The Training of the Twelve. This item is unavailable.The Training of the Twelve

One of Jesus' most important endeavors during His short ministry involved the preparation of His twelve disciples for the work they would need to accomplish. The importance of studying Jesus' methodologies cannot be overstated. While there is much we can learn from His words and deeds, it is His work in training the disciples that facilitated the promotion and growth of the Kingdom in the first century. If we would become His disciples, we must sit at His feet and be trained by Him as He trained the twelve. "The Training of the Twelve" was written in the face of growing doubt about the legitimacy of the Gospels as authentic witnesses to the life and work of Jesus. In "The Training of the Twelve," Bruce seeks to prove that the portrayal of Jesus and His disciples is authentic, and therefore their message is believable as revealed in the New Testament. Whereas the nineteenth century liberal scholars were saying that the disciples invented the story of Jesus, "The Training of the Twelve" provides sufficient proof that it is Jesus who transforms the disciples into the Apostles, and that their testimony is true. This compelling defense of the portrayal of Jesus and His disciples in the Gospel accounts is, if anything, even more necessary now than it was when it was first written. Scholars today continue to perpetuate many of the claims of the nineteenth century liberal scholars and have even gone beyond them in denying the legitimacy of the Gospel accounts of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a world that believes in a distinction between the 'historical Jesus' and the 'Jesus of faith,' "The Training of the Twelve" demonstrates that the two are really one and the same.

Alexander Balmain Bruce (1831–1899) was a Scottish churchman and theologian. He was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He was born at Aberargie near Perth, Scotland. His father suffered for his adherence to the Free Church at the Disruption of 1843, and moved to Edinburgh, where Alexander was educated, showing exceptional ability from the first. His early religious doubts, awakened especially by David Strauss's 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 (now Dunbartonshire) in 1859, and to Broughty Ferry in 1868. There he published his first notable 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, a post he held for twenty-four years. He was one of the first British New Testament scholars whose work was received favourably in Germany. 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. In The Kingdom of God (1889), which first encountered serious hostile criticism in his own communion, he accounted for some of the differences between the first and third evangelists on the principle of accommodation--maintaining that Saint Luke had altered both the text and the spirit of his sources to suit the needs of those for whom he wrote. It was held that these admissions were not consistent with the views of inspiration professed by the Free Church of Scotland. When the case was tried, the assembly held that the charge of heresy was based on a misunderstanding, but that by want of due care in his mode of statement he had given some ground for the painful impressions which had existed. Bruce rendered great service to his own communion in connection with its service of praise. He was convener of the committee which issued the Free Church hymn book, and he threw into this work the same energy and catholicity of mind which marked the rest of his activities.