Amazed at His Teaching 26/01/2022

They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.

Mark 1:21‭-‬22 NIV

https://bible.com/bible/111/mrk.1.21-22.NIV

There was a significant and dramatic difference in the way Jesus taught from those teachers of the law at this time. We have just observed his divine authority when he called his disciples. He also displayed such authority in his teaching. The second Gospel does not major on what Jesus taught because John Mark, the author, is more interested in what Jesus did. The sermon on the mount is not covered in this Gospel.

So what was so different about the way Jesus taught. According to one commentator, the scribes engaged in a variety of speculation and ingenious twisting of the law of Moses to suit their needs. There is evidence elsewhere of a significant addition to the law of Moses which had the effect of placing a crippling burden on the ordinary people who could never manage to keep this huge list of rules and regulations (See Matthew 23:16-24) Jesus summed up the general conduct of the scribes and Pharisees in one perceptive observation:

They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. [Matthew 23:4 ESV]

But this is not so much what the people are referring to in this context. If we look at the words of Old Testament prophets, they make it clear that they are relaying a message from God. They themselves need to have received a message from God before they can speak. They are God's messengers. Look at one prophet called Haggai and we will see an example of this.

In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.” [Haggai 1:1-2 ESV]

We are given a precise time when Haggai received his instruction from God to relay a message to Zerubbabel the governor of Judah and Joshua the high priest. We are told the precise day when God spoke to Haggai. So that when Haggai went to speak to these officials, he could speak with God-given authority. He began his speech with the words, "Thus says the Lord of hosts." The Old Testament is littered with many similar examples - e.g. Haggai 2:10-11; Isaiah 7:7; 43:16; Jeremiah 25:8; 30:12; 33:2; Ezekiel 7:5; 13:8; 35:14; Zechariah 11:4 etc. But Jesus was able to speak with His own authority - He did not need to explain that God had given Him a particular message. Look at one chapter in Matthew's Gospel which illustrates the way Jesus taught with authority (Matthew Chapter 5). There is a formula which is repeated down through the chapter. Jesus takes a principle from the Old Testament and he prefaces his quotation with the following, "You have heard that it was said." But in the next verse, he gives His interpretation of the statement which goes much further than the original. He prefaces this new perspective with the words, "But I say to you."

Here is a table which shows this more clearly

Old Testament Principle	Jesus Teaching	Subject	Reference
Murder is condemned	Anger is condemned too	Anger	Matthew 5:21-22
Adultery is condemned	Lust is also condemned	Lust	Matthew 5:27-28
Divorce is permitted	Divorce condemned with one exception	Divorce	Matthew 5:31-32
Swearing falsely	Oaths are condemned	Oaths	Matthew 5:33-37
Eye for an eye	Turn the other cheek	Retaliation	Matthew 5:38-42
Hate your enemies	Love your enemies	Love	Matthew 5:43-48

It is clear that Jesus is expanding the teaching of the Old Testament law and he has the mandate to do so. He prefaced this teaching with an assurance that he had not come to abolish the law but to fulfil the law. But this teaching was revolutionary and must have shocked his hearers. Mark does not go into detail on the substance of Jesus teaching but he sums it up that it was different from the teachers of the law in that century. None of them had a message from God and though they knew the Old Testament, they rarely quoted the Old Testament prophets themselves. They tended to quote other scribes who had added their own interpretation.

You might think that Jesus is doing the same as the scribes. But they did not have the authority to interpret Scripture for themselves. They did not have a message from the Lord like Isaiah or Jeremiah or Haggai etc. They were simply quoting other men's interpretations. Jesus the Son of God was able to give the mind of God in His teaching. He did not need to quote others - even though he demonstrated a deep knowledge of the Old Testament scriptures

What about us today? We are greatly blessed with having the whole text of Scripture easily accessible to us. The New Testament is the teaching of Jesus via his apostles and messengers (Including Paul). We also have the Holy Spirit who came to dwell in believers at the feast of Pentecost and one of the functions of the Spirit is to guide us into all truth. We can speak with confidence when we are citing the Word of God but we need wisdom to make sure that we are not adding our own interpretation. There is also a tendency to play down the Old Testament as if it is irrelevant to us today. That is unhelpful and is a misunderstanding of the totality of the inspired Word of God. That is the subject of future blogs, however.