Pastor Pastorum; Or, The Schooling of the Apostles by Our Lord

by Henry Latham

I note a connection between the introduction of the new form of teaching and the course of events. When our Lord began to teach in parables “His departure which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem”[233] was shaping itself more and more definitely in His mind. Time was getting short, and so He now spake for those only who had ears to hear. The nature of this departure was too shocking to Jewish notions and too inexplicable to be declared in plain terms to the mass. We know that even the Twelve were bewildered with the hints that our Lord drops about the end, and we can easily see how ill-suited such declarations would have been for the people at large.

Again, we can understand that as the end in all its awfulness came more and more distinctly into view, our Lord should confine His teaching very much to those to whom was committed the mystery of the Kingdom of God; and, inasmuch as the Twelve differed in spiritual capacity among themselves and higher duties were to be laid on some than on others, within that body a further selection had to be made. Peter and James and John form an inner circle, they are [pg 325] chosen as witnesses of the things that were not to be proclaimed until the Son of Man should come.[234] It is worth noting that in St John's Gospel we find no trace of the preeminence of these three; this falls in with the hypothesis of the author being the Apostle John, who carefully avoids mention of himself.

This choosing of the Three Apostles who should be preferred before the rest touches my purpose closely in another way; it was no insignificant part of the Schooling of the Twelve. They would learn from it that Christ gave what charge He would to whom He would; that in God's service it is honour enough to be employed at all; and that no man is to be discouraged because he sees allotted to another what appears to be a higher sphere of work than his own. We all know how heavily jealousy among subordinates who administer affairs clogs the wheels of the state, and it was of the highest importance that this vice should be eradicated, with a view to the practical business of the Church.

So the great lesson taught to the Apostles—and in the end it was taught more completely than ever men were taught it before—was self abnegation. They came at last not to think about themselves at all. This unselfishness is never preached to them, because it cannot be [pg 326] taught by preaching. If a man has self-surrender pressed incessantly upon him, this keeps the idea of self ever before his view. Christ does not cry down self, but he puts it out of a man's sight by giving him something better to care for, something which shall take full and rightful possession of his soul. The Apostles, without ever having any consciousness of sacrificing self, were brought into a habit of self sacrifice by merging all thoughts for themselves in devotion to a Master and a cause, and in thinking what they could do to serve it themselves.

Have not most of us known cases of men, seemingly immersed in amusements and frivolities, who would gladly have flung these to the winds, if only we could have found them something which would fill their hearts. If such people are selfish, it is not because they really care very much for themselves; but because self seems a little more real and a little more under their own control than anything else. They have found unreality in many things; perhaps when they have attempted to do good they have been thrown back by ridicule or discouragement, and are thereby brought to feel at a loss for an interest in life; and in this case an evil one, who is always by, has seemed to whisper, “Do good to thyself and the world will speak well of thee.” If now, at the right moment, you could shew these men a real good, they would be glad enough to throw aside the self which they [pg 327] have been only trying to persuade themselves that they cared for, and would seize upon anything which appeared to answer to the secret hope, asleep, but still alive in their hearts.

It is a good test of the nature of the devotion above spoken of to be able to endure the preference of others to ourselves. If the Apostles generally had resented the preeminence of the three, it would have shewn that they had not realised “what spirit they were of.” We see from St Luke xxii. 24 that they had not quite overcome all personal feeling, but we hear at this time no word of murmur, though they ventured pretty freely to murmur when they were displeased: from this I gather that, little by little they were losing personal ambition and merging themselves in their Master's cause. Thus this selection of the Three out of the body carried with it a lesson in the postponement of self.

This reserving of special attention for those only who shewed promise is, as I said just now, connected with the appearance on the horizon of the End at Jerusalem. “Times and seasons” the Father “had put in His own power,” and it may not have been till a year before the Passion that our Lord had known how short a time was left for Him on earth. Before He had preached unto all alike, now, his time and pains were reserved for the hopeful few. Something of this same reservation of teaching for those likely to profit [pg 328] by it, was seen when the Apostles were sent out two and two. They were only to be a few days away, consequently they were to waste no time over cases that were hopeless; when one city would not receive them they were to go to another.

Resumption of the Narrative.

I left the narrative at the point where the vessel with the Apostles, whom our Lord had joined upon the sea, had just reached the shores of the country of Gennesaret. The multitude sought Him on His arrival bringing their sick to be healed. Our Lord's words addressed to them suit the occasion so exactly, that we may be sure they belong to this place. The discourse[235] is preserved only by St John. It was probably begun upon the shore and was afterwards continued by our Lord in the synagogue.

This discourse is very ably treated by Mr Sanday,[236] and the doctrinal matters of which it treats do not fall within my sphere. It is the character of St John's versions of our Lord's discourses that we find it hard to trace in them the progress of thought. One or two points usually form the burden; in this case these points are “I am the bread of life” and “I will raise him up at the last [pg 329] day.” This mannerism suits with the supposition that St John's Gospel was written by a very old man; for this recurrence to the dominant topic is a marked peculiarity of the utterances of old age. St John had probably preached on these discourses over and over again, and he set them down in the Gospel in the form in which they were most familiar to him, with, possibly, something of the amplification required to adapt them to homiletic use.