Bethsaida

• Bethsaida

129:1.2He spent one week at Tiberias, the new city which was soon to suc­ceed Sep­pho­ris as the cap­i­tal of Gal­i­lee; and find­ing lit­tle to in­ter­est him, he passed on suc­ces­sively through Mag­dala and Beth­saida to Ca­per­naum, where he stopped to pay a visit to his fa­ther’s friend Zeb­e­dee. Zeb­e­dee’s sons were fish­er­men; he him­self was a boat­builder. Je­sus of Naz­a­reth was an ex­pert in both de­sign­ing and build­ing; he was a mas­ter at work­ing with wood; and Zeb­e­dee had long known of the skill of the Naz­a­reth crafts­man. For a long time Zeb­e­dee had con­tem­plated mak­ing im­proved boats; he now laid his plans be­fore Je­sus and in­vited the vis­it­ing car­pen­ter to join him in the en­ter­prise, and Je­sus read­ily con­sented.

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.

148:8.2The Greek philoso­pher who had been won for the king­dom on the pre­vi­ous tour of Gal­i­lee re­turned with cer­tain wealthy Jews of Alexan­dria, and once more they in­vited Je­sus to come to their city for the pur­pose of es­tab­lish­ing a joint school of phi­los­o­phy and re­li­gion as well as an in­fir­mary for the sick. But Je­sus cour­te­ously de­clined the in­vi­ta­tion.

148:8.3About this time there ar­rived at the Beth­saida en­camp­ment a trance prophet from Bag­dad, one Kirmeth. This sup­posed prophet had pe­cu­liar vi­sions when in trance and dreamed fan­tas­tic dreams when his sleep was dis­turbed. He cre­ated a con­sid­er­able dis­tur­bance at the camp, and Si­mon Ze­lo­tes was in fa­vor of deal­ing rather roughly with the self-de­ceived pre­tender, but Je­sus in­ter­vened and al­lowed him en­tire free­dom of ac­tion for a few days. All who heard his preach­ing soon rec­og­nized that his teach­ing was not sound as judged by the gospel of the king­dom. He shortly re­turned to Bag­dad, tak­ing with him only a half dozen un­sta­ble and er­ratic souls. But be­fore Je­sus in­ter­ceded for the Bag­dad prophet, David Zeb­e­dee, with the as­sis­tance of a self-ap­pointed com­mit­tee, had taken Kirmeth out into the lake and, af­ter re­peat­edly plung­ing him into the wa­ter, had ad­vised him to de­part hence—to or­ga­nize and build a camp of his own.

148:8.4On this same day, Beth-Mar­ion, a Phoeni­cian woman, be­came so fa­nat­i­cal that she went out of her head and, af­ter al­most drown­ing from try­ing to walk on the wa­ter, was sent away by her friends.

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.

152:5.1Thurs­day morn­ing, be­fore day­light, they an­chored their boat off­shore near Zeb­e­dee’s house and sought sleep un­til about noon­time. An­drew was first up and, go­ing for a walk by the sea, found Je­sus, in com­pany with their chore boy, sit­ting on a stone by the wa­ter’s edge. Not­with­stand­ing that many of the mul­ti­tude and the young evan­ge­lists searched all night and much of the next day about the east­ern hills for Je­sus, shortly af­ter mid­night he and the Mark lad had started to walk around the lake and across the river, back to Beth­saida.

152:5.2Of the five thou­sand who were mirac­u­lously fed, and who, when their stom­achs were full and their hearts empty, would have made him king, only about five hun­dred per­sisted in fol­low­ing af­ter him. But be­fore these re­ceived word that he was back in Beth­saida, Je­sus asked An­drew to as­sem­ble the twelve apos­tles and their as­so­ciates, in­clud­ing the women, say­ing, “I de­sire to speak with them.” And when all were ready, Je­sus said:

152:5.3“How long shall I bear with you? Are you all slow of spir­i­tual com­pre­hen­sion and de­fi­cient in liv­ing faith? All these months have I taught you the truths of the king­dom, and yet are you dom­i­nated by ma­te­rial mo­tives in­stead of spir­i­tual con­sid­er­a­tions. Have you not even read in the Scrip­tures where Moses ex­horted the un­be­liev­ing chil­dren of Is­rael, say­ing: ‘Fear not, stand still and see the sal­va­tion of the Lord’? Said the singer: ‘Put your trust in the Lord.’ ‘Be pa­tient, wait upon the Lord and be of good cour­age. He shall strengthen your heart.’ ‘Cast your bur­den on the Lord, and he shall sus­tain you. Trust him at all times and pour out your heart to him, for God is your refuge.’ ‘He who dwells in the se­cret place of the Most High shall abide un­der the shadow of the Al­mighty.’ ‘It is bet­ter to trust the Lord than to put con­fi­dence in hu­man princes.’

152:5.4“And now do you all see that the work­ing of mir­a­cles and the per­for­mance of ma­te­rial won­ders will not win souls for the spir­i­tual king­dom? We fed the mul­ti­tude, but it did not lead them to hunger for the bread of life nei­ther to thirst for the wa­ters of spir­i­tual righ­teous­ness. When their hunger was sat­is­fied, they sought not en­trance into the king­dom of heaven but rather sought to pro­claim the Son of Man king af­ter the man­ner of the kings of this world, only that they might con­tinue to eat bread with­out hav­ing to toil there­for. And all this, in which many of you did more or less par­tic­i­pate, does noth­ing to re­veal the heav­enly Fa­ther or to ad­vance his king­dom on earth. Have we not suf­fi­cient en­e­mies among the re­li­gious lead­ers of the land with­out do­ing that which is likely to es­trange also the civil rulers? I pray that the Fa­ther will anoint your eyes that you may see and open your ears that you may hear, to the end that you may have full faith in the gospel which I have taught you.”

