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I. OUR LORD WAS A HABITUAL ATTENDANT UPON THE SERVICES OF THE SYNAGOGUE. There are fifteen distinct references to this.

1. Notice one or two of the laws of habit.

(1) Youth is the period during which the habits of manhood ordinarily develop themselves into fixedness. Reading between the lines of Luke 4:16, he must be blind who cannot discern that one of the factors in the childhood training of our Lord is His attendance upon the place of public worship.

(2) It is a law of habit that the peculiar custom should assert itself at all times and places. In the life of Jesus the habit of attendance upon the synagogue constantly asserts itself. Matthew corroborates the text (Matthew 4:23), and Mark and Luke confirm this testimony. Thus the being of Jesus, as He grew from a babe to a man, twined about the synagogue just as the growing vine twines about the support of its tendrils. His maturity centres about the synagogue just as the efforts of the workman centre about the tool with which he performs his task.

2. Humanly speaking, everything was against the formation of this habit. No reader of the Gospels will find it difficult to ascertain Christ's estimate of the synagogue services of His day. In those who gave alms at the door of the synagogue, and in those who loved to pray standing in the synagogue, He saw the hypocrite. In those who filled its chief seats He beheld the incarnations of wicked ambition, who taught for the doctrines of God the commandments of men. Indeed, the Sermon on the Mount was spoken to correct the errors which found a home there. He designated the great mass of those who crowded the synagogue by such titles as pretenders, children of hell, blind guides, whited sepulchres, serpents, generation of vipers. Yet it was the habit of Jesus to be one in such congregations. But He went to the synagogue not to be seen of men; His sole purpose was to meet God. He never permitted the abuse of an institution of God to interfere with His proper use of it. Can we, therefore, ignore that which was essential to the performance of the work of the Son of God in our behalf? When the minister notices the absence of the children of professing parents, he can but observe that the training which Joseph and Mary gave the child Jesus tells a different story, for they brought Him up to go to the synagogue. Besides, if the child Jesus was accustomed to church-going, how can parents bring up their children for God without training them in the church-going habit?

3. Our Lord was a stranger in many places during His earthly career, but we have read of no place in which He was a stranger to the synagogue. The history shows that wherever the Sabbath day found Him He found the synagogue, and doubtless He never neglected the Monday and Thursday services. So that our presence in the house of God in the community where we may spend our summer vacation, &c., is but an exhibition of the high example of Christ.

4. The synagogues which our Lord attended abounded in that, both in the way of preaching and practice, which merited His outspoken rebuke. If this, then, was no bar to His attendance, what right have we to allow what we do not like to interfere with ours? Grant that the preaching is as poor as that which fell on the ears of the Model Preacher; that our religious assemblies are as full of inconsistent church members, to stay away is to be unlike Christ. Francis Ridley Havergal was marking the example of Christ when she said, "An avoidable absence from the house of God is an infallible sign of spiritual decay. Disciples first follow Christ at a distance, and then, like Peter, do not know Him."

II. THE SYNAGOGUE WAS THE PLACE, ABOVE ALL OTHERS, WHICH OUR LORD CHOSE FOR THE EXERCISE OF HIS MINISTRY.

1. He did not disregard the Temple convocations, yet those were limited, to one locality, while the synagogue was found in every community. True, He did preach on the mountain, the lake, at the well, by the wayside, but other things being equal, He always chose the synagogue. And did He not fill the synagogue with the glory of His miracles?

2. So the work of our church buildings is to reproduce the facts of the synagogue history of our Lord. Indeed, they only do their work as they become such synagogues, for it is where two or three or more gather together (synagogue) in the name of Jesus that He manifests Himself to-day. The hymns of our religious assemblies must be an all hail to the power of His Name. Our prayers must find the reason of their presentation in His Name. Our preaching must have as its authority the seal of His Name. Our hearing must be with the attentive reverence which is due to His Name. And thus in our churches our Lord will preach the gospel to the poor, heal the broken-hearted, &c. The Son of God will manifest Himself to destroy the works of the devil. The Doer of Miracles will fill withered human nature with the power of God.

(G. W. F. Birch.)

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KJV: The high priest then asked Jesus of his disciples, and of his doctrine.

WEB: The high priest therefore asked Jesus about his disciples, and about his teaching.