discretion

181:2.16When the Mas­ter had fin­ished speak­ing to James Zeb­e­dee, he stepped around to the end of the ta­ble where An­drew sat and, look­ing his faith­ful helper in the eyes, said: “An­drew, you have faith­fully rep­re­sented me as act­ing head of the am­bas­sadors of the heav­enly king­dom. Al­though you have some­times doubted and at other times man­i­fested dan­ger­ous timid­ity, still, you have al­ways been sin­cerely just and em­i­nently fair in deal­ing with your as­so­ciates. Ever since the or­di­na­tion of you and your breth­ren as mes­sen­gers of the king­dom, you have been self-gov­ern­ing in all group ad­min­is­tra­tive af­fairs ex­cept that I des­ig­nated you as the act­ing head of these cho­sen ones. In no other tem­po­ral mat­ter have I acted to di­rect or to in­flu­ence your de­ci­sions. And this I did in or­der to pro­vide for lead­er­ship in the di­rec­tion of all your sub­se­quent group de­lib­er­a­tions. In my uni­verse and in my Fa­ther’s uni­verse of uni­verses, our breth­ren-sons are dealt with as in­di­vid­u­als in all their spir­i­tual re­la­tions, but in all group re­la­tion­ships we un­fail­ingly pro­vide for def­i­nite lead­er­ship. Our king­dom is a realm of or­der, and where two or more will crea­tures act in co-op­er­a­tion, there is al­ways pro­vided the au­thor­ity of lead­er­ship.

181:2.17“And now, An­drew, since you are the chief of your breth­ren by au­thor­ity of my ap­point­ment, and since you have thus served as my per­sonal rep­re­sen­ta­tive, and as I am about to leave you and go to my Fa­ther, I re­lease you from all re­spon­si­bil­ity as re­gards these tem­po­ral and ad­min­is­tra­tive af­fairs. From now on you may ex­er­cise no ju­ris­dic­tion over your breth­ren ex­cept that which you have earned in your ca­pac­ity as spir­i­tual leader, and which your breth­ren there­fore freely rec­og­nize. From this hour you may ex­er­cise no au­thor­ity over your breth­ren un­less they re­store such ju­ris­dic­tion to you by their def­i­nite leg­isla­tive ac­tion af­ter I shall have gone to the Fa­ther. But this re­lease from re­spon­si­bil­ity as the ad­min­is­tra­tive head of this group does not in any man­ner lessen your moral re­spon­si­bil­ity to do ev­ery­thing in your power to hold your breth­ren to­gether with a firm and lov­ing hand dur­ing the try­ing time just ahead, those days which must in­ter­vene be­tween my de­par­ture in the flesh and the send­ing of the new teacher who will live in your hearts, and who ul­ti­mately will lead you into all truth. As I pre­pare to leave you, I would lib­er­ate you from all ad­min­is­tra­tive re­spon­si­bil­ity which had its in­cep­tion and au­thor­ity in my pres­ence as one among you. Hence­forth I shall ex­er­cise only spir­i­tual au­thor­ity over you and among you.

181:2.18“If your breth­ren de­sire to re­tain you as their coun­selor, I di­rect that you should, in all mat­ters tem­po­ral and spir­i­tual, do your ut­most to pro­mote peace and har­mony among the var­i­ous groups of sin­cere gospel be­liev­ers. Ded­i­cate the re­main­der of your life to pro­mot­ing the prac­ti­cal as­pects of broth­erly love among your breth­ren. Be kind to my broth­ers in the flesh when they come fully to be­lieve this gospel; man­i­fest lov­ing and im­par­tial de­vo­tion to the Greeks in the West and to Ab­ner in the East. Al­though these, my apos­tles, are soon go­ing to be scat­tered to the four cor­ners of the earth, there to pro­claim the good news of the sal­va­tion of son­ship with God, you are to hold them to­gether dur­ing the try­ing time just ahead, that sea­son of in­tense test­ing dur­ing which you must learn to be­lieve this gospel with­out my per­sonal pres­ence while you pa­tiently await the ar­rival of the new teacher, the Spirit of Truth. And so, An­drew, though it may not fall to you to do the great works as seen by men, be con­tent to be the teacher and coun­selor of those who do such things. Go on with your work on earth to the end, and then shall you con­tinue this min­istry in the eter­nal king­dom, for have I not many times told you that I have other sheep not of this flock?”

