God among Sages: Why Jesus Is Not Just Another Religious Leader by Kenneth Richard Samples

Author:Kenneth Richard Samples [Samples, Kenneth Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Jesus Christ—Historicity, REL070000, Religious biography, REL067030, Jesus Christ—Person and offices, Christianity and other religions, REL067000, Jesus Christ—Divinity
ISBN: 9781493406074
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2017-01-30T16:00:00+00:00

The Teacher (Confucius)

K’ung-fu-tzu (Kongfuzi or Kongzi) was born in 551 BC in the ancient state of Lu (present-day Shandong province in northern China). His students called him Grand Master K’ung (or Master Kong).1 He became known in the West by his Latinized name Confucius, which was provided by sixteenth-century Jesuit missionaries. The story of his life is mixed with myth and legend (for example, a unicorn is said to have foretold his birth), and the reports about his life and teachings were assembled a couple of centuries after his death. Yet basic facts are credibly known about Confucius’s life and accomplishments.2 This historical imprint is due to his significant influence on Chinese history and culture.

Confucius was born into a noble and educated family that had nevertheless fallen on hard times. His father, a distinguished soldier and an official, died when Confucius was only three years old, so Confucius experienced an impoverished upbringing. His mother worked multiple jobs to support the family, and Confucius also performed manual labor. As a teenager, Confucius devoted all his energy to the pursuit of learning by first studying under a village tutor and then, according to tradition, under a famous Taoist philosopher. Possessing an extremely bright mind and deep diligence, he excelled in his academic studies.

At age nineteen, Confucius married, and he and his wife had a son and a daughter. Unfortunately, the marriage soon ended in divorce—something Confucius would regret for much of his life.3 Though the exact details of his family life are less than clear, it seems that Confucius had an aloof relationship with both of his children. So the man who would famously go on to define proper family and social relationships for virtually all Asian people apparently had strained relationships in his own household. It seems quite possible, however, that someone with Confucius’s strong character would use his own family challenges as motivation to define proper relationships.

Confucius entered civil service at an early age. He held a number of government jobs during his twenties, but his great passion was teaching, particularly in the areas of Chinese ritual and political thought. Unbeknownst to him at the time, history would later acknowledge him as one of the world’s greatest and most influential teachers.

Confucius was the Renaissance man of his age, and his intellectual curiosity and depth of understanding motivated him to open a private school, where he served as tutor. Arguably the first of its kind, the school was open to all social classes, though it was reserved for young men only. Confucius exhibited extraordinary teaching gifts and attracted many excellent and ardent disciples. World religions specialist Huston Smith describes Confucius as a teacher:

Prepared to instruct in virtually all the disciplines of the day, he was a one-man university. His method of teaching was Socratic. Always informal, he seems not to have lectured but instead to have conversed on problems his students posed, citing readings and asking questions.4

In Confucius’s forties and fifties, he worked in public offices and held the position of government magistrate.

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