The Ordination of the Twelve

140:8.1Je­sus well knew that his apos­tles were not fully as­sim­i­lat­ing his teach­ings. He de­cided to give some spe­cial in­struc­tion to Pe­ter, James, and John, hop­ing they would be able to clar­ify the ideas of their as­so­ciates. He saw that, while some fea­tures of the idea of a spir­i­tual king­dom were be­ing grasped by the twelve, they stead­fastly per­sisted in at­tach­ing these new spir­i­tual teach­ings di­rectly onto their old and en­trenched lit­eral con­cepts of the king­dom of heaven as a restora­tion of David’s throne and the re-es­tab­lish­ment of Is­rael as a tem­po­ral power on earth. Ac­cord­ingly, on Thurs­day af­ter­noon Je­sus went out from the shore in a boat with Pe­ter, James, and John to talk over the af­fairs of the king­dom. This was a four hours’ teach­ing con­fer­ence, em­brac­ing scores of ques­tions and an­swers, and may most prof­itably be put in this rec­ord by re­or­ga­niz­ing the sum­mary of this mo­men­tous af­ter­noon as it was given by Si­mon Pe­ter to his brother, An­drew, the fol­low­ing morn­ing:

140:8.21. Do­ing the Fa­ther’s will. Je­sus’ teach­ing to trust in the over­care of the heav­enly Fa­ther was not a blind and pas­sive fa­tal­ism. He quoted with ap­proval, on this af­ter­noon, an old He­brew say­ing: “He who will not work shall not eat.” He pointed to his own ex­pe­ri­ence as suf­fi­cient com­men­tary on his teach­ings. His pre­cepts about trust­ing the Fa­ther must not be ad­judged by the so­cial or eco­nomic con­di­tions of mod­ern times or any other age. His in­struc­tion em­braces the ideal prin­ci­ples of liv­ing near God in all ages and on all worlds.

140:8.3Je­sus made clear to the three the dif­fer­ence be­tween the re­quire­ments of apos­tle­ship and dis­ci­ple­ship. And even then he did not for­bid the ex­er­cise of pru­dence and fore­sight by the twelve. What he preached against was not fore­thought but anx­i­ety, worry. He taught the ac­tive and alert sub­mis­sion to God’s will. In an­swer to many of their ques­tions re­gard­ing fru­gal­ity and thrifti­ness, he sim­ply called at­ten­tion to his life as car­pen­ter, boat­maker, and fish­er­man, and to his care­ful or­ga­ni­za­tion of the twelve. He sought to make it clear that the world is not to be re­garded as an en­emy; that the cir­cum­stances of life con­sti­tute a di­vine dis­pen­sa­tion work­ing along with the chil­dren of God.

140:8.4Je­sus had great dif­fi­culty in get­ting them to un­der­stand his per­sonal prac­tice of non­re­sis­tance. He ab­so­lutely re­fused to de­fend him­self, and it ap­peared to the apos­tles that he would be pleased if they would pur­sue the same pol­icy. He taught them not to re­sist evil, not to com­bat in­jus­tice or in­jury, but he did not teach pas­sive tol­er­ance of wrong­do­ing. And he made it plain on this af­ter­noon that he ap­proved of the so­cial pun­ish­ment of evil­do­ers and crim­i­nals, and that the civil gov­ern­ment must some­times em­ploy force for the main­te­nance of so­cial or­der and in the ex­e­cu­tion of jus­tice.

140:8.5He never ceased to warn his dis­ci­ples against the evil prac­tice of re­tal­i­a­tion; he made no al­low­ance for re­venge, the idea of get­ting even. He de­plored the hold­ing of grudges. He dis­al­lowed the idea of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. He dis­coun­te­nanced the whole con­cept of pri­vate and per­sonal re­venge, as­sign­ing these mat­ters to civil gov­ern­ment, on the one hand, and to the judg­ment of God, on the other. He made it clear to the three that his teach­ings ap­plied to the in­di­vid­ual, not the state. He sum­ma­rized his in­struc­tions up to that time re­gard­ing these mat­ters, as:

140:8.6Love your en­e­mies—re­mem­ber the moral claims of hu­man broth­er­hood.

