Lesson 1-3 "Following the Example of Jesus Christ"

How about that, two lessons about Jesus back to back in the same manual? We are on a good roll here.

In this lesson you get to explore:

• who Jesus was - personality traits, characteristics, qualities & which of those we are capable of developing
  

• how He acted & what it means to be like Him

• what He did (or would do, in our situations). I found it interesting that long before the evangelical Christian WWJD jewelry craze, young Marion G. Romney was given a tract posing that question & it helped him frame his decision-making for the rest of his life. If he was in his "early teens" at the time, then this would have been around 1910.

So, just as an aside, what might young Marion Romney have read? Well, one idea is that he may have read something based on the hugely popular 1896 novel by Rev. Charles Sheldon, titled In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? This novel was enormously influential (it sold over 30 million copies) - and perhaps worth looking at again (it's in the public domain now - see Project Gutenberg or Google Books for an e-text - or spring for the daily devotional printed version). It's really been much neglected nowadays, except for the slogan it spawned.

Charles Sheldon was the pastor of a Congregational church in Topeka, Kansas. He was an indefatigable reformer around the turn of the 20th century, an early proponent of what came to be called the "Social Gospel" movement, and a rather innovative religious leader, too. He filled the pews by coming up with the rather brilliant idea of telling serial stories from the pulpit on Sunday nights, ending each evening with a suspenseful cliffhanger to bring people back the following week to see what happened (Note to Sheldon: that was genius). One of those was the story that became In His Steps. In the novel, a vagrant collapses on the doorstep of the fictional Reverend Maxwell's church, which inspires Maxwell and five prominent members of his congregation to confront the question of what Jesus would do, literally, in their very same lives, for an entire year. Just constantly asking themselves that question revitalizes Maxwell and his community, because it leads these people in some very unusual directions.

Quoting here from Sheldon's bio page at Bookrags:

"One episode in In His Steps involved a Christian newspaper editor who decided to edit his paper according to the "What would Jesus do" standard and thus changed his guidelines for news coverage and began to reject advertising he found unwholesome. The publisher of one of Topeka's daily newspapers decided to try the idea in real life, offering Sheldon the editorship for a week. Sheldon accepted the offer, and for a week in March 1900 the Topeka Daily Capital was a very unusual paper indeed. Gone were stories of boxing matches and violent crimes; in their place Sheldon ran inspiring stories about social reform, the progress of Christian missions, and crises needing attention from good people. In the latter category was a famine in India; Sheldon ran stories about it every day, and by the end of the week huge sums of money had been raised for relief. Farmers also donated a boatload of grain which was shipped to the starving nation. Meanwhile, advertising also was changed at the Sheldon Capital; out went ads for products of which Sheldon disapproved, such as corsets, patent medicines, alcohol, and tobacco. Sheldon even changed ads for unoffensive products so that their claims would not be exaggerated. The newspaper was heavily promoted and was a huge success; over 300,000 persons around the world subscribed for the week, and many more bought the paper on newsstands."

(Again, note to Sheldon: Dude, brilliant!) "Writing for The Saturday Review, commentator Eric Goldman in 1953 cited In His Steps along with The Federalist Papers and Uncle Tom’s Cabin as ‘one of the volumes that had a substantial role in changing America during a particular period.’ In a ‘decade swinging for reform,’ it ‘reached as many as 20 million Americans with its reformer’s insistence that Christianity means not fear of God but love of the distressed'." (Quote is from here)

One snippet from Sheldon's book illustrates the thought-provoking idea that as each person seeks out what the will of God would be in their circumstances, it may lead them in different directions. What would Jesus do if He were ME? Very likely, it's something that's different from what He would do if He were YOU.

"'I'’m a little in doubt as to the source of our knowledge concerning what Jesus would do,' said Rachel Winslow. 'Who is to decide for me just what he would do in my case? It is a different age. There are many perplexing questions in our civilization that are not mentioned in the teachings of Jesus. How am I to tell?'

'There is no way that I know of,' replied the pastor, 'except as we study Jesus through the medium of the Holy Spirit. . . . You remember what Christ said, “When the Spirit of Truth is come, he shall guide you into all the truth.” . . . There is no other test that I know of. We shall all have to decide what Jesus would do after going to that source of knowledge.'

'What one church member thinks Jesus would do, another refuses to accept as his possible course of action. Will it be possible to reach the same conclusions in all cases?' asked President Marsh.

Mr. Maxwell was silent some time. Then he answered, 'No, I don'’t know that we can expect that. . . . But we need to remember this great fact. After we have asked the Spirit to tell us what Jesus would do and have received an answer to it, we are to act regardless of the results to ourselves.'

In an age of self-absorption and self-preservation, when the highest praise a guidance counselor can give is that a teenager is a "good self-advocate," that kind of surrender of will doesn't come easily or naturally. "Act regardless of the results to ourselves," wow. Jesus was a consistent advocate for the Father's will. He apparently never acted out of self-interest. For us, having an eye single to the glory of God, only doing things which build the kingdom, losing self in the service of others, and trying to imagine & then do what Jesus would do IS the daily walk of the true Christian. I think we get better at it over time and when we put in sincere effort, but not because it gets easier to do.