Dr. Randall Smith - How Jesus Taught

[Music] bye [Music] i'm dr randall smith and for about the last 25 years i've had the privilege of traveling the lands of israel jordan egypt turkey greece cyprus and italy as we've been exploring the lands of the bible for about the last decade we've been putting these kinds of journeys on tape and you'll see now notebooks in hands of students in all of these countries as they begin to study how the places affect our understanding of the bible we hope in this series you'll be able to pick up some of that excitement as you see the archaeology and the history and the geography and as it comes together for your understanding of what the bible meant to the people that originally experienced god in the text [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] navigating through the words of jesus in the gospels is like trying to navigate this rocky cliff in a windstorm it's difficult to know exactly what jesus is talking about a lot of the time understanding jesus's words has been the pursuit of gospel commentators for generations i'd like to share with you for a few moments three important principles to understanding jesus's teaching these three principles have helped me to unlock a lot of his teaching and to understand what i believe was the brilliant teacher the problem is that i'm not a brilliant hearer and i needed to go through a transformation in my own mind to understand exactly what it was jesus was talking about the first principle of understanding jesus in his teaching ministry is that i must understand the use of something called a remez a remez is the word hint all through the teaching of jesus and then later of the apostle paul you'll find them mentioning parts of the hebrew scriptures quoting from something from the hebrew scriptures as we look together at arames i'd like to take you to the inside of a learning center a synagogue and see if we can't understand a little bit more about the background of a remez korazin was inhabited by jewish people from the first to the eighth centuries it was important enough during that period for them to have built a monumental synagogue here that period is often referred to in christianity as the byzantine period but our jewish friends refer to it as the talmudic period the talmud is the writing of the oral tradition and the collecting of it into some written form which is the basis of a lot of jewish law today korazin is one of three cities that jesus uprated in matthew 11. many gospel commentators today call corazine batesida and capernaum the gospel triangle these are the three villages inside the area of which jesus did most of his preaching so many miracles were done in this area that jesus was associated with it in fact matthew chapter 9 implies that capernaum nearby was jesus's hometown but chorusine although we have nothing written of what exactly jesus did here was apparently a center place for jesus's ministry corazine is a good example of a synagogue from the ancient period this one from about the fourth century the central nave is a large opening in the center we get the word from the body of a ship on the sides or the side aisles where people would sit we think that there was a separation at least at some point between the men and women in the synagogue and many believe that the women actually probably sat above in a gallery in some places the synagogue was not only the place of worship but it was also the public school and so attached to the side here was a bait midrash or a teaching center the importance of the local rabbi was that he would be the educator of your children as well as one of those essential components to the education of your family in the synagogue services jesus was familiar with the setting of a synagogue he probably grew up and got up to about a fifth grade level education at the bait midrash i've often wondered what the uh the local rabbi from nazareth said when jesus became famous like i taught him everything he knew and he was such a good student you know and then i wonder what he said when he found out that jesus had been sentenced and crucified i don't know what went wrong you know i tried to teach him everything and he just didn't listen you know but this kind of setting is the kind of setting that we have for the education of jesus now if you were growing up in that time because you were coming to a place like this for education you had no library so i would anticipate that if you were going to learn math you would learn mathematics through genesis exodus leviticus numbers and deuteronomy the torah if in fact you were going to learn geography you would learn that from genesis exodus leviticus numbers and deuteronomy of course any other subject you would learn like social studies you would learn from genesis exodus leviticus numbers and deuteronomy and the important thing to remember is that the only books that they had in the library at that time were the books of the torah now every student can't obviously learn from the same scroll at the same time and if the synagogues only had a single scroll how could they send the children home for homework this problem was easily answered they memorized portions called parashot a parasha is a portion that you would memorize from the beginning to the end so that you could then answer any question your teacher would ask about it the portions were divided over a period of time so that in three years you could read all the way through the torah that three-year cycle became the liturgy or the proto-liturgy of the