What Teaching Methods Did Jesus Use? 

Jesus was an excellent student who learned his early teaching methods at home after a family tragedy. He was fourteen at the time of his father's death on the construction site where Joseph was employed. After his passing, Jesus assumed the responsibilities of a father to his younger sisters and brothers. By the time he was nineteen, Jesus had fully won over his mother Mary to the acceptance of his positive method of child training. In his home and throughout his public teaching career, he taught, “You shall do this – you ought to do that.” He didn’t use the negative mode of teaching; he refrained from placing emphasis on evil by forbidding it, while he exalted the good by commanding its performance.

Jesus’ teaching method was refreshingly genuine; he lived the truth, even as he taught it. One technique of instruction he used was to draw people out by posing questions. These talks usually ended with them asking him questions. He was equally adept in teaching by either asking or answering questions.To those he taught the most, he often said the least. The ones who derived the most benefit from his ministry were overburdened, anxious, and dejected mortals who gained much relief because of the opportunity to unburden their souls to a sympathetic and understanding listener. When these maladjusted individuals told Jesus about their troubles, he would offer practical and immediately helpful suggestions. Invariably, he would tell these distressed mortals about the love of God and that they were sons and daughters of this loving Father.

Jesus was free from superstition and religious prejudices, while always exercising tolerance. He complied with the good in the religion of his fathers, but he did not hesitate to disregard man-made traditions and superstitions. He dared to teach that catastrophes of nature and accidents were not God’s anger or wrath. He also denounced slavish devotion to meaningless ceremonials and exposed the fallacy of materialistic worship. He boldly proclaimed humanity’s spiritual freedom and that mortals can personally know, love, and trust God.

Jesus swept aside all pretensions of vanity and hypocrisy. He was an expert at taking away an inferior teaching and replacing it with a superior one. People were astonished at the originality and authoritativeness of his teaching. They marveled at his patience in dealing with backward and troublesome inquirers. On both friends and foes, his teachings had a strong and fascinating influence.

No matter who Jesus was teaching, he was wise in how much he taught. He estimated the minds and hearts of his hearers and gave them no more than they could assimilate. He did not make the mistake of over-teaching them. He knew better than to confuse his students with the presentation of truth too far beyond their capacity to comprehend. And his teachings always emphasized the positive.

Jesus’ method of teaching did not conform to the tradition-bound, law-ridden instructions of the priesthood. His methods were fresh and unplanned, soul-satisfying and eternity-oriented. When teaching, Jesus did not hesitate to draw upon scripture if the occasion called for it, as when he spoke at synagogues. To his apostle James, he said: “…when you read the Scriptures, look for those eternally true and divinely beautiful teachings…” Wherever the truth was, he recognized it and used it.

Even though Jesus lived amid constant stress and social storms, he was a living example of his teachings and he never wavered. His enemies continually laid snares for him, but they never entrapped him. They sought to embroil him in debate, but his answers were always enlightening, dignified, and final. When he was interrupted in his discourses, his answers were always significant and conclusive. He never resorted to ignoble tactics in meeting the relentless pressure of his enemies, even though they employed every sort of false, unfair, and unrighteous mode of attack upon him.

One of the most astonishing things about Jesus’ teaching method, for that time, was to include women. In January of 29 CE, he created the Women's Evangelistic Corps, a group of ten female ministers. On many occasions, Jesus declared that: “…in the kingdom of heaven there is neither rich nor poor, free nor bond, male nor female, all are equally the sons and daughters of God.” In a little more than a year, the women’s corps had sixty-two members.

It is not insignificant that Jesus, when he rose from the tomb, appeared first to women. They were the first to believe in his resurrection, even when his apostles refused to believe it. Jesus’ inclusive treatment of women as teachers and ministers was the emancipation proclamation that began the liberation of women from the domination by men, at home and in the temple. The struggles of women continue today, but Jesus knew and taught that women are not men’s spiritual, intellectual, or social inferiors.

