disciples

191:5.3“Peace be upon you. For a full week have I tar­ried that I might ap­pear again when you were all pres­ent to hear once more the com­mis­sion to go into all the world and preach this gospel of the king­dom. Again I tell you: As the Fa­ther sent me into the world, so send I you. As I have re­vealed the Fa­ther, so shall you re­veal the di­vine love, not merely with words, but in your daily liv­ing. I send you forth, not to love the souls of men, but rather to love men. You are not merely to pro­claim the joys of heaven but also to ex­hibit in your daily ex­pe­ri­ence these spirit re­al­i­ties of the di­vine life since you al­ready have eter­nal life, as the gift of God, through faith. When you have faith, when power from on high, the Spirit of Truth, has come upon you, you will not hide your light here be­hind closed doors; you will make known the love and the mercy of God to all man­kind. Through fear you now flee from the facts of a dis­agree­able ex­pe­ri­ence, but when you shall have been bap­tized with the Spirit of Truth, you will bravely and joy­ously go forth to meet the new ex­pe­ri­ences of pro­claim­ing the good news of eter­nal life in the king­dom of God. You may tarry here and in Gal­i­lee for a short sea­son while you re­cover from the shock of the tran­si­tion from the false se­cu­rity of the au­thor­ity of tra­di­tion­al­ism to the new or­der of the au­thor­ity of facts, truth, and faith in the su­preme re­al­i­ties of liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. Your mis­sion to the world is founded on the fact that I lived a God-re­veal­ing life among you; on the truth that you and all other men are the sons of God; and it shall con­sist in the life which you will live among men—the ac­tual and liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of lov­ing men and serv­ing them, even as I have loved and served you. Let faith re­veal your light to the world; let the rev­e­la­tion of truth open the eyes blinded by tra­di­tion; let your lov­ing ser­vice ef­fec­tu­ally de­stroy the prej­u­dice en­gen­dered by ig­no­rance. By so draw­ing close to your fel­low men in un­der­stand­ing sym­pa­thy and with un­selfish de­vo­tion, you will lead them into a sav­ing knowl­edge of the Fa­ther’s love. The Jews have ex­tolled good­ness; the Greeks have ex­alted beauty; the Hin­dus preach de­vo­tion; the far­away as­cetics teach rev­er­ence; the Ro­mans de­mand loy­alty; but I re­quire of my dis­ci­ples life, even a life of lov­ing ser­vice for your broth­ers in the flesh.”

153:1.3The Mas­ter well knew that many of his fol­low­ers were slowly but surely prepar­ing their minds fi­nally to re­ject him. He like­wise knew that many of his dis­ci­ples were slowly but cer­tainly pass­ing through that train­ing of mind and that dis­ci­pline of soul which would en­able them to tri­umph over doubt and coura­geously to as­sert their full-fledged faith in the gospel of the king­dom. Je­sus fully un­der­stood how men pre­pare them­selves for the de­ci­sions of a cri­sis and the per­for­mance of sud­den deeds of coura­geous choos­ing by the slow pro­cess of the re­it­er­ated choos­ing be­tween the re­cur­ring sit­u­a­tions of good and evil. He sub­jected his cho­sen mes­sen­gers to re­peated re­hearsals in dis­ap­point­ment and pro­vided them with fre­quent and test­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for choos­ing be­tween the right and the wrong way of meet­ing spir­i­tual tri­als. He knew he could de­pend on his fol­low­ers, when they met the fi­nal test, to make their vi­tal de­ci­sions in ac­cor­dance with prior and ha­bit­ual men­tal at­ti­tudes and spirit re­ac­tions.

163:2.2One earnest dis­ci­ple came to Je­sus, say­ing: “Mas­ter, I would be one of your new apos­tles, but my fa­ther is very old and near death; could I be per­mit­ted to re­turn home to bury him?” To this man Je­sus said: “My son, the foxes have holes, and the birds of heaven have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. You are a faith­ful dis­ci­ple, and you can re­main such while you re­turn home to min­is­ter to your loved ones, but not so with my gospel mes­sen­gers. They have for­saken all to fol­low me and pro­claim the king­dom. If you would be an or­dained teacher, you must let oth­ers bury the dead while you go forth to pub­lish the good news.” And this man went away in great dis­ap­point­ment.

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.