synagogue itself it also became the background of one of the teaching styles that the rabbis used very frequently this the rabbi's teaching style called the remez or the hint is the use of a portion of the hebrew scriptures to denote an entire thought let me give you an example if for example we had two students and they weren't getting along very well because one of the students was being very selfish and wasn't sharing i might use a remes from john chapter 3 out of the christian scriptures i could say something like this well you know johnny it's like for god so loved the world and what i'm saying is if god loved the world he gave so an act of love causes you to give love gives but i didn't say that all i said is it's like for god so loved the world the important thing to remember about a remez is any portion of a portion represents the entire portion did you ever read anything that jesus spoke or or paul wrote and you see them quoting from the hebrew scriptures and you can't figure out what they're saying they take a portion or a quote that has nothing to do with what they're saying and they insert it into their message they're expecting you to know the rest of the portion the rest of the parasha because they went to school and they memorized it as children i'd like to give an example of that from the teachings of jesus luke chapter 4 says that jesus was in a synagogue at nazareth the location of the synagogue at nazareth is really not known so we'll use the chorazine synagogue as our setting and suppose that it looks something like this perhaps a little more basic than this in the setting of the synagogue he came in and in luke 4 he went to the place where it is written the spirit of the lord is upon me because he's called me to preach the gospel to the poor to bind up the brokenhearted to preach deliverance to the captives and the recovery of sight to the blind to set at liberty them that are bruised to preach the acceptable year of the lord and he closed the book and he gave it to the hazan to the minister and he sat down and the eyes of all of them were in the synagogue fastened on him remember that you stood for the reading of the scripture for the torah reading and the haftarah reading you always stood but you sat down as the teacher to give the proposition of your saying so watch carefully in the gospels every place that says jesus sat down and taught them saying the saying immediately following his sitting down is to be memorized it's the proposition of what he's going to talk about there's even inside this synagogue a seat where you would sit down and teach from called the seat of moses remember matthew chapter 25 verse 2 refers to this seat it says the pharisees sit on the seat of moses that means do what they say they're they're in the proper seat of authority but do not live like them don't do what they do because they're like white and sepulchers jesus refers to that seat but remember in the luke 4 passage he sat down and all eyes were on him the next thing he was going to say was going to be the proposition of what he had to say to them and then he began to speak and said this day this scripture is fulfilled in your ears and all of them bore witness and wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth is this not joseph's son now if you listen to what jesus said he didn't say anything gracious in fact what he read from out of the isaiah text was not a gracious word at all he said that the spirit of the lord is upon me to go and do certain works what are they talking about well remember he was at that time sitting in nazareth and as he sat around with the nazareth hometown family people that knew him from the time of his birth and all the way through his growing up he sat in front of people that had been there for every one of his earthly experiences from the time that he had moved back from egypt all the way through the time he had left his family and there in the midst of them he says god has called me to do certain things but remember he takes a portion the rest of the isaiah portion if you would read the rest of it and have memorized the rest of it refers to the netzer the shoot or the branch and here he was in netserit in nazareth and so when you look at what he's saying he's taking the hometown verses of nazareth and he's beginning to say these things are happening right here in front of your eyes he's going to the motto of nazareth as it were and they're saying preach it brother this is what we came to hear we love to hear this kind of thing all of that worked until he told them you would tell me to go and do the things the miracles that i'm doing in capernaum do them in nazareth also but he said even elijah didn't come to his own and then they wanted to throw him into a pit and stone him until he was dead the important thing about the luke 4 passage is if you look at the quote that jesus is making from luke 4 it doesn't make any sense with the response of the people there's nothing gracious in what he's saying not unless you understand a remiss the rest of the passage that is not mentioned here is implied by taking a portion of it remember the rule any portion of a portion represents the entire portion so if paul quotes a portion out of the hebrew scriptures ask yourself when did that portion begin and when did it end according to the ancient way of understanding the memorized portion of the text because he could quote from any part of it and mean the whole thing and you need to know the whole thing to understand what jesus is saying a second