apostleship

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140:3.1Then Je­sus spoke, say­ing: “Now that you are am­bas­sadors of my Fa­ther’s king­dom, you have thereby be­come a class of men sep­a­rate and dis­tinct from all other men on earth. You are not now as men among men but as the en­light­ened cit­i­zens of an­other and heav­enly coun­try among the ig­no­rant crea­tures of this dark world. It is not enough that you live as you were be­fore this hour, but hence­forth must you live as those who have tasted the glo­ries of a bet­ter life and have been sent back to earth as am­bas­sadors of the Sov­er­eign of that new and bet­ter world. Of the teacher more is ex­pected than of the pupil; of the mas­ter more is ex­acted than of the ser­vant. Of the cit­i­zens of the heav­enly king­dom more is re­quired than of the cit­i­zens of the earthly rule. Some of the things which I am about to say to you may seem hard, but you have elected to rep­re­sent me in the world even as I now rep­re­sent the Fa­ther; and as my agents on earth you will be ob­li­gated to abide by those teach­ings and prac­tices which are re­flec­tive of my ide­als of mor­tal liv­ing on the worlds of space, and which I ex­em­plify in my earth life of re­veal­ing the Fa­ther who is in heaven.

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140:6.9Then asked Na­than­iel: “Mas­ter, shall we give no place to jus­tice? The law of Moses says, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ What shall we say?” And Je­sus an­swered: “You shall re­turn good for evil. My mes­sen­gers must not strive with men, but be gen­tle to­ward all. Mea­sure for mea­sure shall not be your rule. The rulers of men may have such laws, but not so in the king­dom; mercy al­ways shall de­ter­mine your judg­ments and love your con­duct. And if these are hard say­ings, you can even now turn back. If you find the re­quire­ments of apos­tle­ship too hard, you may re­turn to the less rig­or­ous path­way of dis­ci­ple­ship.”

140:6.10On hear­ing these startling words, the apos­tles drew apart by them­selves for a while, but they soon re­turned, and Pe­ter said: “Mas­ter, we would go on with you; not one of us would turn back. We are fully pre­pared to pay the ex­tra price; we will drink the cup. We would be apos­tles, not merely dis­ci­ples.”

140:6.11When Je­sus heard this, he said: “Be will­ing, then, to take up your re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and fol­low me. Do your good deeds in se­cret; when you give alms, let not the left hand know what the right hand does. And when you pray, go apart by your­selves and use not vain rep­e­ti­tions and mean­ing­less phrases. Al­ways re­mem­ber that the Fa­ther knows what you need even be­fore you ask him. And be not given to fast­ing with a sad coun­te­nance to be seen by men. As my cho­sen apos­tles, now set apart for the ser­vice of the king­dom, lay not up for your­selves trea­sures on earth, but by your un­selfish ser­vice lay up for your­selves trea­sures in heaven, for where your trea­sures are, there will your hearts be also.

140:6.12“The lamp of the body is the eye; if, there­fore, your eye is gen­er­ous, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is self­ish, the whole body will be filled with dark­ness. If the very light which is in you is turned to dark­ness, how great is that dark­ness!”

140:6.13And then Thomas asked Je­sus if they should “con­tinue hav­ing ev­ery­thing in com­mon.” Said the Mas­ter: “Yes, my breth­ren, I would that we should live to­gether as one un­der­stand­ing fam­ily. You are in­trusted with a great work, and I crave your un­di­vided ser­vice. You know that it has been well said: ‘No man can serve two mas­ters.’ You can­not sin­cerely wor­ship God and at the same time whole­heart­edly serve mam­mon. Hav­ing now en­listed un­re­servedly in the work of the king­dom, be not anx­ious for your lives; much less be con­cerned with what you shall eat or what you shall drink; nor yet for your bod­ies, what cloth­ing you shall wear. Al­ready have you learned that will­ing hands and earnest hearts shall not go hun­gry. And now, when you pre­pare to de­vote all of your en­er­gies to the work of the king­dom, be as­sured that the Fa­ther will not be un­mind­ful of your needs. Seek first the king­dom of God, and when you have found en­trance thereto, all things need­ful shall be added to you. Be not, there­fore, un­duly anx­ious for the mor­row. Suf­fi­cient for the day is the trou­ble thereof.”

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140:8.16He never taught his fol­low­ers to avoid earthly pos­ses­sions, only his twelve apos­tles. Luke, the physi­cian, was a strong be­liever in so­cial equal­ity, and he did much to in­ter­pret Je­sus’ say­ings in har­mony with his per­sonal be­liefs. Je­sus never per­son­ally di­rected his fol­low­ers to adopt a com­mu­nal mode of life; he made no pro­nounce­ment of any sort re­gard­ing such mat­ters.

