brethren

179:5.7Af­ter they had en­gaged in med­i­ta­tion for a few mo­ments, Je­sus con­tin­ued speak­ing: “When you do these things, re­call the life I have lived on earth among you and re­joice that I am to con­tinue to live on earth with you and to serve through you. As in­di­vid­u­als, con­tend not among your­selves as to who shall be great­est. Be you all as breth­ren. And when the king­dom grows to em­brace large groups of be­liev­ers, like­wise should you re­frain from con­tend­ing for great­ness or seek­ing prefer­ment be­tween such groups.”

163:3.4And then said Pe­ter, “But, Mas­ter, we have left ev­ery­thing to fol­low you, what then shall we have?” And Je­sus spoke to all of the twelve: “Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, there is no man who has left wealth, home, wife, breth­ren, par­ents, or chil­dren for my sake and for the sake of the king­dom of heaven who shall not re­ceive man­i­fold more in this world, per­haps with some per­se­cu­tions, and in the world to come eter­nal life. But many who are first shall be last, while the last shall of­ten be first. The Fa­ther deals with his crea­tures in ac­cor­dance with their needs and in obe­di­ence to his just laws of mer­ci­ful and lov­ing con­sid­er­a­tion for the wel­fare of a uni­verse.

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.

159:1.4Si­mon Pe­ter was the apos­tle in charge of the work­ers at Hip­pos, and when he heard Je­sus thus speak, he asked: “Lord, how of­ten shall my brother sin against me, and I for­give him? Un­til seven times?” And Je­sus an­swered Pe­ter: “Not only seven times but even to sev­enty times and seven. There­fore may the king­dom of heaven be likened to a cer­tain king who or­dered a fi­nan­cial reck­on­ing with his stew­ards. And when they had be­gun to con­duct this ex­am­i­na­tion of ac­counts, one of his chief re­tain­ers was brought be­fore him con­fess­ing that he owed his king ten thou­sand tal­ents. Now this of­fi­cer of the king’s court pleaded that hard times had come upon him, and that he did not have where­with to pay this obli­ga­tion. And so the king com­manded that his prop­erty be con­fis­cated, and that his chil­dren be sold to pay his debt. When this chief stew­ard heard this stern de­cree, he fell down on his face be­fore the king and im­plored him to have mercy and grant him more time, say­ing, ‘Lord, have a lit­tle more pa­tience with me, and I will pay you all.’ And when the king looked upon this neg­li­gent ser­vant and his fam­ily, he was moved with com­pas­sion. He or­dered that he should be re­leased, and that the loan should be wholly for­given.

190:5.1At Em­maus, about seven miles west of Je­ru­sa­lem, there lived two broth­ers, shep­herds, who had spent the Pass­over week in Je­ru­sa­lem at­tend­ing upon the sac­ri­fices, cer­e­mo­ni­als, and feasts. Cleopas, the el­der, was a par­tial be­liever in Je­sus; at least he had been cast out of the syn­a­gogue. His brother, Ja­cob, was not a be­liever, al­though he was much in­trigued by what he had heard about the Mas­ter’s teach­ings and works.

190:5.2On this Sun­day af­ter­noon, about three miles out of Je­ru­sa­lem and a few min­utes be­fore five o’clock, as these two broth­ers trudged along the road to Em­maus, they talked in great earnest­ness about Je­sus, his teach­ings, work, and more es­pe­cially con­cern­ing the ru­mors that his tomb was empty, and that cer­tain of the women had talked with him. Cleopas was half a mind to be­lieve these re­ports, but Ja­cob was in­sis­tent that the whole af­fair was prob­a­bly a fraud. While they thus ar­gued and de­bated as they made their way to­ward home, the mor­ontia man­i­fes­ta­tion of Je­sus, his sev­enth ap­pear­ance, came along­side them as they jour­neyed on. Cleopas had of­ten heard Je­sus teach and had eaten with him at the homes of Je­ru­sa­lem be­liev­ers on sev­eral oc­ca­sions. But he did not rec­og­nize the Mas­ter even when he spoke freely with them.