principle that we need to understand to really grasp the teachings of jesus is we need to understand the way the rabbinic parable works a rabbinic parable is called a mashal and the mashalim of scripture are well known jesus often speaks in parables and even his disciples needed an education on understanding exactly how to to grasp the truths within a parable now parables are a rabbinic teaching method and even in a simple setting a few trees a small patch of grass jesus could find some illustrations that he could give to his disciples and teach them eternal truths he could give them something that was eternally significant through a simple setting one such setting that he uses very often is the agricultural one terraces seeds and flowers growing a normal kind of setting would be just perfect for eternal truth to be expounded by the master another such one would be something like a large weed we call it in the text the mustard tree now the tree that grows in this part of the world that we call the mustard tree doesn't produce mustard in fact the the seeds are many times smaller than even the mustard seed a very very tiny fleck like a fleck of pepper something you could take from a salt shaker very very tiny the mustard seed and the mustard tree in fact is a weed here jesus prepares his disciples by describing to them a parable about the kingdom of heaven and he says what shall i like in the kingdom of heaven too in luke chapter 13 he says it is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and cast into his garden and it grew and it waxed a great tree and the birds of the air lodged in the branches of it now what's he talking about remember that this is a weed and in the middle eastern sense you have two different kinds of places to plant your garden is the small area close to your house this is usually cosmetic in its main orientation or or plants that you need for your herbs for your cooking but then there's the field and the field of the farmer is where he'll plant his crops for sale so you have your garden close to your house and your field far away this says that a man went out into his garden the area closest to his house the valuable property in which you would normally plant spices and things you can use and he planted instead of weed and the weed grew very large and the birds were able to lodge therein now how is that like the kingdom of heaven jesus wants his disciples to know something very significant god's values are not our values we look at the wheat as a valueless thing he looked at the place for the fowl to lodge as an important thing and the kingdom was not going to be made of the things that they thought were important picked out of the priorities of men god does not think as men think and what's a priority to him may be forgotten by us i can honestly say i've never thought about where the birds sleep at night and yet god has thought of it and he provided through the what appeared to be the foolishness of this man planting a weed a place for the birds to lodge the kingdom of heaven is likened unto that it's filled with my priorities doing things that you would never think of going places that would be meaningless to you you see to god there are no god forsaken people and there are no god forsaken places and his priorities are so strange and different but that's what makes his kingdom uniquely his any simple setting can be used in a parable but there are rules to using this device this is a specific kind of teaching method and it's employed by the rabbis from about the fourth or fifth century bce all the way through the time of jesus and for several hundred years later some parables even show up in the pages of the hebrew scriptures for instance in judges 9 you have a parable about the trees seeking a king over them now the rules that have been sort of put together by the rabbis for these include some very important but basic understanding devices number one the main thing in a parable is to keep the main thing the main thing it's important that you not extract principle from the small details but rather focus specifically on the main point that jesus or the teacher is making at that point the the second rule that is is frequently used and seldom talked about at least in christian circles is the string concept my rabbi said that a parable is only good when it's like a pearl put on a string one such string of illustrations in a parable is able to be seen by jesus during the period ministry that very difficult time of his teaching as he was making his way from the sea of galilee to jericho and then eventually up to jerusalem during that last several months that last winter as he's moving toward the spring and the passion jesus travels along the edge of perea and he's teaching families he's talking about things like the trouble with loving riches and the problems with raising children in that particular area people were really feeling pressed and and so they listened intently and closely as jesus told a parable that we'll call the parable of [Music] [Laughter] [Music] joy [Music] you're standing in the middle of a roman city look at this large monolith it's a large single stone that has been quarried carefully lathed and then built up on top of the temple and when that temple was destroyed it comes down and goes right through the street look at this one this is a fluted column so someone spent their life making this thing set it up on top of these uh temple areas and down it plunges in in the earthquake so they've left some of this to show you the violence