 'the common
people heard him gladly' (Mark 12.37)!
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