Gilboa

• Gilboa

122:7.5Their first day of travel car­ried them around the foothills of Mount Gil­boa, where they camped for the night by the river Jor­dan and en­gaged in many spec­u­la­tions as to what sort of a son would be born to them, Joseph ad­her­ing to the con­cept of a spir­i­tual teacher and Mary hold­ing to the idea of a Jew­ish Mes­siah, a de­liv­erer of the He­brew na­tion.

• Gilboa

123:5.13From four di­rec­tions Je­sus could ob­serve the car­a­van trains as they wended their way in and out of Naz­a­reth, and to the south he could over­look the broad and fer­tile plain coun­try of Es­draelon, stretch­ing off to­ward Mount Gil­boa and Samaria.

• Gilboa

124:6.1Je­sus, hav­ing now reached the thresh­old of young man­hood and hav­ing been for­mally grad­u­ated from the syn­a­gogue schools, was qual­i­fied to pro­ceed to Je­ru­sa­lem with his par­ents to par­tic­i­pate with them in the cel­e­bra­tion of his first Pass­over. The Pass­over feast of this year fell on Sat­ur­day, April 9, A.D. 7. A con­sid­er­able com­pany (103) made ready to de­part from Naz­a­reth early Mon­day morn­ing, April 4, for Je­ru­sa­lem. They jour­neyed south to­ward Samaria, but on reach­ing Jezreel, they turned east, go­ing around Mount Gil­boa into the Jor­dan val­ley in or­der to avoid pass­ing through Samaria. Joseph and his fam­ily would have en­joyed go­ing down through Samaria by way of Ja­cob’s well and Bethel, but since the Jews dis­liked to deal with the Samar­i­tans, they de­cided to go with their neigh­bors by way of the Jor­dan val­ley.

144:6.1Around the first of Oc­to­ber, Philip and some of his fel­low apos­tles were in a near-by vil­lage buy­ing food when they met some of the apos­tles of John the Bap­tist. As a re­sult of this chance meet­ing in the mar­ket place there came about a three weeks’ con­fer­ence at the Gil­boa camp be­tween the apos­tles of Je­sus and the apos­tles of John, for John had re­cently ap­pointed twelve of his lead­ers to be apos­tles, fol­low­ing the prece­dent of Je­sus. John had done this in re­sponse to the urg­ing of Ab­ner, the chief of his loyal sup­port­ers. Je­sus was pres­ent at the Gil­boa camp through­out the first week of this joint con­fer­ence but ab­sented him­self the last two weeks.

144:6.2By the be­gin­ning of the sec­ond week of this month, Ab­ner had as­sem­bled all of his as­so­ciates at the Gil­boa camp and was pre­pared to go into coun­cil with the apos­tles of Je­sus. For three weeks these twenty-four men were in ses­sion three times a day and for six days each week. The first week Je­sus min­gled with them be­tween their forenoon, af­ter­noon, and evening ses­sions. They wanted the Mas­ter to meet with them and pre­side over their joint de­lib­er­a­tions, but he stead­fastly re­fused to par­tic­i­pate in their dis­cus­sions, though he did con­sent to speak to them on three oc­ca­sions. These talks by Je­sus to the twenty-four were on sym­pa­thy, co-op­er­a­tion, and tol­er­ance.

144:6.3An­drew and Ab­ner al­ter­nated in pre­sid­ing over these joint meet­ings of the two apos­tolic groups. These men had many dif­fi­cul­ties to dis­cuss and nu­mer­ous prob­lems to solve. Again and again would they take their trou­bles to Je­sus, only to hear him say: “I am con­cerned only with your per­sonal and purely re­li­gious prob­lems. I am the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Fa­ther to the in­di­vid­ual, not to the group. If you are in per­sonal dif­fi­culty in your re­la­tions with God, come to me, and I will hear you and coun­sel you in the so­lu­tion of your prob­lem. But when you en­ter upon the co-or­di­na­tion of di­ver­gent hu­man in­ter­pre­ta­tions of re­li­gious ques­tions and upon the so­cial­iza­tion of re­li­gion, you are des­tined to solve all such prob­lems by your own de­ci­sions. Al­beit, I am ever sym­pa­thetic and al­ways in­ter­ested, and when you ar­rive at your con­clu­sions touch­ing these mat­ters of non­spir­i­tual im­port, pro­vided you are all agreed, then I pledge in ad­vance my full ap­proval and hearty co-op­er­a­tion. And now, in or­der to leave you un­ham­pered in your de­lib­er­a­tions, I am leav­ing you for two weeks. Be not anx­ious about me, for I will re­turn to you. I will be about my Fa­ther’s busi­ness, for we have other realms be­sides this one.”

144:6.4Af­ter thus speak­ing, Je­sus went down the moun­tain­side, and they saw him no more for two full weeks. And they never knew where he went or what he did dur­ing these days. It was some time be­fore the twenty-four could set­tle down to the se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion of their prob­lems, they were so dis­con­certed by the ab­sence of the Mas­ter. How­ever, within a week they were again in the heart of their dis­cus­sions, and they could not go to Je­sus for help.