152:5.5Je­sus then an­nounced that he wished to with­draw for a few days of rest with his apos­tles be­fore they made ready to go up to Je­ru­sa­lem for the Pass­over, and he for­bade any of the dis­ci­ples or the mul­ti­tude to fol­low him. Ac­cord­ingly they went by boat to the re­gion of Gen­nesaret for two or three days of rest and sleep. Je­sus was prepar­ing for a great cri­sis of his life on earth, and he there­fore spent much time in com­mu­nion with the Fa­ther in heaven.

152:5.6The news of the feed­ing of the five thou­sand and the at­tempt to make Je­sus king aroused wide­spread cu­rios­ity and stirred up the fears of both the re­li­gious lead­ers and the civil rulers through­out all Gal­i­lee and Judea. While this great mir­a­cle did noth­ing to fur­ther the gospel of the king­dom in the souls of ma­te­rial-minded and half­hearted be­liev­ers, it did serve the pur­pose of bring­ing to a head the mir­a­cle-seek­ing and king-crav­ing pro­cliv­i­ties of Je­sus’ im­me­di­ate fam­ily of apos­tles and close dis­ci­ples. This spec­tac­u­lar episode brought an end to the early era of teach­ing, train­ing, and heal­ing, thereby prepar­ing the way for the in­au­gu­ra­tion of this last year of pro­claim­ing the higher and more spir­i­tual phases of the new gospel of the king­dom—di­vine son­ship, spir­i­tual lib­erty, and eter­nal sal­va­tion.

• Bethsaida

186:3.2As soon as Je­sus was turned over to the Ro­man sol­diers by Pi­late for cru­ci­fix­ion, a mes­sen­ger has­tened away to Geth­sem­ane to in­form David, and within five min­utes run­ners were on their way to Beth­saida, Pella, Phil­a­del­phia, Sidon, Shechem, He­bron, Da­mas­cus, and Alexan­dria. And these mes­sen­gers car­ried the news that Je­sus was about to be cru­ci­fied by the Ro­mans at the in­sis­tent be­hest of the rulers of the Jews.

186:3.3Through­out this tragic day, un­til the mes­sage fi­nally went forth that the Mas­ter had been laid in the tomb, David sent mes­sen­gers about ev­ery half hour with re­ports to the apos­tles, the Greeks, and Je­sus’ earthly fam­ily, as­sem­bled at the home of Laz­a­rus in Beth­any. When the mes­sen­gers de­parted with the word that Je­sus had been buried, David dis­missed his corps of lo­cal run­ners for the Pass­over cel­e­bra­tion and for the com­ing Sab­bath of rest, in­struct­ing them to re­port to him qui­etly on Sun­day morn­ing at the home of Nicode­mus, where he pro­posed to go in hid­ing for a few days with An­drew and Si­mon Pe­ter.

• Bethsaida

192:3.3And no one saw Je­sus for a full week. The apos­tles re­ally had no idea what to do, not know­ing whether the Mas­ter had gone to the Fa­ther. In this state of un­cer­tainty they tar­ried at Beth­saida. They were afraid to go fish­ing lest he come to visit them and they miss see­ing him. Dur­ing this en­tire week Je­sus was oc­cu­pied with the mor­ontia crea­tures on earth and with the af­fairs of the mor­ontia tran­si­tion which he was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing on this world.

• 500 to 1500 present; model of order and sanitation
• hospital supervised by Elman the physician
• under supervision of David Zebedee

148:0.1From May 3 to Oc­to­ber 3, A.D. 28, Je­sus and the apos­tolic party were in res­i­dence at the Zeb­e­dee home at Beth­saida. Through­out this five months’ pe­riod of the dry sea­son an enor­mous camp was main­tained by the sea­side near the Zeb­e­dee res­i­dence, which had been greatly en­larged to ac­com­mo­date the grow­ing fam­ily of Je­sus. This sea­side camp, oc­cu­pied by an ever-chang­ing pop­u­la­tion of truth seek­ers, heal­ing can­di­dates, and cu­rios­ity devo­tees, num­bered from five hun­dred to fif­teen hun­dred. This tented city was un­der the gen­eral super­vi­sion of David Zeb­e­dee, as­sisted by the Al­pheus twins. The en­camp­ment was a model in or­der and san­i­ta­tion as well as in its gen­eral ad­min­is­tra­tion. The sick of dif­fer­ent types were seg­re­gated and were un­der the super­vi­sion of a be­liever physi­cian, a Syr­ian named El­man.

• 1000 improved or cured at hospital

148:2.1In con­nec­tion with the sea­side en­camp­ment, El­man, the Syr­ian physi­cian, with the as­sis­tance of a corps of twenty-five young women and twelve men, or­ga­nized and con­ducted for four months what should be re­garded as the king­dom’s first hos­pi­tal. At this in­fir­mary, lo­cated a short dis­tance to the south of the main tented city, they treated the sick in ac­cor­dance with all known ma­te­rial meth­ods as well as by the spir­i­tual prac­tices of prayer and faith en­cour­age­ment. Je­sus vis­ited the sick of this en­camp­ment not less than three times a week and made per­sonal con­tact with each suf­ferer. As far as we know, no so-called mir­a­cles of super­nat­u­ral heal­ing oc­curred among the one thou­sand af­flicted and ail­ing per­sons who went away from this in­fir­mary im­proved or cured. How­ever, the vast ma­jor­ity of these ben­e­fited in­di­vid­u­als ceased not to pro­claim that Je­sus had healed them.

• Karuska of Sidon was patient at

156:0.1On Fri­day af­ter­noon, June 10, Je­sus and his as­so­ciates ar­rived in the en­vi­rons of Sidon, where they stopped at the home of a well-to-do woman who had been a pa­tient in the Beth­saida hos­pi­tal dur­ing the times when Je­sus was at the height of his pop­u­lar fa­vor. The evan­ge­lists and the apos­tles were lodged with her friends in the im­me­di­ate neigh­bor­hood, and they rested over the Sab­bath day amid these re­fresh­ing sur­round­ings. They spent al­most two and one-half weeks in Sidon and vicin­ity be­fore they pre­pared to visit the coast cities to the north.