of the area now why did i bring you here this city continued through the time of jesus and at the time of jesus this city was one of the 10 decapolous cities deca 10 polish cities decapolis are independently ruled cities this is not a city that jesus and his disciples would feel comfortable coming the point is that jesus came for the lost sheep of the house of israel he's a religious jew and one of the characteristics of a religious jew is that they don't hang out with other people remember that in acts chapter 10 you're going to have peter say you know cornelius is unlawful for a man to come in to one of another nation if he's a jew but god has told me to do this they feel very sensitive about who they spend time with what they eat where they spend time so how can jesus come into a city like this you're not going to find him in a city like this but he's going to tell stories to people about children that run run away to the big city now if you take a look at that passage in luke chapter 15 jesus will give a parable called the parable of joy jesus is telling a story as he's traveling by these decapolis cities in peria and he gathers around him some families he sits down and he begins to teach them and he's been spending time with publicans and sinners and some pharisees and scribes come to him and say jesus why do you eat with publicans and sinners remember that in the biblical culture you did not eat with someone if you did not have a relationship with them if you didn't love them if you didn't have a personal you didn't sit at a diner stool and eat with somebody you didn't know that was not done do you remember the um some years ago when sadat and bagan broke bread together in beersheva when they had a lunch together that's when peace was possible so the question is always did they eat together some years ago mr arafat was on the front of the white house lawn with mr clinton and shaking hands with the late prime minister yitzhak ravine right you remember that picture of mr clinton stood there in the middle the picture on the front page of our local paper was them eating before the handshake the question is did they eat lunch together because to eat with somebody is a symbol remember when jacob and laban had a dispute how did they settle it they had a meal together after peter denies jesus how do they settle it jesus eats breakfast with him on the sea of the of the shore of galilee in front of the other disciples it's okay the relationship is all right so when he eats with publicans and sinners this is a problem isn't it he's saying something they can't stomach so he tells them a story he says which one of you if you had a hundred sheep and went off into your field and lost one of your sheep would not leave the ninety and nine and and go and find that one which was lost and when you found it place it upon your shoulders and return and when you come back say rejoice with me for that one which was lost is now found likewise i say there will be joy in the presence of the angels of heaven over one sinner that repents more than ninety and nine that need no repentance this is not the parable of the lost sheep in my opinion this is the parable of joy illustration one sheep now follow the pattern something lost what was it a sheep something found the lost sheep what was the response joy right a certain woman had ten coins jesus was talking about ancient wedding customs you see if i if i found a girl that i wanted to marry in the time of the new testament after the agreement is made i forfeit the value of this girl to her father and her father would normally take some of these coins and bore holes in them and she would wear them around her her ears and her necklace and wear them on her person at her wedding in the ancient period then this would be a gift of the father to the daughter and that's the one thing that the daughter owns that she does not need to turn over to her new husband she lost one of her 10 coins she searched diligently all of her house to find it and when she found it she called together her neighbors and said rejoice with me for that which is lost is found likewise i say to you there will be joy in the presence of the angels of god over one center that repents all right follow the pattern something lost what was it coin something found lost coin what's the response joy a certain man had two sons and the younger son came to his father and said father i wish you were dead i want my inheritance that comes at your death but i want it now give to me of the portion of goods that falls to me how shocking how controversial jesus is telling a story everybody's on the edge of their seat because all of them know that their children are defecting they are losing them their children to the greco-roman cities nearby kids are running off did you know that uh the problem with being in a gymnasium and a sport contest in the first century was that they were done in the nude right so why did jewish males feel funny about competing they didn't look like everybody else they were circumcised we actually have evidence now that some jewish males had their skin stretched so that they could look uncircumcised makes my eyes water just to think about it but the point is that the the whole point is they're actually out there feeling like they have to look like everybody else and what you have is an incred intense pressure for religious jewish kids to be sucked into the society now in the story the man gives the portion of goods that falls to the younger son and he goes away to a far country herod