o held the crude and material ideas of the kingdom which
prevailed among Jesus' contemporaries. It was used as an invitation to
consider a great truth, and for teachable disciples was full of suggestion
and meaning; while for the critical curiosity of unfriendly hearers it was
only a pointless story,--a means adopted by Jesus to save his pearls from
being trampled under foot, and perhaps also to prevent too early a
decision against him on the part of his opponents.

238. In nothing is Jesus' ease in handling deepest truth more apparent
than in his use of irony and hyperbole in his illustrations. In his
reference to the Pharisees as "ninety and nine just persons which need no
repentance" (Luke xv. 7), and in his question, "Many good works have I
shewed you from the Father, for which of these works do you stone me?"
(John x. 32), the irony is plain, but not any plainer than the rhetorical
exaggeration of his accusation against the scribes, "You strain out a gnat
and swallow a camel" (Matt, xxiii. 24), or his declaration that "it is
easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to
enter into the kingdom of God" (Mark x. 25), or his charge, "If a man
cometh unto me and hateth not his own father and mother ... he cannot be
my disciple" (Luke xiv. 26). The force of these statements is in their
hyperbole. Only to an interpretation which regards the letter above the
spirit can they cause difficulty. In so far as they remove Jesus utterly
from the pedantic carefulness for words which marked the scribes they are
among the rare treasures of his teachings. The simple spirit will not busy
itself about finding something that may be called a needle's eye through
which a camel can pass by squeezing, nor will it seek a camel which could
conceivably be swallowed, nor will it stumble at a seeming command to hate
those for whom God's law, as emphasized indeed by Jesus (Mark vii. 6-13),
demands peculiar love and honor. The childlike spirit which is heir of
God's kingdom readily understands this warning against the snare of
riches, this rebuke of the hypocritical life, and this demand for a love
for the Master which shall take the first place in the heart.

239. Jesus sometimes used object lessons as well as illustrations, and
for the same purpose,--to make his thought transparently clear to his
hearers. The demand for a childlike faith in order to enter the kingdom of
God was enforced by the presence of a little child w