Training the Kingdom’s Messengers

138:1.1The next day, Sun­day, June 23, A.D. 26, Je­sus im­parted his fi­nal in­struc­tions to the six. He di­rected them to go forth, two and two, to teach the glad tid­ings of the king­dom. He for­bade them to bap­tize and ad­vised against pub­lic preach­ing. He went on to ex­plain that later he would per­mit them to preach in pub­lic, but that for a sea­son, and for many rea­sons, he de­sired them to ac­quire prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence in deal­ing per­son­ally with their fel­low men. Je­sus pur­posed to make their first tour en­tirely one of per­sonal work. Al­though this an­nounce­ment was some­thing of a dis­ap­point­ment to the apos­tles, still they saw, at least in part, Je­sus’ rea­son for thus be­gin­ning the procla­ma­tion of the king­dom, and they started out in good heart and with con­fi­dent en­thu­si­asm. He sent them forth by twos, James and John go­ing to Kheresa, An­drew and Pe­ter to Ca­per­naum, while Philip and Na­than­iel went to Ta­ri­chea.

138:1.2Be­fore they be­gan this first two weeks of ser­vice, Je­sus an­nounced to them that he de­sired to or­dain twelve apos­tles to con­tinue the work of the king­dom af­ter his de­par­ture and au­tho­rized each of them to choose one man from among his early con­verts for mem­ber­ship in the pro­jected corps of apos­tles. John spoke up, ask­ing: “But, Mas­ter, will these six men come into our midst and share all things equally with us who have been with you since the Jor­dan and have heard all your teach­ing in prepa­ra­tion for this, our first la­bor for the king­dom?” And Je­sus replied: “Yes, John, the men you choose shall be­come one with us, and you will teach them all that per­tains to the king­dom, even as I have taught you.” Af­ter thus speak­ing, Je­sus left them.

138:1.3The six did not sep­a­rate to go to their work un­til they had ex­changed many words in dis­cus­sion of Je­sus’ in­struc­tion that each of them should choose a new apos­tle. An­drew’s coun­sel fi­nally pre­vailed, and they went forth to their labors. In sub­stance An­drew said: “The Mas­ter is right; we are too few to en­com­pass this work. There is need for more teach­ers, and the Mas­ter has man­i­fested great con­fi­dence in us inas­much as he has in­trusted us with the choos­ing of these six new apos­tles.” This morn­ing, as they sep­a­rated to go to their work, there was a bit of con­cealed de­pres­sion in each heart. They knew they were go­ing to miss Je­sus, and be­sides their fear and timid­ity, this was not the way they had pic­tured the king­dom of heaven be­ing in­au­gu­rated.

138:1.4It had been ar­ranged that the six were to la­bor for two weeks, af­ter which they were to re­turn to the home of Zeb­e­dee for a con­fer­ence. Mean­time Je­sus went over to Naz­a­reth to visit with Joseph and Si­mon and other mem­bers of his fam­ily liv­ing in that vicin­ity. Je­sus did ev­ery­thing hu­manly pos­si­ble, con­sis­tent with his ded­i­ca­tion to the do­ing of his Fa­ther’s will, to re­tain the con­fi­dence and af­fec­tion of his fam­ily. In this mat­ter he did his full duty and more.

138:1.5While the apos­tles were out on this mis­sion, Je­sus thought much about John, now in prison. It was a great temp­ta­tion to use his po­ten­tial pow­ers to re­lease him, but once more he re­signed him­self to “wait upon the Fa­ther’s will.”