140:8.7The fu­til­ity of evil: A wrong is not righted by vengeance. Do not make the mis­take of fight­ing evil with its own weapons.

140:8.8Have faith—con­fi­dence in the even­tual tri­umph of di­vine jus­tice and eter­nal good­ness.

140:8.92. Po­lit­i­cal at­ti­tude. He cau­tioned his apos­tles to be dis­creet in their re­marks con­cern­ing the strained re­la­tions then ex­ist­ing be­tween the Jew­ish peo­ple and the Ro­man gov­ern­ment; he for­bade them to be­come in any way em­broiled in these dif­fi­cul­ties. He was al­ways care­ful to avoid the po­lit­i­cal snares of his en­e­mies, ever mak­ing re­ply, “Ren­der to Cae­sar the things which are Cae­sar’s and to God the things which are God’s.” He re­fused to have his at­ten­tion di­verted from his mis­sion of es­tab­lish­ing a new way of sal­va­tion; he would not per­mit him­self to be con­cerned about any­thing else. In his per­sonal life he was al­ways duly ob­ser­vant of all civil laws and reg­u­la­tions; in all his pub­lic teach­ings he ig­nored the civic, so­cial, and eco­nomic realms. He told the three apos­tles that he was con­cerned only with the prin­ci­ples of man’s in­ner and per­sonal spir­i­tual life.

140:8.10Je­sus was not, there­fore, a po­lit­i­cal re­former. He did not come to re­or­ga­nize the world; even if he had done this, it would have been ap­pli­ca­ble only to that day and gen­er­a­tion. Nev­er­the­less, he did show man the best way of liv­ing, and no gen­er­a­tion is ex­empt from the la­bor of dis­cov­er­ing how best to adapt Je­sus’ life to its own prob­lems. But never make the mis­take of iden­ti­fy­ing Je­sus’ teach­ings with any po­lit­i­cal or eco­nomic the­ory, with any so­cial or in­dus­trial sys­tem.

140:8.113. So­cial at­ti­tude. The Jew­ish rab­bis had long de­bated the ques­tion: Who is my neigh­bor? Je­sus came pre­sent­ing the idea of ac­tive and spon­ta­neous kind­ness, a love of one’s fel­low men so gen­uine that it ex­panded the neigh­bor­hood to in­clude the whole world, thereby mak­ing all men one’s neigh­bors. But with all this, Je­sus was in­ter­ested only in the in­di­vid­ual, not the mass. Je­sus was not a so­ci­ol­o­gist, but he did la­bor to break down all forms of self­ish iso­la­tion. He taught pure sym­pa­thy, com­pas­sion. Mi­chael of Neb­a­don is a mercy-dom­i­nated Son; com­pas­sion is his very na­ture.

140:8.12The Mas­ter did not say that men should never en­ter­tain their friends at meat, but he did say that his fol­low­ers should make feasts for the poor and the un­for­tu­nate. Je­sus had a firm sense of jus­tice, but it was al­ways tem­pered with mercy. He did not teach his apos­tles that they were to be im­posed upon by so­cial par­a­sites or pro­fes­sional alms-seek­ers. The near­est he came to mak­ing so­ci­o­log­i­cal pro­nounce­ments was to say, “Judge not, that you be not judged.”

140:8.13He made it clear that in­dis­crim­i­nate kind­ness may be blamed for many so­cial evils. The fol­low­ing day Je­sus def­i­nitely in­structed Ju­das that no apos­tolic funds were to be given out as alms ex­cept upon his re­quest or upon the joint pe­ti­tion of two of the apos­tles. In all these mat­ters it was the prac­tice of Je­sus al­ways to say, “Be as wise as ser­pents but as harm­less as doves.” It seemed to be his pur­pose in all so­cial sit­u­a­tions to teach pa­tience, tol­er­ance, and for­give­ness.

