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THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS
TEXT.—Luke 2:40. “And the child grew,
and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wis
dom, and the grace of God was upon him.”
(A continuous series on the life of Jesus.)
AM beginning this morning a se
ries of Sunday morning sermons
on the life of Jesus as recorded in
the four gospels. It is my pur
pose to take, on successive Sun
day mornings, some phase in the
life and teaching of Jesus, from
the manger to the ascension from
Olivet. How long it is going to
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take Ido not know. lam simply going for
my own benefit, and for yours, to get a com
prehensive picture of Jesus Christ as. we find
it drawn by the pen of these four inspired
writers, and, of course, it is to be a part of
my purpose to apply the principles as best I
can to the life of the present day.
We begin this morning with “The Child
hood of Jesus.” One of the greatest scien
tists that the world has at the present day
has recently said that the most interesting
and altogether thrilling science that he
knows anything about is that of child train
ing. I think that this eminent scientist is
correct. I do not know a more inspiring ex
ercise, at least for me, than to study the de
velopment of the child. If you would be in
spired with this, take your own child, or some
child with which you are perfectly familiar,
and watch the various stages of development
in the life and character of that child, espe
cially with regard to its emotional life; see
how it evolves, merges from one stage into
another; today one person, tomorrow a sepa
rate and distinct person from that of yester
day.
And now we must remember when we
come to look at Jesus that He had a child
life, just like any other child. It is hard for
us to realize this when we come to look at the
life of a great man. It is hard for us to real
ize that he had a child life, a child experience.
I remember once hearing the great Jack Mills
of North Carolina, great in physique and
greater in heart, the man who founded the
first Christian orphanage in our Southland,
whose life was just as simple as the life of a
child. I heard that man stand before a great
convention in North Carolina when I was a
young man and plead for the orphan children
of the State, and as he pleaded for them the
tears ran down his cheeks, and he said this,
which that I have never forgotten, “My
friends, I never see a boy that I do not see a
man; I never see a girl that I do not see a
woman; and I never see a man that I do not
see a boy, nor a woman that I do not see a
girl, a tottering, innocent child.” That decla
ration from that man has lived with me all
through these years. The child and the
adult; the boy and the man; the girl and the
woman. Now, Jesus had just such a child
hood life and just such a childhood expe
rience. He lived on this earth just like any
child.
There is, however, absolutely nothing
found recorded in the four gospels concern
ing the childhood of Jesus that in any sense
accounts for His future life of usefulness and
power. That is not true of children gener
ally. It is not true of men generally. In al
most every instance if you will stop to think
there are three things, one of which to say
the least of it, enters into the explanation of
every great life that you are familiar with;
heredity, environment and education. In ev
ery great life that you are familiar with I say
there is one of these three things entering
into the explanation of it, or perhaps all of
them. But the life of Jesus there is abso-
The Golden Age for May 18,1911.
Tabernacle Sermon by Rev. Len G. Broughton, D.D.
Stenographically reported for The Golden Age.—Copyright applied for.
lutely nothing that we can put our fingers on
that in any way serves as an explanation of
His future life of usefulness and power.
Take, for example, heredity. There is
nothing in the heredity of Jesus certainly
that can account for His life. To begin with
there was no man living at the time that Je
sus lived that knew where Jesus was born.
I know full well what you say; “You have
just read that he was born in Bethlehem of
Judea.” But this document was not written
until after Jesus was dead and these men if
they knew where Jesus was born kept that
information to themselves at that time and
never recorded a line of it until after He was
dead. During the life of Jesus it was thought
that he was born in Nazareth. You remem
ber how it was when the Pharisees were con
fronted by some of the miraculous work of
Jesus they said, “Can any good thing come
out of Nazareth?” This quetsion was pro
pounded b ythe Pharisees, and these Phari
sees were the people that knew things and
they were speaking for the people of their
times. It was thought that He was born in
the city of Nazareth—Matthew and Luke af
terwards record the fact that he was born in
Bethlehem. Caesar Augustus knew nothing
at all about this, of course But until after
Jesus was dead it was thought universally
that he was from the city of Nazareth. Af
ter he was dead it came out that He came
from the city of Bethlehem, and thus the
prophets were right concerning the place of
his birth.
And it was not known the day on which
He was born, nor is it known until this day.
In the fourth century the Roman Catholic
Church settled upon the twenty-fifth day of
December; they maintain that this is true,
but this was for ecclesiastical purposes and
not for historical purposes. There is nothing
historical upon which we can bank that will
determine the question of the day on which
our Lord was born.
There was nothing in heredity from the
standpoint of his parents. Mary and Joseph
belonged to the peasant class, and the lower
order of peasants at that. Joseph was a very
timid, weak man. Mary, His mother, was a
much stronger character withotu doubt. She
was a woman of strong mental force. She
was a woman, undoubtedly of strong literary
temperament, for we find here in the first
chapter of Luke a Psalm that she composed
and it is a Psalm, equal in its literary charac
ter to any Psalm that David ever composed.
The critics say that it is equal to any Psalm
composed by the Psalmist; and it is more
than a literary production; it is a Psalm of
prophecy and indicates that Mary, the com
poser, was not only a woman with some lit
erary taste and poetic ability, but she was
also a woman of prophetic instinct and of
prophetic knowledge. It shows beyond ques
tion of doubt that she was entirely familiar
with all the prophecies of the Old Testament
scriptures from first to last concerning our
Lord. You see that coming out in the 55th
verse, “As he spake unto our father Abraham
and his seed forever.”
Then again, there is nothing in the home
life or environment of the child Jesus that
will in any sense help us in accounting for
His future life. His home was just such a
home as the peasant class at that time lived
in, and it is easy for us to determine what
that was. If we go today to Turkey we shall
see the very same kind of home life that
they had in Palestine at the time of the birth
of our Lord. It was a home, to begin with,
with a single room, built of sundried brick;
and in that home there was not a window,
not even a crack in the wall big enough to ad-
mit a single ray of light. It was closely built,
very compact, shutting out all the air and all
the light; no windows and only one door, a
small door at that, and no chimney, so that
there was no fire and no chance for cooking
or for social life in the cold seasons. All the
cooking was done on the outside of the house
except when it was so bad from rain or wind
or extreme cold that they had to go on the
inside of this single room and there cook with
the smoke settling on everything. It was in
just such a house as that that Jesus lived;
there was not a picture on the walls, for there
were no pictures in the time of Jesus; they
held literally that it was a violation of the
Scriptures to make an image of anything or
anybody, so that there was no picture or any
books, nothing in that home in which Jesus
was brought up that would inspire a boy of
today. Surely a boy from Atlanta living in
such an environment as that would not find
anything conducive to the development of a
great and mighty character. The only thing
that we can point to in the way of environ
ment was the open air in which He and the
other children had to live, and every child
lived in that respect just as he lived; all lived
practically in the open air and in communion
with nature.
Again, I want to say that there was noth
ing in His education that accounted for His
future life. Doubtless Jesus went to school.
Though there is no statement to that effect,
but because all the children, especially the
boys of that time, went to school, we may
feel sure He did. It was a common custom
for a child, as soon as it was big enough, to
be entrusted to a teacher to go to school until
he was ten years old, and then he was taken
from school. He graduated when he was ten
years of age. It is likely that Jesus went to
school from the time that He was large
enough to go until He was ten years of age
and then probably stopped. But what kind
of school was it? Just such a school as we
find now in those parts referred to. They
only taught in those days in those schools
one thing, and that was reading. Os course
they taught spelling, and reading together.
The custom was, for a teacher to gather
about him in the parish school of the Syna
gogue, twenty-five to fifty boys. These boys
would be gathered about him in a half circle.
They would sit cross legged on c the floor or
on the ground; the teacher would sit like
wise cross legged, in front of this half circle.
In his hand was a long whip; in the other
was held a lot of words and these words were
repeated in concert by the children as they
sat before him. and that was the way they
learned words, and from words they went
back to letters. They had at that time the
system of spelling that we are now just be
ginning to adopt in this country. The teacher
would hold up a word; he would tell the pupil
what that word was and what that word
meant and then he would analyze that word
by letters. And thus those children were
taught words and that is why it is that
words weigh so much in the New Testament
Scriptures. That is why some teachers are
insisting so much on the study of words that
we may get the proper meaning of a text.
Thus they studied until they were ten years
of age.
It was just such a school and under such a
system as this that Jesus was taught. They
did not teach geography, or arithmetic, ex
cept in the most elementary way; they knew
nothing about science or about literature;
they taught nothing but reading, and from
reading they taught spelling, and that was
the extent.
(Continued on page 14.)