144:6.5The first item the group agreed upon was the adop­tion of the prayer which Je­sus had so re­cently taught them. It was unan­i­mously voted to ac­cept this prayer as the one to be taught be­liev­ers by both groups of apos­tles.

144:6.6They next de­cided that, as long as John lived, whether in prison or out, both groups of twelve apos­tles would go on with their work, and that joint meet­ings for one week would be held ev­ery three months at places to be agreed upon from time to time.

144:6.7But the most se­ri­ous of all their prob­lems was the ques­tion of bap­tism. Their dif­fi­cul­ties were all the more ag­gra­vated be­cause Je­sus had re­fused to make any pro­nounce­ment upon the sub­ject. They fi­nally agreed: As long as John lived, or un­til they might jointly mod­ify this de­ci­sion, only the apos­tles of John would bap­tize be­liev­ers, and only the apos­tles of Je­sus would fi­nally in­struct the new dis­ci­ples. Ac­cord­ingly, from that time un­til af­ter the death of John, two of the apos­tles of John ac­com­pa­nied Je­sus and his apos­tles to bap­tize be­liev­ers, for the joint coun­cil had unan­i­mously voted that bap­tism was to be­come the ini­tial step in the out­ward al­liance with the af­fairs of the king­dom.

144:6.8It was next agreed, in case of the death of John, that the apos­tles of John would pre­sent them­selves to Je­sus and be­come sub­ject to his di­rec­tion, and that they would bap­tize no more un­less au­tho­rized by Je­sus or his apos­tles.

144:6.9And then was it voted that, in case of John’s death, the apos­tles of Je­sus would be­gin to bap­tize with wa­ter as the em­blem of the bap­tism of the di­vine Spirit. As to whether or not re­pen­tance should be at­tached to the preach­ing of bap­tism was left op­tional; no de­ci­sion was made bind­ing upon the group. John’s apos­tles preached, “Re­pent and be bap­tized.” Je­sus’ apos­tles pro­claimed, “Be­lieve and be bap­tized.”

144:6.10And this is the story of the first at­tempt of Je­sus’ fol­low­ers to co-or­di­nate di­ver­gent ef­forts, com­pose dif­fer­ences of opin­ion, or­ga­nize group un­der­tak­ings, leg­is­late on out­ward ob­ser­vances, and so­cial­ize per­sonal re­li­gious prac­tices.

144:6.11Many other mi­nor mat­ters were con­sid­ered and their so­lu­tions unan­i­mously agreed upon. These twenty-four men had a truly re­mark­able ex­pe­ri­ence these two weeks when they were com­pelled to face prob­lems and com­pose dif­fi­cul­ties with­out Je­sus. They learned to dif­fer, to de­bate, to con­tend, to pray, and to com­pro­mise, and through­out it all to re­main sym­pa­thetic with the other per­son’s view­point and to main­tain at least some de­gree of tol­er­ance for his hon­est opin­ions.

144:6.12On the af­ter­noon of their fi­nal dis­cus­sion of fi­nan­cial ques­tions, Je­sus re­turned, heard of their de­lib­er­a­tions, lis­tened to their de­ci­sions, and said: “These, then, are your con­clu­sions, and I shall help you each to carry out the spirit of your united de­ci­sions.”

144:6.13Two months and a half from this time John was ex­e­cuted, and through­out this pe­riod the apos­tles of John re­mained with Je­sus and the twelve. They all worked to­gether and bap­tized be­liev­ers dur­ing this sea­son of la­bor in the cities of the De­capo­lis. The Gil­boa camp was bro­ken up on Novem­ber 2, A.D. 27.

144:1.1As time passed, the twelve be­came more de­voted to Je­sus and in­creas­ingly com­mit­ted to the work of the king­dom. Their de­vo­tion was in large part a mat­ter of per­sonal loy­alty. They did not grasp his many-sided teach­ing; they did not fully com­pre­hend the na­ture of Je­sus or the sig­nif­i­cance of his be­stowal on earth.

144:1.2Je­sus made it plain to his apos­tles that they were in re­tire­ment for three rea­sons:

144:1.31. To con­firm their un­der­stand­ing of, and faith in, the gospel of the king­dom.

144:1.42. To al­low op­po­si­tion to their work in both Judea and Gal­i­lee to quiet down.

144:1.53. To await the fate of John the Bap­tist.

144:1.6While tar­ry­ing on Gil­boa, Je­sus told the twelve much about his early life and his ex­pe­ri­ences on Mount Her­mon; he also re­vealed some­thing of what hap­pened in the hills dur­ing the forty days im­me­di­ately af­ter his bap­tism. And he di­rectly charged them that they should tell no man about these ex­pe­ri­ences un­til af­ter he had re­turned to the Fa­ther.

