13. Chapter 13: His Use Of Occasion
Chapter 13 His Use Of Occasion
Leading educational thinkers are saying today that education must be vital, must grow out of a situation, must satisfy a felt need, must solve a real problem, nay, even must follow out a “project.” A “project” is an assigned task in which the pupil is interested, which requires further study for its completion. In this way the ideas gained begin to “function” at once. All this means that education must be in immediate contact with actual living, and so not formal, not academic, not for its own sake. Can you restate the viewpoint of the preceding paragraph in your own language? Do you find yourself in agreement? Would you say that Jesus assigned to the apostles a task in which they were interested, but which required further thought before its completion? What was that task? Can you now foresee what is coming in our discussion of the use Jesus made of the natural occasion as it arose? Do we really learn more in or out of school? Why?
Emerson said a boy learns more from the book under his desk than from the book on it. Do you agree? Why? Have you noted who study more as a class, college or professional school students? Why is this?
What difference does it make in your study whether you have a purpose or not? At this point recall one natural occasion arising in the life of Jesus and the use he made of it to do or say something worth while.
Here follow some further illustrations of the same.
The Occasion | ItsUse |
Finding the traders in the Temple | Cleansing the Temple |
Nicodemus came to him | Teaching the birth from above Transforming a life |
There cometh a woman of Samaria | Cleansing physical life |
The leper came to him. | Spiritual and physical healing |
The bringing of the palsied man | Physical healing |
He saw a man lying at the pool of Bethesda | Teaching the true relation of man and the Sabbath |
The murmuring of the Pharisees at the disciples for plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath | The Sermon on the Mount |
“Seeing the multitudes” | A message to John and a eulogy of John |
The coming of John’s messengers | Parable of the two debtors |
Eating with Simon the Pharisee The charge; “This man hath Beelzebub” | Teaching concerning the unpardonable sin |
The coming of his mother and brethren | Teaching the supremacy of spiritual relationship |
The disciples’ question, “Why speakest thou unto them in parables?” | Teaching concerning the mysteries of the kingdom |
The disciples request an explanation of the parable of the tares. | Teaching concerning the sons of evil |
“Why eateth your master with publicans?” | Teaching concerning the whole and the sick |
This list covers not over one fourth of the illustrations the gospels provide. Perhaps they are enough to illustrate adequately the point that it was characteristic of Jesus to make use of the occasion as it arose. This is one of the reasons for the vitality of his teaching.
Make a supplementary list for yourself of the natural occasions Jesus used as they arose and the use he made of them either in action or speech. Doing this will bring home to you the meaning of the use of occasions. Can you imagine Jesus letting an occasion slip? Is it the custom for us to use the occasion or let it slip? Why do we do so?
What has the lack of courage and the lack of power to do with it?
What kind of a guest was Jesus, for example, in the home of Simon the Pharisee, or of Martha and Mary? Was the personality of Jesus so dominating that he simply mastered every occasion, or do you think of him at times as merging his personality in that of the company, as, say, at the wedding in Cana? Did Jesus ever make formal engagements in advance to appear at a certain place at a given time to heal, or teach, or preach? Shall we conclude that the only kind of teaching Jesus did was occasional in character? If so, we must not neglect to add that he himself, being what he was, had much to do with causing these occasions to arise. Also, that he specifically made certain occasions, as when, having heard that the Pharisees had excommunicated the healed man born blind, Jesus sought him out and ministered to his soul (John 9:35). Can you think of other occasions that Jesus made? Which is the greater opportunity for the minister, the Sunday sermon or the pastoral visit? Which is the greater opportunity for the teacher, the lesson in manners and morals, or some good or bad act in school? Do you agree with the judgment of Stanley Hall that Jesus “certainly was a master opportunist in seizing on every occasion, as it arose, to impart his precepts, and was in vital rapport with both the individuals and the groups he met”?
What difference would it make if we began now to be teachers of the occasional rather than the formal type?