• camp equipage later used at Pella

163:5.2Af­ter the break­ing up of the Ma­g­a­dan Camp, David Zeb­e­dee re­turned to Beth­saida and be­gan im­me­di­ately to cur­tail the mes­sen­ger ser­vice. The king­dom was tak­ing on a new phase. Daily, pil­grims ar­rived from all parts of Pales­tine and even from re­mote re­gions of the Ro­man Em­pire. Be­liev­ers oc­ca­sion­ally came from Mes­o­po­ta­mia and from the lands east of the Tigris. Ac­cord­ingly, on Sun­day, De­cem­ber 18, David, with the help of his mes­sen­ger corps, loaded on to the pack an­i­mals the camp equipage, then stored in his fa­ther’s house, with which he had for­merly con­ducted the camp of Beth­saida by the lake. Bid­ding farewell to Beth­saida for the time be­ing, he pro­ceeded down the lake shore and along the Jor­dan to a point about one-half mile north of the apos­tolic camp; and in less than a week he was pre­pared to of­fer hos­pi­tal­ity to al­most fif­teen hun­dred pil­grim vis­i­tors. The apos­tolic camp could ac­com­mo­date about five hun­dred. This was the rainy sea­son in Pales­tine, and these ac­com­mo­da­tions were re­quired to take care of the ever-in­creas­ing num­ber of in­quir­ers, mostly earnest, who came into Perea to see Je­sus and to hear his teach­ing.

139:1.1An­drew, chair­man of the apos­tolic corps of the king­dom, was born in Ca­per­naum. He was the old­est child in a fam­ily of five—him­self, his brother Si­mon, and three sis­ters. His fa­ther, now dead, had been a part­ner of Zeb­e­dee in the fish-dry­ing busi­ness at Beth­saida, the fish­ing har­bor of Ca­per­naum. When he be­came an apos­tle, An­drew was un­mar­ried but made his home with his mar­ried brother, Si­mon Pe­ter. Both were fish­er­men and part­ners of James and John the sons of Zeb­e­dee.

145:3.1By the time Je­sus and his apos­tles had made ready to par­take of their evening meal near the end of this event­ful Sab­bath day, all Ca­per­naum and its en­vi­rons were agog over these re­puted mir­a­cles of heal­ing; and all who were sick or af­flicted be­gan prepa­ra­tions to go to Je­sus or to have them­selves car­ried there by their friends just as soon as the sun went down. Ac­cord­ing to Jew­ish teach­ing it was not per­mis­si­ble even to go in quest of health dur­ing the sa­cred hours of the Sab­bath.

145:3.2There­fore, as soon as the sun sank be­neath the hori­zon, scores of af­flicted men, women, and chil­dren be­gan to make their way to­ward the Zeb­e­dee home in Beth­saida. One man started out with his par­a­lyzed daugh­ter just as soon as the sun sank be­hind his neigh­bor’s house.

145:3.3The whole day’s events had set the stage for this ex­traor­di­nary sun­down scene. Even the text Je­sus had used for his af­ter­noon ser­mon had in­ti­mated that sick­ness should be ban­ished; and he had spo­ken with such un­prece­dented power and au­thor­ity! His mes­sage was so com­pelling! While he made no ap­peal to hu­man au­thor­ity, he did speak di­rectly to the con­sciences and souls of men. Though he did not re­sort to logic, le­gal quib­bles, or clever say­ings, he did make a pow­er­ful, di­rect, clear, and per­sonal ap­peal to the hearts of his hear­ers.

145:3.4That Sab­bath was a great day in the earth life of Je­sus, yes, in the life of a uni­verse. To all lo­cal uni­verse in­tents and pur­poses the lit­tle Jew­ish city of Ca­per­naum was the real cap­i­tal of Neb­a­don. The hand­ful of Jews in the Ca­per­naum syn­a­gogue were not the only be­ings to hear that mo­men­tous clos­ing state­ment of Je­sus’ ser­mon: “Hate is the shadow of fear; re­venge the mask of cow­ardice.” Nei­ther could his hear­ers for­get his blessed words, declar­ing, “Man is the son of God, not a child of the devil.”

145:3.5Soon af­ter the set­ting of the sun, as Je­sus and the apos­tles still lin­gered about the sup­per ta­ble, Pe­ter’s wife heard voices in the front yard and, on go­ing to the door, saw a large com­pany of sick folks as­sem­bling, and that the road from Ca­per­naum was crowded by those who were on their way to seek heal­ing at Je­sus’ hands. On see­ing this sight, she went at once and in­formed her hus­band, who told Je­sus.

145:3.6When the Mas­ter stepped out of the front en­trance of Zeb­e­dee’s house, his eyes met an ar­ray of stricken and af­flicted hu­man­ity. He gazed upon al­most one thou­sand sick and ail­ing hu­man be­ings; at least that was the num­ber of per­sons gath­ered to­gether be­fore him. Not all pres­ent were af­flicted; some had come as­sist­ing their loved ones in this ef­fort to se­cure heal­ing.

145:3.7The sight of these af­flicted mor­tals, men, women, and chil­dren, suf­fer­ing in large mea­sure as a re­sult of the mis­takes and mis­deeds of his own trusted Sons of uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tion, pe­cu­liarly touched the hu­man heart of Je­sus and chal­lenged the di­vine mercy of this benev­o­lent Cre­ator Son. But Je­sus well knew he could never build an en­dur­ing spir­i­tual move­ment upon the foun­da­tion of purely ma­te­rial won­ders. It had been his con­sis­tent pol­icy to re­frain from ex­hibit­ing his cre­ator pre­rog­a­tives. Not since Cana had the super­nat­u­ral or mirac­u­lous at­tended his teach­ing; still, this af­flicted mul­ti­tude touched his sym­pa­thetic heart and might­ily ap­pealed to his un­der­stand­ing af­fec­tion.

