The Sojourn at Tyre and Sidon

156:6.1About noon on Sun­day, July 24, Je­sus and the twelve left the home of Joseph, south of Tyre, go­ing down the coast to Ptole­mais. Here they tar­ried for a day, speak­ing words of com­fort to the com­pany of be­liev­ers res­i­dent there. Pe­ter preached to them on the evening of July 25.

156:6.2On Tues­day they left Ptole­mais, go­ing east in­land to near Jo­ta­p­ata by way of the Tiberias road. Wednes­day they stopped at Jo­ta­p­ata and in­structed the be­liev­ers fur­ther in the things of the king­dom. Thurs­day they left Jo­ta­p­ata, go­ing north on the Naz­a­reth-Mount Lebanon trail to the vil­lage of Ze­bu­lun, by way of Ramah. They held meet­ings at Ramah on Fri­day and re­mained over the Sab­bath. They reached Ze­bu­lun on Sun­day, the 31^st, hold­ing a meet­ing that evening and de­part­ing the next morn­ing.

156:6.3Leav­ing Ze­bu­lun, they jour­neyed over to the junc­tion with the Mag­dala-Sidon road near Gis­chala, and thence they made their way to Gen­nesaret on the west­ern shores of the lake of Gal­i­lee, south of Ca­per­naum, where they had ap­pointed to meet with David Zeb­e­dee, and where they in­tended to take coun­sel as to the next move to be made in the work of preach­ing the gospel of the king­dom.

156:6.4Dur­ing a brief con­fer­ence with David they learned that many lead­ers were then gath­ered to­gether on the op­po­site side of the lake near Kheresa, and ac­cord­ingly, that very evening a boat took them across. For one day they rested qui­etly in the hills, go­ing on the next day to the park, near by, where the Mas­ter once fed the five thou­sand. Here they rested for three days and held daily con­fer­ences, which were at­tended by about fifty men and women, the rem­nants of the once nu­mer­ous com­pany of be­liev­ers res­i­dent in Ca­per­naum and its en­vi­rons.

156:6.5While Je­sus was ab­sent from Ca­per­naum and Gal­i­lee, the pe­riod of the Phoeni­cian so­journ, his en­e­mies reck­oned that the whole move­ment had been bro­ken up and con­cluded that Je­sus’ haste in with­draw­ing in­di­cated he was so thor­oughly fright­ened that he would not likely ever re­turn to bother them. All ac­tive op­po­si­tion to his teach­ings had about sub­sided. The be­liev­ers were be­gin­ning to hold pub­lic meet­ings once more, and there was oc­cur­ring a grad­ual but ef­fec­tive con­sol­i­da­tion of the tried and true sur­vivors of the great sift­ing through which the gospel be­liev­ers had just passed.

156:6.6Philip, the brother of Herod, had be­come a half­hearted be­liever in Je­sus and sent word that the Mas­ter was free to live and work in his do­mains.

156:6.7The man­date to close the syn­a­gogues of all Jewry to the teach­ings of Je­sus and all his fol­low­ers had worked ad­versely upon the scribes and Phar­isees. Im­me­di­ately upon Je­sus’ re­mov­ing him­self as an ob­ject of con­tro­versy, there oc­curred a re­ac­tion among the en­tire Jew­ish peo­ple; there was gen­eral re­sent­ment against the Phar­isees and the San­hedrin lead­ers at Je­ru­sa­lem. Many of the rulers of the syn­a­gogues be­gan sur­rep­ti­tiously to open their syn­a­gogues to Ab­ner and his as­so­ciates, claim­ing that these teach­ers were fol­low­ers of John and not dis­ci­ples of Je­sus.

156:6.8Even Herod An­tipas ex­pe­ri­enced a change of heart and, on learn­ing that Je­sus was so­journ­ing across the lake in the ter­ri­tory of his brother Philip, sent word to him that, while he had signed war­rants for his ar­rest in Gal­i­lee, he had not so au­tho­rized his ap­pre­hen­sion in Perea, thus in­di­cat­ing that Je­sus would not be mo­lested if he re­mained out­side of Gal­i­lee; and he com­mu­ni­cated this same rul­ing to the Jews at Je­ru­sa­lem.

156:6.9And that was the sit­u­a­tion about the first of Au­gust, A.D. 29, when the Mas­ter re­turned from the Phoeni­cian mis­sion and be­gan the re­or­ga­ni­za­tion of his scat­tered, tested, and de­pleted forces for this last and event­ful year of his mis­sion on earth.

156:6.10The is­sues of bat­tle are clearly drawn as the Mas­ter and his as­so­ciates pre­pare to be­gin the procla­ma­tion of a new re­li­gion, the re­li­gion of the spirit of the liv­ing God who dwells in the minds of men.