The Training of the Twelve Quotes

“The twelve, at the period of their first trial mission, were not fit to preach the gospel, or to do good works, either among Samaritans or Gentiles. Their hearts were too narrow, their prejudices too strong: there was too much of the Jew, too little of the Christian, in their character. For the catholic work of the apostleship they needed a new divine illumination and a copious baptism with the benignant spirit of love. Suppose these raw evangelists had gone into a Samaritan village, what would have happened? In all probability they would have been drawn into disputes on the religious differences between Samaritans and Jews, in which, of course, they would have lost their temper; so that, instead of seeking the salvation of the people among whom they had come, they would rather be in a mood to call down fire from heaven to consume them, as they actually proposed to do at a subsequent period.155”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, Training of the Twelve - Enhanced Version

“The panorama of the kingdom of God was to be hid from their eyes till the curtain was lifted in three distinct historical movements--the ascension, the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost on the multitude who had come to keep the feast, and the conversion of Samaritans and the Gentiles.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“By connecting the "power" with the descent of the Holy Ghost, Jesus in effect corrected the third mistake of the eleven concerning the kingdom--the notion, viz., that it was to be of a political nature. Power arising out of a baptism of the Spirit is moral, not political, in its character; and a kingdom founded through such power is not a kingdom of this world, but one whose subjects and citizens consist of men believing the truth: "of the truth," as Jesus Himself put it in speaking of His kingdom before Pilate.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“Who is sufficient for these things? Jesus knew the insufficiency of His instruments. Therefore, having invested them with official authority, He proceeded to speak of an investment with another kind of power, without which the official must needs be utterly ineffectual. "And, behold," He said, "I send the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye at Jerusalem till ye be clothed with power from on high.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“It was when they had dined that Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him; it was after they had supped Jesus gave His disciples His new commandment of love, and that Peter made his vehement protestation of devotion to his Master's cause and person. The name by which the risen Lord addressed His disciple--not Peter, but Simon son of Jonas--was fitted to remind him of his weakness, and of that other occasion on which, calling him by the same name, Jesus warned him that Satan was about to sift him as wheat. The thrice-repeated question, "Lovest thou me?" could not fail painfully to remind Peter of his threefold denial, and so to renew his grief.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“Thomas declares at once his acceptance of a miraculous fact, and his belief in a momentous doctrine. In the first part of his address to Jesus he recognizes that He who was dead is alive: My Lord, my beloved Master! it is even He,--the very same person with whom we enjoyed such blessed fellowship before He was crucified. In the second part of his address he acknowledges Christ's divinity, if not for the first time, at least with an intelligence and an emphasis altogether new. From the fact he rises to the doctrine: My Lord risen, yea, and therefore my God; for He is divine over whom death hath no power. And the doctrine in turn helps to give to the fact of the resurrection additional certainty; for if Christ be God, death could have no power over Him, and His resurrection was a matter of course.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“But granting all this, and even granting that the Sanhedrists had been right in their opinion of the character of the disciples, their theft theory is ridiculous. The disciples, even if capable of such a theft, so far as scruples of conscience were concerned, were not in a state of mind to think of it, or to attempt it. They had not spirit left for such a daring action. Sorrow lay like a weight of lead on their hearts, and made them almost as inanimate as the corpse they are supposed to have stolen. Then the motive for the theft is one which could not have influenced them then. Steal the body to propagate a belief in the resurrection! What interest had they in propagating a belief which they did not entertain themselves? "As yet they knew not the Scriptures, that He must rise again from the dead;" nor did they remember aught that their Master had said on this subject before His decease.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“When we keep steadily before our eyes the mental condition of the eleven at the time of Christ's resurrection, we see the transparent falsehood and absurdity of the theft theory invented by the Jewish priests. The disciples, according to this theory, came by night, while the guards were asleep, and stole the dead body of Jesus, that they might be able to circulate the belief that He was risen again. Matthew tells that even before the resurrection the murderers of our Lord were afraid this might be done; and then, to prevent any fraud of this kind, they applied to Pilate to have a guard put upon the grave, who accordingly contemptuously granted them permission to take what steps they pleased to prevent all resurrectionary proceedings on the part either of the dead or of the living, scornfully replying, "Ye have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can." This accordingly they did, sealing the stone and setting a watch. Alas! their precautions prevented neither the resurrection nor belief in it, but only supplied an illustration of the folly of those who attempt to manage providence, and to control the course of the world's history.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“He lays on Peter: "When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." Jesus expects the frail disciple to become strong in grace, and so able and willing to help the weak. He cherishes this expectation with respect to all, but specially in regard to Peter, assuming that the weakest might and ought eventually to become the strongest; the last first, the greatest sinner the greatest saint; the most foolish the wisest, most benignant, and sympathetic of”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“That Peter did not fall as Judas fell, utterly and irrevocably, was due in part to a radical difference between the two men. Peter was at heart a child of God; Judas, in the core of his being, had been all along a child of Satan. Therefore we may say that Peter could not have sinned as Judas sinned, nor could Judas have repented as Peter repented. Yet, while we say this, we must not forget that Peter was kept from falling away by special grace granted to him in answer to his Master's prayers.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“Christ and we against the world;" "Christ in the world's power, and we left alone:" such, in brief, was the difference between the two sifting seasons. The results of the sifting process were correspondingly diverse. In the one case, it separated between the sincere and the insincere; in the other, it discovered weakness even in the sincere.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“The remainder of the prayer (with exception of the two closing sentences) respects the Church at large,--those who should believe in Christ through the word of the apostles, heard from their lips, or reported in their writings. What Jesus desires for the body of believers is partly left to be inferred; for when He says, "I pray not for these alone," He intimates that He desires for the parties next to be prayed for the same things He has already asked for his disciples: preservation in the truth, and from the evil in the world, and sanctification by the truth.