140:8.14The fam­ily oc­cu­pied the very cen­ter of Je­sus’ phi­los­o­phy of life—here and here­after. He based his teach­ings about God on the fam­ily, while he sought to cor­rect the Jew­ish ten­dency to over­honor an­ces­tors. He ex­alted fam­ily life as the high­est hu­man duty but made it plain that fam­ily re­la­tion­ships must not in­ter­fere with re­li­gious obli­ga­tions. He called at­ten­tion to the fact that the fam­ily is a tem­po­ral in­sti­tu­tion; that it does not sur­vive death. Je­sus did not hes­i­tate to give up his fam­ily when the fam­ily ran counter to the Fa­ther’s will. He taught the new and larger broth­er­hood of man—the sons of God. In Je­sus’ time di­vorce prac­tices were lax in Pales­tine and through­out the Ro­man Em­pire. He re­peat­edly re­fused to lay down laws re­gard­ing mar­riage and di­vorce, but many of Je­sus’ early fol­low­ers had strong opin­ions on di­vorce and did not hes­i­tate to at­trib­ute them to him. All of the New Tes­ta­ment writ­ers held to these more strin­gent and ad­vanced ideas about di­vorce ex­cept John Mark.

140:8.154. Eco­nomic at­ti­tude. Je­sus worked, lived, and traded in the world as he found it. He was not an eco­nomic re­former, al­though he did fre­quently call at­ten­tion to the in­jus­tice of the un­equal dis­tri­bu­tion of wealth. But he did not of­fer any sug­ges­tions by way of rem­edy. He made it plain to the three that, while his apos­tles were not to hold prop­erty, he was not preach­ing against wealth and prop­erty, merely its un­equal and un­fair dis­tri­bu­tion. He rec­og­nized the need for so­cial jus­tice and in­dus­trial fair­ness, but he of­fered no rules for their at­tain­ment.

140:8.16He never taught his fol­low­ers to avoid earthly pos­ses­sions, only his twelve apos­tles. Luke, the physi­cian, was a strong be­liever in so­cial equal­ity, and he did much to in­ter­pret Je­sus’ say­ings in har­mony with his per­sonal be­liefs. Je­sus never per­son­ally di­rected his fol­low­ers to adopt a com­mu­nal mode of life; he made no pro­nounce­ment of any sort re­gard­ing such mat­ters.

140:8.17Je­sus fre­quently warned his lis­ten­ers against cov­etous­ness, declar­ing that “a man’s hap­pi­ness con­sists not in the abun­dance of his ma­te­rial pos­ses­sions.” He con­stantly re­it­er­ated, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” He made no di­rect at­tack on the pos­ses­sion of prop­erty, but he did in­sist that it is eter­nally es­sen­tial that spir­i­tual val­ues come first. In his later teach­ings he sought to cor­rect many er­ro­neous Uran­tia views of life by nar­rat­ing nu­mer­ous para­bles which he pre­sented in the course of his pub­lic min­istry. Je­sus never in­tended to for­mu­late eco­nomic the­o­ries; he well knew that each age must evolve its own reme­dies for ex­ist­ing trou­bles. And if Je­sus were on earth to­day, liv­ing his life in the flesh, he would be a great dis­ap­point­ment to the ma­jor­ity of good men and women for the sim­ple rea­son that he would not take sides in pres­ent-day po­lit­i­cal, so­cial, or eco­nomic dis­putes. He would re­main grandly aloof while teach­ing you how to per­fect your in­ner spir­i­tual life so as to ren­der you many­fold more com­pe­tent to at­tack the so­lu­tion of your purely hu­man prob­lems.

140:8.18Je­sus would make all men God­like and then stand by sym­pa­thet­i­cally while these sons of God solve their own po­lit­i­cal, so­cial, and eco­nomic prob­lems. It was not wealth that he de­nounced, but what wealth does to the ma­jor­ity of its devo­tees. On this Thurs­day af­ter­noon Je­sus first told his as­so­ciates that “it is more blessed to give than to re­ceive.”

