The Training of the Twelve

by Alexander Balmain Bruce

Publisher:

A. C. Armstrong and Son

, 1889

Overview

The lessons and patterns in ageless management principles employed by our Lord with His disciples are an inspiring model for those who seek greater depth and stability in the Christian church today. Featured in this classic work is Christ, the Master Potter, molding and fashioning His disciples into useful vessels. The Training of the Twelve is rich in thoughts, not only for preacher and teacher, but also for every Christian who is interested in being a leader or in preparing others to lead.

Contents

Top Highlights

“Little is said of the five disciples, but there is enough to show that they were all pious men. What they found in their new friend indicates what they wanted to find. They evidently belonged to the select band who waited for the consolation of Israel, and anxiously looked for Him who should fulfil God’s promises and realize the hopes of all devout souls.” (Page 5)

“The eye of Jesus was single as well as omniscient: He looked on the heart, and had respect solely to spiritual fitness. He had no faith in any discipleship based on misapprehensions and by-ends; and, on the other hand, He had no fear of the drawbacks arising out of the external connections or past history of true believers, but was entirely indifferent to men’s antecedents. Confident in the power of truth, He chose the base things of the world in preference to things held in esteem, assured that they would conquer at the last.” (Pages 19–20)

“Men who are destined to be apostles must, as disciples, know more than most of the chaotic, speechless condition, and of the great, irksome, but most salutary business of Waiting on God for light, and truth, and grace, earnestly desired but long withheld.” (Page 54)

“Prayer is a necessity of spiritual life, and all who earnestly try to pray soon feel the need of teaching how to do it.” (Page 52)

“Christ’s complaint against the inhabitants of these favored cities was that they did not repent, that is, make the kingdom of heaven their chief good and chief end. They wondered sufficiently at His miracles, and talked abundantly of them, and ran after Him to see more works of the same kind, and enjoy anew the sensation of amazement; but after a while they relapsed into their old stupidity and listlessness, and remained morally as they had been before He came among them, not children of the kingdom, but children of this world.” (Pages 23–24)

Product Details

• Title: The Training of the Twelve; or, Passages out of the Gospels, Exhibiting the Twelve Disciples of Jesus under Discipline for the Apostleship
• Author: Alexander Balmain Bruce
• Publisher: A. C. Armstrong and Son
• Print Publication Date: 1889
• Logos Release Date: 2001
• Pages: 545
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: Apostles
• Resource ID: LLS:40.40.7
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-02-11T15:34:04Z

About Alexander Balmain Bruce

Excerpted from the 1911 Encyclopedia

Alexander Balmain Bruce, Scottish divine, was born at Aberargie near Perth on the 31st of January 1831. His father suffered for his adherence to the Free Church at the Disruption in 1843, and removed to Edinburgh, where the son was educated, showing exceptional ability from the first. His early religious doubts, awakened especially by Strausss Life of Jesus, made him throughout life sympathetic with those who underwent a similar stress. After serving as assistant first at Ancrum, then at Lochwinnoch, he was called to Cardross in Dumbartonshire in 1859, and to Broughty Ferry in 1868. There he published his first considerable exegetical work, the Training of the Twelve. In 1874 he delivered his Cunningham Lectures, afterwards published as The Humiliation of Christ, and in the following year was appointed to the chair of Apologetics and New Testament exegesis at the Free Church College, Glasgow. This post he held for twenty-four years. He was one of the first British New Testament students whose work was received with consideration by German scholars of repute. The character and work of Christ were, he held, the ultimate proof and the best defence of Christianity; and his tendency was to concentrate attention somewhat narrowly on the historic Jesus...