Why did Jesus preach?

Why did Jesus preach? 

No, seriously, I mean it, why did he preach?

The gospel stories of Jesus show us many things, but if you read between the lines the following trends appear:

• Jesus was popular among the people because he healed people and told entertaining stories.
• Jesus primarily taught in parables which were generally not understood by his audience (and often not understood by his closest disciples).
• Indeed, Jesus did not want his audience to understand! (Luke 8:10 "He said, 'The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you [disciples], but to others I speak in parables, so that, "though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand."')
• At the merest hint of trouble most of his audience disappeared - they had no loyalty to him, he was only a passing entertainment.
• Very few people had their lives transformed by meeting Jesus, and nobody is recorded as being transformed through hearing his preaching.
• Jesus recruited his disciples by command ("Come, follow me") not through his preaching.

So what was the point? The end result of Jesus's ministry appears to be a handful of committed followers. They started the church after Jesus was gone, the church was not started by Jesus through his ministry.

Its not even as though Jesus 'planted the seeds' that would ultimately be 'harvested' by the disciples in their later ministry. If Acts is to be believed, the church grew primarily in gentile and diaspora-Jew communities. There is no record of mass conversions among the Galileans. 

The sole purpose of Jesus's teaching, therefore, appears to be the edification of later generations of Christians, who would get to read his words many years later after the gospels were composed, duplicated and distributed. [Note to self: Remember to read "Let the reader understand" by Robert M. Fowler sometime]. In other words, the primary audience for the teaching of Jesus wouldn't be born for at least a century or two after the preaching was done. This doesn't seem to be a very effective way of doing things. If the later readers were really the intended audience, it would have been far, far better if Jesus had written letters or books himself.

I don't think I'm going too far by saying that, as far as the stories presented in the gospels go, Jesus preaching ministry was a complete waste of time. Nobody came to faith, no-one was saved, people were entertained, but then they moved on to the next thing and Jesus was forgotten. It doesn't really read like a divine master-plan.

Portofino

Portofino is a seaside resort in northern Italy, and is the setting for a novel by Frank Schaeffer - the son of the well known Presbyterian missionary, writer and preacher Francis Schaeffer. The book claims to be fiction, but apparently (if you read Frank Schaeffer's autobiography 'Crazy for God') it is largely based on Frank's real life experiences as a child.

The family presented in the book are fairly extreme, fundamentalist, Presbyterian types. The book is from the point of view of the youngest son - Calvin - who isn't quite as extreme in his views as the rest of his family. (This very much mirrors Frank Schaeffer's own life, as he rejected the fundamentalism of his upbringing and is now part of an Orthodox church).

As someone who grew up in a 'Conservative Evangelical Presbyterian' church, an awful lot of this book is frighteningly familiar. The characters are slightly (but only slightly!) exaggerated versions of people I grew up around. All the attitudes and opinions are real.

And the book shows just how ridiculous and unrealistic some of the attitudes and opinions are, in the context of the real world. The book also shows the hypocrisy of the main family and the tensions within the family, all of which rung very true.

If you want a (not very flattering) look into the minds of Conservative Evangelicals in the 60s (and not much had changed by the 70s, when I came along) then this is the book for you. The opinions regarding the 'lost', trying to out-pray each other to show who was more pious, praying extended graces over meals in public places as 'witness', all this was frighteningly accurate. I particularly loved the ongoing joke about the Presbyterian church the family were part of, which kept on splitting into factions, and so the PCUSA became the PCCUSA and later the PCCCUSA.

Anyway, if your upbringing was anything like mine, you'll find this an entertaining, if cringeworthy, read.

Witness vs demonstration

Further to my earlier post, I have to comment on one aspect of one of the talks from last year's Vineyard Leaders Conference (UK) that I've been listening to. The rather uninspiringly titled "The reformation today: Theology 2" (link to mp3) is one of the best and most challenging talks I've heard in a long time. Highly recommended, even if the audio quality is a bit lacking.

One of the points made in the talk was that when Jesus sent out his disciples (Matt 10, Mark 6, Luke 9) to preach, his instructions were simple:

1. Preach the simple message "the Kingdom of Heaven is near"
2. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with leprosy, drive out demons
3. If anyone is unwelcoming, simply move on to the next place

At no point in there is the instruction to debate non-believers, or attempt to convince anyone of anything - if people don't want to hear, just move on, leave them alone, someone else will want to hear.

How come nobody seems to view evangelism in those terms today? Some folk seem to go out of their way to try and persuade those who aren't interested about the reality of the gospel.

Oh, hang on, the problem with the 'proclaim and demonstrate' model of witness is that (for the most part) we don't seem to be willing or able to do the 'heal the sick' bit these days. Or rather, it is easier to try to engage with non-believers on an intellectual level, because if they don't believe this is due to some fault in their perception of reality. Whereas if we tried to heal people and nothing happened then it would be our lack of faith, our fault.

Hmmm. Maybe we should be more about demonstration than debate.

“Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words” as St Francis of Assisi once supposedly said.