Jesus’ Contribution to Humanity

        While Jesus lived on earth the authorities at one time sent officers to arrest Him and bring Him to the Sanhedrin to answer charges against Him.  When these ‘peace officers’ returned empty-handed and faced the chagrin of the leaders, the officers replied, “Never man spoke like this man!”[1]   My friends, have you ever read or listened to these gracious words of life that this Man spoke? Do you know Him? The Chinese philosopher, Sun Tzu, in The Art of War, is noted for saying that in order to win a war one of the first things to do is to know your enemy.[2]   If anyone wishes to dismiss Jesus as an enemy of society then surely he should know Him and His life well; so, let us look at what Jesus gave to planet earth in the short space of time he sojourned with us.  This first section looks at how Jesus implanted to the image of God in humanity.  Some people say instead, how He ‘restored the image of God in humanity.’[3]

        When Jesus came to earth in 4 BC records tell us that life was excruciating for the lower classes of humanity, even from past times.  The life of children was often reserved for child sacrifices.[4]  The ancient God Baal and his wife, Ashtoreth, commonly practised child sacrifice as part of their worship.[5]  Life was cheap all over, in the Near East, in the Middle East, and in the Far East.   D. James Kennedy writes that it was a dangerous thing for a baby to be conceived in classical Rome or Greece, (just as it is becoming dangerous once more under the influence of modern paganism), children were subjected to murder, infanticide and abandonment,  (for us today it is abortion, child abuse and child slavery).  Ancient Romans had complete control over the lives of their children and did as they pleased.[6]   But then something happened in our world that was a game-changer.  Jesus was born as if coming to humanity’s defence. 

        It was through the influence and tenacity of Christianity that Emperors like Constantine (AD 280-337) and Justinian (AD 483-565) set in motion many legal reforms.  Children were granted important legal rights; infant exposure was abolished; women were raised from a status of degradation to that of the legal protection of children; hospitals and orphanages were created to take care of foundlings (abandoned children).  The branding of slaves was halted.  We are indebted to Sherwood Wirt in his important book, The Social Conscience of the Evangelical, for these revelations, as quoted by D. James Kennedy in What If Jesus Had Never Been Born.[7]   And today in U. S. society despite a virtual media blackout, Christians are helping thousands of pregnant women through the 3000 pro-life Crisis pregnancy Centres around the country.[8]   The lot of women and girls in ancient times was very lamentable.  According to Aristotle, a woman was somewhere between a free man and a slave.   Women and children are indebted to Christianity in all nations for the betterment of their positions in our world today.[9]

        Due to the strong influence of Christianity the elderly, slaves, Gladiators, cannibalism, suicide, animal rights and the sanctity of life all changed from tyranny to the respect and honour they deserve.  In the coliseum where men fought each other to the death for the entertainment of the masses, there stands a cross where Telemachus the Christian monk gave his life to stop this horrendous sport.[10]   The Eminent historian Will Durant, concerning the vast abuses of the Roman Empire, comments on the conquering of the cross over the Roman Empire: “Caesar and Christ had met in the arena and Christ had won.”[11]  In Christ, the sanctity of life was raised from the dust to the sublime.  Joy once more shone from the faces of humanity and hope and fulfilment again took up lodgings in their innermost souls-all because Jesus came to earth long, long, ago.  Unfortunately, today hope, joy, and fulfilment are fast disappearing from terrestrial mortals because society, governments, and citizens have rejected and are rejecting the principles of godliness and are worshipping at the altars of Baal, overshadowed by none other than satan the enemy of God and man.  Humanity without God is sowing to the wind and will reap the whirlwind. 