the great built a world-class port at caesarea maritima or caesarea by the sea simply called caesarea in the book of acts i'm standing next to a piece of the statuary that's been found in the massive dig going on here remember that in every major roman city they had to build a number of things that made the city civilized like the theater that's behind me or a hippodrome a chariot racing stadium or a large roman bath these are the normal things that brought their civilization into the people this was a microcosm of roman activity here a very gentile city to go into any of the athletic contests or to go into the roman baths one would bow before a god or a goddess like for instance bowing before hygiene the goddess would allow you to go into the roman bath and so out here at the beginning of the national park today they put this foot which is the foot of a statue from that period it may have been a statue of one of the gods or goddesses of the romans the important thing to remember is that for a religious jew to enter into a theater they'd have to bow before a pagan god imagine this beautiful symmetrical theater was actually a subject of offense for a religious jew the idea of symmetry and balance was very much a greek form concept being imposed on jewish people remember that jews would come into a place like this and feel very much like they were being forced or missionarized into a greco-roman world culture view one of the reasons for that is because of the incredible paganism of the place in the story the man gives the portion of goods that falls to the younger son and he goes away to a far country it's interesting if you read the greek of the passage far country can be a country far away or a country of far away philosophy jesus is telling the story not just a few miles from here this is a far country and he goes away and he wastes his substance on riotous living and when he runs out of money he runs out of friends duh and he began to be in want he gets to the point where he's actually feeding what pigs this is the low point of a jewish story feeding pigs in other words you've compromised every possible value of your life now you're out there with pigs and in fact what are you feeding them you're feeding them carob beans that's that word for husks one of the trees of the holy land that has been in the past an important source of food is the carob tree the carob tree produces a long pod with a very hard regular shaped seed inside the seeds are so regular in their weight and shape that they used to take one carob bean and put it on a scale opposite a diamond one carrot of diamond was opposite on the scale of one carob seed the pot itself is used as a chocolate substitute and it's quite good actually and easy to be prepared you can mash it up and make it into a chocolate like paste or just simply eat it as the pod remember that in luke 15 jesus is talking about the boy who ran away and began to feed husks to the pigs as part of his his job the word for husks is in fact the word for this pod he gets to the point where he's actually feeding caribbeans to pigs and standing there going boy my father's hired servants eat better than i what am i doing and he begins to think to himself do you ever do this you have a whole conversation with somebody in your mind i'm going to say this and they're going to say that and i'm going to say this and they're going to say that we do that when we teach evangelism do you know what evangelism explosion taught me how to pray that nobody was home i used to go to the door begging god please don't let anybody come to the door because i was afraid they would ask a question i didn't know the answer to the important thing is this when you do these little conversations the other party hasn't heard the conversation in your mind so he says you know i'm gonna go to my father i'm gonna go out there and i'm gonna i'm gonna say to him you know father i'm not worthy to be called your son make me as a hired servant now he heads back and as he goes back to his village what is the father doing watching for him he's watching out there what does the father do when he sees him he does one of the hardest things for a bible male to do a man in the bible to run the problem is the garment is closed at the bottom do you remember that nakedness is anything above the ankle bone i am technically naked biblically by the way you need to remember that when david dances before the lord he's not naked it means his legs are showing okay when uh peter is sitting in the boat and puts on his coat because he was naked and dives into the water he's not sitting there naked in the boat fishing with the boys okay it's nothing weird it's just that his legs are showing so biblically anything above the ankle bone is nakedness so in order to run if you've got a closed garment at the bottom you have to gird up your loins which means you have to show your legs which is a shameful thing to do that's why when elijah runs people notice so what is the father doing remember this boy has not only forsaken his father he's forsaken his village what should happen is when he asked for his his inheritance they should have took him to the edge of the city and stoned them until he was dead they didn't do that now when he returns he has defamed his village so what should happen to him the villagers should come along stone him and kill him so the father expropriates his shame how does he do it nobody's paying attention to the kid coming in they're all going look edna he's naked as he runs by and they're all