The philosopher Karl Marx once said that the aim of philosophy should be not just to explain the world but to change it. The same can be said about the gospel we preach and teach. The people of Capernaum received sacred instruction in their synagogue every Sabbath. One Sabbath they had a different teacher, Jesus. What Jesus taught them that day, as well as the way he presented and demonstrated his message, simply amazed them. Why? “They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes” (Mark 1:22). Jesus’ teaching contrasted sharply with that of the scribes. In one word, Jesus taught with authority, the scribes did not. What does it mean to teach with authority? When we compare and contrast the teaching of Jesus with that of the scribes we notice three distinguishing qualities: The teaching of Jesus is (a) from the heart and not just from the head, (b) focuses on the spirit and not on the letter of the law, and (c) inspires a positive change of heart in the hearers. Jesus teaches from the heart. He teaches with absolute conviction in his message because he knows that his message is in accordance with the mind of God. As he says in the Gospel of John when trying to persuade his unbelieving audience, “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony” (John 3:11). His preaching is a personal testimony of his intimate relationship with God his Father. The scribes, on the other hand get their knowledge not from their personal communion with God but from their long and intricate study of commentaries on the Law. As a result, most of their teaching is from the head and not from the heart, as they try to recall the portions of the commentaries that apply to the situation at hand. A second difference between the teaching of Jesus and that of the scribes lies in the content of the message. Whereas the scribes seek to apply the prescription of the Law to the letter, Jesus goes deeper to find out the spirit, the original intent of the law. Consequently Jesus is able to discover the positive value that the law seeks to protect whereas the scribes busy themselves with words and their minutest applications. Take, for example, the law of Sabbath observance. The scribes would busy themselves trying to determine precisely when the Sabbath begins and ends, and what constitutes work and what doesn’t. Jesus would rather seek the mind of God who gave the law to His people as an expression of His fatherly care and love. His conclusion: the Sabbath is a day we keep away from our work in order to serve God and do God’s work (John 5:17). On account of this positive accent of his message, people perceive the teaching of Jesus as liberating good news in contrast to that of the scribes which they perceive as a heavy burden. The final difference between the teaching of Jesus and that of the scribes we shall consider is that Jesus’ teaching is always intended to bring about a positive change of heart in the people, not just to make the people feel bad. Whereas the scribes teach whatever makes sense in terms of their understanding of the Law and Traditions, Jesus teaches that which made a positive difference. Presented with a man blind from birth the scribes seek to explain why he is blind -- whether it was he who sinned or his parents. Jesus, on the other hand is only interested in curing the blindness. For this reason Jesus performed healings and exorcisms together with his teaching, to show that his primary concern is to change the human situation not just to explain it. What is our attitude to the word of God we hear? Do we allow it to challenge us and bring about a positive difference in our lives or is it simply to satisfy some intellectual curiosity? If it is the gospel of Jesus that we hear, then we cannot hear it week after week and remain the same.