140:8.195. Per­sonal re­li­gion. You, as did his apos­tles, should the bet­ter un­der­stand Je­sus’ teach­ings by his life. He lived a per­fected life on Uran­tia, and his unique teach­ings can only be un­der­stood when that life is vi­su­al­ized in its im­me­di­ate back­ground. It is his life, and not his lessons to the twelve or his ser­mons to the mul­ti­tudes, that will as­sist most in re­veal­ing the Fa­ther’s di­vine char­ac­ter and lov­ing per­son­al­ity.

140:8.20Je­sus did not at­tack the teach­ings of the He­brew proph­ets or the Greek moral­ists. The Mas­ter rec­og­nized the many good things which these great teach­ers stood for, but he had come down to earth to teach some­thing ad­di­tional, “the vol­un­tary con­for­mity of man’s will to God’s will.” Je­sus did not want sim­ply to pro­duce a re­li­gious man, a mor­tal wholly oc­cu­pied with re­li­gious feel­ings and ac­tu­ated only by spir­i­tual im­pulses. Could you have had but one look at him, you would have known that Je­sus was a real man of great ex­pe­ri­ence in the things of this world. The teach­ings of Je­sus in this re­spect have been grossly per­verted and much mis­rep­re­sented all down through the cen­turies of the Chris­tian era; you have also held per­verted ideas about the Mas­ter’s meek­ness and hu­mil­ity. What he aimed at in his life ap­pears to have been a su­perb self-re­spect. He only ad­vised man to hum­ble him­self that he might be­come truly ex­alted; what he re­ally aimed at was true hu­mil­ity to­ward God. He placed great value upon sin­cer­ity—a pure heart. Fi­delity was a car­di­nal virtue in his es­ti­mate of char­ac­ter, while cour­age was the very heart of his teach­ings. “Fear not” was his watch­word, and pa­tient en­durance his ideal of strength of char­ac­ter. The teach­ings of Je­sus con­sti­tute a re­li­gion of valor, cour­age, and hero­ism. And this is just why he chose as his per­sonal rep­re­sen­ta­tives twelve com­mon­place men, the ma­jor­ity of whom were rugged, vir­ile, and manly fish­er­men.

140:8.21Je­sus had lit­tle to say about the so­cial vices of his day; sel­dom did he make ref­er­ence to moral delin­quency. He was a pos­i­tive teacher of true virtue. He stu­diously avoided the neg­a­tive method of im­part­ing in­struc­tion; he re­fused to ad­ver­tise evil. He was not even a moral re­former. He well knew, and so taught his apos­tles, that the sen­sual urges of man­kind are not sup­pressed by ei­ther re­li­gious re­buke or le­gal pro­hi­bi­tions. His few de­nun­ci­a­tions were largely di­rected against pride, cru­elty, op­pres­sion, and hypocrisy.

140:8.22Je­sus did not ve­he­mently de­nounce even the Phar­isees, as did John. He knew many of the scribes and Phar­isees were hon­est of heart; he un­der­stood their en­slav­ing bond­age to re­li­gious tra­di­tions. Je­sus laid great em­pha­sis on “first mak­ing the tree good.” He im­pressed the three that he val­ued the whole life, not just a cer­tain few spe­cial virtues.

140:8.23The one thing which John gained from this day’s teach­ing was that the heart of Je­sus’ re­li­gion con­sisted in the ac­quire­ment of a com­pas­sion­ate char­ac­ter cou­pled with a per­son­al­ity mo­ti­vated to do the will of the Fa­ther in heaven.

140:8.24Pe­ter grasped the idea that the gospel they were about to pro­claim was re­ally a fresh be­gin­ning for the whole hu­man race. He con­veyed this im­pres­sion sub­se­quently to Paul, who for­mu­lated there­from his doc­trine of Christ as “the sec­ond Adam.”

140:8.25James grasped the thrilling truth that Je­sus wanted his chil­dren on earth to live as though they were al­ready cit­i­zens of the com­pleted heav­enly king­dom.