145:3.8A voice from the front yard ex­claimed: “Mas­ter, speak the word, re­store our health, heal our dis­eases, and save our souls.” No sooner had these words been ut­tered than a vast ret­inue of ser­a­phim, phys­i­cal con­trol­lers, Life Car­ri­ers, and mid­way­ers, such as al­ways at­tended this in­car­nated Cre­ator of a uni­verse, made them­selves ready to act with cre­ative power should their Sov­er­eign give the sig­nal. This was one of those mo­ments in the earth ca­reer of Je­sus in which di­vine wis­dom and hu­man com­pas­sion were so in­ter­locked in the judg­ment of the Son of Man that he sought refuge in ap­peal to his Fa­ther’s will.

145:3.9When Pe­ter im­plored the Mas­ter to heed their cry for help, Je­sus, look­ing down upon the af­flicted throng, an­swered: “I have come into the world to re­veal the Fa­ther and es­tab­lish his king­dom. For this pur­pose have I lived my life to this hour. If, there­fore, it should be the will of Him who sent me and not in­con­sis­tent with my ded­i­ca­tion to the procla­ma­tion of the gospel of the king­dom of heaven, I would de­sire to see my chil­dren made whole—and—” but the fur­ther words of Je­sus were lost in the tu­mult.

145:3.10Je­sus had passed the re­spon­si­bil­ity of this heal­ing de­ci­sion to the rul­ing of his Fa­ther. Ev­i­dently the Fa­ther’s will in­ter­posed no ob­jec­tion, for the words of the Mas­ter had scarcely been ut­tered when the as­sem­bly of ce­les­tial per­son­al­i­ties serv­ing un­der the com­mand of Je­sus’ Per­son­al­ized Thought Ad­juster was might­ily astir. The vast ret­inue de­scended into the midst of this mot­ley throng of af­flicted mor­tals, and in a mo­ment of time 683 men, women, and chil­dren were made whole, were per­fectly healed of all their phys­i­cal dis­eases and other ma­te­rial dis­or­ders. Such a scene was never wit­nessed on earth be­fore that day, nor since. And for those of us who were pres­ent to be­hold this cre­ative wave of heal­ing, it was in­deed a thrilling spec­ta­cle.

145:3.11But of all the be­ings who were as­ton­ished at this sud­den and un­ex­pected out­break of super­nat­u­ral heal­ing, Je­sus was the most sur­prised. In a mo­ment when his hu­man in­ter­ests and sym­pa­thies were fo­cused upon the scene of suf­fer­ing and af­flic­tion there spread out be­fore him, he ne­glected to bear in his hu­man mind the ad­mon­i­tory warn­ings of his Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster re­gard­ing the im­pos­si­bil­ity of lim­it­ing the time el­e­ment of the cre­ator pre­rog­a­tives of a Cre­ator Son un­der cer­tain con­di­tions and in cer­tain cir­cum­stances. Je­sus de­sired to see these suf­fer­ing mor­tals made whole if his Fa­ther’s will would not thereby be vi­o­lated. The Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster of Je­sus in­stantly ruled that such an act of cre­ative en­ergy at that time would not transgress the will of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther, and by such a de­ci­sion—in view of Je­sus’ pre­ced­ing ex­pres­sion of heal­ing de­sire—the cre­ative act was. What a Cre­ator Son de­sires and his Fa­ther wills IS. Not in all of Je­sus’ sub­se­quent earth life did an­other such en masse phys­i­cal heal­ing of mor­tals take place.

145:3.12As might have been ex­pected, the fame of this sun­down heal­ing at Beth­saida in Ca­per­naum spread through­out all Gal­i­lee and Judea and to the re­gions be­yond. Once more were the fears of Herod aroused, and he sent watch­ers to re­port on the work and teach­ings of Je­sus and to as­cer­tain if he was the for­mer car­pen­ter of Naz­a­reth or John the Bap­tist risen from the dead.

145:3.13Chiefly be­cause of this un­in­tended dem­on­stra­tion of phys­i­cal heal­ing, hence­forth, through­out the re­main­der of his earth ca­reer, Je­sus be­came as much a physi­cian as a preacher. True, he con­tin­ued his teach­ing, but his per­sonal work con­sisted mostly in min­is­ter­ing to the sick and the dis­tressed, while his apos­tles did the work of pub­lic preach­ing and bap­tiz­ing be­liev­ers.

145:3.14But the ma­jor­ity of those who were re­cip­i­ents of super­nat­u­ral or cre­ative phys­i­cal heal­ing at this sun­down dem­on­stra­tion of di­vine en­ergy were not per­ma­nently spir­i­tu­ally ben­e­fited by this ex­traor­di­nary man­i­fes­ta­tion of mercy. A small num­ber were truly ed­i­fied by this phys­i­cal min­istry, but the spir­i­tual king­dom was not ad­vanced in the hearts of men by this amaz­ing erup­tion of time­less cre­ative heal­ing.

145:3.15The heal­ing won­ders which ev­ery now and then at­tended Je­sus’ mis­sion on earth were not a part of his plan of pro­claim­ing the king­dom. They were in­ci­den­tally in­her­ent in hav­ing on earth a di­vine be­ing of well-nigh un­lim­ited cre­ator pre­rog­a­tives in as­so­ci­a­tion with an un­prece­dented com­bi­na­tion of di­vine mercy and hu­man sym­pa­thy. But such so-called mir­a­cles gave Je­sus much trou­ble in that they pro­vided prej­u­dice-rais­ing pub­lic­ity and af­forded much un­sought no­to­ri­ety.

