Abraham the Pharisee

148:8.1The last week of the so­journ at Beth­saida the Je­ru­sa­lem spies be­came much di­vided in their at­ti­tude to­ward Je­sus and his teach­ings. Three of these Phar­isees were tremen­dously im­pressed by what they had seen and heard. Mean­while, at Je­ru­sa­lem, Abra­ham, a young and in­flu­en­tial mem­ber of the San­hedrin, pub­licly es­poused the teach­ings of Je­sus and was bap­tized in the pool of Siloam by Ab­ner. All Je­ru­sa­lem was agog over this event, and mes­sen­gers were im­me­di­ately dis­patched to Beth­saida re­call­ing the six spy­ing Phar­isees.

148:8.5The new Je­ru­sa­lem con­vert, Abra­ham the Phar­isee, gave all of his worldly goods to the apos­tolic trea­sury, and this con­tri­bu­tion did much to make pos­si­ble the im­me­di­ate send­ing forth of the one hun­dred newly trained evan­ge­lists. An­drew had al­ready an­nounced the clos­ing of the en­camp­ment, and ev­ery­body pre­pared ei­ther to go home or else to fol­low the evan­ge­lists into Gal­i­lee.

149:3.2The re­li­gious lead­ers at Je­ru­sa­lem were be­com­ing well-nigh fran­tic as a re­sult of the re­cent con­ver­sion of young Abra­ham and by the de­ser­tion of the three spies who had been bap­tized by Pe­ter, and who were now out with the evan­ge­lists on this sec­ond preach­ing tour of Gal­i­lee. The Jew­ish lead­ers were in­creas­ingly blinded by fear and prej­u­dice, while their hearts were hard­ened by the con­tin­ued re­jec­tion of the ap­peal­ing truths of the gospel of the king­dom. When men shut off the ap­peal to the spirit that dwells within them, there is lit­tle that can be done to mod­ify their at­ti­tude.