I have seen countless books both scholarly and popular on Jesus and his parables, but The Most Important Words of Jesus, by German exegete Gerhard Lohfink, is the first study I have encountered on Jesus’ sayings or logia. I initially paged through the book to see what sayings it included and read a few chapters here and there; but only reading the book in the order written conveys Lohfink’s message, an amazing portrayal of Jesus’ mission.

Lohfink studies each of seventy “most important” logia (selected from a longer list) in a short chapter, usually two to five pages. His analyses show a refreshing expectation of discerning the actual words of Jesus, in either a scholarly reconstruction or a canonical text from one of the Synoptic Gospels. One might assume that decades of oral transmission blurred memories of Jesus’ teachings into mere approximations, but Lohfink argues that the consistently well-honed one-, two-, or multi-liners complete with antithetical parallelism, vivid images, etc., show a brilliant use of language attributable to Jesus himself.

Moreover, when he sends out The Twelve to proclaim the arrival of the reign of God, they needed a message “of brief, compact sentences” ready to be loudly announced by a herald. Rather than expect his disciples to formulate the proclamation on the spot, “Jesus himself shaped such sentences…used them” (as in Mark 1:15), “and the Twelve memorized them” (6). This seems a plausible reconstruction.

Lohfink groups the chapters into seven sections conveying the movement in Jesus’ thought and life: The Coming of the Reign of God (“an event that changes everything,” 9); The Mission of The Twelve; A Disciple’s Existence; Living in Light of the Reign of God; Jesus’ Exalted Claim; Israel's Crisis; In View of Death.

Lohfink sheds considerable light by repeatedly asking to whom a given word of the Lord was really addressed. Answering this question builds a picture of a radical new lifestyle demanded of the Twelve in their preaching mission (Part Two), and also of that nameless circle of other disciples from which the Twelve were chosen (Mk 3:13; Luke 6:13; Lohfink Part Three). It’s hard to imagine this larger group going homeless and not looking back, leaving family ties behind to proclaim the now-happening reign of God (Luke 9:57-62; 14:26); yet the Gospel text does make exactly those demands.

“Living in Light of the Reign of God” spells out the Christian ethos in sayings directed beyond the circle of disciples to “the healed, the friends, the sympathizers”—all who heard his words and potentially formed part of the eschatological Israel. These sayings, showcased in the Sermon on the Mount, call for a behavioral revolution of nonviolence, “love of enemies [and] the refusal to dominate others”; Lohfink argues that this ethos can only be lived in a communal context.  

The last three sections sweep to the conclusion of Jesus's mission. Part Five describes “Jesus’ exalted claim”—made both indirectly (“the bridegroom’s companions cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them”), and more directly, as when Jesus declares that “more than Solomon is here” (Chapter 50).

Part Six reviews Jesus’ growing frustration over those who resist his message and attack him. Jesus knew that through him, “Israel had fallen into the most profound crisis in its history. Everything could be fulfilled, but everything could also collapse for good” (224). To prevent the collapse Jesus directs pointed rebukes to his opponents and even the towns who have resisted him despite “deeds of power” worked in their midst (Luke. 10:13-15; Lohfink Chap. 62.)

Lohfink asks whether Jesus’ sharp rebukes were meant to provoke people to repentance or to pronounce “a definitive condemnation” (256), an  urgent question in light of centuries of Christian anti-Judaism (260-65). Lohfink answers by noting that the harshest criticisms are directed to Jesus' contemporaries who directly encountered him, rather than to Israel as a whole. Even in Luke 13:34-35, Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem (representing the whole nation), Lohfink paints as speech “meant to shock” and thus to “lead to repentance” (265).

If this conclusion is less than certain, he says Jesus “eliminated that uncertainty when, at his last meal with his disciples, in anticipation of his death, he surrendered his life for the sake of his people Israel, symbolically represented by the Twelve who were present with him....” (265).

Thus, the final part of the book examines sayings interpreting Jesus’ death. Skipping over “the so-called passion predictions”, whose details mark them as “prophecies after the fact,” Lohfink picks up other images, most importantly Mark 10:45, “the Son of Man came... to give his life as a ransom for many” (Chap. 68). Rejecting scholarly denials that Jesus could have uttered such words, Lohfink argues that Jesus’ public ministry from the beginning was always “for others”—forgiving, reconciling, serving; now, when “this absolute `for’ the others” had encountered implacable opposition, it was a whole new situation, calling for “a new interpretation” (290). In the “new situation of escalating mercilessness, [Jesus] interprets the very death that threatens him as the ultimate... saving decree of God” (290f). Jesus’ words of institution at the Last Supper offer the final expression of this idea (Chap. 69).

As the reader may gather, I highly recommend this book for anyone who seeks to learn more about Jesus and his intentions. Lohfink’s confident exegesis brings us such a fresh take on Jesus that I will be trying to reshape my teaching and my life accordingly for years to come.