Jesus Said

By Jim Prestidge

Jesus said answers a need to collect together the things which Jesus told his followers and to examine them. The gospels tell Jesus’ story. In it is embedded his teaching. Jesus said finds a consistent message in the many things that he said.

Jesus addressed all sections of the community. There were the masses who followed him, the twelve whom he chose, the professional scribes and Pharisees and the religious leaders. He had a different approach to each. The overall message was the same. It is God’s message to us. Jesus said does not try to form a doctrine out of the sayings of Jesus, or to fit them into a doctrine. It simply aims to uncover what Jesus said. The book is for thinking people, looking for greater depth to their Bible study.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664235991

Jim Prestidge

Jim has behind him a lifetime of Bible reading. He uses a variety of Bible translations and computer technology. Jim has travelled extensively in most of the continents, worshipping with christians of differing christian traditions and cultural environments. He draws on his wife’s studies of Bible background. Jim and his wife spent time in Israel, the land of the Bible. It was a prayer and study tour, with other christians and Messianic Jews. They visited the places of the Bible, reading what happened there, and praying peace on Jerusalem. Jim wants the Bible to speak for itself. He wants to revive Bible reading. He wants Bible study to be guided, not by church doctrines, nor by commentators, nor by videos, nor by Jim, but by the Holy Spirit. Jim aims to expose the real Jesus and his message: God enters our understanding of his world and how to fit in.

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Copyright © 2021 Jim Prestidge.

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and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of

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people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations taken from the Revised English Bible, copyright © Cambridge

University Press and Oxford University Press 1989. All rights reserved.

Interior Image Credit: Jim Prestidge

ISBN: 978-1-6642-3597-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-3598-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-3599-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021910844

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/09/2021

Man is not to live on bread alone,

but on every word

that comes from the mouth of God.

(Matthew 4:4)

INTRODUCTION

Jesus said examines the teaching which Jesus gave to his followers, as it is recorded in the four gospels. Jesus gave instructions to follow and attitudes to adopt. The better we understand what he said, the richer will be our christian lives, and truer to him.

Jesus said is addressed to thinking people, both those with substantial experience of Bible study and those who are coming newly to it. The text takes a fresh and detailed look at what christians should believe.

Jesus said also builds up a picture of Jesus and his ministry. From there we get indications for ourselves today, and where we should be heading.

It is not a book about christian doctrine. It looks into the scriptures, to see what Jesus actually taught his followers. To that end, the book avoids giving single verse references. It quotes passages, so that the context shows the meaning clearly. The background to each situation is also considered for the same reason.

In a few places there is a comment beginning with the word perhaps. That comment is offered as an interesting idea for the reader to judge for themself; it may not be strictly covered by scripture, one way or the other.

Where there are discrepancies in detail between the gospels, these are offered as complementing each other, as far as possible.

Jesus said was written prayerfully. It is offered as a collection of the things that Jesus taught, looked at so as to promote deeper thinking and unity in christian circles.

Jim Prestidge

Spring 2021

CONTENTS

The World Into Which Jesus Came

The old and the new

God centred living

The kingdom parables

The Disciples

St John’s Jesus

The gospel of eternal life

The custodians of the law

Jesus’ ministry

The christian life

The future

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THE WORLD INTO

WHICH JESUS CAME

Jesus came to minister to a people with a long period of history, characterised by ups and downs. They were God’s chosen people, but they had lost their relationship with God. Several times they had found themselves in exile in a distant land. Now they were ruled by the romans.

Jesus was brought up in Nazareth, a small settlement in the old kingdom of Israel. In the early days of the history of the jewish nation Israel had broken away from Judah. The story is told in the First Book of Kings chapter twelve.

The capital had remained in Jerusalem in Judea. That is where king David had built his palace. David had collected the materials for his son, king Solomon, to build the temple there. Thus from early days Jerusalem was established as the centre of jewish worship and religious learning.

JESUS’ LEARNING

During his childhood Jesus had attended synagogue and heard the scriptures read. He heard also the teaching. Thus, from a human point of view, he had become versed in the scriptures and in the jewish doctrine.

Joseph and Mary were devout people. They went to Jerusalem every year to celebrate Passover. When Jesus was twelve years old he got left behind.

When they could not find him they returned to Jerusalem to look for him; and after three days they found him sitting in the temple surrounded by the teachers, listening to them and putting questions; and all who heard him were amazed at his intelligence and the answers he gave.

(Luke 2:45–47)

The gospels, and particularly that of St John, make it abundantly clear that Jesus’ learning came from God.

GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE

The status of the Jews as a people of God rested on the covenant which God had made with Abraham two millennia earlier. Abraham’s family originated in Ur of the Chaldeans, in present day Iraq. His original name was Abram.

The Lord said to Abram, ‘Leave your own country, your kin, and your father’s house, and go to a country that I will show you. I shall make you into a great nation; I shall bless you and make your name so great that it will be used in blessings:

those who bless you, I shall bless;

those who curse you, I shall curse.

All the peoples on earth

will wish to be blessed as you are blessed.’

(Genesis 12:1–3)

The story of the covenant is given in Genesis chapter fifteen and onwards. The terms included:

• The land from the Nile to the Euphrates would be given to Abraham’s descendants

• Abraham’s descendants were to be God’s people

• God was to be their God

• Through them blessing would come to the whole world

• Abram changed his name to Abraham.