181:2.19Je­sus then went over to the Al­pheus twins and, stand­ing be­tween them, said: “My lit­tle chil­dren, you are one of the three groups of broth­ers who chose to fol­low af­ter me. All six of you have done well to work in peace with your own flesh and blood, but none have done bet­ter than you. Hard times are just ahead of us. You may not un­der­stand all that will be­fall you and your breth­ren, but never doubt that you were once called to the work of the king­dom. For some time there will be no mul­ti­tudes to man­age, but do not be­come dis­cour­aged; when your life­work is fin­ished, I will re­ceive you on high, where in glory you shall tell of your sal­va­tion to se­raphic hosts and to mul­ti­tudes of the high Sons of God. Ded­i­cate your lives to the en­hance­ment of com­mon­place toil. Show all men on earth and the an­gels of heaven how cheer­fully and coura­geously mor­tal man can, af­ter hav­ing been called to work for a sea­son in the spe­cial ser­vice of God, re­turn to the labors of for­mer days. If, for the time be­ing, your work in the out­ward af­fairs of the king­dom should be com­pleted, you should go back to your for­mer labors with the new en­light­en­ment of the ex­pe­ri­ence of son­ship with God and with the ex­alted re­al­iza­tion that, to him who is God-know­ing, there is no such thing as com­mon la­bor or sec­u­lar toil. To you who have worked with me, all things have be­come sa­cred, and all earthly la­bor has be­come a ser­vice even to God the Fa­ther. And when you hear the news of the do­ings of your for­mer apos­tolic as­so­ciates, re­joice with them and con­tinue your daily work as those who wait upon God and serve while they wait. You have been my apos­tles, and you al­ways shall be, and I will re­mem­ber you in the king­dom to come.”

181:2.20And then Je­sus went over to Philip, who, stand­ing up, heard this mes­sage from his Mas­ter: “Philip, you have asked me many fool­ish ques­tions, but I have done my ut­most to an­swer ev­ery one, and now would I an­swer the last of such ques­tion­ings which have arisen in your most hon­est but un­spir­i­tual mind. All the time I have been com­ing around to­ward you, have you been say­ing to your­self, ‘What shall I ever do if the Mas­ter goes away and leaves us alone in the world?’ O, you of lit­tle faith! And yet you have al­most as much as many of your breth­ren. You have been a good stew­ard, Philip. You failed us only a few times, and one of those fail­ures we uti­lized to man­i­fest the Fa­ther’s glory. Your of­fice of stew­ard­ship is about over. You must soon more fully do the work you were called to do—the preach­ing of this gospel of the king­dom. Philip, you have al­ways wanted to be shown, and very soon shall you see great things. Far bet­ter that you should have seen all this by faith, but since you were sin­cere even in your ma­te­rial sight­ed­ness, you will live to see my words ful­filled. And then, when you are blessed with spir­i­tual vi­sion, go forth to your work, ded­i­cat­ing your life to the cause of lead­ing man­kind to search for God and to seek eter­nal re­al­i­ties with the eye of spir­i­tual faith and not with the eyes of the ma­te­rial mind. Re­mem­ber, Philip, you have a great mis­sion on earth, for the world is filled with those who look at life just as you have tended to. You have a great work to do, and when it is fin­ished in faith, you shall come to me in my king­dom, and I will take great plea­sure in show­ing you that which eye has not seen, ear heard, nor the mor­tal mind con­ceived. In the mean­time, be­come as a lit­tle child in the king­dom of the spirit and per­mit me, as the spirit of the new teacher, to lead you for­ward in the spir­i­tual king­dom. And in this way will I be able to do much for you which I was not able to ac­com­plish when I so­journed with you as a mor­tal of the realm. And al­ways re­mem­ber, Philip, he who has seen me has seen the Fa­ther.”

