July 1924
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
431
International Series of Sunday School Lessons EXPOSITION OF THE LESSON, BLACKBOARD OUTLINES, - - - - DEVOTIONAL COMMENT, - COMMENTS FROM THE COMMENTARIES, ELEMENTARY, - - - - - - - Frederic W. Farr Fred S. Shepard John A. Hubbard - H. G. Dean Mabel L. Merrill
JULY 13, 1924 THE BOYHOOD OF JESUS Golden Text: “ Jesus advanced in -wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.,” Luke 2:52. Lesson Text: Luke 2:40-52. Devotional Reading: Psalm 110:9-16.
self standing behind the door that he* might not be seen. Then the little boy pointing at him said “ Who is that man behind the door? May he not eat with us also?” This so frightened the good bishop that he awoke and Luther’s comment is “ Be this fact or fable, I nevertheless believe that Christ in His childhood and youth looked and acted like other children in fashion like a man yet without sin! It is Christianity that has recognized and honored child hood and emphasized Its worth and value, It sets forth ideal childhood as the embodiment of goodness and teaches that goodness is the only true greatness. The world’s idea of greatness is the opposite of this. Power is eulog ized and force is deified. The world worships the “ god of forces.” The great man is the strong man, or the power may be intellectual instead of physical. :Genius may receive the homage of mankind. Christianity has enthroned good ness, “ Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” , “ Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” There is no model childhood in non-Christian literature. It is the glory of the Bible that the child is in it. There is the little missionary maid in a foreign land pointing the great captain to the only source of healing in the world. There is little Samuel serving in the tabernacle, little Timothy drinking in Bible stories at his mother’s knee, the children in the temple singing Hosanna to the Son of David. Best of all the radiant and beautiful Boy in Galilee! These all show the high estimate that Christianity puts on childhood. “ It is not the will of your Heavenly Father that the least of these little ones should perish.” I V. 41. The law requiring this is in Ex. 23:14-17. To this law, requiring only the attendance of males three times a year, the rabbis had added the requirement that women should go to Jerusalem once a year, at the feast of the passover.—Peloubet. Those were wonderful days to Him COMMENTS when at twelve He stopped at Jerusa- FROM THE lem amid the great passover throngs, COMMENTARIES passed in and out of the magnificent V. V. Morgan temple, saw the thousands of innocent lambs slain, and then gathered with His own family around the roast lamb and bitter herbs that looked back to Israel’s great redemption through the slain lamb in the past and forward to the world’s greater re demption through the slaying of Himself some twenty years heiice. Jesus saw deeper than any one else into the sigr nificance of all these things, for He had pondered the Scrip tures and the Holy Spirit had interpreted to Him, even as a boy, their innermost meaning.—Torrey. V. 42. At the age of twelve a boy was called by the Jews “ son of the law” and first incurred legal obligation.— Alford. At that time he put on the phylacteries, which con tained verses from Holy Writ reminding, .him of his duty to keep the law of God.—Peloubet. V. 43. Not necessarily the whole seven days of the fes tival. With the third day commenced the so-called half holidays, when it was lawful to return.^—Vincent. V. 44 The company forming the caravan, or band of travelers; all who came from the same district traveling together for security and company.—Alford.
Fourfold Development
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u sc le O e r v ic e Proper training and development— physical, mental and religions, qualifies for doing service for others. The thirty silent years at Nazareth were probably not different in any respect from the lives of those around Him. The Scripture record shows a natural growth. His dawn ing consciousness came to recognize His mother and then the other members of the family. He LESSON smiled and cried as all babies do. He EXPOSITION learned to creep and then to walk by push- F. W. Farr ing a chair before Him or clinging to His mother’s skirts. He played with toys and with other children. He learned to talk as He learned to walk gradually by speaking first a few small words. As He grew older and bigger He ran errands for His mother and helped about the humble home. He learned to read and write, to say prayers and verses of Scripture. He was taken to the synagogue every Sabbath and when He was twelve years old He was taken to the temple in Jerusalem. He became an apprentice in the carpenter’s shop and became familiar with the use of tools and learned how to make yokes and plows and peasant’s furniture. If the tradition is true that Joseph died early in the life of Jesus, then as the eldest son the support of the family rested as a burden upon Him. It is possible that He might even have gone hungry at times that His mother and her other children might have enough. He came into a home of poverty. At His presentation in the temple, His mother could not af ford the yearling lamb and brought two turtle doves in stead, taking advantage of that gracious provision for the poor in the Mosaic law. Jesus was always poor. He knows by experience the trials, burdens, anxieties and privations of poverty. Luther tells of a pious bishop of old who prayed earnestly that God would show him what Jesus was when a boy. God answered his prayer by a dream. He saw a carpenter working at his bench and beside him a little boy playing with the chips. Then came a maiden who called them both to supper and Set a bowl of porridge before them as their evening meal. All this the bishop saw in his dream, him
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