Pastor Pastorum or The Schooling of the Apostles By Our Lord

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

In this opening chapter I propose to lay before the reader the leading
ideas which will be developed in the book. This will necessitate some
repetition, but many readers want to know at starting whither the author
is going to take them, and whether his notions are such that they will
care for his company.

In the course of lecturing on the Gospels, being myself interested in
questions of education, my attention turned to the way in which our Lord
taught His disciples. Following the Gospel History with this view, I
recognised in the train of circumstances through which Christ led the
disciples, no less than in what He said to them, an assiduous care in
training them to acquire certain qualities and habits of mind. I observed
also method and uniformity both in what He did and in what He refrained
from doing. Certain principles seem to govern His actions and to be
observed regularly so far as we can see, but we have no ground for stating
that our Lord came to resolutions on these points and bound Himself to
observe them. A man sometimes sees his duty so clearly at one moment that
he wishes to make the decision of that moment dominant over his life and
he embodies it in a resolve, but we must suppose that Christ at each
moment did what was best. So that what I call a Law of His conduct is only
a generalization from His biography, and means no more than that, in such
and such circumstances He usually acted in such and such ways. I can
easily conceive that He might have swerved from these Laws had there been
occasion.

I have fancied that I got glimpses of the processes by means of which the
Apostles of the Gospels—striving among themselves who should be greatest,
looking for the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, and dismayed at the
apprehension of their Master—were trained to become the Apostles of the
Acts,—testifying boldly before rulers and councils, giving the right hand
of fellowship to one who had not companied with them, and breaking through
Jewish prejudices, to own that there were no men made by God who were
common or unclean. The shape which much of the outward course of Christ’s
life took, His choice of Galilee as a scene of action, His withdrawal from
crowds and His wanderings in secluded regions were admirably adapted to
the educating of the Apostles; while His sending them, two and two,
through the cities was a direct lesson in that self-reliance which reposes
on a trust in God. Were not these courses ordered to these ends? The
training was wonderfully fitted to bring about the changes which occurred.

That this fashioning of the disciples should have been a very principal
object with our Lord is easy to conceive. For what, except His followers,
did He leave behind as the visible outcome of His work? He had founded no
institution and had left no writings as a possession for after time. The
Apostles were the salt to season and preserve the world, and if they had
not savour whence could help be sought? Is it not then likely that the
best means would be employed for choosing and shaping instruments for the
work; and can we do better than mark the Divine wisdom so engaged?

On many sides the work of Christ stretches away into infinity. God’s
purpose in having created the world, and put free intelligences into it,
as well as the changes which Christ’s death may have wrought in the
relation of men’s souls to God, belong to that infinite side of things,
which we cannot explore. But we _can_ follow the treatment by which Christ
moulded the disciples, because the changes are not wrought in them by a
magical transformation, but come about gradually as the result of what
they saw and heard and did.

Changes are brought about in the disciples by an education, superhuman
indeed in its wisdom, superhuman in its insight into the habits of mind
which were wanted, and into the modes by which such habits might be
fostered, but not superhuman in the means employed. We can analyse the
influences which are brought to bear, judge what they were likely to
effect, and estimate fairly well what they did effect, because they were
the same in kind as we now find working in the world. Christ’s ways,
therefore, in this province of His work fall within the range of our
understanding. The learners are taught less by what they are told than by
what they see and do. They are trained not only by listening, but by
following and—what was above all—by being suffered, as in the mission to
the cities of Israel, to take part in their Master’s work.

Pastor Pastorum or The Schooling of the Apostles By Our Lord