Why I am a Christian (12)

Jesus’ Teaching is Unique and Unmatched

In 2012 I jotted down all the reasons I could think of why I am a Christian. I found 26 so I decided to serialise them in a blog every fortnight for a year.

The first four explain why I think belief in a creator is compatible with science. The next two examine the human condition and find that it is consistent with the Bible. Then there were three theological considerations that added further weight to the case for Christianity.

This is now the third of five posts that delve into Christology. The first two looked at his remarkable fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy and his compelling persona.

In this post I want to take a look at the things he said. I think Jesus’ teaching is uniquely appealing.

Throughout the Gospels there are several recorded types of response to his words. Some people were offended, even outraged (such as the religious right ‘moral majority’ party called the Pharisees). 

Some were rendered speechless (notably the theologically liberal Sadducees). These self-important intellectuals were the rationalist sceptics of Jesus' day but he exposed the incoherence of their supposedly superior ideas in ways that left them open-mouthed.

When put on the spot by the Jeremy Paxman and John Humphreys types of his day he left them reeling. So good were his answers and so perfect were they at exposing their hidden agendas that we are told on several occasions that nobody dared ask him any more questions.

Others were intrigued (like, for example, Herod and Pilate - the authorities who were in charge of his trial). 

Still others were evidently perplexed (particularly his rather slow-witted disciples).

But most people who listened to what he said seemed deeply impacted by his teaching. The most common recorded response was of wonder and admiration. In its day, Jesus' teaching was ground-breaking. It was fresh. It challenged the status quo. It exposed vested interests. It upset traditions. Jesus’ teaching was (and remains) hardcore and radical. But we have got used to it now. Our culture has been shaped by much of what Jesus said so we don’t always feel its impact the same way as those who first heard it did.

But do you know how it feels when you hear something new and eye-opening that has the ring of truth to it, that makes sense like nothing else you’ve ever heard, that causes wonderment and stirs in you the conviction that nothing will be the same again? Well, when Jesus opened his mouth to speak it was like that.

It is recorded that people responded to his words with amazement “because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.” “What is this?” they asked. “A new teaching – and with authority!” (Mark 1.22 and 27). “Authority” means it was direct. It had clout. It addressed the things that mattered to ordinary people. It was in plain language. And it had substance (not like a politician's vague rhetoric about freedom, fairness and hardworking people who want to get on).

In Mark 12.37 it is recorded that the common people (literally the hoi polloi*) listened to him with delight. His words had the emotional effect of lifting the mood and giving inspiration with something genuinely new.

There is a slightly comical passage in John’s gospel (7.45-46) where the establishment dispatch a few temple guards to locate Jesus, get hold of him and bring him back for a ticking-off. The henchmen sit engrossed listening to him and return empty handed. The chief priests, exasperated, demand to know where he is. “But no one ever spoke the way this man does!” they report, open mouthed.

In contrast to our evasive politicians, our self-obsessed celebrities, our hyped-up athletes and our platitudinous vicars (examples of each readily spring to mind and, yes, I hold up my hand) nobody reacted to what Jesus said with yawning indifference. No one. And even twenty centuries later, the wisdom of Jesus’ teaching is still matchless, its clarity is peerless and its moral goodness is timeless.

I have sometimes wondered what kind of world we would live in if everybody in this world obeyed Jesus’ teaching – or even tried to. There would be no wars. There would be instant and lasting resolution to even the most protracted and insoluble conflicts. Able people would be slow to judge those less gifted. Everyone would learn to be content with what they had and never worry about anything. Crime rates would nosedive. Those who were victims of accidents would be quick to forgive. Everyone would be insanely generous. Leaders would be unmoved by prestige. Political office would be relatively untainted by corruption, sleaze, abuse of power and everything else we get fed up about every five or ten years.

But I digress… Jesus’ teaching is so good that Christians have rarely had to defend Jesus’ words against a global tsunami of indignation; far from it.

The Philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873) for example, who was not a Christian, said this in his Essay on Theism: “About the life and sayings of Jesus there is a stamp of personal originality combined with profundity of insight which… must place the prophet of Nazareth, even in the estimation of those who have no belief in his inspiration, in the very first rank of men of sublime genius of whom our species can boast.”

Even Christianity’s most vociferous opponents have had to recognise the imperious excellence of Jesus’ teaching – and not just through gritted teeth either. Richard Dawkins - yes, even Richard Dawkins - so admires the Sermon on the Mount that he once had a tee shirt made with the slogan Atheists for Jesus. (He rather reverts to type though by also rather laughably claiming that Jesus would be an atheist if he were around today).

But we can’t have Jesus on our own terms. He is not ours to claim as a figurehead of our interest group, whatever it might be, religious or otherwise.

It is intellectually dishonest to pick out, for example: “love your enemies,” “go the second mile,” “don’t parade your righteousness before others,” “blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy” and “why do you point out the speck in someone’s eye when you have a plank in your own eye?” as if they were dreamed up as humanist axioms.

All those phrases come from the same block of Jesus’ teaching which contains 20 references to God or “your heavenly Father,” includes an endorsement of the Old Testament, a warning about Hell, instruction on prayer, and a call to live with the perspective of eternity in Heaven.

However much humanists might approve of Jesus’ enlightened and enlightening teaching, his basic message is about the kingdom of God, not the supremacy of man.

This expression “the kingdom of God,” comes over 80 times in his teaching and is the theme of over two thirds of his parables; stories simple enough for young children to understand and enjoy but subtly layered enough for grown adults to scratch their heads in stunned bewilderment.

His words were also uncompromisingly challenging. How’s this for a rallying call to join a movement? “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?” (Luke 9.23-25).

To a wealthy young man who wanted to join the movement Jesus said, “O.K. First, sell all you have and give to the poor. Then follow me.” When he turned away because he wasn’t quite willing to go that far Jesus didn’t stop him in his tracks and call out “All right, all right! Maybe 50% then.” He just let him go and used the encounter to teach those around. “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”

And just in case you’re still not sure… “No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” Not for wimps then… Jesus demands - and deserves - total, not token, commitment. His is a cause worth living and dying for.

Perhaps the most surprising element of Jesus’ teaching, especially for one so celebrated for his humility, is his self-revelation. 

Anyone who speaks about him- or herself in the third person is either embarrassingly conceited or (much more rarely) the real deal. Jesus said an awful lot about who he was; he gave himself titles, he called people to follow him, to believe in him, to give up everything for him. He explained who he was in relation to God the Father, he often explained why he had come and he repeatedly predicted his death and rising again.

Imagine anyone you know calling themselves “the (not a but the) Good Shepherd,” saying “if you’ve seen me, you’ve actually seen God,” challenging others to leave everything they have to follow them and explaining that they came into the world to seek and save sinners. It would be utterly preposterous. They’d be locked up. Or sent down for fraud.

Well, maybe Jesus was a mental case. He'd have to be seriously unhinged if he mistakenly thought he was the Light of the World who is one with God the Father. Or maybe he was the calculating and charismatic leader of a false cult. That would make Christianity easily the biggest fraud ever pulled off in human history. 

For me though, all four Gospels are strikingly consistent. Jesus' matchless teaching, his inspiring persona and the passionate and loyal following he attracted all add up to one conclusion; he’s the real deal.

I have come to reflect on Jesus’ teaching over the last 30 years or so and I find that it eloquently supports the truthfulness of Christianity.

But I didn’t become a Christian in a cool and calculated cerebral response to having worked it all out in my mind. Not at all.

It started with a surprising spiritual encounter and a profound emotional experience. First of all, I felt my way to being a Christian. It was an encounter much more of the the heart than of the mind. Only afterwards did I look into it all and try to make sense of what happened to me. When I did, I found that everything I looked into confirmed and gave meaning to my experience. And nothing more so than the cross of Christ – which is what I will write about in two weeks’ time.

* Oh, all right, if you’ve got your Greek Interlinear out you can see it’s actually ho pollos, the singular of hoi polloi.