132. Jesus' caution brings to light one aspect of his aim in the Galilean ministry,--he sought to win acceptance for the truth he proclaimed. His message as reported in the synoptic gospels was the near approach of the kingdom of God. Any such proclamation was sure of eager hearing. At first he seems to have been content to gather and interest the multitudes by this preaching and the works which accompanied it. But he early took occasion to state his ideas in the hearing of the multitudes, and in terms so simple, so concerned with every-day life, so exacting as respects conduct, and so lacking in the customary glowing picture of the future, that the people could not mistake such a teacher for a simple fulfiller of their ideas. In this early sermon in effect, and later with increasing plainness, he set forth his doctrine of a kingdom of heaven coming not with observation, present actually among a people who knew it not, like a seed growing secretly in the earth, or leaven quietly leavening a lump of meal. By word and deed, in sermon and by parable, he insisted on this simple and every-day conception of God's rule among men. With Pharisee, Zealot, and dreamer, he held that "the best is yet to be," yet all three classes found their most cherished ideals set at nought by the new champion of the soul's inner life in fellowship with the living God. In all his teaching there was a claim of authority and a manifest independence which indicate certainty on his part concerning his own mission. Yet so completely is the personal question retired for the time, that in his rebuke of the blasphemy of the Pharisees he took pains to declare that it was not because they had spoken against the Son of Man, that they were in danger, but because they had spoken against the Spirit of God, whose presence was manifest in his works. He wished, primarily, to win disciples to the kingdom of God. 133. Yet Jesus was not indifferent in Galilee to what the people thought about himself. The question at Cæsarea Philippi shows more fully the aim of his ministry. During all the period of the preaching of the kingdom he never hesitated to assert himself whenever need for such self-assertion arose. This was evident in his dealing with his pharisaic critics. He rarely argued with them, and always assumed a tone of authority which was above challenge, asserting that the Son of Man had authority to forgive sins, was lord of the Sabbath, was greater than the temple or Jonah or Solomon. Moreover, in his positive teaching of the new truth he assumed such an authoritative tone that any who thought upon it could but remark the extraordinary claim involved in his simple "I say unto you." He wished also to win disciples to himself.