"Then they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and taught. And they were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes."
Is Jesus so simple, maybe somewhat boring in His teachings to you? Do you think you know enough about Him to know Him? Do you have Him all figured out?
Jesus during His ministry taught about the kingdom of Heaven and its eternal existence, a place He called His Fathers house. He taught many things about how to live and treat people, how to love and how to suffer as he did to please God. He at one point even said the disciples were of a dull mind (Matthew 13:13-15), and that He had to speak to them in parables. Jesus never held back nor did He favor one class of people over the other. Some of these teachings are very difficult to understand and grasp even today having the whole word of God in a nice book format. Whereas people in the first century had nothing until the Apostles later wrote letters to the congregations of the Lords church. And those were sparse and inaccessible to the whole population of brethren in Judea and Asia Minor during that time. Often I suppose disciples gathered together in homes to have a group reading of a singular copy of Paul or Peters letters surely having to commit inspired verses to memory and parchment for personal study.
With this background in mind, could it have been even more difficult for them to understand what Jesus was teaching? I think we often believe it must have been wonderful to experience the purity of the church back then, hence we pursue practicing first century Christianity in a 21st century world to try and capture that essence. For we have all of the scriptures to learn from. How could the multitude of first century disciples possibly get it wrong? How could they be confused?
Actually, nearly all the disciples of Jesus were confused upon hearing Him and they turned away from Him (John 6:66). And today, if you don't have questions after meeting Jesus, maybe you haven't, really, met Him?
Let's explore just how difficult it might have been for them to understand our Lord when at times He would just say something so counter and so different, they were left as we are sometimes scratching our heads as to why he would say this or that? This podcast by brother Mark Roberts gives us some great insight into, Why Isn't Jesus Easier To Understand?