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142:7.2Je­sus sought first to make plain to his apos­tles that he him­self was on earth liv­ing a unique life in the flesh, and that they, the twelve, had been called to par­tic­i­pate in this be­stowal ex­pe­ri­ence of the Son of Man; and as such cowork­ers, they, too, must share in many of the spe­cial re­stric­tions and obli­ga­tions of the en­tire be­stowal ex­pe­ri­ence. There was a veiled in­ti­ma­tion that the Son of Man was the only per­son who had ever lived on earth who could si­mul­ta­ne­ously see into the very heart of God and into the very depths of man’s soul.

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163:2.6When Mata­dor­mus heard this, his coun­te­nance fell. He arose and went away sor­row­ful, for he had great pos­ses­sions. This wealthy young Phar­isee had been raised to be­lieve that wealth was the to­ken of God’s fa­vor. Je­sus knew that he was not free from the love of him­self and his riches. The Mas­ter wanted to de­liver him from the love of wealth, not nec­es­sar­ily from the wealth. While the dis­ci­ples of Je­sus did not part with all their worldly goods, the apos­tles and the sev­enty did. Mata­dor­mus de­sired to be one of the sev­enty new mes­sen­gers, and that was the rea­son for Je­sus’ re­quir­ing him to part with all of his tem­po­ral pos­ses­sions.

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163:2.11Je­sus never taught that it was wrong to have wealth. He re­quired only the twelve and the sev­enty to ded­i­cate all of their worldly pos­ses­sions to the com­mon cause. Even then, he pro­vided for the prof­itable liq­ui­da­tion of their prop­erty, as in the case of the Apos­tle Mat­thew. Je­sus many times ad­vised his well-to-do dis­ci­ples as he taught the rich man of Rome. The Mas­ter re­garded the wise in­vest­ment of ex­cess earn­ings as a le­git­i­mate form of in­sur­ance against fu­ture and un­avoid­able ad­ver­sity. When the apos­tolic trea­sury was over­flow­ing, Ju­das put funds on de­posit to be used sub­se­quently when they might suf­fer greatly from a diminu­tion of in­come. This Ju­das did af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with An­drew. Je­sus never per­son­ally had any­thing to do with the apos­tolic fi­nances ex­cept in the dis­burse­ment of alms. But there was one eco­nomic abuse which he many times con­demned, and that was the un­fair ex­ploita­tion of the weak, un­learned, and less for­tu­nate of men by their strong, keen, and more in­tel­li­gent fel­lows. Je­sus de­clared that such in­hu­man treat­ment of men, women, and chil­dren was in­com­pat­i­ble with the ide­als of the broth­er­hood of the king­dom of heaven.

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163:3.3As they went off by them­selves, Je­sus was grieved that Mata­dor­mus did not re­main with them, for he greatly loved him. And when they had walked down by the lake, they sat there be­side the wa­ter, and Pe­ter, speak­ing for the twelve (who were all pres­ent by this time), said: “We are trou­bled by your words to the rich young man. Shall we re­quire those who would fol­low you to give up all their worldly goods?” And Je­sus said: “No, Pe­ter, only those who would be­come apos­tles, and who de­sire to live with me as you do and as one fam­ily. But the Fa­ther re­quires that the af­fec­tions of his chil­dren be pure and un­di­vided. What­ever thing or per­son comes be­tween you and the love of the truths of the king­dom, must be sur­ren­dered. If one’s wealth does not in­vade the precincts of the soul, it is of no con­se­quence in the spir­i­tual life of those who would en­ter the king­dom.”

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165:4.5When Je­sus had fin­ished his story, an­other man rose up and asked him: “Mas­ter, I know that your apos­tles have sold all their earthly pos­ses­sions to fol­low you, and that they have all things in com­mon as do the Es­senes, but would you have all of us who are your dis­ci­ples do like­wise? Is it a sin to pos­sess hon­est wealth?” And Je­sus replied to this ques­tion: “My friend, it is not a sin to have hon­or­able wealth; but it is a sin if you con­vert the wealth of ma­te­rial pos­ses­sions into trea­sures which may ab­sorb your in­ter­ests and di­vert your af­fec­tions from de­vo­tion to the spir­i­tual pur­suits of the king­dom. There is no sin in hav­ing hon­est pos­ses­sions on earth pro­vided your trea­sure is in heaven, for where your trea­sure is there will your heart be also. There is a great dif­fer­ence be­tween wealth which leads to cov­etous­ness and self­ish­ness and that which is held and dis­pensed in the spirit of stew­ard­ship by those who have an abun­dance of this world’s goods, and who so boun­ti­fully con­tribute to the sup­port of those who de­vote all their en­er­gies to the work of the king­dom. Many of you who are here and with­out money are fed and lodged in yon­der tented city be­cause lib­eral men and women of means have given funds to your host, David Zeb­e­dee, for such pur­poses.