148:9.1On Fri­day af­ter­noon, Oc­to­ber 1, when Je­sus was hold­ing his last meet­ing with the apos­tles, evan­ge­lists, and other lead­ers of the dis­band­ing en­camp­ment, and with the six Phar­isees from Je­ru­sa­lem seated in the front row of this as­sem­bly in the spa­cious and en­larged front room of the Zeb­e­dee home, there oc­curred one of the strangest and most unique episodes of all Je­sus’ earth life. The Mas­ter was, at this time, speak­ing as he stood in this large room, which had been built to ac­com­mo­date these gath­er­ings dur­ing the rainy sea­son. The house was en­tirely sur­rounded by a vast con­course of peo­ple who were strain­ing their ears to catch some part of Je­sus’ dis­course.

148:9.2While the house was thus thronged with peo­ple and en­tirely sur­rounded by ea­ger lis­ten­ers, a man long af­flicted with paral­y­sis was car­ried down from Ca­per­naum on a small couch by his friends. This par­a­lytic had heard that Je­sus was about to leave Beth­saida, and hav­ing talked with Aaron the stone ma­son, who had been so re­cently made whole, he re­solved to be car­ried into Je­sus’ pres­ence, where he could seek heal­ing. His friends tried to gain en­trance to Zeb­e­dee’s house by both the front and back doors, but too many peo­ple were crowded to­gether. But the par­a­lytic re­fused to ac­cept de­feat; he di­rected his friends to pro­cure lad­ders by which they as­cended to the roof of the room in which Je­sus was speak­ing, and af­ter loos­en­ing the tiles, they boldly low­ered the sick man on his couch by ropes un­til the af­flicted one rested on the floor im­me­di­ately in front of the Mas­ter. When Je­sus saw what they had done, he ceased speak­ing, while those who were with him in the room mar­veled at the per­se­ver­ance of the sick man and his friends. Said the par­a­lytic: “Mas­ter, I would not dis­turb your teach­ing, but I am de­ter­mined to be made whole. I am not like those who re­ceived heal­ing and im­me­di­ately for­got your teach­ing. I would be made whole that I might serve in the king­dom of heaven.” Now, not­with­stand­ing that this man’s af­flic­tion had been brought upon him by his own mis­spent life, Je­sus, see­ing his faith, said to the par­a­lytic: “Son, fear not; your sins are for­given. Your faith shall save you.”

148:9.3When the Phar­isees from Je­ru­sa­lem, to­gether with other scribes and lawyers who sat with them, heard this pro­nounce­ment by Je­sus, they be­gan to say to them­selves: “How dare this man thus speak? Does he not un­der­stand that such words are blas­phemy? Who can for­give sin but God?” Je­sus, per­ceiv­ing in his spirit that they thus rea­soned within their own minds and among them­selves, spoke to them, say­ing: “Why do you so rea­son in your hearts? Who are you that you sit in judg­ment over me? What is the dif­fer­ence whether I say to this par­a­lytic, your sins are for­given, or arise, take up your bed, and walk? But that you who wit­ness all this may fi­nally know that the Son of Man has au­thor­ity and power on earth to for­give sins, I will say to this af­flicted man, Arise, take up your bed, and go to your own house.” And when Je­sus had thus spo­ken, the par­a­lytic arose, and as they made way for him, he walked out be­fore them all. And those who saw these things were amazed. Pe­ter dis­missed the as­sem­blage, while many prayed and glo­ri­fied God, con­fess­ing that they had never be­fore seen such strange hap­pen­ings.

148:9.4And it was about this time that the mes­sen­gers of the San­hedrin ar­rived to bid the six spies re­turn to Je­ru­sa­lem. When they heard this mes­sage, they fell to earnest de­bate among them­selves; and af­ter they had fin­ished their dis­cus­sions, the leader and two of his as­so­ciates re­turned with the mes­sen­gers to Je­ru­sa­lem, while three of the spy­ing Phar­isees con­fessed faith in Je­sus and, go­ing im­me­di­ately to the lake, were bap­tized by Pe­ter and fel­low­shipped by the apos­tles as chil­dren of the king­dom.

192:1.1About six o’clock Fri­day morn­ing, April 21, the mor­ontia Mas­ter made his thir­teenth ap­pear­ance, the first in Gal­i­lee, to the ten apos­tles as their boat drew near the shore close to the usual land­ing place at Beth­saida.

192:1.2Af­ter the apos­tles had spent the af­ter­noon and early evening of Thurs­day in wait­ing at the Zeb­e­dee home, Si­mon Pe­ter sug­gested that they go fish­ing. When Pe­ter pro­posed the fish­ing trip, all of the apos­tles de­cided to go along. All night they toiled with the nets but caught no fish. They did not much mind the fail­ure to make a catch, for they had many in­ter­est­ing ex­pe­ri­ences to talk over, things which had so re­cently hap­pened to them at Je­ru­sa­lem. But when day­light came, they de­cided to re­turn to Beth­saida. As they neared the shore, they saw some­one on the beach, near the boat land­ing, stand­ing by a fire. At first they thought it was John Mark, who had come down to wel­come them back with their catch, but as they drew nearer the shore, they saw they were mis­taken—the man was too tall for John. It had oc­curred to none of them that the per­son on the shore was the Mas­ter. They did not al­to­gether un­der­stand why Je­sus wanted to meet with them amidst the scenes of their ear­lier as­so­ci­a­tions and out in the open in con­tact with na­ture, far away from the shut-in en­vi­ron­ment of Je­ru­sa­lem with its tragic as­so­ci­a­tions of fear, be­trayal, and death. He had told them that, if they would go into Gal­i­lee, he would meet them there, and he was about to ful­fill that prom­ise.

