IN studying the narratives of Jesus, as given in the New Testament, one is impressed with the close association between the Master's teaching and that which he did to prove the truth of what he said, both of which need to be perceived spiritually and understood in their relation the one to the other. Christ Jesus, as the promised Messiah, came to give mankind a clearer, more intimate, and more practical knowledge of God, a knowledge available at any time to meet the human need.
Prior to Jesus' time, the Word of God had been only now and then spiritually perceived and demonstrated, as when Moses did many wonderful things to prove God's power to the children of Israel in their long wanderings in the desert, or as when Elijah overcame a sense of limitation by proving God's sufficiency for the widow who had but a handful of meal and a little cruse of oil. But more often the teachings of the prophets failed to impress their hearers, because they were not accompanied by demonstration. How differently were the sayings of Jesus exemplified! In the words of a familiar hymn,
"When Jesus, our great Master, came
To teach us in his Father's name,
In every act, in every thought,
He lived the precepts which he taught."