181:2.22“If you would learn to work with your breth­ren, you might ac­com­plish more per­ma­nent things, but if you find your­self go­ing off in quest of those who think as you do, in that event ded­i­cate your life to prov­ing that the God-know­ing dis­ci­ple can be­come a king­dom builder even when alone in the world and wholly iso­lated from his fel­low be­liev­ers. I know you will be faith­ful to the end, and I will some day wel­come you to the en­larged ser­vice of my king­dom on high.”

181:2.23Then Na­than­iel spoke, ask­ing Je­sus this ques­tion: “I have lis­tened to your teach­ing ever since you first called me to the ser­vice of this king­dom, but I hon­estly can­not un­der­stand the full mean­ing of all you tell us. I do not know what to ex­pect next, and I think most of my breth­ren are like­wise per­plexed, but they hes­i­tate to con­fess their con­fu­sion. Can you help me?” Je­sus, putting his hand on Na­than­iel’s shoul­der, said: “My friend, it is not strange that you should en­counter per­plex­ity in your at­tempt to grasp the mean­ing of my spir­i­tual teach­ings since you are so hand­i­capped by your pre­con­cep­tions of Jew­ish tra­di­tion and so con­fused by your per­sis­tent ten­dency to in­ter­pret my gospel in ac­cor­dance with the teach­ings of the scribes and Phar­isees.

181:2.24“I have taught you much by word of mouth, and I have lived my life among you. I have done all that can be done to en­lighten your minds and lib­er­ate your souls, and what you have not been able to get from my teach­ings and my life, you must now pre­pare to ac­quire at the hand of that mas­ter of all teach­ers—ac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. And in all of this new ex­pe­ri­ence which now awaits you, I will go be­fore you and the Spirit of Truth shall be with you. Fear not; that which you now fail to com­pre­hend, the new teacher, when he has come, will re­veal to you through­out the re­main­der of your life on earth and on through your train­ing in the eter­nal ages.”

181:2.25And then the Mas­ter, turn­ing to all of them, said: “Be not dis­mayed that you fail to grasp the full mean­ing of the gospel. You are but fi­nite, mor­tal men, and that which I have taught you is in­fi­nite, di­vine, and eter­nal. Be pa­tient and of good cour­age since you have the eter­nal ages be­fore you in which to con­tinue your pro­gres­sive at­tain­ment of the ex­pe­ri­ence of be­com­ing per­fect, even as your Fa­ther in Par­a­dise is per­fect.”

181:2.26And then Je­sus went over to Thomas, who, stand­ing up, heard him say: “Thomas, you have of­ten lacked faith; how­ever, when you have had your sea­sons with doubt, you have never lacked cour­age. I know well that the false proph­ets and spu­ri­ous teach­ers will not de­ceive you. Af­ter I have gone, your breth­ren will the more ap­pre­ci­ate your crit­i­cal way of view­ing new teach­ings. And when you all are scat­tered to the ends of the earth in the times to come, re­mem­ber that you are still my am­bas­sador. Ded­i­cate your life to the great work of show­ing how the crit­i­cal ma­te­rial mind of man can tri­umph over the in­er­tia of in­tel­lec­tual doubt­ing when faced by the dem­on­stra­tion of the man­i­fes­ta­tion of liv­ing truth as it op­er­ates in the ex­pe­ri­ence of spirit-born men and women who yield the fruits of the spirit in their lives, and who love one an­other, even as I have loved you. Thomas, I am glad you joined us, and I know, af­ter a short pe­riod of per­plex­ity, you will go on in the ser­vice of the king­dom. Your doubts have per­plexed your breth­ren, but they have never trou­bled me. I have con­fi­dence in you, and I will go be­fore you even to the ut­ter­most parts of the earth.”