Bethsaida-Julias

• Bethsaida-Julias

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.

• Bethsaida-Julias

149:0.1The sec­ond pub­lic preach­ing tour of Gal­i­lee be­gan on Sun­day, Oc­to­ber 3, A.D. 28, and con­tin­ued for al­most three months, end­ing on De­cem­ber 30. Par­tic­i­pat­ing in this ef­fort were Je­sus and his twelve apos­tles, as­sisted by the newly re­cruited corps of 117 evan­ge­lists and by nu­mer­ous other in­ter­ested per­sons. On this tour they vis­ited Gadara, Ptole­mais, Japhia, Dabaritta, Megiddo, Jezreel, Scythopo­lis, Ta­ri­chea, Hip­pos, Gamala, Beth­saida-Ju­lias, and many other cities and vil­lages.

• 5000 fed south of

152:2.1Je­sus con­tin­ued to teach the peo­ple by day while he in­structed the apos­tles and evan­ge­lists at night. On Fri­day he de­clared a fur­lough of one week that all his fol­low­ers might go home or to their friends for a few days be­fore prepar­ing to go up to Je­ru­sa­lem for the Pass­over. But more than one half of his dis­ci­ples re­fused to leave him, and the mul­ti­tude was daily in­creas­ing in size, so much so that David Zeb­e­dee de­sired to es­tab­lish a new en­camp­ment, but Je­sus re­fused con­sent. The Mas­ter had so lit­tle rest over the Sab­bath that on Sun­day morn­ing, March 27, he sought to get away from the peo­ple. Some of the evan­ge­lists were left to talk to the mul­ti­tude while Je­sus and the twelve planned to es­cape, un­no­ticed, to the op­po­site shore of the lake, where they pro­posed to ob­tain much needed rest in a beau­ti­ful park south of Beth­saida-Ju­lias. This re­gion was a fa­vorite re­sort­ing place for Ca­per­naum folks; they were all fa­mil­iar with these parks on the east­ern shore.

• beautiful Magadan Park south of

155:0.1Soon af­ter land­ing near Kheresa on this event­ful Sun­day, Je­sus and the twenty-four went a lit­tle way to the north, where they spent the night in a beau­ti­ful park south of Beth­saida-Ju­lias. They were fa­mil­iar with this camp­ing place, hav­ing stopped there in days gone by. Be­fore re­tir­ing for the night, the Mas­ter called his fol­low­ers around him and dis­cussed with them the plans for their pro­jected tour through Batanea and north­ern Gal­i­lee to the Phoeni­cian coast.

• beautiful Magadan Park south of

157:2.1On Mon­day, Au­gust 8, while Je­sus and the twelve apos­tles were en­camped in Ma­g­a­dan Park, near Beth­saida-Ju­lias, more than one hun­dred be­liev­ers, the evan­ge­lists, the women’s corps, and oth­ers in­ter­ested in the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom, came over from Ca­per­naum for a con­fer­ence. And many of the Phar­isees, learn­ing that Je­sus was here, came also. By this time some of the Sad­ducees were united with the Phar­isees in their ef­fort to en­trap Je­sus. Be­fore go­ing into the closed con­fer­ence with the be­liev­ers, Je­sus held a pub­lic meet­ing at which the Phar­isees were pres­ent, and they heck­led the Mas­ter and oth­er­wise sought to dis­turb the as­sem­bly. Said the leader of the dis­turbers: “Teacher, we would like you to give us a sign of your au­thor­ity to teach, and then, when the same shall come to pass, all men will know that you have been sent by God.” And Je­sus an­swered them: “When it is evening, you say it will be fair weather, for the heaven is red; in the morn­ing it will be foul weather, for the heaven is red and low­er­ing. When you see a cloud ris­ing in the west, you say show­ers will come; when the wind blows from the south, you say scorch­ing heat will come. How is it that you so well know how to dis­cern the face of the heav­ens but are so ut­terly un­able to dis­cern the signs of the times? To those who would know the truth, al­ready has a sign been given; but to an evil-minded and hyp­o­crit­i­cal gen­er­a­tion no sign shall be given.”

157:2.2When Je­sus had thus spo­ken, he with­drew and pre­pared for the evening con­fer­ence with his fol­low­ers. At this con­fer­ence it was de­cided to un­der­take a united mis­sion through­out all the cities and vil­lages of the De­capo­lis as soon as Je­sus and the twelve should re­turn from their pro­posed visit to Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi. The Mas­ter par­tic­i­pated in plan­ning for the De­capo­lis mis­sion and, in dis­miss­ing the com­pany, said: “I say to you, be­ware of the leaven of the Phar­isees and the Sad­ducees. Be not de­ceived by their show of much learn­ing and by their pro­found loy­alty to the forms of re­li­gion. Be only con­cerned with the spirit of liv­ing truth and the power of true re­li­gion. It is not the fear of a dead re­li­gion that will save you but rather your faith in a liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence in the spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties of the king­dom. Do not al­low your­selves to be­come blinded by prej­u­dice and par­a­lyzed by fear. Nei­ther per­mit rev­er­ence for the tra­di­tions so to per­vert your un­der­stand­ing that your eyes see not and your ears hear not. It is not the pur­pose of true re­li­gion merely to bring peace but rather to in­sure prog­ress. And there can be no peace in the heart or prog­ress in the mind un­less you fall whole­heart­edly in love with truth, the ide­als of eter­nal re­al­i­ties. The is­sues of life and death are be­ing set be­fore you—the sin­ful plea­sures of time against the righ­teous re­al­i­ties of eter­nity. Even now you should be­gin to find de­liv­er­ance from the bond­age of fear and doubt as you en­ter upon the liv­ing of the new life of faith and hope. And when the feel­ings of ser­vice for your fel­low men arise within your soul, do not sti­fle them; when the emo­tions of love for your neigh­bor well up within your heart, give ex­pres­sion to such urges of af­fec­tion in in­tel­li­gent min­istry to the real needs of your fel­lows.”

• woe upon light-rejecting inhabitants of

163:6.5Then, speak­ing to all the dis­ci­ples, he said: “You have heard how many cities and vil­lages have re­ceived the good news of the king­dom, and how my min­is­ters and teach­ers have been re­ceived by both the Jew and the gen­tile. And blessed in­deed are these com­mu­ni­ties which have elected to be­lieve the gospel of the king­dom. But woe upon the light-re­ject­ing in­hab­i­tants of Cho­ra­zin, Beth­saida-Ju­lias, and Ca­per­naum, the cities which did not well re­ceive these mes­sen­gers. I de­clare that, if the mighty works done in these places had been done in Tyre and Sidon, the peo­ple of these so-called hea­then cities would have long since re­pented in sack­cloth and ashes. It shall in­deed be more tol­er­a­ble for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judg­ment.”