        All charity points back to Jesus Christ, whether people recognize it or not;[12] the ancient Israelite world, in contrast to other nations, was told to consider the poor and be largehearted towards them, and apply this also to orphans and widows, this was a command from God.[13]   Other nations took advantage of the poor; many who were helped were help because they would be able to join the military or would be to the advantage of the lender.  When Jesus came, he flipped this behaviour up sided down.  The single most operative word during Christ’s time and after Him was the word ‘love.’  Even the Romans at the Colosseum where Christians were being killed, the crowd remarked: “look how these Christians love one another.”[14]   The sun literally never sets on the Christians-individually or corporately-meeting human needs in the name of Jesus.   Also, the motive for giving was new.  It was done out of love for Christ; the Christian community was a brotherhood, bound together in love. . .  And this love in action was not for one another only, but for non-Christians as well.  This Christian attitude even impressed the pagan Emperor Julian.[15]  

        In our modern times, according to a survey group in Princeton, New Jersey, founded by Gallup organization, reported in 1990, in an article entitled “Religion and the Public Interest,” found that “churches and synagogues contribute to America’s social services more than any other non-governmental institution, including corporations.”[16]   This was corroborated by Christianity Today in a finding that religious people and those who go to church regularly were by far more likely to give a higher percentage of their household income to charity causes.   Yes, friends, All charity points back to Jesus Christ, whether people recognize it or not.  It was only in a Judeo and later a Christian society that ‘charity, or ‘love’ was highly esteemed; this was a command from the creator God. 

        Both Moses and Jesus made this point very clear.  In Leviticus 19:18 Moses writes, you shall not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord.  And in Mat. 5:43-45 Jesus says, You have heard that it has been said, you shall love your neighbour, and hate your enemy.  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.  Yes, friends, this world is a better and more secure place because of the demonstrative love of Jesus while on earth. 

Our final section will deal with the topic of education and how the life of Jesus Christ impacted this crucial commodity.  According to D. Kennedy, every school one sees, whether primary, secondary or tertiary, religious or secular, is a reminder of the religion of Jesus Christ.  While schools did exist in the past, they were reserved for the privileged.  But the phenomenon of education for the masses has its roots in Christianity.  The following tertiary institutions, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, Princeton and others were all created by Christians for Godly purposes,[17]  despite the transformation we see in them today.  It was through the Judeo-Christian concept of education that learning for all was inaugurated.

        Dr J. D. Douglas, the general editor of The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, writes: “Christianity is par excellence a teaching religion, and the story of its growth is largely an educational one. . . As Christianity spread, patterns of more formal education developed.”[18]  Universities did not begin until the latter part of the Middle Ages.[19]  The late J. K. Hyde, professor of medieval history at Manchester University wrote: “all universities in the world go back to three prototypes: Oxford, Paris, and Bologna.[20]  All three of these dates back to A.D. 1200, plus or minus a decade.  At Oxford and Paris, Christian theology and to a lesser degree Aristotelian thought were chief subjects.  At Bologna, the chief study was canonical (translate “Church”) and civil law.  While there were other academic institutions called “universities,” according to the scholar H. Rashdall, author of The Universities in the Middle Ages, “nothing approaching a regular university ever existed there”[21]  (Spain, Italy under Islam).

        Do you know dear reader that many of the world’s languages were first set to writing by Christian missionaries in order for people to read the Bible for themselves?[22]  Even today, many tribal languages are being codified by Christians out in the field; for example, the Wycliffe Bible Institute has translators working in obscure areas of the world. They tell us that as of 1994 there were more than 300 million people “still without a script for their own language.”[23]   By providing the Bible in people’s own language, either by inventing a script or alphabet or for those that are already alphabetized, Christian missionaries are also promoting worldwide literacy as a natural by-product![24]  Do you also know St. Cyril (869 AD) and his brother St. Methodius (d. 885 AD), known as the “Apostles of the Southern Slavs”[25]  gave the “Cyrillic Alphabet” to the Slavs?  Today more than 200 million people, representing more than 100 languages, communicate nationally using the Cyrillic alphabet.  Did you know that during the days of the atheistic Soviet Union, most of their writing was done with an alphabet developed by a Christian to translate Christian writings?[26]  