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“These two things, truth and love, Jesus asks for His own, as of vital moment: truth as the badge of distinction between His Church and the world; love as the bond which unites believers of the truth into a holy brotherhood of witness-bearers to the truth.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“The second reason pleaded by Jesus in support of His prayer, is that His appointed service has been faithfully accomplished, and now claims its guerdon: "I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“The prayer of Jesus for Himself (vers. 1-5.) contains just one petition, with two reasons annexed. The petition is, "Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son;”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“His heart is in perfect peace, for He has two great consolations. He has a good conscience: He can say, "I have overcome the world." He has held fast His moral integrity against incessant temptation”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“Christ's other source of consolation in prospect of death is the approval of His Father: "I am not alone, because the Father is with me." The Father has been with Him all along. On three critical occasions--at the baptism, on the hill of transfiguration, in the temple a few days ago--the Father had encouraged Him with an approving voice.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“But why, then, is the cause of Christianity not progressing, but rather, one might almost say, retrograding? We must answer this question by asking others: How many have large hearts cherishing comprehensive desires? How many with their whole soul desire for themselves above all things sanctification and illumination? How many earnestly, passionately desire the conversion of the heathen, the unity and peace and purity of the Church, the prevalence of righteousness in society at large? We are straitened in our own hearts, not in God.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“They learned to say: "For Christ's sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. But what does it matter? The Church is spreading; believers are multiplying on every side, springing up an hundred-fold from the seed of the martyrs' blood; the name of our Lord is being magnified. We will gladly suffer, therefore, bearing witness to the truth.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“If the world hate you, ye know that it has hated me before you." Poor comfort, one is disposed to say; yet it is not so poor when you consider the relative position of the parties. He who has already been hated is the Lord; they who are to be hated are but the servants. Of this Jesus reminds His disciples, repeating and recalling to their remembrance a word He had already spoken the same evening.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“If we stop short and grow not, woe to us; for failure in all things, and specially in religion, is misery. If we be comparatively unfruitful, we may not be absolutely unhappy, but we can never know the fulness of joy; for it is only to the faithful servant that the words are spoken: "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“For that process means practically the removal of moral hindrances to life and growth,--the cares of life, the insidious influence of wealth, the lusts of the flesh, and the passions of the soul,--evils which cannot be overcome unless our will and all our moral powers be brought to bear against them. Hence Jesus lays it upon His disciples as a duty to abide in Him, and have Him abiding in them, and resolves the whole matter at last, in plain terms, into keeping His commandments.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“One most prominent idea in the conception of God as revealed by Jesus Christ is that expressed by the name Father. According to the doctrine of our Lord and Saviour, God is not truly known till He is thought of and heartly believed in as a Father; neither can any God who is not regarded as a Father satisfy the human heart.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“Now love was to be the outstanding royal law, and free grace was to antiquate Sinaitic ordinances. And why now? In both cases, because Jesus was about to die. His death would be the seal of the New Testament, and it would exemplify and ratify the new commandment”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“but Christ has taught us, by His example in choosing Judas, as also by the parable of the tares, that we must submit to the evil, and leave the remedy in higher hands. Out of evil God often brings good, as He did in the case of the traitor.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“How vastly preferable a forgiveness which means a giving for, and costs the Forgiver sorrow, sweat, pain, blood, wounds, death--a forgiveness coming from a God who says in effect: "I will not, to save sinners, repeal the law which connects sin with death as its penalty; but I am willing for that end to become myself the law's victim.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“As He said to Peter in express words, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me;" so He says to them all in effect, though not in words,"If ye wash not each other, if ye refuse to serve one another in love, ye have again no part with me." This is a hard saying; for if it be difficult to believe in the humiliation of Christ, it is still more difficult to humble ourselves.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“The aim of the evangelist, in the last sentence of his preface, is to show by contrast what a wondrous condescension it was in the Saviour to wash the feet of any of the disciples. Jesus knowing these things,--these things being true of Him: that "the Father had given all things into His hands"--sovereign power over all flesh; "that He was come from God"--a divine being by nature, and entitled to divine honors; "and that He was about to return to God," to enter on the enjoyment of such honors,--did as is here recorded. He, the August Being who had such intrinsic dignity, such a consciousness, such prospects--even "He riseth from supper and lath aside His garments, and took a towel and girded Himself. After that He poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded." The time when all this took place was, it would seem, about the commencement of the evening meal.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“The second verse of the preface alludes parenthetically to a fact which served as a foil to the constancy of Jesus: "The devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray Him." John would say: "Jesus loved His disciples to the end, though they did not all so love Him. One of them at this very moment entertained the diabolic purpose of betraying his Lord. Yet that Lord loved even him, condescending to wash even his feet; so endeavoring, if possible, to overcome his evil with good.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography

“It taught effectively two lessons,--one specially for the benefit of the twelve, and the other for all Christians and all ages. The lesson for the twelve was, that they might dismiss from their minds all fond hopes of a restoration of the kingdom to Israel. Not reconstruction, but dissolution and dispersion, was Israel's melancholy doom. The general lesson for all in this discourse is: "Watch, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.”
― Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Training of the Twelve: How Jesus Christ Found and Taught the 12 Apostles; A Book of New Testament Biography