192:1.3As they dropped an­chor and pre­pared to en­ter the small boat for go­ing ashore, the man on the beach called to them, “Lads, have you caught any­thing?” And when they an­swered, “No,” he spoke again. “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find fish.” While they did not know it was Je­sus who had di­rected them, with one ac­cord they cast in the net as they had been in­structed, and im­me­di­ately it was filled, so much so that they were hardly able to draw it up. Now, John Zeb­e­dee was quick of per­cep­tion, and when he saw the heavy-laden net, he per­ceived that it was the Mas­ter who had spo­ken to them. When this thought came into his mind, he leaned over and whis­pered to Pe­ter, “It is the Mas­ter.” Pe­ter was ever a man of thought­less ac­tion and im­petu­ous de­vo­tion; so when John whis­pered this in his ear, he quickly arose and cast him­self into the wa­ter that he might the sooner reach the Mas­ter’s side. His breth­ren came up close be­hind him, hav­ing come ashore in the small boat, haul­ing the net of fishes af­ter them.

192:1.4By this time John Mark was up and, see­ing the apos­tles com­ing ashore with the heavy-laden net, ran down the beach to greet them; and when he saw eleven men in­stead of ten, he sur­mised that the un­rec­og­nized one was the risen Je­sus, and as the as­ton­ished ten stood by in si­lence, the youth rushed up to the Mas­ter and, kneel­ing at his feet, said, “My Lord and my Mas­ter.” And then Je­sus spoke, not as he had in Je­ru­sa­lem, when he greeted them with “Peace be upon you,” but in com­mon­place tones he ad­dressed John Mark: “Well, John, I am glad to see you again and in care­free Gal­i­lee, where we can have a good visit. Stay with us, John, and have break­fast.”

192:1.5As Je­sus talked with the young man, the ten were so as­ton­ished and sur­prised that they ne­glected to haul the net of fish in upon the beach. Now spoke Je­sus: “Bring in your fish and pre­pare some for break­fast. Al­ready we have the fire and much bread.”

192:1.6While John Mark had paid homage to the Mas­ter, Pe­ter had for a mo­ment been shocked at the sight of the coals of fire glow­ing there on the beach; the scene re­minded him so vividly of the mid­night fire of char­coal in the court­yard of An­nas, where he had dis­owned the Mas­ter, but he shook him­self and, kneel­ing at the Mas­ter’s feet, ex­claimed, “My Lord and my Mas­ter!”

192:1.7Pe­ter then joined his com­rades as they hauled in the net. When they had landed their catch, they counted the fish, and there were 153 large ones. And again was the mis­take made of call­ing this an­other mirac­u­lous catch of fish. There was no mir­a­cle con­nected with this episode. It was merely an ex­er­cise of the Mas­ter’s pre­knowl­edge. He knew the fish were there and ac­cord­ingly di­rected the apos­tles where to cast the net.

192:1.8Je­sus spoke to them, say­ing: “Come now, all of you, to break­fast. Even the twins should sit down while I visit with you; John Mark will dress the fish.” John Mark brought seven good-sized fish, which the Mas­ter put on the fire, and when they were cooked, the lad served them to the ten. Then Je­sus broke the bread and handed it to John, who in turn served it to the hun­gry apos­tles. When they had all been served, Je­sus bade John Mark sit down while he him­self served the fish and the bread to the lad. And as they ate, Je­sus vis­ited with them and re­counted their many ex­pe­ri­ences in Gal­i­lee and by this very lake.

192:1.9This was the third time Je­sus had man­i­fested him­self to the apos­tles as a group. When Je­sus first ad­dressed them, ask­ing if they had any fish, they did not sus­pect who he was be­cause it was a com­mon ex­pe­ri­ence for these fish­er­men on the Sea of Gal­i­lee, when they came ashore, to be thus ac­costed by the fish mer­chants of Ta­ri­chea, who were usu­ally on hand to buy the fresh catches for the dry­ing es­tab­lish­ments.

192:1.10Je­sus vis­ited with the ten apos­tles and John Mark for more than an hour, and then he walked up and down the beach, talk­ing with them two and two—but not the same cou­ples he had at first sent out to­gether to teach. All eleven of the apos­tles had come down from Je­ru­sa­lem to­gether, but Si­mon Ze­lo­tes grew more and more de­spon­dent as they drew near Gal­i­lee, so that, when they reached Beth­saida, he for­sook his breth­ren and re­turned to his home.

192:1.11Be­fore tak­ing leave of them this morn­ing, Je­sus di­rected that two of the apos­tles should vol­un­teer to go to Si­mon Ze­lo­tes and bring him back that very day. And Pe­ter and An­drew did so.

192:2.1When they had fin­ished break­fast, and while the oth­ers sat by the fire, Je­sus beck­oned to Pe­ter and to John that they should come with him for a stroll on the beach. As they walked along, Je­sus said to John, “John, do you love me?” And when John an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, with all my heart,” the Mas­ter said: “Then, John, give up your in­tol­er­ance and learn to love men as I have loved you. De­vote your life to prov­ing that love is the great­est thing in the world. It is the love of God that im­pels men to seek sal­va­tion. Love is the an­ces­tor of all spir­i­tual good­ness, the essence of the true and the beau­ti­ful.”

192:2.2Je­sus then turned to­ward Pe­ter and asked, “Pe­ter, do you love me?” Pe­ter an­swered, “Lord, you know I love you with all my soul.” Then said Je­sus: “If you love me, Pe­ter, feed my lambs. Do not ne­glect to min­is­ter to the weak, the poor, and the young. Preach the gospel with­out fear or fa­vor; re­mem­ber al­ways that God is no re­specter of per­sons. Serve your fel­low men even as I have served you; for­give your fel­low mor­tals even as I have for­given you. Let ex­pe­ri­ence teach you the value of med­i­ta­tion and the power of in­tel­li­gent re­flec­tion.”

