The Ordination of the Twelve

140:6.1Sun­day evening, on reach­ing the home of Zeb­e­dee from the high­lands north of Ca­per­naum, Je­sus and the twelve par­took of a sim­ple meal. Af­ter­ward, while Je­sus went for a walk along the beach, the twelve talked among them­selves. Af­ter a brief con­fer­ence, while the twins built a small fire to give them warmth and more light, An­drew went out to find Je­sus, and when he had over­taken him, he said: “Mas­ter, my breth­ren are un­able to com­pre­hend what you have said about the king­dom. We do not feel able to be­gin this work un­til you have given us fur­ther in­struc­tion. I have come to ask you to join us in the gar­den and help us to un­der­stand the mean­ing of your words.” And Je­sus went with An­drew to meet with the apos­tles.

140:6.2When he had en­tered the gar­den, he gath­ered the apos­tles around him and taught them fur­ther, say­ing: “You find it dif­fi­cult to re­ceive my mes­sage be­cause you would build the new teach­ing di­rectly upon the old, but I de­clare that you must be re­born. You must start out afresh as lit­tle chil­dren and be will­ing to trust my teach­ing and be­lieve in God. The new gospel of the king­dom can­not be made to con­form to that which is. You have wrong ideas of the Son of Man and his mis­sion on earth. But do not make the mis­take of think­ing that I have come to set aside the law and the proph­ets; I have not come to de­stroy but to ful­fill, to en­large and il­lu­mi­nate. I come not to transgress the law but rather to write these new com­mand­ments on the tablets of your hearts.

140:6.3“I de­mand of you a righ­teous­ness that shall ex­ceed the righ­teous­ness of those who seek to ob­tain the Fa­ther’s fa­vor by alms­giv­ing, prayer, and fast­ing. If you would en­ter the king­dom, you must have a righ­teous­ness that con­sists in love, mercy, and truth—the sin­cere de­sire to do the will of my Fa­ther in heaven.”

140:6.4Then said Si­mon Pe­ter: “Mas­ter, if you have a new com­mand­ment, we would hear it. Re­veal the new way to us.” Je­sus an­swered Pe­ter: “You have heard it said by those who teach the law: ‘You shall not kill; that whoso­ever kills shall be sub­ject to judg­ment.’ But I look be­yond the act to un­cover the mo­tive. I de­clare to you that ev­ery one who is an­gry with his brother is in dan­ger of con­dem­na­tion. He who nurses ha­tred in his heart and plans vengeance in his mind stands in dan­ger of judg­ment. You must judge your fel­lows by their deeds; the Fa­ther in heaven judges by the in­tent.

140:6.5“You have heard the teach­ers of the law say, ‘You shall not com­mit adul­tery.’ But I say to you that ev­ery man who looks upon a woman with in­tent to lust af­ter her has al­ready com­mit­ted adul­tery with her in his heart. You can only judge men by their acts, but my Fa­ther looks into the hearts of his chil­dren and in mercy ad­judges them in ac­cor­dance with their in­tents and real de­sires.”

140:6.6Je­sus was minded to go on dis­cussing the other com­mand­ments when James Zeb­e­dee in­ter­rupted him, ask­ing: “Mas­ter, what shall we teach the peo­ple re­gard­ing di­vorce­ment? Shall we al­low a man to di­vorce his wife as Moses has di­rected?” And when Je­sus heard this ques­tion, he said: “I have not come to leg­is­late but to en­lighten. I have come not to re­form the king­doms of this world but rather to es­tab­lish the king­dom of heaven. It is not the will of the Fa­ther that I should yield to the temp­ta­tion to teach you rules of gov­ern­ment, trade, or so­cial be­hav­ior, which, while they might be good for to­day, would be far from suit­able for the so­ci­ety of an­other age. I am on earth solely to com­fort the minds, lib­er­ate the spir­its, and save the souls of men. But I will say, con­cern­ing this ques­tion of di­vorce­ment, that, while Moses looked with fa­vor upon such things, it was not so in the days of Adam and in the Gar­den.”

140:6.7Af­ter the apos­tles had talked among them­selves for a short time, Je­sus went on to say: “Al­ways must you rec­og­nize the two view­points of all mor­tal con­duct—the hu­man and the di­vine; the ways of the flesh and the way of the spirit; the es­ti­mate of time and the view­point of eter­nity.” And though the twelve could not com­pre­hend all that he taught them, they were truly helped by this in­struc­tion.

