The Second Preaching Tour

149:2.1Je­sus un­der­stood the minds of men. He knew what was in the heart of man, and had his teach­ings been left as he pre­sented them, the only com­men­tary be­ing the in­spired in­ter­pre­ta­tion af­forded by his earth life, all na­tions and all re­li­gions of the world would speed­ily have em­braced the gospel of the king­dom. The well-meant ef­forts of Je­sus’ early fol­low­ers to re­state his teach­ings so as to make them the more ac­cept­able to cer­tain na­tions, races, and re­li­gions, only re­sulted in mak­ing such teach­ings the less ac­cept­able to all other na­tions, races, and re­li­gions.

149:2.2The Apos­tle Paul, in his ef­forts to bring the teach­ings of Je­sus to the fa­vor­able no­tice of cer­tain groups in his day, wrote many let­ters of in­struc­tion and ad­mo­ni­tion. Other teach­ers of Je­sus’ gospel did like­wise, but none of them re­al­ized that some of these writ­ings would sub­se­quently be brought to­gether by those who would set them forth as the em­bod­i­ment of the teach­ings of Je­sus. And so, while so-called Chris­tian­ity does con­tain more of the Mas­ter’s gospel than any other re­li­gion, it does also con­tain much that Je­sus did not teach. Aside from the in­cor­po­ra­tion of many teach­ings from the Per­sian mys­ter­ies and much of the Greek phi­los­o­phy into early Chris­tian­ity, two great mis­takes were made:

149:2.31. The ef­fort to con­nect the gospel teach­ing di­rectly onto the Jew­ish the­ol­ogy, as il­lus­trated by the Chris­tian doc­trines of the atone­ment—the teach­ing that Je­sus was the sac­ri­ficed Son who would sat­isfy the Fa­ther’s stern jus­tice and ap­pease the di­vine wrath. These teach­ings orig­i­nated in a praise­wor­thy ef­fort to make the gospel of the king­dom more ac­cept­able to dis­be­liev­ing Jews. Though these ef­forts failed as far as win­ning the Jews was con­cerned, they did not fail to con­fuse and alien­ate many hon­est souls in all sub­se­quent gen­er­a­tions.

149:2.42. The sec­ond great blun­der of the Mas­ter’s early fol­low­ers, and one which all sub­se­quent gen­er­a­tions have per­sisted in per­pet­u­at­ing, was to or­ga­nize the Chris­tian teach­ing so com­pletely about the per­son of Je­sus. This overem­pha­sis of the per­son­al­ity of Je­sus in the the­ol­ogy of Chris­tian­ity has worked to ob­scure his teach­ings, and all of this has made it in­creas­ingly dif­fi­cult for Jews, Mo­hammedans, Hin­dus, and other East­ern re­li­gion­ists to ac­cept the teach­ings of Je­sus. We would not be­lit­tle the place of the per­son of Je­sus in a re­li­gion which might bear his name, but we would not per­mit such con­sid­er­a­tion to eclipse his in­spired life or to sup­plant his sav­ing mes­sage: the fa­ther­hood of God and the broth­er­hood of man.

149:2.5The teach­ers of the re­li­gion of Je­sus should ap­proach other re­li­gions with the rec­og­ni­tion of the truths which are held in com­mon (many of which come di­rectly or in­di­rectly from Je­sus’ mes­sage) while they re­frain from plac­ing so much em­pha­sis on the dif­fer­ences.

149:2.6While, at that par­tic­u­lar time, the fame of Je­sus rested chiefly upon his rep­u­ta­tion as a healer, it does not fol­low that it con­tin­ued so to rest. As time passed, more and more he was sought for spir­i­tual help. But it was the phys­i­cal cures that made the most di­rect and im­me­di­ate ap­peal to the com­mon peo­ple. Je­sus was in­creas­ingly sought by the vic­tims of moral en­slave­ment and men­tal ha­rass­ments, and he in­vari­ably taught them the way of de­liv­er­ance. Fa­thers sought his ad­vice re­gard­ing the man­age­ment of their sons, and moth­ers came for help in the guid­ance of their daugh­ters. Those who sat in dark­ness came to him, and he re­vealed to them the light of life. His ear was ever open to the sor­rows of man­kind, and he al­ways helped those who sought his min­istry.

149:2.7When the Cre­ator him­self was on earth, in­car­nated in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, it was in­ev­i­ta­ble that some ex­traor­di­nary things should hap­pen. But you should never ap­proach Je­sus through these so-called mirac­u­lous oc­cur­rences. Learn to ap­proach the mir­a­cle through Je­sus, but do not make the mis­take of ap­proach­ing Je­sus through the mir­a­cle. And this ad­mo­ni­tion is war­ranted, not­with­stand­ing that Je­sus of Naz­a­reth is the only founder of a re­li­gion who per­formed super­ma­te­rial acts on earth.

