233.  The Old Testament was for Jesus a holy book.  His mind was filled with its stories and its language.  In the teachings which have been preserved for us he has made use of writings from all parts of the Jewish scriptures—­Law, Prophets, and Psalms.  The Old Testament furnished him the weapons for his own soul’s struggle with temptation (Matt. iv. 4, 7, 10), it gave him arguments for use against his opponents (Mark xii. 24-27; ii. 25-27), and it was for him an inexhaustible storehouse of illustration in his teaching.  When inquirers sought the way of life he pointed them to the scriptures (Mark x. 19; see also John v. 39), and declared that the rising of one from the dead would not avail for the warning of those who were unmoved by Moses and the prophets (Luke xvi. 31).  When Jesus’ personal attitude to the Old Testament is considered it is noticeable that while his quotations and allusions cover a wide range, and show very general familiarity with the whole book, there appears a decided predominance of Deuteronomy, the last part of Isaiah, and the Psalms.  It is not difficult to see that these books are closer in spirit to his own thought than much else in the old writings; his use of the scripture shows that some parts appealed to him more than others.

234.  Jesus as a teacher was popular and practical rather than systematic and theoretical.  The freshness of his ideas is proof that he was not lacking in thorough and orderly thinking, for his complete departure from current conceptions of the kingdom of God indicates perfect mastery of ethical and theological truth.  It is all the more remarkable, therefore, that so much of his profoundest teaching seems to have been almost accidental.  The most formal discourse preserved to us is the sermon on the mount, in which human conduct is regulated by the thought of God as Father and Searcher of hearts.  For the rest the great ideas of Jesus have utterance in response to specific conditions presented to him in his ministry.  His most radical sayings concerning the Sabbath followed a criticism of his disciples for plucking ears of grain as they passed through the fields on the Sabbath day (Mark ii. 23-28); his authority to forgive sins was announced when a paralytic was brought to him for healing (Mark ii. 1-12); so far as the gospels indicate, we should have missed Jesus’ clearest statement of the significance of his own death but for the ambitious request of James and John (Mark x. 35-45).  Examples of the occasional character of his teaching might be greatly multiplied.  He did not seek to be the founder of a school; important as his teachings were, they take a place in his work second to his personal influence on his followers.  He desired to win disciples whose faith in him would withstand all shocks, rather than to train experts who would pass on his ideas to others.  His disciples did become experts, for we owe to them the vivid presentation we have of the exalted and unique teaching of their Master; but they were thus skilful because they surrendered themselves to his personal mastery, and learned to know the springs of his own life and thought.