165:5.3“Con­sider the lilies, how they grow; they toil not, nei­ther do they spin; yet I say to you, even Sol­o­mon in all his glory was not ar­rayed like one of these. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive to­day and to­mor­row is cut down and cast into the fire, how much more shall he clothe you, the am­bas­sadors of the heav­enly king­dom. O you of lit­tle faith! When you whole­heart­edly de­vote your­selves to the procla­ma­tion of the gospel of the king­dom, you should not be of doubt­ful minds con­cern­ing the sup­port of your­selves or the fam­i­lies you have for­saken. If you give your lives truly to the gospel, you shall live by the gospel. If you are only be­liev­ing dis­ci­ples, you must earn your own bread and con­tribute to the sus­te­nance of all who teach and preach and heal. If you are anx­ious about your bread and wa­ter, wherein are you dif­fer­ent from the na­tions of the world who so dili­gently seek such ne­ces­si­ties? De­vote your­selves to your work, be­liev­ing that both the Fa­ther and I know that you have need of all these things. Let me as­sure you, once and for all, that, if you ded­i­cate your lives to the work of the king­dom, all your real needs shall be sup­plied. Seek the greater thing, and the lesser will be found therein; ask for the heav­enly, and the earthly shall be in­cluded. The shadow is cer­tain to fol­low the sub­stance.

150:4.3“Are not two spar­rows sold for a penny? And yet I de­clare that not one of them is for­got­ten in God’s sight. Know you not that the very hairs of your head are all num­bered? Fear not, there­fore; you are of more value than a great many spar­rows. Be not ashamed of my teach­ing; go forth pro­claim­ing peace and good will, but be not de­ceived—peace will not al­ways at­tend your preach­ing. I came to bring peace on earth, but when men re­ject my gift, di­vi­sion and tur­moil re­sult. When all of a fam­ily re­ceive the gospel of the king­dom, truly peace abides in that house; but when some of the fam­ily en­ter the king­dom and oth­ers re­ject the gospel, such di­vi­sion can pro­duce only sor­row and sad­ness. La­bor earnestly to save the whole fam­ily lest a man’s foes be­come those of his own house­hold. But, when you have done your ut­most for all of ev­ery fam­ily, I de­clare to you that he who loves fa­ther or mother more than this gospel is not wor­thy of the king­dom.”

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.

167:2.2“A cer­tain ruler gave a great sup­per, and hav­ing bid­den many guests, he dis­patched his ser­vants at sup­per­time to say to those who were in­vited, ‘Come, for ev­ery­thing is now ready.’ And they all with one ac­cord be­gan to make ex­cuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a farm, and I must needs go to prove it; I pray you have me ex­cused.’ An­other said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I must go to re­ceive them; I pray you have me ex­cused.’ And an­other said, ‘I have just mar­ried a wife, and there­fore I can­not come.’ So the ser­vants went back and re­ported this to their mas­ter. When the mas­ter of the house heard this, he was very an­gry, and turn­ing to his ser­vants, he said: ‘I have made ready this mar­riage feast; the fatlings are killed, and all is in readi­ness for my guests, but they have spurned my in­vi­ta­tion; they have gone ev­ery man af­ter his lands and his mer­chan­dise, and they even show dis­re­spect to my ser­vants who bid them come to my feast. Go out quickly, there­fore, into the streets and lanes of the city, out into the high­ways and the by­ways, and bring hither the poor and the out­cast, the blind and the lame, that the mar­riage feast may have guests.’ And the ser­vants did as their lord com­manded, and even then there was room for more guests. Then said the lord to his ser­vants: ‘Go now out into the roads and the coun­try­side and con­strain those who are there to come in that my house may be filled. I de­clare that none of those who were first bid­den shall taste of my sup­per.’ And the ser­vants did as their mas­ter com­manded, and the house was filled.”

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.

149:2.12Je­sus re­ceived the obe­di­ence of his fol­low­ers with­out ex­act­ing it. Only three men who re­ceived his per­sonal call re­fused to ac­cept the in­vi­ta­tion to dis­ci­ple­ship. He ex­er­cised a pe­cu­liar draw­ing power over men, but he was not dic­ta­to­rial. He com­manded con­fi­dence, and no man ever re­sented his giv­ing a com­mand. He as­sumed ab­so­lute au­thor­ity over his dis­ci­ples, but no one ever ob­jected. He per­mit­ted his fol­low­ers to call him Mas­ter.

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.”

102:6.7Be­lief may not be able to re­sist doubt and with­stand fear, but faith is al­ways tri­umphant over doubt­ing, for faith is both pos­i­tive and liv­ing. The pos­i­tive al­ways has the ad­van­tage over the neg­a­tive, truth over er­ror, ex­pe­ri­ence over the­ory, spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties over the iso­lated facts of time and space. The con­vinc­ing ev­i­dence of this spir­i­tual cer­tainty con­sists in the so­cial fruits of the spirit which such be­liev­ers, faithers, yield as a re­sult of this gen­uine spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. Said Je­sus: “If you love your fel­lows as I have loved you, then shall all men know that you are my dis­ci­ples.”