watching him he'll go out and he'll get the child he'll bring him in and he'll put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet and make him untouchable by the rest of the clan now guys the story is not about the father and his love the story is not about the sun and his misfit behavior enter older brother something lost a son something found a son older brother no joy i will not eat with him how often i've been here to care for you and you've never given me a fatted calf with my friends you see the older brother is every bit as selfish as the younger brother it's just that he hides it better he's a little more mature that's the word for able to hide it better and the important thing for us is to remember that the story is something lost something found joy the the older brother is the pharisee at the beginning of the discussion the pharisee says why don't you eat with publicans and sinners and jesus weaves through three different illustrations to get to the point which is when that which is lost is found what should be the resultant emotion joy and you lack joy so something's wrong with you the story of the prodigal son is not to teach about the love of god and people who go away and come back the point that jesus was trying to make is you guys pharisees who have known me the longest and love me the deepest and walk with me the longest ought to be the most excited when that guy comes in with hair down to here and earrings in everything but his ears jingling as he walks down the aisle smelling like a brewery the guy who ought to shout hallelujah is the one who's been a believer the longest he ought to be going great that which has lost his found brother now i've pastored two churches can i honestly tell you i never had problems with the new people was always those who had known god the longest who measured their spirituality by their inflexibility and the scripture says one of the great marks of a mature faith is when that which is lost is found is joy the result of your heart the people who are really mature in your church are not the people who've been there the longest or fought the hardest the people who are really mature are the ones who are the most excited when new ones come to jesus and when that which is lost is found they become joyful does that make sense the third principle of understanding jesus's ministry in addition to understanding a remes and a mashal is to understand that jesus himself was thoroughly immersed in a background of of understanding the hebrew scriptures many christians sadly are not we owe a great debt to the writers of the hebrew scriptures because they give us the foundation of god's heart for the nations and in fact even today some of us at some of our highest holidays of the christian faith misquote and misunderstand some of these very important places in the scripture a good example of this would be the passages in isaiah that we quote about messiahship we put them on our christmas cards and we talk about them but we don't often investigate the context within the narrative of isaiah itself i'm thinking of particularly in isaiah 7 we talk about the verse out of isaiah 7 14 therefore the lord himself will give you a sign behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and you shall call his name emmanuel i've spent a lot of time with various students from around the world and i very often ask them who is the first immanuel and almost without exception christians say jesus but in the story there's a story there isn't a manual within isaiah's narrative as well and so it would be good for us if we're talking to our jewish friends to know what the original story was that we're taking the applications to jesus from you might remember that back in isaiah 6 that's the passage where in the year that king uzziah died i saw the lord high and lifted up and that train of the lord that filled the temple in the words holy holy holy holy holy holy remember that isaiah through his tears because uzziah the king was a dear friend of his isaiah saul through his tears the lord and in that he got a commission for worship who shall i send who will go for us here am i lord send me and that commission of isaiah was followed with a warning that he would go and he would speak but others would not hear they wouldn't listen to him it was a whole generation later the grandson of uzziah that would call for isaiah again chapter 7 skips a generation from yotam or jotham all the way to ahaz the grandson of uzziah and he gets himself into trouble as the king of judah he realizes the king of the north is plotting a coup against him with the syrian king and because they're aligning themselves it looks bad for judah ahaz begins to pace in his palace and wonders what to do so what does he do he calls forth the prophet of his grandfather isaiah and he says a prophet tell me tell me what is the lord going to do and and isaiah says you know the lord himself he'll give you a sign no no i don't want a sign no the lord will give you a sign isaiah says he says a virgin will conceive he'll bear she will bear a child and and that child will grow up and that child is a sign that god is with us emmanuel god with us not with the northern kingdom and not with the syrians and as that child grows up isaiah continues you will see him grow up and when he reaches a certain age an age of accountability then i will take away your kingdom but not before king a has you need not worry now about losing your kingdom you will not lose your kingdom says the lord god until i grow this child