The Second Preaching Tour

149:7.1An­drew, in con­sul­ta­tion with Si­mon Pe­ter and with the ap­proval of Je­sus, had in­structed David at Beth­saida to dis­patch mes­sen­gers to the var­i­ous preach­ing groups with in­struc­tions to ter­mi­nate the tour and re­turn to Beth­saida some­time on Thurs­day, De­cem­ber 30. By sup­per time on that rainy day all of the apos­tolic party and the teach­ing evan­ge­lists had ar­rived at the Zeb­e­dee home.

149:7.2The group re­mained to­gether over the Sab­bath day, be­ing ac­com­mo­dated in the homes of Beth­saida and near-by Ca­per­naum, af­ter which the en­tire party was granted a two weeks’ re­cess to go home to their fam­i­lies, visit their friends, or go fish­ing. The two or three days they were to­gether in Beth­saida were, in­deed, ex­hil­a­rat­ing and in­spir­ing; even the older teach­ers were ed­i­fied by the young preach­ers as they nar­rated their ex­pe­ri­ences.

149:7.3Of the 117 evan­ge­lists who par­tic­i­pated in this sec­ond preach­ing tour of Gal­i­lee, only about sev­enty-five sur­vived the test of ac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence and were on hand to be as­signed to ser­vice at the end of the two weeks’ re­cess. Je­sus, with An­drew, Pe­ter, James, and John, re­mained at the Zeb­e­dee home and spent much time in con­fer­ence re­gard­ing the wel­fare and ex­ten­sion of the king­dom.