This was really an excellent analysis (and not just because you gave me a shoutout: thank you kindly!). I was joking with some executives from our parent company just a couple mornings ago who were on site touring our academy and said, “Yeah, I couldn’t hack it in the field so I teach it in the class now.”
For years I’ve been smitten with the idea, one I grew up without, that Jesus actually learned things from His parents and labor. The cultivation of His virtue and His interior formation were in the context of worship wedded to work. You’ve done a wonderful job of illustrating this. And then touching on the source of His authority: the Pharisees taught from the words of wise men before them; Jesus taught as the Wise Word. The source of His authority is the Father, in one sense, and that’s always what I’ve heard, but it came from His *experience* of living the life to which the Scriptures pointed, something which the Pharisees had only in part or not at all.
This is a point that I'm rather confused by the language of. Is the point that the Word learned from experience or that He, in living the perfect life, gained the authority of a moral leader in a human sense added to His Divine authority accorded to Him as God made Man?
It’s not an easy question and I’m not sure I understand the mechanics of it. I think it’s a bit of a both/and scenario: He had authority (understood as the right to command/act) from the Father -- He could call down angels, command the material universe, raise the dead, etc.; but there was also an authority in His teaching that was very earthy and human -- His character as a man was such that people listened to Him with rapt attention and even followed Him. In a sense this was also from the Father (as all good things are), but it was in another, real sense the product of His life of holiness and virtue in the world, recognizable to others because of a shared humanity, shared religious context, shared culture, and the rest.
That makes so much more sense than where I thought that was going. Thank you! Yes, I imagine Christ had a natural authoritative presence as well as the authority one can sometimes sense from an incredibly holy person.
I love the distinction you’ve drawn up! Wouldn’t you say that learning can also directly relate to doing though, or do you specifically mean learning ethical things? If it’s just ethics, then I absolutely agree that living the ethics learned comes before teaching them.
It's a good point, James—you're right, it's absolutely true that often the best learning takes place in the context of doing. I was thinking about how education typically works in our world: "book learning," theoretical, often detached from action. I think this way of approaching learning connects to Jesus's criticism of the religious leaders of his time. Thank you for clarifying this!
This was really an excellent analysis (and not just because you gave me a shoutout: thank you kindly!). I was joking with some executives from our parent company just a couple mornings ago who were on site touring our academy and said, “Yeah, I couldn’t hack it in the field so I teach it in the class now.”
For years I’ve been smitten with the idea, one I grew up without, that Jesus actually learned things from His parents and labor. The cultivation of His virtue and His interior formation were in the context of worship wedded to work. You’ve done a wonderful job of illustrating this. And then touching on the source of His authority: the Pharisees taught from the words of wise men before them; Jesus taught as the Wise Word. The source of His authority is the Father, in one sense, and that’s always what I’ve heard, but it came from His *experience* of living the life to which the Scriptures pointed, something which the Pharisees had only in part or not at all.
Anyway. Great piece. Really thought provoking.
This is a point that I'm rather confused by the language of. Is the point that the Word learned from experience or that He, in living the perfect life, gained the authority of a moral leader in a human sense added to His Divine authority accorded to Him as God made Man?
It’s not an easy question and I’m not sure I understand the mechanics of it. I think it’s a bit of a both/and scenario: He had authority (understood as the right to command/act) from the Father -- He could call down angels, command the material universe, raise the dead, etc.; but there was also an authority in His teaching that was very earthy and human -- His character as a man was such that people listened to Him with rapt attention and even followed Him. In a sense this was also from the Father (as all good things are), but it was in another, real sense the product of His life of holiness and virtue in the world, recognizable to others because of a shared humanity, shared religious context, shared culture, and the rest.
That makes so much more sense than where I thought that was going. Thank you! Yes, I imagine Christ had a natural authoritative presence as well as the authority one can sometimes sense from an incredibly holy person.
I love the distinction you’ve drawn up! Wouldn’t you say that learning can also directly relate to doing though, or do you specifically mean learning ethical things? If it’s just ethics, then I absolutely agree that living the ethics learned comes before teaching them.
It's a good point, James—you're right, it's absolutely true that often the best learning takes place in the context of doing. I was thinking about how education typically works in our world: "book learning," theoretical, often detached from action. I think this way of approaching learning connects to Jesus's criticism of the religious leaders of his time. Thank you for clarifying this!