149:2.8The most as­ton­ish­ing and the most rev­o­lu­tion­ary fea­ture of Mi­chael’s mis­sion on earth was his at­ti­tude to­ward women. In a day and gen­er­a­tion when a man was not sup­posed to salute even his own wife in a pub­lic place, Je­sus dared to take women along as teach­ers of the gospel in con­nec­tion with his third tour of Gal­i­lee. And he had the con­sum­mate cour­age to do this in the face of the rab­binic teach­ing which de­clared that it was “bet­ter that the words of the law should be burned than de­liv­ered to women.”

149:2.9In one gen­er­a­tion Je­sus lifted women out of the dis­re­spect­ful obliv­ion and the slav­ish drudgery of the ages. And it is the one shame­ful thing about the re­li­gion that pre­sumed to take Je­sus’ name that it lacked the moral cour­age to fol­low this no­ble ex­am­ple in its sub­se­quent at­ti­tude to­ward women.

149:2.10As Je­sus min­gled with the peo­ple, they found him en­tirely free from the su­per­sti­tions of that day. He was free from re­li­gious prej­u­dices; he was never in­tol­er­ant. He had noth­ing in his heart re­sem­bling so­cial an­tag­o­nism. While he com­plied with the good in the re­li­gion of his fa­thers, he did not hes­i­tate to dis­re­gard man-made tra­di­tions of su­per­sti­tion and bond­age. He dared to teach that catas­tro­phes of na­ture, ac­ci­dents of time, and other calami­tous hap­pen­ings are not vis­i­ta­tions of di­vine judg­ments or mys­te­ri­ous dis­pen­sa­tions of Prov­i­dence. He de­nounced slav­ish de­vo­tion to mean­ing­less cer­e­mo­ni­als and ex­posed the fal­lacy of ma­te­ri­al­is­tic wor­ship. He boldly pro­claimed man’s spir­i­tual free­dom and dared to teach that mor­tals of the flesh are in­deed and in truth sons of the liv­ing God.

149:2.11Je­sus tran­scended all the teach­ings of his fore­bears when he boldly sub­sti­tuted clean hearts for clean hands as the mark of true re­li­gion. He put re­al­ity in the place of tra­di­tion and swept aside all pre­ten­sions of van­ity and hypocrisy. And yet this fear­less man of God did not give vent to de­struc­tive crit­i­cism or man­i­fest an ut­ter dis­re­gard of the re­li­gious, so­cial, eco­nomic, and po­lit­i­cal us­ages of his day. He was not a mil­i­tant rev­o­lu­tion­ist; he was a pro­gres­sive evo­lu­tion­ist. He en­gaged in the de­struc­tion of that which was only when he si­mul­ta­ne­ously of­fered his fel­lows the su­pe­rior thing which ought to be.

149:2.12Je­sus re­ceived the obe­di­ence of his fol­low­ers with­out ex­act­ing it. Only three men who re­ceived his per­sonal call re­fused to ac­cept the in­vi­ta­tion to dis­ci­ple­ship. He ex­er­cised a pe­cu­liar draw­ing power over men, but he was not dic­ta­to­rial. He com­manded con­fi­dence, and no man ever re­sented his giv­ing a com­mand. He as­sumed ab­so­lute au­thor­ity over his dis­ci­ples, but no one ever ob­jected. He per­mit­ted his fol­low­ers to call him Mas­ter.

149:2.13The Mas­ter was ad­mired by all who met him ex­cept by those who en­ter­tained deep-seated re­li­gious prej­u­dices or those who thought they dis­cerned po­lit­i­cal dan­gers in his teach­ings. Men were as­ton­ished at the orig­i­nal­ity and au­thor­i­ta­tive­ness of his teach­ing. They mar­veled at his pa­tience in deal­ing with back­ward and trou­ble­some in­quir­ers. He in­spired hope and con­fi­dence in the hearts of all who came un­der his min­istry. Only those who had not met him feared him, and he was hated only by those who re­garded him as the cham­pion of that truth which was des­tined to over­throw the evil and er­ror which they had de­ter­mined to hold in their hearts at all cost.

149:2.14On both friends and foes he ex­er­cised a strong and pe­cu­liarly fas­ci­nat­ing in­flu­ence. Mul­ti­tudes would fol­low him for weeks, just to hear his gra­cious words and be­hold his sim­ple life. De­voted men and women loved Je­sus with a well-nigh super­hu­man af­fec­tion. And the bet­ter they knew him the more they loved him. And all this is still true; even to­day and in all fu­ture ages, the more man comes to know this God-man, the more he will love and fol­low af­ter him.