This last two points are connected. Abram means ‘The Father is exalted’. Abraham means ‘Father of many nations’.

The first point of the covenant has never been fulfilled; the present state of Israel is smaller. However, during their history the Jews left the promised land several times and there were new covenants; these specified less land.

Because of the covenant the Jews of Jesus’ day rightly considered themselves special people; they were the descendants of Abraham and heirs of the covenant.

THE CREATION, THE FALL AND THE AFTERMATH

Before the covenant things had not gone well with mankind. Adam and Eve, the ancestors of Abraham, had been given the Garden of Eden to be their idyllic home. But they had eaten the forbidden fruit and by that act they were expelled into the world at large.

In the beginning God had created the world. The first chapter of Genesis records seven times that God saw that the world he was creating was good. In fact when creation was finished God said that it was ‘very good’.

God gave Adam and Eve their place in which to live, the garden of Eden. As well as being a pleasant place there were fruits and plants to eat, by just gathering them. There was one restriction: not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

But Adam and Eve were tricked into eating its fruit and from there things went wrong.

God said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I forbade you to eat from?’ The man replied, ‘It was the woman you gave to be with me who gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.’ The Lord God said to the woman, ‘What have you done?’ The woman answered, ‘It was the serpent who deceived me into eating it.’

(Genesis 3:11–13)

‘What have you done?’ is a cry of alarm. Evil had entered the world and had its say.

The serpent symbolises Satan, otherwise known as the enemy, the voice of evil in the world. He raises doubts and tells half truths. God had said that if Adam or Eve ate that fruit they would die. The serpent raised a doubt about that. In fact they did not die then. They were sent out of the garden to fend for themselves in the world, in which evil was now a force.

As generations passed God brought the flood, to destroy both man and beast for gross wrongdoing, except for Noah’s family and the creatures which were rescued in the ark. The world was given a new start.

The Bible traces one thread of the descendants of Adam and Eve; these became the jewish people. Jesus himself was one of them.

God called Abraham’s family to leave their home in the land of the two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates and make the long journey to Canaan. They got as far as Haran. Abraham continued the journey. When his family reached what is now the West Bank God made the covenant which settled Abraham’s descendants there in the promised land.

Later famine took them to Egypt. They may have stayed there, had a new pharaoh not treated them harshly. Moses led them out. On the way God gave them the law. It was a set of rules for living. That was a thousand years before Jesus came.

THE LAW OF MOSES

The law covered the people’s relationship with God and with each other, in a society under God. It aimed to honour God and promote good relations within the community. It assured people’s rights and peaceful coexistence.

They had camped near Mount Sinai and Moses went up into the mountain twice to meet with God. He came down with the ten commandments written on stone tablets. Then the people met together and God began to expound the law to them, speaking through Moses. The story begins in Exodus chapter nineteen.

The first commandments establish a relationship with God, after which the remainder cover human relationships. These forbid things such as murder, stealing, playing around with someone else’s spouse, telling tales, coveting what belongs to someone else. These are very obvious things which break up friendships and destabilise a community. Other peoples of the Middle East had similar rules, dating back at least as far as the Hittite Empire, into which Abraham came when he followed his calling to go to the land which the Lord was showing him.

Paraphrased, this is what the commandments ask.

• To have no other god.

• To worship no other god.

• To respect God’s name.

• To keep the sabbath day holy.

• To honour one’s parents.

• Not to murder.

• Not to commit adultery.

• Not to steal.

• Not to tell lies against one’s neighbour.

• Not to covet ones neighbour’s things.

In Jesus’ day Moses was venerated as the law giver. Details of the law that was worked out are given in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. They include the following points.

• Keeping sabbaths, sabbaticals and jubilee.

• Land may not be sold outright.

• Rules for selling land and houses.

• Financial help to a brother reduced to poverty.

• An alien must be treated as a native.

• To investigate miscreants.

• Food laws.

• Not to make idols.

• If the law is kept the Lord will give rain, food.

Some of the law is reflected in laws which countries follow today. The jewish law started with recognition, respect and honour being given to God. That was the starting point from which everything else followed: a life without fear of anyone or anything, no shortages, security.

Observe my statutes, keep my judgements, and carry them out; and you will live without any fear in the land. The land will yield its harvest; you will eat your fill and live there secure.

(Leviticus 25:18–19)

The law went on to observe the sabbath. The sabbath, or seventh day, commemorates God resting after the six days of creation, as recorded in the first two chapters of Genesis. The Jews of Jesus’ day attached considerable importance to keeping the sabbath. There were additional rules defining what could and could not be done on the sabbath.

The whole matter of the sabbath became a source of difficulty in Jesus’ ministry. The sabbath was to be kept holy. Jesus challenged what that meant.

In addition, the law counted off seven years and made a sabbatical year. This was also a rest year. No work was to be done. The fields were not to be planted or tended. The Lord would provide a bumper harvest the previous year. A rest year gave the nation an opportunity not only to relax but also to reconsider their lives and make a fresh start afterwards. It was a rest also for the land.

The word sabbatical has come into the english language, but with a somewhat different meaning. The jewish sabbatical was a year to rest and reflect.

The law counted off seven sabbaticals, then the fiftieth year was a year of jubilee. This was an extended rest and restart. Everyone went to their land. Debts were cancelled. Land sold could be redeemed by the original owner.

All land was considered to belong to God, since he made it and he had brought the