The Decapolis Tour

159:2.1Je­sus went over to Gamala to visit John and those who worked with him at that place. That evening, af­ter the ses­sion of ques­tions and an­swers, John said to Je­sus: “Mas­ter, yes­ter­day I went over to Ashtaroth to see a man who was teach­ing in your name and even claim­ing to be able to cast out dev­ils. Now this fel­low had never been with us, nei­ther does he fol­low af­ter us; there­fore I for­bade him to do such things.” Then said Je­sus: “For­bid him not. Do you not per­ceive that this gospel of the king­dom shall pres­ently be pro­claimed in all the world? How can you ex­pect that all who will be­lieve the gospel shall be sub­ject to your di­rec­tion? Re­joice that al­ready our teach­ing has be­gun to man­i­fest it­self be­yond the bounds of our per­sonal in­flu­ence. Do you not see, John, that those who pro­fess to do great works in my name must even­tu­ally sup­port our cause? They cer­tainly will not be quick to speak evil of me. My son, in mat­ters of this sort it would be bet­ter for you to reckon that he who is not against us is for us. In the gen­er­a­tions to come many who are not wholly wor­thy will do many strange things in my name, but I will not for­bid them. I tell you that, even when a cup of cold wa­ter is given to a thirsty soul, the Fa­ther’s mes­sen­gers shall ever make rec­ord of such a ser­vice of love.”

159:2.2This in­struc­tion greatly per­plexed John. Had he not heard the Mas­ter say, “He who is not with me is against me”? And he did not per­ceive that in this case Je­sus was re­fer­ring to man’s per­sonal re­la­tion to the spir­i­tual teach­ings of the king­dom, while in the other case ref­er­ence was made to the out­ward and far-flung so­cial re­la­tions of be­liev­ers re­gard­ing the ques­tions of ad­min­is­tra­tive con­trol and the ju­ris­dic­tion of one group of be­liev­ers over the work of other groups which would even­tu­ally com­pose the forth­com­ing world-wide broth­er­hood.

159:2.3But John of­ten­times re­counted this ex­pe­ri­ence in con­nec­tion with his sub­se­quent labors in be­half of the king­dom. Nev­er­the­less, many times did the apos­tles take of­fense at those who made bold to teach in the Mas­ter’s name. To them it al­ways seemed in­ap­pro­pri­ate that those who had never sat at Je­sus’ feet should dare to teach in his name.

159:2.4This man whom John for­bade to teach and work in Je­sus’ name did not heed the apos­tle’s in­junc­tion. He went right on with his ef­forts and raised up a con­sid­er­able com­pany of be­liev­ers at Kanata be­fore go­ing on into Mes­o­po­ta­mia. This man, Aden, had been led to be­lieve in Je­sus through the tes­ti­mony of the de­mented man whom Je­sus healed near Kheresa, and who so con­fi­dently be­lieved that the sup­posed evil spir­its which the Mas­ter cast out of him en­tered the herd of swine and rushed them head­long over the cliff to their de­struc­tion.