Beginning the Public Work

141:6.1Near the end of the last week at Am­athus, Si­mon Ze­lo­tes brought to Je­sus one Teherma, a Per­sian do­ing busi­ness at Da­mas­cus. Teherma had heard of Je­sus and had come to Ca­per­naum to see him, and there learn­ing that Je­sus had gone with his apos­tles down the Jor­dan on the way to Je­ru­sa­lem, he set out to find him. An­drew had pre­sented Teherma to Si­mon for in­struc­tion. Si­mon looked upon the Per­sian as a “fire wor­shiper,” al­though Teherma took great pains to ex­plain that fire was only the vis­i­ble sym­bol of the Pure and Holy One. Af­ter talk­ing with Je­sus, the Per­sian sig­ni­fied his in­ten­tion of re­main­ing for sev­eral days to hear the teach­ing and lis­ten to the preach­ing.

141:6.2When Si­mon Ze­lo­tes and Je­sus were alone, Si­mon asked the Mas­ter: “Why is it that I could not per­suade him? Why did he so re­sist me and so read­ily lend an ear to you?” Je­sus an­swered: “Si­mon, Si­mon, how many times have I in­structed you to re­frain from all ef­forts to take some­thing out of the hearts of those who seek sal­va­tion? How of­ten have I told you to la­bor only to put some­thing into these hun­gry souls? Lead men into the king­dom, and the great and liv­ing truths of the king­dom will pres­ently drive out all se­ri­ous er­ror. When you have pre­sented to mor­tal man the good news that God is his Fa­ther, you can the eas­ier per­suade him that he is in re­al­ity a son of God. And hav­ing done that, you have brought the light of sal­va­tion to the one who sits in dark­ness. Si­mon, when the Son of Man came first to you, did he come de­nounc­ing Moses and the proph­ets and pro­claim­ing a new and bet­ter way of life? No. I came not to take away that which you had from your fore­fa­thers but to show you the per­fected vi­sion of that which your fa­thers saw only in part. Go then, Si­mon, teach­ing and preach­ing the king­dom, and when you have a man safely and se­curely within the king­dom, then is the time, when such a one shall come to you with in­quiries, to im­part in­struc­tion hav­ing to do with the pro­gres­sive ad­vance­ment of the soul within the di­vine king­dom.”

141:6.3Si­mon was as­ton­ished at these words, but he did as Je­sus had in­structed him, and Teherma, the Per­sian, was num­bered among those who en­tered the king­dom.

141:6.4That night Je­sus dis­coursed to the apos­tles on the new life in the king­dom. He said in part: “When you en­ter the king­dom, you are re­born. You can­not teach the deep things of the spirit to those who have been born only of the flesh; first see that men are born of the spirit be­fore you seek to in­struct them in the ad­vanced ways of the spirit. Do not un­der­take to show men the beau­ties of the tem­ple un­til you have first taken them into the tem­ple. In­tro­duce men to God and as the sons of God be­fore you dis­course on the doc­trines of the fa­ther­hood of God and the son­ship of men. Do not strive with men—al­ways be pa­tient. It is not your king­dom; you are only am­bas­sadors. Sim­ply go forth pro­claim­ing: This is the king­dom of heaven—God is your Fa­ther and you are his sons, and this good news, if you whole­heart­edly be­lieve it, is your eter­nal sal­va­tion.”

141:6.5The apos­tles made great prog­ress dur­ing the so­journ at Am­athus. But they were very much dis­ap­pointed that Je­sus would give them no sug­ges­tions about deal­ing with John’s dis­ci­ples. Even in the im­por­tant mat­ter of bap­tism, all that Je­sus said was: “John did in­deed bap­tize with wa­ter, but when you en­ter the king­dom of heaven, you shall be bap­tized with the Spirit.”