Jesus as Master and Rabbi
By James T. Summerhays

Editor’s Note:  BYU Studies is the university’s journal dedicated to learning by study and faith. To subscribe, click here, or learn more at byustudies.byu.edu

I have been pondering recently about the world of LDS scholarship. At BYU Studies I am somewhat in the middle of this world. There is a certain caution with the intellectual and scholarly pursuit of religion. We have all seen prominent scholars leave the Church before. Many would say that these people spend their intellectual talents in tearing down authority and sowing seeds of ambiguity and doubt.

I have observed with interest that the reaction to academic dissenters is often to reject learning and scholarship altogether as an ideal, as if it was too much knowledge that caused a loss of faith. Hence, among some in LDS culture there is a noticeable backlash against religious scholarship.

I believe, however, the danger lies with pride and not knowledge; there is no danger with truth and knowledge itself. I have often thought that the vast majority of those who fall away from the Church do so through a lack of understanding, not too much of it. In them the seeds of religious truth were planted but not nourished; the universal and exalted principles of the gospel, which take considerable sacrifice to learn, never sank deeply into their souls. Sure, there have been scholars who have fallen away that publish, use persuasive rhetoric, get considerable press attention, and come out in open defiance. But I have often wondered if they are only a handful compared to millions of members who quietly fall away because they never caught the vision that comes from immersing themselves “more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, and in the law of the gospel” (D&C 88:78).

To gain perspective on what sort of attitude we ought to have toward scholarship, I thought it might be useful to review an aspect of Christ’s character that comes to light through an interesting title that he is given in the New Testament.

Jesus as the Master Rabbi

During certain transcendent events, Jesus’ disciples called him Rabbi. Peter called Jesus by this title on the Mount of Transfiguration. When desiring to honor Jesus in a superlative way, Nathaniel cried out, “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel” (John 1:49).

The Hebrew term Rabbi (often translated as Master in the Bible) was a designation that garnered great respect among the Jews of New Testament times. It was a reverential title given to those who were considered preeminent experts in scriptural law. [i]

Christ was certainly expert in the Law and the Prophets; as a boy of twelve years he was intellectually superior to the most learned men in the temple, who were found asking him questions and were “astonished at his understanding” (Luke 2:46­–47). During his forty-day fast in the wilderness, he countered each of Satan’s temptations with an instant, memorized appeal to scripture (Matt. 4:1–11). Even from his youth his mind transcended all the learning of the world: “He spake not as other men, neither could he be taught; for he needed not that any man should teach him” (JST Matt. 3:25–26). Truly, Jesus is foremost as Master and Rabbi, so much so that none within the community of Saints are to vaunt themselves into this kind of position or title (Matt: 23:7-8).

How to be Christlike

A Christlike person is service-oriented, humble, meek, lowly, full of compassion, gentle, and so forth. But understanding that the Jews called him Rabbi and Master to underscore his great learning explains a key dimension of his character that is sometimes overlooked — to become a genius in religious law, to become expert in scripture, and to become so conversant in the language of revelation that it is second nature and hence “written on the bones,” — this, too, is to become more Christlike, more like the Master who is the archetype of all good learning.

So let us not be afraid to intensely seek after truth by study and faith. A deep, abiding, and working knowledge of truth will see us through any days of confusion and difficulty that are ahead.

BYU Studies is the university’s journal dedicated to learning by study and faith. To subscribe, click here, or learn more at byustudies.byu.edu