"Never give it up, boys,
Always say you'll try;
Joy will fill your cup, boys,
Flowing by and by."
THE GREAT TEACHER
Teaching was the great business of the life of Christ during the days of his public ministry. He was sent to teach and to preach. The speaker in the book of Job was thinking of this Great Teacher when he asked—"Who teacheth like him?" Job xxxvi: 22. And it was he who was in the Psalmist's mind when he spoke of the "good, and upright Lord" who would teach sinners, if they were meek, how to walk in his ways. Ps. xxv: 8-9. And he is the Redeemer, of whom the prophet Isaiah was telling when he said—He would "teach us to profit, and would lead us by the way that we should go." And thus we know how true was what Nicodemus said of him, that "he was a teacher sent from God." John iii: 2. Thus what was said of Jesus, before he came into our world, would naturally lead us to expect to find him occupied in teaching. And so he was occupied, all through the days of his public ministry. St. Matthew tells us that—"Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues." Ch. iv: 23. Further on in his gospel he tells us again that "Jesus went about all the cities, and villages, teaching in their synagogues." Ch. ix: 35. When on his trial before Pilate, his enemies brought it as a charge against him that he had been—"teaching throughout all Jewry." Luke xxiii: 5. We read in one place that—"the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching." Matt. xxi: 23. Jesus himself gave this account of his life work to his enemies—"I sat daily with you teaching in the temple." Matt. xxvi: 55. And so we come now to look at the life of Christ from this point of view—as a Teacher. There never was such a Teacher. We do not wonder at the effect of his teaching of which we read in St. John vii: 46, when the chief priests sent some of their officers to take him prisoner, and bring him unto them; the officers went, and joined the crowd that was listening to his preaching. His words had such a strange effect on them that they could not think of touching him. So they went back to their masters without doing what they had been sent to do. "And when the chief priests and Pharisees said unto them—Why have ye not brought him? The officers answered, Never man spake like this man." Jesus was indeed—The Great Teacher. In this light we are now to look at him. And as we do this we shall find that there were five great things about his teaching which made him different from any other teacher the world has ever known.
In the first place Jesus may well be called the Great Teacher, because of the—GREAT BLESSINGS—of which he came to tell.