The Interlude Visit to Jerusalem

147:7.1It was around noon on Mon­day, May 3, when Je­sus and the twelve came to Beth­saida by boat from Ta­ri­chea. They trav­eled by boat in or­der to es­cape those who jour­neyed with them. But by the next day the oth­ers, in­clud­ing the of­fi­cial spies from Je­ru­sa­lem, had again found Je­sus.

147:7.2On Tues­day evening Je­sus was con­duct­ing one of his cus­tom­ary classes of ques­tions and an­swers when the leader of the six spies said to him: “I was to­day talk­ing with one of John’s dis­ci­ples who is here at­tend­ing upon your teach­ing, and we were at a loss to un­der­stand why you never com­mand your dis­ci­ples to fast and pray as we Phar­isees fast and as John bade his fol­low­ers.” And Je­sus, re­fer­ring to a state­ment by John, an­swered this ques­tioner: “Do the sons of the bridecham­ber fast while the bride­groom is with them? As long as the bride­groom re­mains with them, they can hardly fast. But the time is com­ing when the bride­groom shall be taken away, and dur­ing those times the chil­dren of the bridecham­ber un­doubt­edly will fast and pray. To pray is nat­u­ral for the chil­dren of light, but fast­ing is not a part of the gospel of the king­dom of heaven. Be re­minded that a wise tai­lor does not sew a piece of new and un­shrunk cloth upon an old gar­ment, lest, when it is wet, it shrink and pro­duce a worse rent. Nei­ther do men put new wine into old wine skins, lest the new wine burst the skins so that both the wine and the skins per­ish. The wise man puts the new wine into fresh wine skins. There­fore do my dis­ci­ples show wis­dom in that they do not bring too much of the old or­der over into the new teach­ing of the gospel of the king­dom. You who have lost your teacher may be jus­ti­fied in fast­ing for a time. Fast­ing may be an ap­pro­pri­ate part of the law of Moses, but in the com­ing king­dom the sons of God shall ex­pe­ri­ence free­dom from fear and joy in the di­vine spirit.” And when they heard these words, the dis­ci­ples of John were com­forted while the Phar­isees them­selves were the more con­founded.

147:7.3Then the Mas­ter pro­ceeded to warn his hear­ers against en­ter­tain­ing the no­tion that all olden teach­ing should be re­placed en­tirely by new doc­trines. Said Je­sus: “That which is old and also true must abide. Like­wise, that which is new but false must be re­jected. But that which is new and also true, have the faith and cour­age to ac­cept. Re­mem­ber it is writ­ten: ‘For­sake not an old friend, for the new is not com­pa­ra­ble to him. As new wine, so is a new friend; if it be­comes old, you shall drink it with glad­ness.’”