192:2.3Af­ter they had walked along a lit­tle far­ther, the Mas­ter turned to Pe­ter and asked, “Pe­ter, do you re­ally love me?” And then said Si­mon, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” And again said Je­sus: “Then take good care of my sheep. Be a good and a true shep­herd to the flock. Be­tray not their con­fi­dence in you. Be not taken by sur­prise at the en­emy’s hand. Be on guard at all times—watch and pray.”

192:2.4When they had gone a few steps far­ther, Je­sus turned to Pe­ter and, for the third time, asked, “Pe­ter, do you truly love me?” And then Pe­ter, be­ing slightly grieved at the Mas­ter’s seem­ing dis­trust of him, said with con­sid­er­able feel­ing, “Lord, you know all things, and there­fore do you know that I re­ally and truly love you.” Then said Je­sus: “Feed my sheep. Do not for­sake the flock. Be an ex­am­ple and an in­spi­ra­tion to all your fel­low shep­herds. Love the flock as I have loved you and de­vote your­self to their wel­fare even as I have de­voted my life to your wel­fare. And fol­low af­ter me even to the end.”

192:2.5Pe­ter took this last state­ment lit­er­ally—that he should con­tinue to fol­low af­ter him—and turn­ing to Je­sus, he pointed to John, ask­ing, “If I fol­low on af­ter you, what shall this man do?” And then, per­ceiv­ing that Pe­ter had mis­un­der­stood his words, Je­sus said: “Pe­ter, be not con­cerned about what your breth­ren shall do. If I will that John should tarry af­ter you are gone, even un­til I come back, what is that to you? Only make sure that you fol­low me.”

192:2.6This re­mark spread among the breth­ren and was re­ceived as a state­ment by Je­sus to the ef­fect that John would not die be­fore the Mas­ter re­turned, as many thought and hoped, to es­tab­lish the king­dom in power and glory. It was this in­ter­pre­ta­tion of what Je­sus said that had much to do with get­ting Si­mon Ze­lo­tes back into ser­vice, and keep­ing him at work.

192:2.7When they re­turned to the oth­ers, Je­sus went for a walk and talk with An­drew and James. When they had gone a short dis­tance, Je­sus said to An­drew, “An­drew, do you trust me?” And when the for­mer chief of the apos­tles heard Je­sus ask such a ques­tion, he stood still and an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, of a cer­tainty I trust you, and you know that I do.” Then said Je­sus: “An­drew, if you trust me, trust your breth­ren more—even Pe­ter. I once trusted you with the lead­er­ship of your breth­ren. Now must you trust oth­ers as I leave you to go to the Fa­ther. When your breth­ren be­gin to scat­ter abroad be­cause of bit­ter per­se­cu­tions, be a con­sid­er­ate and wise coun­selor to James my brother in the flesh when they put heavy bur­dens upon him which he is not qual­i­fied by ex­pe­ri­ence to bear. And then go on trust­ing, for I will not fail you. When you are through on earth, you shall come to me.”

192:2.8Then Je­sus turned to James, ask­ing, “James, do you trust me?” And of course James replied, “Yes, Mas­ter, I trust you with all my heart.” Then said Je­sus: “James, if you trust me more, you will be less im­pa­tient with your breth­ren. If you will trust me, it will help you to be kind to the broth­er­hood of be­liev­ers. Learn to weigh the con­se­quences of your say­ings and your do­ings. Re­mem­ber that the reap­ing is in ac­cor­dance with the sow­ing. Pray for tran­quil­lity of spirit and cul­ti­vate pa­tience. These graces, with liv­ing faith, shall sus­tain you when the hour comes to drink the cup of sac­ri­fice. But never be dis­mayed; when you are through on earth, you shall also come to be with me.”

192:2.9Je­sus next talked with Thomas and Na­than­iel. Said he to Thomas, “Thomas, do you serve me?” Thomas replied, “Yes, Lord, I serve you now and al­ways.” Then said Je­sus: “If you would serve me, serve my breth­ren in the flesh even as I have served you. And be not weary in this well-do­ing but per­se­vere as one who has been or­dained by God for this ser­vice of love. When you have fin­ished your ser­vice with me on earth, you shall serve with me in glory. Thomas, you must cease doubt­ing; you must grow in faith and the knowl­edge of truth. Be­lieve in God like a child but cease to act so child­ishly. Have cour­age; be strong in faith and mighty in the king­dom of God.”

192:2.10Then said the Mas­ter to Na­than­iel, “Na­than­iel, do you serve me?” And the apos­tle an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, and with an un­di­vided af­fec­tion.” Then said Je­sus: “If, there­fore, you serve me with a whole heart, make sure that you are de­voted to the wel­fare of my breth­ren on earth with tire­less af­fec­tion. Ad­mix friend­ship with your coun­sel and add love to your phi­los­o­phy. Serve your fel­low men even as I have served you. Be faith­ful to men as I have watched over you. Be less crit­i­cal; ex­pect less of some men and thereby lessen the ex­tent of your dis­ap­point­ment. And when the work down here is over, you shall serve with me on high.”

192:2.11Af­ter this the Mas­ter talked with Mat­thew and Philip. To Philip he said, “Philip, do you obey me?” Philip an­swered, “Yes, Lord, I will obey you even with my life.” Then said Je­sus: “If you would obey me, go then into the lands of the gen­tiles and pro­claim this gospel. The proph­ets have told you that to obey is bet­ter than to sac­ri­fice. By faith have you be­come a God-know­ing king­dom son. There is but one law to obey—that is the com­mand to go forth pro­claim­ing the gospel of the king­dom. Cease to fear men; be un­afraid to preach the good news of eter­nal life to your fel­lows who lan­guish in dark­ness and hunger for the light of truth. No more, Philip, shall you busy your­self with money and goods. You now are free to preach the glad tid­ings just as are your breth­ren. And I will go be­fore you and be with you even to the end.”

