Training the Kingdom’s Messengers

138:7.1Je­sus had planned for a quiet mis­sion­ary cam­paign of five months’ per­sonal work. He did not tell the apos­tles how long this was to last; they worked from week to week. And early on this first day of the week, just as he was about to an­nounce this to his twelve apos­tles, Si­mon Pe­ter, James Zeb­e­dee, and Ju­das Is­car­iot came to have pri­vate con­verse with him. Tak­ing Je­sus aside, Pe­ter made bold to say: “Mas­ter, we come at the be­hest of our as­so­ciates to in­quire whether the time is not now ripe to en­ter into the king­dom. And will you pro­claim the king­dom at Ca­per­naum, or are we to move on to Je­ru­sa­lem? And when shall we learn, each of us, the po­si­tions we are to oc­cupy with you in the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom—” and Pe­ter would have gone on ask­ing fur­ther ques­tions, but Je­sus raised an ad­mon­i­tory hand and stopped him. And beck­on­ing the other apos­tles stand­ing near by to join them, Je­sus said: “My lit­tle chil­dren, how long shall I bear with you! Have I not made it plain to you that my king­dom is not of this world? I have told you many times that I have not come to sit on David’s throne, and now how is it that you are in­quir­ing which place each of you will oc­cupy in the Fa­ther’s king­dom? Can you not per­ceive that I have called you as am­bas­sadors of a spir­i­tual king­dom? Do you not un­der­stand that soon, very soon, you are to rep­re­sent me in the world and in the procla­ma­tion of the king­dom, even as I now rep­re­sent my Fa­ther who is in heaven? Can it be that I have cho­sen you and in­structed you as mes­sen­gers of the king­dom, and yet you do not com­pre­hend the na­ture and sig­nif­i­cance of this com­ing king­dom of di­vine pre-em­i­nence in the hearts of men? My friends, hear me once more. Ban­ish from your minds this idea that my king­dom is a rule of power or a reign of glory. In­deed, all power in heaven and on earth will pres­ently be given into my hands, but it is not the Fa­ther’s will that we use this di­vine en­dow­ment to glo­rify our­selves dur­ing this age. In an­other age you shall in­deed sit with me in power and glory, but it be­hooves us now to sub­mit to the will of the Fa­ther and to go forth in hum­ble obe­di­ence to ex­e­cute his bid­ding on earth.”

138:7.2Once more were his as­so­ciates shocked, stunned. Je­sus sent them away two and two to pray, ask­ing them to re­turn to him at noon­time. On this cru­cial forenoon they each sought to find God, and each en­deav­ored to cheer and strengthen the other, and they re­turned to Je­sus as he had bid­den them.

138:7.3Je­sus now re­counted for them the com­ing of John, the bap­tism in the Jor­dan, the mar­riage feast at Cana, the re­cent choos­ing of the six, and the with­drawal from them of his own broth­ers in the flesh, and warned them that the en­emy of the king­dom would seek also to draw them away. Af­ter this short but earnest talk the apos­tles all arose, un­der Pe­ter’s lead­er­ship, to de­clare their undy­ing de­vo­tion to their Mas­ter and to pledge their unswerv­ing loy­alty to the king­dom, as Thomas ex­pressed it, “To this com­ing king­dom, no mat­ter what it is and even if I do not fully un­der­stand it.” They all truly be­lieved in Je­sus, even though they did not fully com­pre­hend his teach­ing.

138:7.4Je­sus now asked them how much money they had among them; he also in­quired as to what pro­vi­sion had been made for their fam­i­lies. When it de­vel­oped that they had hardly suf­fi­cient funds to main­tain them­selves for two weeks, he said: “It is not the will of my Fa­ther that we be­gin our work in this way. We will re­main here by the sea two weeks and fish or do what­ever our hands find to do; and in the mean­time, un­der the guid­ance of An­drew, the first cho­sen apos­tle, you shall so or­ga­nize your­selves as to pro­vide for ev­ery­thing need­ful in your fu­ture work, both for the pres­ent per­sonal min­istry and also when I shall sub­se­quently or­dain you to preach the gospel and in­struct be­liev­ers.” They were all greatly cheered by these words; this was their first clear-cut and pos­i­tive in­ti­ma­tion that Je­sus de­signed later on to en­ter upon more ag­gres­sive and pre­ten­tious pub­lic ef­forts.

138:7.5The apos­tles spent the re­main­der of the day per­fect­ing their or­ga­ni­za­tion and com­plet­ing ar­range­ments for boats and nets for em­bark­ing on the mor­row’s fish­ing as they had all de­cided to de­vote them­selves to fish­ing; most of them had been fish­er­men, even Je­sus was an ex­pe­ri­enced boat­man and fish­er­man. Many of the boats which they used the next few years had been built by Je­sus’ own hands. And they were good and trust­wor­thy boats.

138:7.6Je­sus en­joined them to de­vote them­selves to fish­ing for two weeks, adding, “And then will you go forth to be­come fish­ers of men.” They fished in three groups, Je­sus go­ing out with a dif­fer­ent group each night. And they all so much en­joyed Je­sus! He was a good fish­er­man, a cheer­ful com­pan­ion, and an in­spir­ing friend; the more they worked with him, the more they loved him. Said Mat­thew one day: “The more you un­der­stand some peo­ple, the less you ad­mire them, but of this man, even the less I com­pre­hend him, the more I love him.”

138:7.7This plan of fish­ing two weeks and go­ing out to do per­sonal work in be­half of the king­dom for two weeks was fol­lowed for more than five months, even to the end of this year of A.D. 26, un­til af­ter the ces­sa­tion of those spe­cial per­se­cu­tions which had been di­rected against John’s dis­ci­ples sub­se­quent to his im­pris­on­ment.