Jesus sometimes appeared as the great magisterial teacher, setting out deliberately to teach people. The Sermon on the Mount provides an example. Frequently, however, Jesus' teaching seems to arise spontaneously in response to the circumstances of daily life. Indeed, it is quite remarkable how much of His teaching is presented to us in these situations.

In these cases His teaching is usually very brief, in words that are striking and forever memorable. "I am the resurrection and the life". Jesus spoke these words, not in a great magisterial sermon, but in response to a poor woman distraught and perhaps even devastated by her brother's death. Jesus spoke these words to console Martha, and how many people throughout the ages have been consoled by these same words! It was to Martha, not to Mary, that Jesus spoke these tremendously consoling words. This is surely significant. Mary appears to have been nursing her grief in silence at home, while Martha was still busy about many things - no doubt looking after the people who came to sympathize with them. We may surmise that this was also her way of coping with grief. Jesus came and spoke to her in her need in the midst of all her efforts to cope.