"Christ and the Common People" Mark 12:37
“And the common people heard Him (Jesus) gladly.” I think that Abe Lincoln had it right when he said, “God must love common people, because He made so many of them.” I don’t know if we would care to be called “common people” but we must admit that most people in the world are just that. Common people are people who are not in power. They are everyday people who live their lives in anonymity and who kind of live in the background. In reality, this is most of us if you give it a broad definition. In fact the people who were not part of the power structure loved what Jesus said; therefore, “they heard Him gladly.” Why did they hear Jesus gladly? Let me tell you why I believe the common people heard Him gladly. They heard Jesus gladly because they knew that He genuinely loved them. People know when they are being schmoozed and when they are hearing someone who is genuine. The gospels give some passages where Jesus interacted with children. Children will not be fooled by less than genuine love. They can pick up on a hypocrite quickly. When His disciples tried to keep children from coming to Him, He told them to “forbid them not.” In just the same way, the people knew that Jesus was genuine and that He really loved them. They heard Jesus gladly because they knew that He recognized their worth. This is easy to prove by Jesus’ choices for His disciples. Jesus did not call one disciple that was part of the religious hierarchy of the Jewish people. His first four disciples, Peter, Andrew, James and John were all common fishermen who had no formal training. Matthew was a tax collector. He might have been part of some power structure, but not the Jewish power structure. In fact, Matthew would have been hated by the Scribes and Pharisees for being in tandem with the Roman government. But Jesus chose these men, and others, anyway. I’m sure that this did not go unnoticed by the common people. They heard Jesus gladly because He spoke with authority. When Jesus finished what we call “The Sermon on the Mount,” Matthew wrote: “And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at His doctrine: for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”(Matthew 7:28-29) When the people heard the scribes teach, they simply quoted from the various laws that the people were expected to live by, though many of them were manmade and not in scripture. They recognized that Jesus’ message did not have its source in the world, but that what He spoke was genuine. Much of what Jesus taught in The Sermon on the Mount was refuted by the so-called authorities. They heard Jesus gladly because He spoke plainly. What Jesus taught them was not difficult to understand. It might have been difficult to live up to, but they had no problem understanding what He was saying. You would think that someone who came from heaven would not be able to communicate with common people, but this was certainly not true of Jesus. It is not difficult to understand such words as “Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest.” It is plain and simple. It is not difficult to understand the “Golden Rule” written in Matthew 7:12: “Therefore all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” It would be impossible to give all of the reasons why common people heard Jesus gladly. I hope these will suffice. Bro. Joe`
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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September 2021
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