The Method and Message of Jesus' Teachings, Revised Edition

Just what I wanted

It’s a very thorough book on how Jesus taught. I had Jerry Stein as a Prof in college and enjoyed the course so I thought I would read the book again.

This is an extremely good book. I would like to recommend it to anyone that would like to know how Jesus taught, and what He taught. I read another good book that referred to this book several times, it's called Reading The Bible for all It Worth. I would recommend these 2 books to every Christian as required reading.

The Son of God carries many titles. One of them is “Teacher.” So what forms did the divine Teacher use to instruct and what was the central message of His lessons? The Method and Message of Jesus’ Teachings answers both questions with clarity and precision. I think this book is tremendously useful for all students of the Bible but especially those who teach. Why? Because in explaining how Christ taught, it teaches you how to teach; because in explaining Christ’s central message (the kingdom of God) it helps you to put in context everything the Lord said and did.Furthermore, Jesus not only taught during His earthly ministry, but He taught effectively. People traveled from far and wide to listen to Him. They also sacrificed food and shelter to hear His words. Hence, the first third of the book explains the specific forms God used to convey a message that was appealing and impactful: for example, overstatement, the use of questions, irony, riddles and hyperbole. Throughout, the author gives plenty of Scriptural examples along with a breakdown of how the specific method is applied in the Gospels. There is an entire chapter devoted to parables because this was the Lord’s favorite means of communication. Here, Stein gives a brief analysis of how parables have been interpreted through Church history and supplies four rules for interpreting them.The bulk of the book is focused on doctrine: the already-not yet coming kingdom of God. Here, the author carefully exposits the text to provide an overview of this doctrine. He also discusses the main schools of interpretation. In short, Christ is a King who purchased many into His kingdom. He rules and reigns in the hearts of His own. At the end of time, the kingdom of God will be both a spiritual and a physical reality. Stein also discusses specific aspects of Jesus’ kingdom teaching: the Fatherhood of God, kingdom ethics, and Christology.Overall, this a solid book that will certainly help you to have a deeper understanding of Jesus’ teachings and richer appreciation for God’s plan of redemption through both Testaments. A wonderful addition to a Bible teacher’s library.

Excellent

Excellent

This book, by a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, brilliantly elucidates both the style and content of Jesus' teachings. Written in 1994 when there were few online bible resources, the author demonstrates an encyclopedic knowledge of Scripture, citing an exhaustive list of both scriptural cross references and scholarly works.This book will provide an excellent foundation for further research, as it supplies very liberal notes and references for the interested reader. The subject matter is very difficult, so the reader should be prepared for some serious thinking. But the author makes approaching this topic as simple as possible.I objected to a couple of his ideas, as reflected in the following email to him:Dear Prof. Stein,I am in awe of the breadth and depth of your knowledge of Scripture! You wrote this book in a time when there were not many online bible resources, so I can't imagine how you were able to so extensively cross reference the teachings of Jesus. Many thanks to you for writing this fascinating guidebook to Jesus' teachings.I would like to make the following comments for your consideration. I hope you will have time to reflect on them.(1) About the word ABBA, its consonants form the word AVO which means I will come. It also could be read as Av-Ba meaning The father comes. Perhaps Abba is a kind of reverential form of Av connoting a desire that the Father come and rescue or help the supplicant? The Talmud says that Biah = Coming is a term for sexual intercourse, so AVO might also imply I will come meaning I will engage in intercourse and thus become a father.(2) You claim that the Our Father prayer is only reserved for close disciples and does NOT imply a universal brotherhood of man under the Fatherhood of God. I find your claim peculiar since you also explain that Jesus enjoins us to love our enemies. Does this latter command not ipso facto confer a kind of brotherhood status on all men, even our enemies, and therefore imply that God is the universal Father?(3) I am attaching a scan of the page in which you discuss the Catholic view of explaining Jesus' ethical commands. You write that although this perspective is attractive, it does not accurately reflect Jesus' system of ethics that is equally incumbent upon all men. Again I do not find your skepticism persuasive. You admit throughout this chapter that many of Jesus' commands seem contradictory. I think the Catholics have worked out a pretty good system for allocating the ethical demands between laity and clergy/religious. I think if you deny this bifurcation, you end up with a watered down system of ethics in which no one really approaches the demands of Jesus. In the Catholic system, countervailing the "easier" demands on the laity is the fact that their financial support enables the religious to follow their more demanding spiritual path, and Jesus states very clearly the rewards to those who even give a cup of water to one of his followers.(4) You claim in the same chapter that the rich young ruler forever forfeited his chance to follow Jesus. However some commentators suggest that this person was none other than John-Mark himself, and if so he certainly recovered from the shock of what Jesus said to him about abandoning all worldly wealth!(5) I must disagree with you strongly concerning your claim that Mark 7 rescinds the dietary laws. The context of the passage is very clearly about ritual hand-washings before meals. Jesus appears to repudiate this practice, and thus Mark's parenthetical comment about making all foods clean might well refer to this. In other words, it is very possible that Jesus would agree with the Levitical definition of "food" and in no way is authorizing here the consumption of rats, cats, dogs, insects, reptiles etc. You ought to be less dogmatic about this, especially given the fact that Acts 10-11 clearly explains Peter's vision about the sheet descending from heaven with all sorts of creatures as authorizing the inclusion of Gentiles in the fellowship of God's people, not the literal eating of these creatures!(6) I thought your explanation of Judaism's reluctance to utilize the term Father for God due to the unpleasant associations with pagan notions of God procreating with men most fascinating! You probably are aware that on the Jewish High Holy Days the liturgy speaks of Avinu Malkeinu = Our Father our King!(7) In your chapter on Christology, I was surprised that you didn't examine the I AM statements in the Gospel of John, which seem so germaine to this topic!Wishing you a blessed Easter/Paschal season!Most Sincerely Yours,Mevashir

It's an academic book, not that exciting.

Stein has produced and further revised an excellent insightful introduction to the various figures of speech that Jesus used in conveying His teaching in the Gospels. These include hyperbole and the various forms of parallelism. There is a chapter on parables. These are given with a number of examples, giving reasons for their authenticity. He then deals with basic themes such as the Fatherhood of God, the Kingdom, the Lord's Christology of Himself and the Ethics of Jesus. He interacts with different schools of interpretation of the Kingdom, and presents his own, extracting some point of value from the others. Recommended for all who preach on the Gospels or seek to understand the Teaching, and should be beside them when interpreting the Biblical text.

Excellent