140:8.26Je­sus knew men were dif­fer­ent, and he so taught his apos­tles. He con­stantly ex­horted them to re­frain from try­ing to mold the dis­ci­ples and be­liev­ers ac­cord­ing to some set pat­tern. He sought to al­low each soul to de­velop in its own way, a per­fect­ing and sep­a­rate in­di­vid­ual be­fore God. In an­swer to one of Pe­ter’s many ques­tions, the Mas­ter said: “I want to set men free so that they can start out afresh as lit­tle chil­dren upon the new and bet­ter life.” Je­sus al­ways in­sisted that true good­ness must be un­con­scious, in be­stow­ing char­ity not al­low­ing the left hand to know what the right hand does.

140:8.27The three apos­tles were shocked this af­ter­noon when they re­al­ized that their Mas­ter’s re­li­gion made no pro­vi­sion for spir­i­tual self-ex­am­i­na­tion. All re­li­gions be­fore and af­ter the times of Je­sus, even Chris­tian­ity, care­fully pro­vide for con­sci­en­tious self-ex­am­i­na­tion. But not so with the re­li­gion of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth. Je­sus’ phi­los­o­phy of life is with­out re­li­gious in­tro­spec­tion. The car­pen­ter’s son never taught char­ac­ter build­ing; he taught char­ac­ter growth, declar­ing that the king­dom of heaven is like a mus­tard seed. But Je­sus said noth­ing which would pro­scribe self-anal­y­sis as a pre­ven­tion of con­ceited ego­tism.

140:8.28The right to en­ter the king­dom is con­di­tioned by faith, per­sonal be­lief. The cost of re­main­ing in the pro­gres­sive as­cent of the king­dom is the pearl of great price, in or­der to pos­sess which a man sells all that he has.

140:8.29The teach­ing of Je­sus is a re­li­gion for ev­ery­body, not alone for weak­lings and slaves. His re­li­gion never be­came crys­tal­lized (dur­ing his day) into creeds and the­o­log­i­cal laws; he left not a line of writ­ing be­hind him. His life and teach­ings were be­queathed the uni­verse as an in­spi­ra­tional and ide­al­is­tic in­her­i­tance suit­able for the spir­i­tual guid­ance and moral in­struc­tion of all ages on all worlds. And even to­day, Je­sus’ teach­ing stands apart from all re­li­gions, as such, al­beit it is the liv­ing hope of ev­ery one of them.

140:8.30Je­sus did not teach his apos­tles that re­li­gion is man’s only earthly pur­suit; that was the Jew­ish idea of serv­ing God. But he did in­sist that re­li­gion was the ex­clu­sive busi­ness of the twelve. Je­sus taught noth­ing to de­ter his be­liev­ers from the pur­suit of gen­uine cul­ture; he only de­tracted from the tra­di­tion-bound re­li­gious schools of Je­ru­sa­lem. He was lib­eral, big-hearted, learned, and tol­er­ant. Self-con­scious piety had no place in his phi­los­o­phy of righ­teous liv­ing.

140:8.31The Mas­ter of­fered no so­lu­tions for the non­re­li­gious prob­lems of his own age nor for any sub­se­quent age. Je­sus wished to de­velop spir­i­tual in­sight into eter­nal re­al­i­ties and to stim­u­late ini­tia­tive in the orig­i­nal­ity of liv­ing; he con­cerned him­self ex­clu­sively with the un­der­ly­ing and per­ma­nent spir­i­tual needs of the hu­man race. He re­vealed a good­ness equal to God. He ex­alted love—truth, beauty, and good­ness—as the di­vine ideal and the eter­nal re­al­ity.

140:8.32The Mas­ter came to cre­ate in man a new spirit, a new will—to im­part a new ca­pac­ity for know­ing the truth, ex­pe­ri­enc­ing com­pas­sion, and choos­ing good­ness—the will to be in har­mony with God’s will, cou­pled with the eter­nal urge to be­come per­fect, even as the Fa­ther in heaven is per­fect.