239.  Jesus sometimes used object lessons as well as illustrations, and for the same purpose,—­to make his thought transparently clear to his hearers.  The demand for a childlike faith in order to enter the kingdom of God was enforced by the presence of a little child whom Jesus set in the midst of the circle to whom he was talking (Mark ix. 35-37).  The unworthy ambitions of the disciples were rebuked by Jesus’ taking himself the menial place and washing their feet (John xiii. 1-15).

240.  The simplicity and homeliness of Jesus’ teaching are not more remarkable than the alertness of mind which he showed on all occasions.  The comment of the fourth gospel, “he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man, for he himself knew what was in man” (ii. 25), doubtless refers to his supernatural insight, but it also tells of his quick perception of what was involved in each situation in which he found himself.  Whether it was Nicodemus coming to him by night, or the lawyer asking, “Who is my neighbor?” or a dissatisfied heir demanding that his brother divide the inheritance with him, or a group of Pharisees seeking to undermine his power by attributing his cures to the devil, or trying to entrap him by a question about tribute, Jesus was never caught unawares.  His absorption in heavenly truth was not accompanied by any blindness to earthly facts.  He knew what the men of his day were thinking about, what they hoped for, to what follies they gave their hearts, and what sins hid God from them.  He was eminently a man of the people, thoroughly acquainted with all that interested his fellows, and in the most natural, human way.  Whatever of the supernatural there was in his knowledge did not make it unnatural.  As he was socially at ease with the best and most cultivated of his day, so he was intellectually the master of every situation.  This appears nowhere more strikingly than in his dealing with his pharisaic critics.  When they were shocked by his forgiveness of sins, or offended by his indifference to the Sabbath tradition, or goaded into blasphemy by his growing influence over the people, or troubled by his disciples’ disregard of the traditional washings, or when later they conspired to entrap him in his speech,—­from first to last he was so manifestly superior to his opponents that they withdrew discomfited, until at length they in madness killed, without reason, him against whom they could find no adequate charge.  His lack of “learning” (John vii. 15) was simply his innocence of rabbinic training; he had no diploma from their schools.  In keenness of argument, however, and invincibleness of reasoning, as well as in the clearness of his insight, he was ever their unapproachable superior.  His reply to the charge of league with Beelzebub is as merciless an exposure of feeble malice as can be found in human literature.  He was as worthy to be Master of his disciples’ thinking as he was to be Lord of their hearts.