The story of Jesus is fairly well-known. He was born to Mary and Joseph. He lived with them in Nazareth, a town in an area known as the Galilee. He was educated at the local synagogues in addition to, in all likelihood, learning Joseph’s trade. By the time he grew up he was far enough along in his education that he was allowed to teach in the synagogues and on the Sabbath to the crowds. He then began a ministry as an itinerant rabbi. This ministry had two major parts to it: Jesus’s own sense of mission, and the works that he did. This paper explores Christ’s emphatic ministry. It also investigates Christ’s exemplary ministry. Finally, it reveals the interconnected nature of the two sides.
Christ’s Emphatic Ministry
Jesus Christ had a strong sense of his purpose since childhood. In Luke 2:41-52, the story of Jesus staying behind at the Temple to continue learning and debating the Law is recounted. When Mary finally gets back to the Temple and finds Jesus there, she asks him why he stayed behind, and stating that she was worried for him. Jesus replies, saying that he “must be about my Father’s business” (Luke 2:49). This is the first time Jesus emphasizes his purpose. And he also reiterates it when he is older, after healing many of the sick in Capernaum in Luke 4. In verse 43, Jesus tells the crowd that “I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore I am sent.” And after calling Matthew as a disciple, Jesus states “I am come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matthew 9:9). So Jesus has an emphasis on his mission, and a real sense of purpose.
His emphatic ministry—that which he had to do—included a sense of redeeming the lost. In Luke 19, Jesus spots the corrupt Zacchaeus in a tree, and calls out to him, stating “Make haste and come down: for I must abide at thy house” (Luke 19:5). While this move isn’t exactly the best appearing move, Zacchaeus soon makes good by giving half his possessions to the poor, and promising to repay any and all people he overcharged on their taxes (Luke 19:8). Jesus stated that he had been redeemed in Luke 19:9.
In John 3, Jesus is talking with Nicodemus the Pharisee, when he states that he is there to redeem through offering a rebirth. He tells Nicodemus, “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again” (John 3:7). Zacchaeus in the previous example experienced that rebirth, and Jesus emphasized that it was needed for everyone. John the Baptist had already been doing a symbolic rebirth through water baptism in the Jordan, so this concept of rebirth was not a new one. However, Jesus explained that the rebirth he offered was more permanent. Whereas those who were baptized by John would have to keep coming back to the Jordan, the baptism with the Holy Spirit offered by Jesus was meant to be a single event in a person’s life (John 3:5-6).
Jesus also knew that he had to go through the Crucifixion and Resurrection to make this baptism by the Holy Spirit available en masse. Jesus hints at this in that same conversation with Nicodemus, saying “so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (John 3:14b). He states this more explicitly with his disciples in Luke 9:22: “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be slain, and be raised on the third day.” After the Resurrection, when appearing to a group of confused disciples, Jesus reminded them of this, saying “These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me” (Luke 24:44). But Jesus did more than just proclaim his mission, of course; he set many examples in tandem with this calling.
Christ’s Exemplary Ministry
While Jesus certainly had his sense of mission, and people are attracted to charisma, one way in which he was truly set apart is that of his miracles. In Matthew 25:35-40, Jesus outlines what he expects from his followers:
For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in; Naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. (Matthew 25:35-40).
So in order to demonstrate the need to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit the prisoner, Jesus went ahead and did so first. When a crowd of 5,000 showed up to hear him preach and to receive healing, he fed them as well. “and he took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude” (Matthew 14:19). It is important to note that no one came up to Jesus to ask for something to eat; he saw the need, and he met it. He did the same a few chapters later at another place, with a crowd of 4,000.
He also, very famously, healed the sick. In addition to Simon Peter’s mother at Capernaum, Luke 4:38-44 states that he also healed other residents of that town with various illnesses and freed numerous people from demonic possession. He healed lepers, such as the one in Matthew 8:3. He didn’t even need to be present for a healing to take place; in Matthew 8:5-13, when the Roman centurion comes to him asking for Jesus to heal his servant, who is bedridden back at his home, Jesus tells him that his servant would be healed. Matthew 8:13b states: “And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.”
Those are all well and good, but when did he visit the prisoner? In the most difficult of situations, as he was dying on the cross. When the second of the criminals Jesus was crucified with defended him against the insults of the first, looking for comfort, the criminal asked Jesus a favor: “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom” (Luke 23:42). Jesus responded, “Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). In Luke’s gospel, the very last act Jesus did before dying was comfort a condemned man.
These acts were not lost on the disciples. Both before and after Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus had sent the disciples out multiple times to heal the sick and to preach, as recorded in Matthew 10, Luke 10, and Matthew 28. After Jesus’s ascension, the Apostles healed a cripple in Acts 3:1-10, shared their possessions to meet the needs of the poor in Acts 4:32-37, and healed numerous diseases in Acts 5:12-16. But they all did this in mind with a key sense of emphatic purpose passed on to them by Jesus: to teach all the nations they encountered what Christ taught them (Matthew 28:19-20).
Conclusion
This paper explored Christ’s emphatic ministry. It also examined Christ’s exemplary ministry. The disciples carried both onward through the first century. The legacy of these ministries is in the existence of Christianity today, which is the largest religion on Earth.