192:2.12And then, speak­ing to Mat­thew, the Mas­ter asked, “Mat­thew, do you have it in your heart to obey me?” Mat­thew an­swered, “Yes, Lord, I am fully ded­i­cated to do­ing your will.” Then said the Mas­ter: “Mat­thew, if you would obey me, go forth to teach all peo­ples this gospel of the king­dom. No longer will you serve your breth­ren the ma­te­rial things of life; hence­forth you are also to pro­claim the good news of spir­i­tual sal­va­tion. From now on have an eye sin­gle only to obey­ing your com­mis­sion to preach this gospel of the Fa­ther’s king­dom. As I have done the Fa­ther’s will on earth, so shall you ful­fill the di­vine com­mis­sion. Re­mem­ber, both Jew and gen­tile are your breth­ren. Fear no man when you pro­claim the sav­ing truths of the gospel of the king­dom of heaven. And where I go, you shall pres­ently come.”

192:2.13Then he walked and talked with the Al­pheus twins, James and Ju­das, and speak­ing to both of them, he asked, “James and Ju­das, do you be­lieve in me?” And when they both an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, we do be­lieve,” he said: “I will soon leave you. You see that I have al­ready left you in the flesh. I tarry only a short time in this form be­fore I go to my Fa­ther. You be­lieve in me—you are my apos­tles, and you al­ways will be. Go on be­liev­ing and re­mem­ber­ing your as­so­ci­a­tion with me, when I am gone, and af­ter you have, per­chance, re­turned to the work you used to do be­fore you came to live with me. Never al­low a change in your out­ward work to in­flu­ence your al­le­giance. Have faith in God to the end of your days on earth. Never for­get that, when you are a faith son of God, all up­right work of the realm is sa­cred. Noth­ing which a son of God does can be com­mon. Do your work, there­fore, from this time on, as for God. And when you are through on this world, I have other and bet­ter worlds where you shall like­wise work for me. And in all of this work, on this world and on other worlds, I will work with you, and my spirit shall dwell within you.”

192:2.14It was al­most ten o’clock when Je­sus re­turned from his visit with the Al­pheus twins, and as he left the apos­tles, he said: “Farewell, un­til I meet you all on the mount of your or­di­na­tion to­mor­row at noon­time.” When he had thus spo­ken, he van­ished from their sight.

139:4.1When he be­came an apos­tle, John was twenty-four years old and was the young­est of the twelve. He was un­mar­ried and lived with his par­ents at Beth­saida; he was a fish­er­man and worked with his brother James in part­ner­ship with An­drew and Pe­ter. Both be­fore and af­ter be­com­ing an apos­tle, John func­tioned as the per­sonal agent of Je­sus in deal­ing with the Mas­ter’s fam­ily, and he con­tin­ued to bear this re­spon­si­bil­ity as long as Mary the mother of Je­sus lived.

187:4.7Just af­ter the re­pen­tant thief heard the Mas­ter’s prom­ise that they should some­time meet in Par­a­dise, John re­turned from the city, bring­ing with him his mother and a com­pany of al­most a dozen women be­liev­ers. John took up his po­si­tion near Mary the mother of Je­sus, sup­port­ing her. Her son Jude stood on the other side. As Je­sus looked down upon this scene, it was noon­tide, and he said to his mother, “Woman, be­hold your son!” And speak­ing to John, he said, “My son, be­hold your mother!” And then he ad­dressed them both, say­ing, “I de­sire that you de­part from this place.” And so John and Jude led Mary away from Gol­go­tha. John took the mother of Je­sus to the place where he tar­ried in Je­ru­sa­lem and then has­tened back to the scene of the cru­ci­fix­ion. Af­ter the Pass­over Mary re­turned to Beth­saida, where she lived at John’s home for the rest of her nat­u­ral life. Mary did not live quite one year af­ter the death of Je­sus.

137:2.3While this trou­ble was brew­ing among John’s fol­low­ers, Je­sus and his four dis­ci­ple-apos­tles were well on their way to­ward Gal­i­lee. Be­fore they crossed the Jor­dan, to go by way of Nain to Naz­a­reth, Je­sus, look­ing ahead and up the road, saw one Philip of Beth­saida with a friend com­ing to­ward them. Je­sus had known Philip afore­time, and he was also well known to all four of the new apos­tles. He was on his way with his friend Na­than­iel to visit John at Pella to learn more about the re­ported com­ing of the king­dom of God, and he was de­lighted to greet Je­sus. Philip had been an ad­mirer of Je­sus ever since he first came to Ca­per­naum. But Na­than­iel, who lived at Cana of Gal­i­lee, did not know Je­sus. Philip went for­ward to greet his friends while Na­than­iel rested un­der the shade of a tree by the road­side.

139:5.1Philip was the fifth apos­tle to be cho­sen, be­ing called when Je­sus and his first four apos­tles were on their way from John’s ren­dezvous on the Jor­dan to Cana of Gal­i­lee. Since he lived at Beth­saida, Philip had for some time known of Je­sus, but it had not oc­curred to him that Je­sus was a re­ally great man un­til that day in the Jor­dan val­ley when he said, “Fol­low me.” Philip was also some­what in­flu­enced by the fact that An­drew, Pe­ter, James, and John had ac­cepted Je­sus as the De­liv­erer.

129:1.4Zeb­e­dee was a mod­er­ately well-to-do man; his boat­build­ing shops were on the lake to the south of Ca­per­naum, and his home was sit­u­ated down the lake shore near the fish­ing head­quar­ters of Beth­saida. Je­sus lived in the home of Zeb­e­dee dur­ing the year and more he re­mained at Ca­per­naum. He had long worked alone in the world, that is, with­out a fa­ther, and greatly en­joyed this pe­riod of work­ing with a fa­ther-part­ner.