Christianity and Problems of To-day: Lectures Delivered Before Lake Forest College on the Foundation of the Late William BrossFinley, John H. (John Huston)
Religion
Christianity and Problems of To-day: Lectures Delivered Before Lake Forest College on the Foundation of the Late William Bross
Finley, John H. (John Huston)
Christianity -- 20th century
No person who bears responsibility can safely make decisions without
proper study of his problems and preparation for his work. Jesus'
life and teachings exemplify this principle completely. So much
emphasis has been placed by many Christian teachers and writers upon
the divine nature of Jesus that many assume that there was given him
all knowledge and wisdom in some superhuman way entirely different
from that by which ordinary human beings attain their knowledge and
bases of judgment. Such persons apparently overlook the fact that
if that were true Jesus could not have been tempted in all points as
we are. From the evidence given in the New Testament, Jesus, when a
boy of twelve years of age, showed a remarkable precocity and mental
grasp of the deep problems of life in his discussions with the wise
men in the Temple. Nevertheless, he did not venture upon teaching in
any formal way and making public his convictions regarding life and
society until he was some thirty years of age. Moreover, there was a
progressive development in his views and plans for the redemption of
humanity. During his period of preparation, he made himself master of
the Hebraic law and the writings of the leading commentators upon it.
Evidently, also, while he was working at his trade of carpenter, and
presumably also as master carpenter and contractor and citizen, he
had been studying and reflecting most deeply upon the traits of human
nature as manifested in the people whom he met and those with whom he
had come in contact through his work and studies. When he began his
public ministry, he had at his command the most profound knowledge
of human motive and of human nature possessed by any of the great
teachers of history. While he left us no formal analytical discussion
on psychology, and probably never made one, as did Aristotle or
Immanuel Kant or William James, none of them had more completely
understood the ways in which human hearts and minds are to be touched
and convinced so as to change their entire nature. It is not too
much to say that as regards the practical working knowledge of human
nature and the way in which it is to be influenced and changed,
Jesus Christ is the greatest social psychologist of history. He had
made himself such by long and patient study during a period of from
eighteen to twenty years of preparation.
V. LOVE: WELFARE OF HUMANITY: GOLDEN RULE
The third great principle laid down by Jesus for the conduct of life
is love: devotion to the welfare of others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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