The Perean Mission Begins

165:1.1By the mid­dle of Jan­uary more than twelve hun­dred per­sons were gath­ered to­gether at Pella, and Je­sus taught this mul­ti­tude at least once each day when he was in res­i­dence at the camp, usu­ally speak­ing at nine o’clock in the morn­ing if not pre­vented by rain. Pe­ter and the other apos­tles taught each af­ter­noon. The evenings Je­sus re­served for the usual ses­sions of ques­tions and an­swers with the twelve and other ad­vanced dis­ci­ples. The evening groups av­er­aged about fifty.

165:1.2By the mid­dle of March, the time when Je­sus be­gan his jour­ney to­ward Je­ru­sa­lem, over four thou­sand per­sons com­posed the large au­di­ence which heard Je­sus or Pe­ter preach each morn­ing. The Mas­ter chose to ter­mi­nate his work on earth when the in­ter­est in his mes­sage had reached a high point, the high­est point at­tained un­der this sec­ond or non­mirac­u­lous phase of the prog­ress of the king­dom. While three quar­ters of the mul­ti­tude were truth seek­ers, there were also pres­ent a large num­ber of Phar­isees from Je­ru­sa­lem and else­where, to­gether with many doubters and cav­il­ers.

165:1.3Je­sus and the twelve apos­tles de­voted much of their time to the mul­ti­tude as­sem­bled at the Pella camp. The twelve paid lit­tle or no at­ten­tion to the field work, only go­ing out with Je­sus to visit Ab­ner’s as­so­ciates from time to time. Ab­ner was very fa­mil­iar with the Perean dis­trict since this was the field in which his for­mer mas­ter, John the Bap­tist, had done most of his work. Af­ter be­gin­ning the Perean mis­sion, Ab­ner and the sev­enty never re­turned to the Pella camp.