The Ordination of the Twelve

140:4.1The so-called “Ser­mon on the Mount” is not the gospel of Je­sus. It does con­tain much help­ful in­struc­tion, but it was Je­sus’ or­di­na­tion charge to the twelve apos­tles. It was the Mas­ter’s per­sonal com­mis­sion to those who were to go on preach­ing the gospel and as­pir­ing to rep­re­sent him in the world of men even as he was so elo­quently and per­fectly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of his Fa­ther.

140:4.2“You are the salt of the earth, salt with a sav­ing sa­vor. But if this salt has lost its sa­vor, where­with shall it be salted? It is hence­forth good for noth­ing but to be cast out and trod­den un­der foot of men.”

140:4.3In Je­sus’ time salt was pre­cious. It was even used for money. The mod­ern word “salary” is de­rived from salt. Salt not only fla­vors food, but it is also a preser­va­tive. It makes other things more tasty, and thus it serves by be­ing spent.

140:4.4“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill can­not be hid. Nei­ther do men light a can­dle and put it un­der a bushel, but on a can­dle­stick; and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine be­fore men that they may see your good works and be led to glo­rify your Fa­ther who is in heaven.”

140:4.5While light dis­pels dark­ness, it can also be so “blind­ing” as to con­fuse and frus­trate. We are ad­mon­ished to let our light so shine that our fel­lows will be guided into new and godly paths of en­hanced liv­ing. Our light should so shine as not to at­tract at­ten­tion to self. Even one’s vo­ca­tion can be uti­lized as an ef­fec­tive “re­flec­tor” for the dis­sem­i­na­tion of this light of life.

140:4.6Strong char­ac­ters are not de­rived from not do­ing wrong but rather from ac­tu­ally do­ing right. Un­selfish­ness is the badge of hu­man great­ness. The high­est lev­els of self-re­al­iza­tion are at­tained by wor­ship and ser­vice. The happy and ef­fec­tive per­son is mo­ti­vated, not by fear of wrong­do­ing, but by love of right do­ing.

140:4.7“By their fruits you shall know them.” Per­son­al­ity is ba­si­cally change­less; that which changes—grows—is the moral char­ac­ter. The ma­jor er­ror of mod­ern re­li­gions is neg­a­tivism. The tree which bears no fruit is “hewn down and cast into the fire.” Moral worth can­not be de­rived from mere re­pres­sion—obey­ing the in­junc­tion “Thou shalt not.” Fear and shame are un­wor­thy mo­ti­va­tions for re­li­gious liv­ing. Re­li­gion is valid only when it re­veals the fa­ther­hood of God and en­hances the broth­er­hood of men.

140:4.8An ef­fec­tive phi­los­o­phy of liv­ing is formed by a com­bi­na­tion of cos­mic in­sight and the to­tal of one’s emo­tional re­ac­tions to the so­cial and eco­nomic en­vi­ron­ment. Re­mem­ber: While in­her­ited urges can­not be fun­da­men­tally mod­i­fied, emo­tional re­sponses to such urges can be changed; there­fore the moral na­ture can be mod­i­fied, char­ac­ter can be im­proved. In the strong char­ac­ter emo­tional re­sponses are in­te­grated and co-or­di­nated, and thus is pro­duced a uni­fied per­son­al­ity. De­fi­cient uni­fi­ca­tion weak­ens the moral na­ture and en­gen­ders un­hap­pi­ness.

140:4.9With­out a wor­thy goal, life be­comes aim­less and un­prof­itable, and much un­hap­pi­ness re­sults. Je­sus’ dis­course at the or­di­na­tion of the twelve con­sti­tutes a mas­ter phi­los­o­phy of life. Je­sus ex­horted his fol­low­ers to ex­er­cise ex­pe­ri­en­tial faith. He ad­mon­ished them not to de­pend on mere in­tel­lec­tual as­sent, credulity, and es­tab­lished au­thor­ity.

140:4.10Ed­u­ca­tion should be a tech­nique of learn­ing (dis­cov­er­ing) the bet­ter meth­ods of grat­i­fy­ing our nat­u­ral and in­her­ited urges, and hap­pi­ness is the re­sult­ing to­tal of these en­hanced tech­niques of emo­tional sat­is­fac­tions. Hap­pi­ness is lit­tle de­pen­dent on en­vi­ron­ment, though pleas­ing sur­round­ings may greatly con­tribute thereto.

140:4.11Ev­ery mor­tal re­ally craves to be a com­plete per­son, to be per­fect even as the Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect, and such at­tain­ment is pos­si­ble be­cause in the last anal­y­sis the “uni­verse is truly fa­therly.”