190:5.3Af­ter walk­ing a short way with them, Je­sus said: “What were the words you ex­changed so earnestly as I came upon you?” And when Je­sus had spo­ken, they stood still and viewed him with sad sur­prise. Said Cleopas: “Can it be that you so­journ in Je­ru­sa­lem and know not the things which have re­cently hap­pened?” Then asked the Mas­ter, “What things?” Cleopas replied: “If you do not know about these mat­ters, you are the only one in Je­ru­sa­lem who has not heard these ru­mors con­cern­ing Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, who was a prophet mighty in word and in deed be­fore God and all the peo­ple. The chief priests and our rulers de­liv­ered him up to the Ro­mans and de­manded that they cru­cify him. Now many of us had hoped that it was he who would de­liver Is­rael from the yoke of the gen­tiles. But that is not all. It is now the third day since he was cru­ci­fied, and cer­tain women have this day amazed us by declar­ing that very early this morn­ing they went to his tomb and found it empty. And these same women in­sist that they talked with this man; they main­tain that he has risen from the dead. And when the women re­ported this to the men, two of his apos­tles ran to the tomb and like­wise found it empty”—and here Ja­cob in­ter­rupted his brother to say, “but they did not see Je­sus.”

190:5.4As they walked along, Je­sus said to them: “How slow you are to com­pre­hend the truth! When you tell me that it is about the teach­ings and work of this man that you have your dis­cus­sions, then may I en­lighten you since I am more than fa­mil­iar with these teach­ings. Do you not re­mem­ber that this Je­sus al­ways taught that his king­dom was not of this world, and that all men, be­ing the sons of God, should find lib­erty and free­dom in the spir­i­tual joy of the fel­low­ship of the broth­er­hood of lov­ing ser­vice in this new king­dom of the truth of the heav­enly Fa­ther’s love? Do you not re­call how this Son of Man pro­claimed the sal­va­tion of God for all men, min­is­ter­ing to the sick and af­flicted and set­ting free those who were bound by fear and en­slaved by evil? Do you not know that this man of Naz­a­reth told his dis­ci­ples that he must go to Je­ru­sa­lem, be de­liv­ered up to his en­e­mies, who would put him to death, and that he would arise on the third day? Have you not been told all this? And have you never read in the Scrip­tures con­cern­ing this day of sal­va­tion for Jew and gen­tile, where it says that in him shall all the fam­i­lies of the earth be blessed; that he will hear the cry of the needy and save the souls of the poor who seek him; that all na­tions shall call him blessed? That such a De­liv­erer shall be as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. That he will feed the flock like a true shep­herd, gath­er­ing the lambs in his arms and ten­derly car­ry­ing them in his bo­som. That he will open the eyes of the spir­i­tu­ally blind and bring the pris­on­ers of de­spair out into full lib­erty and light; that all who sit in dark­ness shall see the great light of eter­nal sal­va­tion. That he will bind up the bro­ken­hearted, pro­claim lib­erty to the cap­tives of sin, and open up the prison to those who are en­slaved by fear and bound by evil. That he will com­fort those who mourn and be­stow upon them the joy of sal­va­tion in the place of sor­row and heav­i­ness. That he shall be the de­sire of all na­tions and the ev­er­last­ing joy of those who seek righ­teous­ness. That this Son of truth and righ­teous­ness shall rise upon the world with heal­ing light and sav­ing power; even that he will save his peo­ple from their sins; that he will re­ally seek and save those who are lost. That he will not de­stroy the weak but min­is­ter sal­va­tion to all who hunger and thirst for righ­teous­ness. That those who be­lieve in him shall have eter­nal life. That he will pour out his spirit upon all flesh, and that this Spirit of Truth shall be in each be­liever a well of wa­ter, spring­ing up into ev­er­last­ing life. Did you not un­der­stand how great was the gospel of the king­dom which this man de­liv­ered to you? Do you not per­ceive how great a sal­va­tion has come upon you?”

190:5.5By this time they had come near to the vil­lage where these broth­ers dwelt. Not a word had these two men spo­ken since Je­sus be­gan to teach them as they walked along the way. Soon they drew up in front of their hum­ble dwell­ing place, and Je­sus was about to take leave of them, go­ing on down the road, but they con­strained him to come in and abide with them. They in­sisted that it was near night­fall, and that he tarry with them. Fi­nally Je­sus con­sented, and very soon af­ter they went into the house, they sat down to eat. They gave him the bread to bless, and as he be­gan to break and hand to them, their eyes were opened, and Cleopas rec­og­nized that their guest was the Mas­ter him­self. And when he said, “It is the Mas­ter—,” the mor­ontia Je­sus van­ished from their sight.

190:5.6And then they said, the one to the other, “No won­der our hearts burned within us as he spoke to us while we walked along the road! and while he opened up to our un­der­stand­ing the teach­ings of the Scrip­tures!”

190:5.7They would not stop to eat. They had seen the mor­ontia Mas­ter, and they rushed from the house, has­ten­ing back to Je­ru­sa­lem to spread the good news of the risen Sav­ior.

190:5.8About nine o’clock that evening and just be­fore the Mas­ter ap­peared to the ten, these two ex­cited broth­ers broke in upon the apos­tles in the up­per cham­ber, declar­ing that they had seen Je­sus and talked with him. And they told all that Je­sus had said to them and how they had not dis­cerned who he was un­til the time of the break­ing of the bread.

139:4.12Sev­eral years af­ter the mar­tyr­dom of James, John mar­ried his brother’s widow. The last twenty years of his life he was cared for by a lov­ing grand­daugh­ter.

174:3.2Je­sus knew, and so did the peo­ple, that these Sad­ducees were not sin­cere in ask­ing this ques­tion be­cause it was not likely that such a case would re­ally oc­cur; and be­sides, this prac­tice of the broth­ers of a dead man seek­ing to beget chil­dren for him was prac­ti­cally a dead let­ter at this time among the Jews. Nev­er­the­less, Je­sus con­de­scended to re­ply to their mis­chievous ques­tion. He said: “You all do err in ask­ing such ques­tions be­cause you know nei­ther the Scrip­tures nor the liv­ing power of God. You know that the sons of this world can marry and are given in mar­riage, but you do not seem to un­der­stand that they who are ac­counted wor­thy to at­tain the worlds to come, through the res­ur­rec­tion of the righ­teous, nei­ther marry nor are given in mar­riage. Those who ex­pe­ri­ence the res­ur­rec­tion from the dead are more like the an­gels of heaven, and they never die. These res­ur­rected ones are eter­nally the sons of God; they are the chil­dren of light res­ur­rected into the prog­ress of eter­nal life. And even your Fa­ther Moses un­der­stood this, for, in con­nec­tion with his ex­pe­ri­ences at the burn­ing bush, he heard the Fa­ther say, ‘I am the God of Abra­ham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Ja­cob.’ And so, along with Moses, do I de­clare that my Fa­ther is not the God of the dead but of the liv­ing. In him you all do live, re­pro­duce, and pos­sess your mor­tal ex­is­tence.”

154:6.5It was just an­other of those in­stances in which his earth fam­ily could not com­pre­hend that he must be about his Fa­ther’s busi­ness. And so Mary and his broth­ers were deeply hurt when, not­with­stand­ing that he paused in his speak­ing to re­ceive the mes­sage, in­stead of his rush­ing out to greet them, they heard his mu­si­cal voice speak with in­creased vol­ume: “Say to my mother and my broth­ers that they should have no fear for me. The Fa­ther who sent me into the world will not for­sake me; nei­ther shall any harm come upon my fam­ily. Bid them be of good cour­age and put their trust in the Fa­ther of the king­dom. But, af­ter all, who is my mother and who are my broth­ers?” And stretch­ing forth his hands to­ward all of his dis­ci­ples as­sem­bled in the room, he said: “I have no mother; I have no broth­ers. Be­hold my mother and be­hold my breth­ren! For whoso­ever does the will of my Fa­ther who is in heaven, the same is my mother, my brother, and my sis­ter.”