the Week of Christ the King / Proper 29 / Ordinary 34
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Bible Dictionaries
Considerateness
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or CONSIDERATENESS.—It was a saying of St. Francis, ‘Courtesy is own sister to Love’; but considerateness is more than courtesy (wh. see), for it takes account not only of our neighbour’s feelings, but of all his circumstances and all his wants. Our Lord ‘knew all men, and knew what was in man’ (John 2:25); and in this knowledge we find Him acting always with the most exquisite care for all their needs. Their bodily needs He anticipates and provides for, as in the case of the hungering multitudes (Matthew 15:32, Mark 8:1-3, Luke 9:13, John 6:5), where, moreover, He takes care also that nothing of the store He had provided should be lost (John 6:12), and in the case of His over-wrought disciples (‘Come ye apart and rest awhile,’ Mark 6:31). To which may be added His directions regarding Jairus’ daughter, when He had raised her from the dead (‘He commanded that something should be given her to eat,’ Mark 5:43). Still more beautiful is Christ’s delicate consideration of men’s feelings. Among the many rays of ‘his own glory’ (John 2:11) manifested forth in His first miracle, we must not omit His considerateness for the mortification which the falling short of their wine would cause to His peasant hosts, and His taking care that none save His mother and the servants knew whence the new and better supply was drawn (John 2:9). As instances of His considerateness of men’s spiritual needs, we may cite His giving scope for the strong faith of the good centurion by not going to his house (Matthew 8:5 ff., Luke 7:2 ff.), while by going with Jairus He supports his weak faith, and is beside him when the stunning message reaches him, ‘Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any further?’ (Mark 5:35); His whole action in the case of the woman taken in adultery (John 8:1-11); and His attention to the still deeper need of the woman with the issue of blood, whose faith, great as it was, required to be adorned with gratitude to, and confession of, her healer (Mark 5:29-34). Extreme pain tends to make men forget everything except their own suffering: it only brought out the more the all-embracing considerateness of Christ. His words from the Cross to the Virgin Mother and St. John (John 19:26-27) teach, no doubt, the new relationships created for believers by the gospel (Mark 10:30, cf. Romans 16:13; but they exhibit also His considerate care not needlessly to mention a relationship which might so easily have exposed St. Mary to hustling by the mob, or to syllable names which would have been repeated by irreverent tongues. The post-resurrection sayings to Mary Magdalene (John 20:15; John 20:18), to St. Thomas (John 20:27), and to St. Peter, who, as he had thrice denied his Lord, is thrice restored with delicate allusion to, but not mention of, his threefold fall (John 21:15; John 21:17), are examples no less shining and illustrative. (Cf. Bishop Paget’s sermon on ‘Courtesy’ in Studies in the Christian Character, p. 209).
J. Cooper.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Considerateness'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/c/considerateness.html. 1906-1918.
