POPULARITY.—The word does not occur in the NT, but the thing itself is not infrequently treated of. There is a true and there is a false popularity. The latter belongs to him who makes the praise of men his object, and seeks it by ostentatious piety and hypocritical charity (Matthew 6:2; Matthew 6:5; Matthew 6:16); the former is the accompaniment of that behaviour whose ruling aim is to do the will of God regardless of all worldly ends (Matthew 6:3-4; Matthew 6:7-8; Matthew 6:17-18; Matthew 6:20-21). True popularity is that love and admiration which unselfish devotion to the welfare of others, springing from the whole-hearted love of God, cannot fail to arouse in the breasts of all who have eyes to see and hearts to understand the good and pure. ‘They shall see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven’ (Matthew 5:16; cf. John 15:8). The hypocrites who sound a trumpet before them when they do their alms, who pray at the corners of the streets for all to see, who disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to fast, are examples of those who seek and obtain the reward of false popularity. Fasting and prayer that flow from a desire to hold communion with God, charity that is the outcome of gratitude to the Heavenly Father for His wondrous mercy, are ever done in secret, so that there can be no suspicion of any unworthy motive; but the effect of these things is revealed in the man’s whole life and character; it must win for him the praise and love of all good men, and for God the glory.

All this is in perfect harmony with the inwardness of Christ’s life and teaching. His aim was to change the world from within outward—not to attach good fruit to a worthless tree, but to make the tree good, and to await the fruit which in due time it was bound to bear. In the same sense true popularity is inward; false, outward. The latter springs immediately from outside acts which may not be—probably are not—the revelation of the true man: the former is the effect produced upon the world by the outspeaking of the whole man as he is in himself in his relation to God. At the very opening of His career Jesus rejected the outward, the false, popularity as a means of propagating the truth He came to teach. He perceived it to be the suggestion of the Evil One that He should obtain the dominion of the kingdoms of the world by the external method, by the force of His authority, by the admiration which He could so easily have produced. Even to employ His miraculous power to gain the ear of His own countrymen He put from Him as a temptation (Matthew 4:1-10 || Luke 4:1-13); and when, aroused to enthusiasm by their miraculous feeding, the multitude would fain have taken Him by force to make Him their king, He fled from them (John 6:15). He would have nought to do with any enthusiasm, however sincere, that was based upon a false conception of the nature of His Messiahship, that sprang from admiration of His power and the hope of sharing its blessings, and not from the clear perception of His holiness and the longing to share it (John 2:23-25). The kind of impression which He wished to make was that which expressed itself in such phrases as—‘Never man so spake’ (John 7:46); ‘He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes’ (Matthew 7:29); ‘The common people heard him gladly’ (Mark 12:37). It was neither to nor by flesh and blood that He desired to reveal Himself and to win a place in the hearts of men, but to the Divine germ within each soul, and by the revelation of the Heavenly Father (Matthew 16:17). See following article.

And as with the Master so must it be with the servants. As the world had hated Him, so would it hate them. He had come to send not peace on the earth, but a sword and fire (Matthew 10:34 || Luke 12:51), the sword which would part brother from brother and father from son—the fire which should try and reveal the essential nature of each heart. This hatred and persecution are therefore to be to the disciples a cause of rejoicing (Matthew 5:11-12), for these will be the signs that they are in truth the followers of Christ. ‘If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you’ (John 15:18-19). But the more the world persecutes them, the more must they bear testimony to the cause of Christ by their loving fellowship one with another. ‘By this,’ He says, ‘shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another’ (John 13:35); and again—‘(I pray) that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me’ (John 17:21)—Among the disciples there must be no selfish striving for place or power. The truest popularity, the truest greatness, is to belong to the humble heart that ever preferreth other to itself, that rejoiceth to minister and to serve, to give itself freely to all even as Christ did (Matthew 20:28 || Mark 10:45).

Literature.—Comm. on the Gospels; works on NT Theol. by Beyschlag and by Weiss; Stalker, Life of Jesus Christ, ch. iv.; Pressensé, Jesus Christ⁷^{[Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred]}, pp. 263–286.

W. J. S. Miller.

Bibliography Information
Hastings, James. Entry for 'Popularity'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/p/popularity.html. 1906-1918.

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Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

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Popularity