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165:5.2“Yes, An­drew, I will speak to you about these mat­ters of wealth and self-sup­port, but my words to you, the apos­tles, must be some­what dif­fer­ent from those spo­ken to the dis­ci­ples and the mul­ti­tude since you have for­saken ev­ery­thing, not only to fol­low me, but to be or­dained as am­bas­sadors of the king­dom. Al­ready have you had sev­eral years’ ex­pe­ri­ence, and you know that the Fa­ther whose king­dom you pro­claim will not for­sake you. You have ded­i­cated your lives to the min­istry of the king­dom; there­fore be not anx­ious or wor­ried about the things of the tem­po­ral life, what you shall eat, nor yet for your body, what you shall wear. The wel­fare of the soul is more than food and drink; the prog­ress in the spirit is far above the need of rai­ment. When you are tempted to doubt the sure­ness of your bread, con­sider the ravens; they sow not nei­ther reap, they have no store­houses or barns, and yet the Fa­ther pro­vides food for ev­ery one of them that seeks it. And of how much more value are you than many birds! Be­sides, all of your anx­i­ety or fret­ting doubts can do noth­ing to sup­ply your ma­te­rial needs. Which of you by anx­i­ety can add a hand­breadth to your stature or a day to your life? Since such mat­ters are not in your hands, why do you give anx­ious thought to any of these prob­lems?

171:2.1When Je­sus and the com­pany of al­most one thou­sand fol­low­ers ar­rived at the Beth­any ford of the Jor­dan some­times called Bethabara, his dis­ci­ples be­gan to re­al­ize that he was not go­ing di­rectly to Je­ru­sa­lem. While they hes­i­tated and de­bated among them­selves, Je­sus climbed upon a huge stone and de­liv­ered that dis­course which has be­come known as “Count­ing the Cost.” The Mas­ter said:

171:2.2“You who would fol­low af­ter me from this time on, must be will­ing to pay the price of whole­hearted ded­i­ca­tion to the do­ing of my Fa­ther’s will. If you would be my dis­ci­ples, you must be will­ing to for­sake fa­ther, mother, wife, chil­dren, broth­ers, and sis­ters. If any one of you would now be my dis­ci­ple, you must be will­ing to give up even your life just as the Son of Man is about to of­fer up his life for the com­ple­tion of the mis­sion of do­ing the Fa­ther’s will on earth and in the flesh.

171:2.3“If you are not will­ing to pay the full price, you can hardly be my dis­ci­ple. Be­fore you go fur­ther, you should each sit down and count the cost of be­ing my dis­ci­ple. Which one of you would un­der­take to build a watch­tower on your lands with­out first sit­ting down to count up the cost to see whether you had money enough to com­plete it? If you fail thus to reckon the cost, af­ter you have laid the foun­da­tion, you may dis­cover that you are un­able to fin­ish that which you have be­gun, and there­fore will all your neigh­bors mock you, say­ing, ‘Be­hold, this man be­gan to build but was un­able to fin­ish his work.’ Again, what king, when he pre­pares to make war upon an­other king, does not first sit down and take coun­sel as to whether he will be able, with ten thou­sand men, to meet him who comes against him with twenty thou­sand? If the king can­not af­ford to meet his en­emy be­cause he is un­pre­pared, he sends an em­bassy to this other king, even when he is yet a great way off, ask­ing for terms of peace.

171:2.4“Now, then, must each of you sit down and count the cost of be­ing my dis­ci­ple. From now on you will not be able to fol­low af­ter us, lis­ten­ing to the teach­ing and be­hold­ing the works; you will be re­quired to face bit­ter per­se­cu­tions and to bear wit­ness for this gospel in the face of crush­ing dis­ap­point­ment. If you are un­will­ing to re­nounce all that you are and to ded­i­cate all that you have, then are you un­wor­thy to be my dis­ci­ple. If you have al­ready con­quered your­self within your own heart, you need have no fear of that out­ward vic­tory which you must pres­ently gain when the Son of Man is re­jected by the chief priests and the Sad­ducees and is given into the hands of mock­ing un­be­liev­ers.

171:2.5“Now should you ex­am­ine your­self to find out your mo­tive for be­ing my dis­ci­ple. If you seek honor and glory, if you are worldly minded, you are like the salt when it has lost its sa­vor. And when that which is val­ued for its salti­ness has lost its sa­vor, where­with shall it be sea­soned? Such a condi­ment is use­less; it is fit only to be cast out among the refuse. Now have I warned you to turn back to your homes in peace if you are not will­ing to drink with me the cup which is be­ing pre­pared. Again and again have I told you that my king­dom is not of this world, but you will not be­lieve me. He who has ears to hear let him hear what I say.”

171:2.6Im­me­di­ately af­ter speak­ing these words, Je­sus, lead­ing the twelve, started off on the way to Hes­h­bon, fol­lowed by about five hun­dred. Af­ter a brief de­lay the other half of the mul­ti­tude went on up to Je­ru­sa­lem. His apos­tles, to­gether with the lead­ing dis­ci­ples, thought much about these words, but still they clung to the be­lief that, af­ter this brief pe­riod of ad­ver­sity and trial, the king­dom would cer­tainly be set up some­what in ac­cor­dance with their long-cher­ished hopes.