162:7.2“If my words abide in you and you are minded to do the will of my Fa­ther, then are you truly my dis­ci­ples. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. I know how you will an­swer me: We are the chil­dren of Abra­ham, and we are in bond­age to none; how then shall we be made free? Even so, I do not speak of out­ward sub­jec­tion to an­other’s rule; I re­fer to the lib­er­ties of the soul. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, ev­ery­one who com­mits sin is the bond ser­vant of sin. And you know that the bond ser­vant is not likely to abide for­ever in the mas­ter’s house. You also know that the son does re­main in his fa­ther’s house. If, there­fore, the Son shall make you free, shall make you sons, you shall be free in­deed.

180:1.1Af­ter a few mo­ments of in­for­mal con­ver­sa­tion, Je­sus stood up and said: “When I en­acted for you a para­ble in­di­cat­ing how you should be will­ing to serve one an­other, I said that I de­sired to give you a new com­mand­ment; and I would do this now as I am about to leave you. You well know the com­mand­ment which di­rects that you love one an­other; that you love your neigh­bor even as your­self. But I am not wholly sat­is­fied with even that sin­cere de­vo­tion on the part of my chil­dren. I would have you per­form still greater acts of love in the king­dom of the be­liev­ing broth­er­hood. And so I give you this new com­mand­ment: That you love one an­other even as I have loved you. And by this will all men know that you are my dis­ci­ples if you thus love one an­other.

180:2.1Then Je­sus stood up again and con­tin­ued teach­ing his apos­tles: “I am the true vine, and my Fa­ther is the hus­band­man. I am the vine, and you are the branches. And the Fa­ther re­quires of me only that you shall bear much fruit. The vine is pruned only to in­crease the fruit­ful­ness of its branches. Ev­ery branch com­ing out of me which bears no fruit, the Fa­ther will take away. Ev­ery branch which bears fruit, the Fa­ther will cleanse that it may bear more fruit. Al­ready are you clean through the word I have spo­ken, but you must con­tinue to be clean. You must abide in me, and I in you; the branch will die if it is sep­a­rated from the vine. As the branch can­not bear fruit ex­cept it abides in the vine, so nei­ther can you yield the fruits of lov­ing ser­vice ex­cept you abide in me. Re­mem­ber: I am the real vine, and you are the liv­ing branches. He who lives in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit of the spirit and ex­pe­ri­ence the su­preme joy of yield­ing this spir­i­tual har­vest. If you will main­tain this liv­ing spir­i­tual con­nec­tion with me, you will bear abun­dant fruit. If you abide in me and my words live in you, you will be able to com­mune freely with me, and then can my liv­ing spirit so in­fuse you that you may ask what­so­ever my spirit wills and do all this with the as­sur­ance that the Fa­ther will grant us our pe­ti­tion. Herein is the Fa­ther glo­ri­fied: that the vine has many liv­ing branches, and that ev­ery branch bears much fruit. And when the world sees these fruit-bear­ing branches—my friends who love one an­other, even as I have loved them—all men will know that you are truly my dis­ci­ples.

191:4.3“Peace be upon you. You all know that we have one Fa­ther in heaven, and that there is but one gospel of the king­dom—the good news of the gift of eter­nal life which men re­ceive by faith. As you re­joice in your loy­alty to the gospel, pray the Fa­ther of truth to shed abroad in your hearts a new and greater love for your breth­ren. You are to love all men as I have loved you; you are to serve all men as I have served you. With un­der­stand­ing sym­pa­thy and broth­erly af­fec­tion, fel­low­ship all your breth­ren who are ded­i­cated to the procla­ma­tion of the good news, whether they be Jew or gen­tile, Greek or Ro­man, Per­sian or Ethiopian. John pro­claimed the king­dom in ad­vance; you have preached the gospel in power; the Greeks al­ready teach the good news; and I am soon to send forth the Spirit of Truth into the souls of all these, my breth­ren, who have so un­selfishly ded­i­cated their lives to the en­light­en­ment of their fel­lows who sit in spir­i­tual dark­ness. You are all the chil­dren of light; there­fore stum­ble not into the mis­un­der­stand­ing en­tan­gle­ments of mor­tal sus­pi­cion and hu­man in­tol­er­ance. If you are en­no­bled, by the grace of faith, to love un­be­liev­ers, should you not also equally love those who are your fel­low be­liev­ers in the far-spread­ing house­hold of faith? Re­mem­ber, as you love one an­other, all men will know that you are my dis­ci­ples.