140:6.8And then said Je­sus: “But you will stum­ble over my teach­ing be­cause you are wont to in­ter­pret my mes­sage lit­er­ally; you are slow to dis­cern the spirit of my teach­ing. Again must you re­mem­ber that you are my mes­sen­gers; you are be­holden to live your lives as I have in spirit lived mine. You are my per­sonal rep­re­sen­ta­tives; but do not err in ex­pect­ing all men to live as you do in ev­ery par­tic­u­lar. Also must you re­mem­ber that I have sheep not of this flock, and that I am be­holden to them also, to the end that I must pro­vide for them the pat­tern of do­ing the will of God while liv­ing the life of the mor­tal na­ture.”

140:6.9Then asked Na­than­iel: “Mas­ter, shall we give no place to jus­tice? The law of Moses says, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ What shall we say?” And Je­sus an­swered: “You shall re­turn good for evil. My mes­sen­gers must not strive with men, but be gen­tle to­ward all. Mea­sure for mea­sure shall not be your rule. The rulers of men may have such laws, but not so in the king­dom; mercy al­ways shall de­ter­mine your judg­ments and love your con­duct. And if these are hard say­ings, you can even now turn back. If you find the re­quire­ments of apos­tle­ship too hard, you may re­turn to the less rig­or­ous path­way of dis­ci­ple­ship.”

140:6.10On hear­ing these startling words, the apos­tles drew apart by them­selves for a while, but they soon re­turned, and Pe­ter said: “Mas­ter, we would go on with you; not one of us would turn back. We are fully pre­pared to pay the ex­tra price; we will drink the cup. We would be apos­tles, not merely dis­ci­ples.”

140:6.11When Je­sus heard this, he said: “Be will­ing, then, to take up your re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and fol­low me. Do your good deeds in se­cret; when you give alms, let not the left hand know what the right hand does. And when you pray, go apart by your­selves and use not vain rep­e­ti­tions and mean­ing­less phrases. Al­ways re­mem­ber that the Fa­ther knows what you need even be­fore you ask him. And be not given to fast­ing with a sad coun­te­nance to be seen by men. As my cho­sen apos­tles, now set apart for the ser­vice of the king­dom, lay not up for your­selves trea­sures on earth, but by your un­selfish ser­vice lay up for your­selves trea­sures in heaven, for where your trea­sures are, there will your hearts be also.

140:6.12“The lamp of the body is the eye; if, there­fore, your eye is gen­er­ous, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is self­ish, the whole body will be filled with dark­ness. If the very light which is in you is turned to dark­ness, how great is that dark­ness!”

140:6.13And then Thomas asked Je­sus if they should “con­tinue hav­ing ev­ery­thing in com­mon.” Said the Mas­ter: “Yes, my breth­ren, I would that we should live to­gether as one un­der­stand­ing fam­ily. You are in­trusted with a great work, and I crave your un­di­vided ser­vice. You know that it has been well said: ‘No man can serve two mas­ters.’ You can­not sin­cerely wor­ship God and at the same time whole­heart­edly serve mam­mon. Hav­ing now en­listed un­re­servedly in the work of the king­dom, be not anx­ious for your lives; much less be con­cerned with what you shall eat or what you shall drink; nor yet for your bod­ies, what cloth­ing you shall wear. Al­ready have you learned that will­ing hands and earnest hearts shall not go hun­gry. And now, when you pre­pare to de­vote all of your en­er­gies to the work of the king­dom, be as­sured that the Fa­ther will not be un­mind­ful of your needs. Seek first the king­dom of God, and when you have found en­trance thereto, all things need­ful shall be added to you. Be not, there­fore, un­duly anx­ious for the mor­row. Suf­fi­cient for the day is the trou­ble thereof.”

140:6.14When Je­sus saw they were dis­posed to stay up all night to ask ques­tions, he said to them: “My breth­ren, you are earthen ves­sels; it is best for you to go to your rest so as to be ready for the mor­row’s work.” But sleep had de­parted from their eyes. Pe­ter ven­tured to re­quest of his Mas­ter that “I have just a lit­tle pri­vate talk with you. Not that I would have se­crets from my breth­ren, but I have a trou­bled spirit, and if, per­chance, I should de­serve a re­buke from my Mas­ter, I could the bet­ter en­dure it alone with you.” And Je­sus said, “Come with me, Pe­ter”—lead­ing the way into the house. When Pe­ter re­turned from the pres­ence of his Mas­ter much cheered and greatly en­cour­aged, James de­cided to go in to talk with Je­sus. And so on through the early hours of the morn­ing, the other apos­tles went in one by one to talk with the Mas­ter. When they had all held per­sonal con­fer­ences with him save the twins, who had fallen asleep, An­drew went in to Je­sus and said: “Mas­ter, the twins have fallen asleep in the gar­den by the fire; shall I arouse them to in­quire if they would also talk with you?” And Je­sus smil­ingly said to An­drew, “They do well—trou­ble them not.” And now the night was pass­ing; the light of an­other day was dawn­ing.