On the day of Pentecost, Jesus’ Spirit of Truth was poured out on the world. This Spirit replaced Jesus as a great teacher and is available to all humanity, transcending social constructs and divisions such as gender, race, ethnicity, religion, culture, and social status.

The religious leaders of the Jewish people had a systematic and dogmatic theology. Jesus was not a systematic teacher; he was a master teacher who taught spontaneously and as the occasion warranted. His teachings were original; he was not bound by tradition and he spoke with undoubted confidence and taught with absolute authority. The most original of his teachings was the emphasis on love and mercy in the place of fear and sacrifice. But his brilliant originality and superb spontaneity did not cause him to overlook the gems of truth in the teachings of his predecessors and contemporaries.

Each time Jesus taught, his words were suited to the moment, unrehearsed and unplanned. But he taught with an eye to the future. He was shrewd in the way he prepared the world to receive his teachings after he was gone. Before his public ministry began in Palestine, he traveled around the Mediterranean and met with leading thinkers and teachers. Later, after his death, when his apostles and disciples arrived at the same locations carrying the gospel, the soil was ready to be planted. With the help of his prior travels and teachings, their seeds germinated and grew to produce worthy fruit. By the third century, the whole Roman empire embraced Christianity.

In the final phase of his life, his public ministry across Palestine, Jesus began using parables when his positive teachings clashed with the negative instructions of the religious authorities. Jesus' parables had the advantage of bringing out the lesson and not giving his enemies a reason to attack. But his apostles were slow to realize this advantage. One of the first parables was about “the sower.” At their evening meeting, after Jesus had earlier recited this parable before a throng of followers, the apostle Matthew asked why he didn’t speak directly. Jesus replied:

“…from this day forward, I will speak to the people in parables to the end that our friends and those who desire to know the truth may find that which they seek, while our enemies and those who love not the truth may hear without understanding.”

When Jesus employed a parable to illustrate a message, he intended that just one feature of the story express that message. Many wrong ideas concerning the teachings of Jesus come from the attempt to make allegories or fables out of his parables by ascribing multiple meanings.

During one of his evening instruction sessions during the Decapolis Tour in August of 29 CE, Jesus laid out teaching principles and spiritual truths to guide and strengthen his current and future missionaries. They included the following:

• Respect the personality of students. Never should a righteous cause be promoted by force; spiritual victories can be won only by spiritual power.
• Promote self-respect.
• Avoid sarcasm and cynicism.
• Keep busy at chosen tasks.
• Avoid attempts to frighten men and women into the kingdom.
• Emotions are not equivalent to the leadings of the divine spirit.
• The gospel yoke is easy, and the burden of truth is light.
• Faith is an addition of power, not an added burden of life. The believer has only one battle, and that is against doubt—unbelief.
• You are teaching friendship with God.
• Increasing happiness is always the experience of all who are certain about God.
• Avoid pity and sentimentality.
• Faith and worship will expand the mind, ennoble the soul, reinforce the personality, augment happiness, deepen the spirit perception, and enhance the power to love and be loved.
• Faith does not prevent the accidents of time or the ordinary catastrophes of nature.

Although Jesus employed diverse methods of instruction, the one he used was dictated by the present moment situation and the circumstances in which the teaching took place. Perhaps the most admirable and effective method was to avoid attacking students’ errors or even mentioning their flawed ideas. After Jesus listened to a follower, he would select the truth in what they said, then embellish and illuminate it so it crowded out the errors. Jesus once asked his apostle Simon Zelotes: “Simon, how many times have I instructed you to refrain from all efforts to take something out of the hearts of those who seek salvation? How often have I told you to labor only to put something into these hungry souls? Lead them into the kingdom, and the great and living truths of the kingdom will presently drive out all serious error.”

Jesus’ methods of teaching did not include destructive criticism, mockery, or disregard for the religious, social, economic, and politics of his day. He was not a militant revolutionary; he was a progressive evolutionist. His methods of teaching set the standard for his followers of every generation and each situation. At the core of his method was none other than divine love: an unlimited, all-wise, and fatherly love.