to a certain age and at that point you'll know your kingdom is complete it goes on to say that a child was born and in the context of the passage the the virgin that conceived conceived by normal means it's not a miraculous conception many scholars believe isaiah who had lost his first wife went and took a second wife who was a virgin at the time of the prophecy when she conceives she then bears a child and in chapter 8 verse 1 isaiah calls the child maharshal hashbas maharshpas means speeds booty hastens spoil literally what it means is the faster i grow up the faster you lose your kingdom this is the emmanuel of the of the passage and in fact when you go on and look carefully at those passages that matthew will apply to jesus just a chapter or so later in uh isaiah chapter 9 it says unto us a child is born unto us the son is given and the government will be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called wonderful counselor the mighty god the everlasting father the prince of peace and of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of david and upon the kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice henceforth even forever the zeal of the lord of hosts will perform this when you look into this passage we use it a lot at christmas because matthew applies this to jesus but in the passage this is mahashal hashpas and it says that this child is born and given to us and the government is held back literally by his shoulder meaning as long as this child is growing we have a government in judah and at a certain time we won't have a government in judah that king won't sit on the throne but his name the father in heaven who has made this child and has given us this sign his name will be called wonderful counselor mighty god everlasting father prince of peace in the passage the first half of chapter nine verse six is related to maha shalom and the second half of the passage is related to the god who brought him into the world that he might be a symbol for us do you understand why our jewish friends are puzzled when they see verses like this on the front of our christmas cards matthew's gospel says that you can apply these verses to messiah and that he is a child that is born and a son that is given and the government is held back by his shoulder and he himself is wonderful counselor almighty god everlasting father and prince of peace further matthew tells us that he is born of a virgin luke goes on to tell us it was a she did not know a man so that it was a miraculous birth in the case of the application it's more definite and more clear than the original interpretation mahershal is the emmanuel of the text jesus understood that he was fulfilling a number of prophecies but he knew those original prophecies in their original context and we need to know them as well in order to understand our jewish neighbor in order for them to understand our use of the hebrew scriptures we need to be fully aware of what the context of the original passage is and that's one of the key principles to understanding jesus's teaching and ministry he knew the thorough background not only of the places and the history of his fathers but he knew the word as well i am confident that if you understand the use of the hints and the way the hebrew scriptures was used in the in the christian scriptures and in the writing of the gospels and evangelists and if you take into account the rules of the rabbis regarding the parables of the mashal and if you thoroughly immerse yourself in an understanding of the hebrew scriptures you can have a good grasp of the teachings of jesus and i think if you do that you'll come to the conclusion that i've come to jesus is a master teacher he loved to take the agriculture of the land the fishing scenes the the simple things of life and illustrate the deepest eternal truths through the simplest moments isn't that what we're called to do with our children deuteronomy 5 6 and 7 says as we travel along with our children as we walk in the way as we sit down in our house talk of the law speak of the things which god has told us celebrate his work in our lives christianity is more caught than taught and our children need to see in our lives the things that are important to us and not simply hear them with our lips i think probably the most important thing about jesus is that he didn't simply preach great sermons and go home to his private residence he lived with the disciples and they observed not only what he said but they saw his life and that's probably the greatest single thing we need to understand about jesus's teachings they were teachings backed up by the way he lived he didn't simply say them he did them and today in a world where people talk often talk is cheap but jesus paid the price of our sin with his own life delivered the only effective detergent against sin the blood of jesus he gave everything he possibly could to give me not only new life but his name he called me christian so that i might live for him understanding his teachings mean everything to me and i think they will to you as well [Music] do [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Kerugma Productions

Views: 1,897

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Dr Randall Smith, Jesus, One Hour One Book, 1 hour 1 book, CTSP, Bible, Kerugma Productions, Kerugma, in the footsteps of Jesus, Son of God, remez, parables, authority, scribes, Rabbinic, Israel, teachings

Id: RbHzaBQNe9A

Length: 44min 54sec (2694 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 30 2020