Tarrying Time in Galilee

137:2.1Sun­day morn­ing, Febru­ary 24, A.D. 26, Je­sus took leave of John the Bap­tist by the river near Pella, never again to see him in the flesh.

137:2.2That day, as Je­sus and his four dis­ci­ple-apos­tles de­parted for Gal­i­lee, there was a great tu­mult in the camp of John’s fol­low­ers. The first great di­vi­sion was about to take place. The day be­fore, John had made his pos­i­tive pro­nounce­ment to An­drew and Ezra that Je­sus was the De­liv­erer. An­drew de­cided to fol­low Je­sus, but Ezra re­jected the mild-man­nered car­pen­ter of Naz­a­reth, pro­claim­ing to his as­so­ciates: “The Prophet Daniel de­clares that the Son of Man will come with the clouds of heaven, in power and great glory. This Galilean car­pen­ter, this Ca­per­naum boat­builder, can­not be the De­liv­erer. Can such a gift of God come out of Naz­a­reth? This Je­sus is a rel­a­tive of John, and through much kind­ness of heart has our teacher been de­ceived. Let us re­main aloof from this false Mes­siah.” When John re­buked Ezra for these ut­ter­ances, he drew away with many dis­ci­ples and has­tened south. And this group con­tin­ued to bap­tize in John’s name and even­tu­ally founded a sect of those who be­lieved in John but re­fused to ac­cept Je­sus. A rem­nant of this group per­sists in Mes­o­po­ta­mia even to this day.

137:2.3While this trou­ble was brew­ing among John’s fol­low­ers, Je­sus and his four dis­ci­ple-apos­tles were well on their way to­ward Gal­i­lee. Be­fore they crossed the Jor­dan, to go by way of Nain to Naz­a­reth, Je­sus, look­ing ahead and up the road, saw one Philip of Beth­saida with a friend com­ing to­ward them. Je­sus had known Philip afore­time, and he was also well known to all four of the new apos­tles. He was on his way with his friend Na­than­iel to visit John at Pella to learn more about the re­ported com­ing of the king­dom of God, and he was de­lighted to greet Je­sus. Philip had been an ad­mirer of Je­sus ever since he first came to Ca­per­naum. But Na­than­iel, who lived at Cana of Gal­i­lee, did not know Je­sus. Philip went for­ward to greet his friends while Na­than­iel rested un­der the shade of a tree by the road­side.

137:2.4Pe­ter took Philip to one side and pro­ceeded to ex­plain that they, re­fer­ring to him­self, An­drew, James, and John, had all be­come as­so­ciates of Je­sus in the new king­dom and strongly urged Philip to vol­un­teer for ser­vice. Philip was in a quandary. What should he do? Here, with­out a mo­ment’s warn­ing—on the road­side near the Jor­dan—there had come up for im­me­di­ate de­ci­sion the most mo­men­tous ques­tion of a life­time. By this time he was in earnest con­verse with Pe­ter, An­drew, and John while Je­sus was out­lin­ing to James the trip through Gal­i­lee and on to Ca­per­naum. Fi­nally, An­drew sug­gested to Philip, “Why not ask the Teacher?”

137:2.5It sud­denly dawned on Philip that Je­sus was a re­ally great man, pos­si­bly the Mes­siah, and he de­cided to abide by Je­sus’ de­ci­sion in this mat­ter; and he went straight to him, ask­ing, “Teacher, shall I go down to John or shall I join my friends who fol­low you?” And Je­sus an­swered, “Fol­low me.” Philip was thrilled with the as­sur­ance that he had found the De­liv­erer.

137:2.6Philip now mo­tioned to the group to re­main where they were while he hur­ried back to break the news of his de­ci­sion to his friend Na­than­iel, who still tar­ried be­hind un­der the mul­berry tree, turn­ing over in his mind the many things which he had heard con­cern­ing John the Bap­tist, the com­ing king­dom, and the ex­pected Mes­siah. Philip broke in upon these med­i­ta­tions, ex­claim­ing, “I have found the De­liv­erer, him of whom Moses and the proph­ets wrote and whom John has pro­claimed.” Na­than­iel, look­ing up, in­quired, “Whence comes this teacher?” And Philip replied, “He is Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, the son of Joseph, the car­pen­ter, more re­cently re­sid­ing at Ca­per­naum.” And then, some­what shocked, Na­than­iel asked, “Can any such good thing come out of Naz­a­reth?” But Philip, tak­ing him by the arm, said, “Come and see.”

137:2.7Philip led Na­than­iel to Je­sus, who, look­ing be­nignly into the face of the sin­cere doubter, said: “Be­hold a gen­uine Is­raelite, in whom there is no de­ceit. Fol­low me.” And Na­than­iel, turn­ing to Philip, said: “You are right. He is in­deed a mas­ter of men. I will also fol­low, if I am wor­thy.” And Je­sus nod­ded to Na­than­iel, again say­ing, “Fol­low me.”

137:2.8Je­sus had now as­sem­bled one half of his fu­ture corps of in­ti­mate as­so­ciates, five who had for some time known him and one stranger, Na­than­iel. With­out fur­ther de­lay they crossed the Jor­dan and, go­ing by the vil­lage of Nain, reached Naz­a­reth late that evening.

137:2.9They all re­mained overnight with Joseph in Je­sus’ boy­hood home. The as­so­ciates of Je­sus lit­tle un­der­stood why their new-found teacher was so con­cerned with com­pletely de­stroy­ing ev­ery ves­tige of his writ­ing which re­mained about the home in the form of the ten com­mand­ments and other mot­toes and say­ings. But this pro­ceed­ing, to­gether with the fact that they never saw him sub­se­quently write—ex­cept upon the dust or in the sand—made a deep im­pres­sion upon their minds.