Abila

• Abila

138:9.3The apos­tles car­ried on their per­sonal work in Ca­per­naum, Beth­saida-Ju­lias, Cho­ra­zin, Gerasa, Hip­pos, Mag­dala, Cana, Beth­le­hem of Gal­i­lee, Jo­ta­p­ata, Ramah, Safed, Gis­chala, Gadara, and Abila. Be­sides these towns they la­bored in many vil­lages as well as in the coun­try­side. By the end of this pe­riod the twelve had worked out fairly sat­is­fac­tory plans for the care of their re­spec­tive fam­i­lies. Most of the apos­tles were mar­ried, some had sev­eral chil­dren, but they had made such ar­range­ments for the sup­port of their home folks that, with some lit­tle as­sis­tance from the apos­tolic funds, they could de­vote their en­tire en­er­gies to the Mas­ter’s work with­out hav­ing to worry about the fi­nan­cial wel­fare of their fam­i­lies.

• Abila

144:7.1Through­out the months of Novem­ber and De­cem­ber, Je­sus and the twenty-four worked qui­etly in the Greek cities of the De­capo­lis, chiefly in Scythopo­lis, Gerasa, Abila, and Gadara. This was re­ally the end of that pre­lim­i­nary pe­riod of tak­ing over John’s work and or­ga­ni­za­tion. Al­ways does the so­cial­ized re­li­gion of a new rev­e­la­tion pay the price of com­pro­mise with the es­tab­lished forms and us­ages of the pre­ced­ing re­li­gion which it seeks to sal­vage. Bap­tism was the price which the fol­low­ers of Je­sus paid in or­der to carry with them, as a so­cial­ized re­li­gious group, the fol­low­ers of John the Bap­tist. John’s fol­low­ers, in join­ing Je­sus’ fol­low­ers, gave up just about ev­ery­thing ex­cept wa­ter bap­tism.

• Abila

159:4.1And then went Je­sus over to Abila, where Na­than­iel and his as­so­ciates la­bored. Na­than­iel was much both­ered by some of Je­sus’ pro­nounce­ments which seemed to de­tract from the au­thor­ity of the rec­og­nized He­brew scrip­tures. Ac­cord­ingly, on this night, af­ter the usual pe­riod of ques­tions and an­swers, Na­than­iel took Je­sus away from the oth­ers and asked: “Mas­ter, could you trust me to know the truth about the Scrip­tures? I ob­serve that you teach us only a por­tion of the sa­cred writ­ings—the best as I view it—and I in­fer that you re­ject the teach­ings of the rab­bis to the ef­fect that the words of the law are the very words of God, hav­ing been with God in heaven even be­fore the times of Abra­ham and Moses. What is the truth about the Scrip­tures?” When Je­sus heard the ques­tion of his be­wil­dered apos­tle, he an­swered: