contention

178:1.7Dis­play wis­dom and ex­hibit sagac­ity in your deal­ings with un­be­liev­ing civil rulers. By dis­cre­tion show your­selves to be ex­pert in iron­ing out mi­nor dis­agree­ments and in ad­just­ing tri­fling mis­un­der­stand­ings. In ev­ery pos­si­ble way—in ev­ery­thing short of your spir­i­tual al­le­giance to the rulers of the uni­verse—seek to live peace­ably with all men. Be you al­ways as wise as ser­pents but as harm­less as doves.

25:3.1Con­cil­ia­tors main­tain group head­quar­ters on the cap­i­tal of their super­uni­verse, where their pri­mary re­serve corps is held. Their sec­ondary re­serves are sta­tioned on the cap­i­tals of the lo­cal uni­verses. The younger and less ex­pe­ri­enced com­mis­sion­ers be­gin their ser­vice on the lower worlds, worlds like Uran­tia, and are ad­vanced to the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of greater prob­lems af­ter they have ac­quired riper ex­pe­ri­ence.

25:3.2The or­der of con­cil­ia­tors is wholly de­pend­able; not one has ever gone astray. Though not in­fal­li­ble in wis­dom and judg­ment, they are of un­ques­tioned re­li­a­bil­ity and unerring in faith­ful­ness. They take ori­gin on the head­quar­ters of a super­uni­verse and even­tu­ally re­turn thereto, ad­vanc­ing through the fol­low­ing lev­els of uni­verse ser­vice:

25:3.31. Con­cil­ia­tors to the Worlds. When­ever the super­vis­ing per­son­al­i­ties of the in­di­vid­ual worlds be­come greatly per­plexed or ac­tu­ally dead­locked con­cern­ing the proper pro­ce­dure un­der ex­ist­ing cir­cum­stances, and if the mat­ter is not of suf­fi­cient im­por­tance to be brought be­fore the reg­u­larly con­sti­tuted tri­bu­nals of the realm, then, upon the re­ceipt of a pe­ti­tion of two per­son­al­i­ties, one from each con­tention, a con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sion will be­gin to func­tion forth­with.

25:3.4When these ad­min­is­tra­tive and ju­ris­dic­tional dif­fi­cul­ties have been placed in the hands of the con­cil­ia­tors for study and ad­ju­di­ca­tion, they are su­preme in au­thor­ity. But they will not for­mu­late a de­ci­sion un­til all the ev­i­dence has been heard, and there is ab­so­lutely no limit to their au­thor­ity to call wit­nesses from any­where and ev­ery­where. And while their de­ci­sions may not be ap­pealed, some­times mat­ters so de­velop that the com­mis­sion closes its rec­ords at a given point, con­cludes its opin­ions, and trans­fers the whole ques­tion to the higher tri­bu­nals of the realm.

25:3.5The com­mis­sion­ers’ de­ci­sions are placed on the plan­e­tary rec­ords and, if nec­es­sary, are put into ef­fect by the di­vine ex­e­cu­tioner. His power is very great, and the range of his ac­tiv­i­ties on an in­hab­ited world is very wide. Di­vine ex­e­cu­tion­ers are mas­ter­ful ma­nip­u­la­tors of that which is in the in­ter­ests of that which ought to be. Their work is some­times car­ried out for the ap­par­ent wel­fare of the realm, and some­times their acts on the worlds of time and space are dif­fi­cult of ex­pla­na­tion. Though ex­e­cut­ing de­crees in de­fi­ance of nei­ther nat­u­ral law nor the or­dained us­ages of the realm, they do oft­times ef­fect their strange do­ings and en­force the man­dates of the con­cil­ia­tors in ac­cor­dance with the higher laws of the sys­tem ad­min­is­tra­tion.

25:3.62. Con­cil­ia­tors to the Sys­tem Head­quar­ters. From ser­vice on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds these com­mis­sions of four are ad­vanced to duty on a sys­tem head­quar­ters. Here they have much work to do, and they prove to be the un­der­stand­ing friends of men, an­gels, and other spirit be­ings. The ref­eree trios are not so much con­cerned with per­sonal dif­fer­ences as with group con­tentions and with mis­un­der­stand­ings aris­ing be­tween dif­fer­ent or­ders of crea­tures; and on a sys­tem head­quar­ters there live both spir­i­tual and ma­te­rial be­ings, as well as the com­bined types, such as the Ma­te­rial Sons.

25:3.7The mo­ment the Cre­ators bring into ex­is­tence evolv­ing in­di­vid­u­als with the power of choice, that mo­ment a de­par­ture is made from the smooth work­ing of di­vine per­fec­tion; mis­un­der­stand­ings are cer­tain to arise, and pro­vi­sion for the fair ad­just­ment of these hon­est dif­fer­ences of view­point must be made. We should all re­mem­ber that the all-wise and all-pow­er­ful Cre­ators could have made the lo­cal uni­verses just as per­fect as Ha­vona. No con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sions need func­tion in the cen­tral uni­verse. But the Cre­ators did not choose in their all-wis­dom to do this. And while they have pro­duced uni­verses which abound in dif­fer­ences and teem with dif­fi­cul­ties, they have like­wise pro­vided the mech­a­nisms and the means for com­pos­ing all these dif­fer­ences and for har­mo­niz­ing all this seem­ing con­fu­sion.

25:3.83. The Con­stel­la­tion Con­cil­ia­tors. From ser­vice in the sys­tems the con­cil­ia­tors are pro­moted to the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of the prob­lems of a con­stel­la­tion, tak­ing up the mi­nor dif­fi­cul­ties aris­ing be­tween its one hun­dred sys­tems of in­hab­ited worlds. Not many prob­lems de­vel­op­ing on the con­stel­la­tion head­quar­ters fall un­der their ju­ris­dic­tion, but they are kept busy go­ing from sys­tem to sys­tem gath­er­ing ev­i­dence and prepar­ing pre­lim­i­nary state­ments. If the con­tention is hon­est, if the dif­fi­cul­ties arise out of sin­cere dif­fer­ences of opin­ion and hon­est di­ver­sity of view­points, no mat­ter how few per­sons may be in­volved, no mat­ter how ap­par­ently triv­ial the mis­un­der­stand­ing, a con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sion can al­ways be had to pass upon the mer­its of the con­tro­versy.

25:3.94. Con­cil­ia­tors to the Lo­cal Uni­verses. In this larger work of a uni­verse the com­mis­sion­ers are of great as­sis­tance to both the Mel­chiz­e­deks and the Mag­is­te­rial Sons and to the con­stel­la­tion rulers and the hosts of per­son­al­i­ties con­cerned with the co-or­di­na­tion and ad­min­is­tra­tion of the one hun­dred con­stel­la­tions. The dif­fer­ent or­ders of ser­a­phim and other res­i­dents of the head­quar­ters spheres of a lo­cal uni­verse also avail them­selves of the help and de­ci­sions of the ref­eree trios.

25:3.10It is al­most im­pos­si­ble to ex­plain the na­ture of those dif­fer­ences which may arise in the de­tailed af­fairs of a sys­tem, a con­stel­la­tion, or a uni­verse. Dif­fi­cul­ties do de­velop, but they are very un­like the petty tri­als and tra­vails of ma­te­rial ex­is­tence as it is lived on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds.

25:3.115. Con­cil­ia­tors to the Super­uni­verse Mi­nor Sec­tors. From the prob­lems of lo­cal uni­verses the com­mis­sion­ers are ad­vanced to the study of ques­tions aris­ing in the mi­nor sec­tors of their super­uni­verse. The far­ther they as­cend in­ward from the in­di­vid­ual plan­ets, the fewer are the ma­te­rial du­ties of the di­vine ex­e­cu­tioner; grad­u­ally he as­sumes a new role of mercy-jus­tice in­ter­preter, at the same time—be­ing quasi-ma­te­rial—keep­ing the com­mis­sion as a whole in sym­pa­thetic touch with the ma­te­rial as­pects of its in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

25:3.126. Con­cil­ia­tors to the Super­uni­verse Ma­jor Sec­tors. The char­ac­ter of the work of the com­mis­sion­ers con­tin­ues to change as they ad­vance. There is less and less of mis­un­der­stand­ing to ad­ju­di­cate and more and more of mys­te­ri­ous phe­nom­ena to ex­plain and in­ter­pret. From stage to stage they are evolv­ing from ar­biters of dif­fer­ences to ex­plain­ers of mys­ter­ies—judges evolv­ing into in­ter­pre­ta­tive teach­ers. Ar­biters of those who through ig­no­rance per­mit dif­fi­cul­ties and mis­un­der­stand­ings to arise, they once were; but they are now be­com­ing in­struc­tors of those who are suf­fi­ciently in­tel­li­gent and tol­er­ant to avoid clashes of mind and wars of opin­ions. The higher a crea­ture’s ed­u­ca­tion, the more re­spect he has for the knowl­edge, ex­pe­ri­ence, and opin­ions of oth­ers.

25:3.137. Con­cil­ia­tors to the Super­uni­verse. Here the con­cil­ia­tors be­come co-or­di­nate—four mu­tu­ally un­der­stood and per­fectly func­tion­ing ar­biter-teach­ers. The di­vine ex­e­cu­tioner is di­vested of re­tribu­tive power and be­comes the phys­i­cal voice of the spirit trio. By this time these coun­selors and teach­ers have be­come ex­pertly fa­mil­iar with most of the ac­tual prob­lems and dif­fi­cul­ties en­coun­tered in the con­duct of super­uni­verse af­fairs. Thus they be­come won­der­ful ad­vis­ers and wise teach­ers of the as­cend­ing pil­grims who are in res­i­dence on the ed­u­ca­tional spheres sur­round­ing the head­quar­ters worlds of the super­uni­verses.

25:3.14All con­cil­ia­tors serve un­der the gen­eral super­vi­sion of the An­cients of Days and un­der the im­me­di­ate di­rec­tion of the Im­age Aids un­til such time as they are ad­vanced to Par­a­dise. Dur­ing the Par­a­dise so­journ they re­port to the Mas­ter Spirit who pre­sides over the super­uni­verse of their ori­gin.

25:3.15The super­uni­verse reg­istries do not enu­mer­ate those con­cil­ia­tors who have passed be­yond their ju­ris­dic­tion, and such com­mis­sions are widely scat­tered through the grand uni­verse. The last re­port of reg­istry on Uversa gives the num­ber op­er­at­ing in Or­von­ton as al­most eigh­teen tril­lion com­mis­sions—over sev­enty tril­lion in­di­vid­u­als. But these are only a very small frac­tion of the mul­ti­tude of con­cil­ia­tors that have been cre­ated in Or­von­ton; that num­ber is of an al­to­gether higher mag­ni­tude and is the equiv­a­lent of the to­tal num­ber of Ha­vona Servi­tals, with al­lowances for the trans­mu­ta­tion into Grad­u­ate Guides.

25:3.16From time to time, as the num­bers of the super­uni­verse con­cil­ia­tors in­crease, they are trans­lated to the coun­cil of per­fec­tion on Par­a­dise, from which they sub­se­quently emerge as the co-or­di­nat­ing corps evolved by the In­fi­nite Spirit for the uni­verse of uni­verses, a mar­velous group of be­ings which is con­stantly in­creas­ing in num­bers and ef­fi­ciency. By ex­pe­ri­en­tial as­cent and Par­a­dise train­ing they have ac­quired a unique grasp of the emerg­ing re­al­ity of the Su­preme Be­ing, and they roam the uni­verse of uni­verses on spe­cial as­sign­ment.

25:3.17The mem­bers of a con­cil­i­at­ing com­mis­sion are never sep­a­rated. A group of four for­ever serve to­gether just as they were orig­i­nally as­so­ci­ated. Even in their glo­ri­fied ser­vice they con­tinue to func­tion as quar­tets of ac­cu­mu­lated cos­mic ex­pe­ri­ence and per­fected ex­pe­ri­en­tial wis­dom. They are eter­nally as­so­ci­ated as the em­bod­i­ment of the su­preme jus­tice of time and space.

165:6.3“But if the ser­vant is sloth­ful and be­gins to say in his heart, ‘My mas­ter de­lays his com­ing,’ and be­gins to mis­treat his fel­low ser­vants and to eat and drink with the drunken, then the lord of that ser­vant will come at a time when he looks not for him and, find­ing him un­faith­ful, will cast him out in dis­grace. There­fore you do well to pre­pare your­selves for that day when you will be vis­ited sud­denly and in an un­ex­pected man­ner. Re­mem­ber, much has been given to you; there­fore will much be re­quired of you. Fiery tri­als are draw­ing near you. I have a bap­tism to be bap­tized with, and I am on watch un­til this is ac­com­plished. You preach peace on earth, but my mis­sion will not bring peace in the ma­te­rial af­fairs of men—not for a time, at least. Di­vi­sion can only be the re­sult where two mem­bers of a fam­ily be­lieve in me and three mem­bers re­ject this gospel. Friends, rel­a­tives, and loved ones are des­tined to be set against each other by the gospel you preach. True, each of these be­liev­ers shall have great and last­ing peace in his own heart, but peace on earth will not come un­til all are will­ing to be­lieve and en­ter into their glo­ri­ous in­her­i­tance of son­ship with God. Nev­er­the­less, go into all the world pro­claim­ing this gospel to all na­tions, to ev­ery man, woman, and child.”

138:6.4In these early teach­ings Je­sus sought to avoid con­tro­ver­sies with his apos­tles as far as pos­si­ble ex­cept­ing those in­volv­ing wrong con­cepts of his Fa­ther in heaven. In all such mat­ters he never hes­i­tated to cor­rect er­ro­neous be­liefs. There was just one mo­tive in Je­sus’ post­bap­tismal life on Uran­tia, and that was a bet­ter and truer rev­e­la­tion of his Par­a­dise Fa­ther; he was the pi­o­neer of the new and bet­ter way to God, the way of faith and love. Ever his ex­hor­ta­tion to the apos­tles was: “Go seek for the sin­ners; find the down­hearted and com­fort the anx­ious.”

196:1.5It should not be the aim of king­dom be­liev­ers lit­er­ally to im­i­tate the out­ward life of Je­sus in the flesh but rather to share his faith; to trust God as he trusted God and to be­lieve in men as he be­lieved in men. Je­sus never ar­gued about ei­ther the fa­ther­hood of God or the broth­er­hood of men; he was a liv­ing il­lus­tra­tion of the one and a pro­found dem­on­stra­tion of the other.

178:1.16And for­get not: We have made no di­rect at­tack upon the per­sons or upon the au­thor­ity of those who sit in Moses’ seat; we only of­fered them the new light, which they have so vig­or­ously re­jected. We have as­sailed them only by the de­nun­ci­a­tion of their spir­i­tual dis­loy­alty to the very truths which they pro­fess to teach and safe­guard. We clashed with these es­tab­lished lead­ers and rec­og­nized rulers only when they threw them­selves di­rectly in the way of the preach­ing of the gospel of the king­dom to the sons of men. And even now, it is not we who as­sail them, but they who seek our de­struc­tion. Do not for­get that you are com­mis­sioned to go forth preach­ing only the good news. You are not to at­tack the old ways; you are skill­fully to put the leaven of new truth in the midst of the old be­liefs. Let the Spirit of Truth do his own work. Let con­tro­versy come only when they who de­spise the truth force it upon you. But when the will­ful un­be­liever at­tacks you, do not hes­i­tate to stand in vig­or­ous de­fense of the truth which has saved and sanc­ti­fied you.

191:5.1Thomas spent a lone­some week alone with him­self in the hills around about Oli­vet. Dur­ing this time he saw only those at Si­mon’s house and John Mark. It was about nine o’clock on Sat­ur­day, April 15, when the two apos­tles found him and took him back with them to their ren­dezvous at the Mark home. The next day Thomas lis­tened to the telling of the sto­ries of the Mas­ter’s var­i­ous ap­pear­ances, but he stead­fastly re­fused to be­lieve. He main­tained that Pe­ter had en­thused them into think­ing they had seen the Mas­ter. Na­than­iel rea­soned with him, but it did no good. There was an emo­tional stub­born­ness as­so­ci­ated with his cus­tom­ary doubt­ful­ness, and this state of mind, cou­pled with his cha­grin at hav­ing run away from them, con­spired to cre­ate a sit­u­a­tion of iso­la­tion which even Thomas him­self did not fully un­der­stand. He had with­drawn from his fel­lows, he had gone his own way, and now, even when he was back among them, he un­con­sciously tended to as­sume an at­ti­tude of dis­agree­ment. He was slow to sur­ren­der; he dis­liked to give in. With­out in­tend­ing it, he re­ally en­joyed the at­ten­tion paid him; he de­rived un­con­scious sat­is­fac­tion from the ef­forts of all his fel­lows to con­vince and con­vert him. He had missed them for a full week, and he ob­tained con­sid­er­able plea­sure from their per­sis­tent at­ten­tions.