        Yale Church historian Philip Schaff says: “the art of printing, which was one of the providential preparations for the Reformation, became the mightiest lever of Protestantism and modern culture.”[27]  But are you aware that Johann Gutenberg (c. 1398-1468) developed his press to specifically “manifold (print) the Bible?”[28]  While not the first Westerner to develop a movable type printing press, Johann Gutenberg was the first to use the press in a way that made the mass production of books possible.   One of the driving forces for the education of the masses was the idea that the Protestant Reformers had, which was the education of the laypeople so they could read the Bible.   According to Dr Loraine Boettner, Calvinism and education have been intimately associated; wherever Calvinism had gone it carried the school with it and has given a powerful impulse to popular education.   Calvin advocated that the purpose of education is for people to know God and glorify Him as God.  He strongly believed that it was the responsibility of the parent to educate children;[29]  today we witness how governments are co-opting this Christian institution to educate children in godless ways.

        Christianity not only helped to educate America and the West but in the last two centuries, it was primarily Christian missionaries who educated countless million in the third world countries, observe Kennedy and Newcombe.   Indeed, Kennedy says, Christianity has helped promote education and literacy more than any other force in the world.[30]   While the foregoing information we shared in this article is some of the founding principles that helped shape our world in the areas of love, kindness, man’s charitable duty to his fellow man and the moral education, and the right to education of every human being, there are many more areas we have not touched upon that so involve man and God that make our world a better place.  It is true to say that, had Christ not come into our world when He did humanity most probably would have ceased to exist already.  May God grant you, dear reader, the resolve to open your life to the indwelling of God’s Spirit that you may have life more abundantly now and beyond.  Again, I am indebted to D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe for their informative book, What if Jesus Han Never Been Born?

[1] John 7:45, 46.

[2] Sun Tzu, The Art of War, tr.by Lionel Giles,(Publisher, Pax Librorum Publishing House, 1910), chapt. 3 (18).

[3] Ellen White, Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students, (1913), Chap. 32, p. 249.

[4] Henry Halley, Halley’s Bible Handbook (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1927, 1962), p. 141.

[5] Henry Halley, Halley’s Bible Handbook, p. 141.

[6] D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1994), p. 10.

[7] Sherwood Eliot Wirt, The Social Conscience of the Evangelical (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 31. Quoted in D. Kennedy and Newcombe, p. 13.

[8] D. Kennedy and Newcombe, 12.

[9] D. Kennedy and Newcombe, 17.

[10] Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity, Vol. 1 (New York: Harper and Row, 1953, 1975), p. 245.

[11] Will Durant, Caesar and Christ: A History of Roman Civilization and of Christianity from their Beginnings to A.D. 325 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1944; renewed 1972), p. 652.

[12] D. Kennedy and Newcombe, 39.

[13] Exodus 23:11; Deut. 15:11

[14] Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (San Francisco: Perennial Library, Harper and Row Publishers, 1968, 1988), p. 324.

[15] Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity, vol. 1: First Five Centuries (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970), 214.

[16] The Washington Times, March 30, 1990.

[17] D. Kennedy and Newcombe, 40.

[18] J. D. Douglas, Gen. ed., The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, rev. ed., (Grand Rapids: Regency Reference Library of Zondervan, 1947, 1978), pp. 330-1.

[19] Joseph Reither, World History at a Glance (New York: The New Home Library, 1942, p. 180.

[20] Thomas Bender, ed., The University and the City: From Medieval Origins to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 13.

[21] H. Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, vol. 1, part 3, (Oxford, 1895), p. 82.

[22] D. Kennedy and Newcombe, page 41.

[23] Hyatt Moore, ed., The Alphabet Makers: A Presentation from the Museum of the Alphabet, Waxhaw, North Carolina (Huntington Beach, CA: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1990), p. 13.

[24] D. Kennedy and Newcombe, p. 41.

[25] Douglas, The International Dictionary of the Christian Church, p. 278.

[26] Moore, The Alphabet Makers, p. 37.

[27] Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 7, (Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans, 1910/1980), p. 560.

[28] Moore, The Alphabet Makers, p. 27.

[29] Kennedy and Newcombe, p. 45.

[30] Kennedy and Newcombe, p. 56.

If you have any comments or questions please contact Pr. Ron Henderson at ronhende@outlook.com.