Present Day Study of Jesus Christ

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VI. THE CONTINUED MINISTRY OF JESUS, AND THE RESISTANCE OF THE ESTABLISHED TEACHERS. Mk. ii. Soon after the return of Jesus to Capernaum he seems to have entered on something of a regular ministry, which lasted a number of weeks--from the spring of Ver. 23. the year 34 till the late summer. It was a ministry continuing as his ministry had hitherto been, made up of kind actions on the one side, and teaching regarding Ver. 2. the kind God on the other side. At first it was attended by popular excitement, and had its chief importance, in the eyes of the public, in that it was accompanied Vers. 2, 3. by the healing of diseases. But later it settled into being a quiet ministry of instruction, through improving conversation and public addresses. And we can see plainly enough Jesus's wish to have his ministry assume this quieter and, at the same time, more widely valuable character. As it is suggestively told in the Vers. 13. Gospel of Mark, he withdrew from the turmoil of the town and the crowd of believers in his healing powers, and taught by the seaside. His wish, we can perceive, was not to have his work too much associated with healings from his own person, which were but temporary at the best, but rather to have it known as a work of teaching regarding that everlasting healing which, according to his mind, was being accomplished, through time, for all by the Heavenly Care that cared for all. The open air was the surrounding in best agreement with such teaching: the murmur of the sea sounded in harmony with it; and the summer sunshine in quietness looked approval of it. Jesus withdrew as soon as he could to the shore of the Lake of Gennesaret, and there enforced the truths of a free and rational religion, standing on the beach or sitting in some b...