144:1.7Dur­ing these Sep­tem­ber weeks they rested, vis­ited, re­counted their ex­pe­ri­ences since Je­sus first called them to ser­vice, and en­gaged in an earnest ef­fort to co-or­di­nate what the Mas­ter had so far taught them. In a mea­sure they all sensed that this would be their last op­por­tu­nity for pro­longed rest. They re­al­ized that their next pub­lic ef­fort in ei­ther Judea or Gal­i­lee would mark the be­gin­ning of the fi­nal procla­ma­tion of the com­ing king­dom, but they had lit­tle or no set­tled idea as to what the king­dom would be when it came. John and An­drew thought the king­dom had al­ready come; Pe­ter and James be­lieved that it was yet to come; Na­than­iel and Thomas frankly con­fessed they were puz­zled; Mat­thew, Philip, and Si­mon Ze­lo­tes were un­cer­tain and con­fused; the twins were bliss­fully ig­no­rant of the con­tro­versy; and Ju­das Is­car­iot was silent, non­com­mit­tal.

144:1.8Much of this time Je­sus was alone on the moun­tain near the camp. Oc­ca­sion­ally he took with him Pe­ter, James, or John, but more of­ten he went off to pray or com­mune alone. Sub­se­quent to the bap­tism of Je­sus and the forty days in the Perean hills, it is hardly proper to speak of these sea­sons of com­mu­nion with his Fa­ther as prayer, nor is it con­sis­tent to speak of Je­sus as wor­ship­ing, but it is al­to­gether cor­rect to al­lude to these sea­sons as per­sonal com­mu­nion with his Fa­ther.

144:1.9The cen­tral theme of the dis­cus­sions through­out the en­tire month of Septem­ber was prayer and wor­ship. Af­ter they had dis­cussed wor­ship for some days, Je­sus fi­nally de­liv­ered his mem­o­rable dis­course on prayer in an­swer to Thomas’s re­quest: “Mas­ter, teach us how to pray.”

144:1.10John had taught his dis­ci­ples a prayer, a prayer for sal­va­tion in the com­ing king­dom. Al­though Je­sus never for­bade his fol­low­ers to use John’s form of prayer, the apos­tles very early per­ceived that their Mas­ter did not fully ap­prove of the prac­tice of ut­ter­ing set and for­mal prayers. Nev­er­the­less, be­liev­ers con­stantly re­quested to be taught how to pray. The twelve longed to know what form of pe­ti­tion Je­sus would ap­prove. And it was chiefly be­cause of this need for some sim­ple pe­ti­tion for the com­mon peo­ple that Je­sus at this time con­sented, in an­swer to Thomas’s re­quest, to teach them a sug­ges­tive form of prayer. Je­sus gave this les­son one af­ter­noon in the third week of their so­journ on Mount Gil­boa.

124:6.3Be­fore reach­ing the Jezreel junc­tion, and as they jour­neyed on, very soon, on the left, they passed the an­cient vil­lage of Shunem, and Je­sus heard again about the most beau­ti­ful maiden of all Is­rael who once lived there and also about the won­der­ful works El­isha per­formed there. In pass­ing by Jezreel, Je­sus’ par­ents re­counted the do­ings of Ahab and Jezebel and the ex­ploits of Jehu. In pass­ing around Mount Gil­boa, they talked much about Saul, who took his life on the slopes of this moun­tain, King David, and the as­so­ci­a­tions of this his­toric spot.

134:9.5In the midst of the week of cel­e­bra­tion and ere the fes­tiv­i­ties were fin­ished, Je­sus took leave of John, say­ing that he de­sired to re­tire to the hills where he might the bet­ter com­mune with his Par­a­dise Fa­ther. John would have gone with him, but Je­sus in­sisted that he stay through the fes­tiv­i­ties, say­ing: “It is not re­quired of you to bear the bur­den of the Son of Man; only the watch­man must keep vigil while the city sleeps in peace.” Je­sus did not re­turn to Je­ru­sa­lem. Af­ter al­most a week alone in the hills near Beth­any, he de­parted for Ca­per­naum. On the way home he spent a day and a night alone on the slopes of Gil­boa, near where King Saul had taken his life; and when he ar­rived at Ca­per­naum, he seemed more cheer­ful than when he had left John in Je­ru­sa­lem.

162:0.1When Je­sus started up to Je­ru­sa­lem with the ten apos­tles, he planned to go through Samaria, that be­ing the shorter route. Ac­cord­ingly, they passed down the east­ern shore of the lake and, by way of Scythopo­lis, en­tered the bor­ders of Samaria. Near night­fall Je­sus sent Philip and Mat­thew over to a vil­lage on the east­ern slopes of Mount Gil­boa to se­cure lodg­ing for the com­pany. It so hap­pened that these vil­lagers were greatly prej­u­diced against the Jews, even more so than the av­er­age Samar­i­tans, and these feel­ings were height­ened at this par­tic­u­lar time as so many were on their way to the feast of taber­na­cles. These peo­ple knew very lit­tle about Je­sus, and they re­fused him lodg­ing be­cause he and his as­so­ciates were Jews. When Mat­thew and Philip man­i­fested in­dig­na­tion and in­formed these Samar­i­tans that they were de­clin­ing to en­ter­tain the Holy One of Is­rael, the in­fu­ri­ated vil­lagers chased them out of the lit­tle town with sticks and stones.

97:9.6Saul’s tragic de­feat at Gil­boa by the Phil­is­tines brought Yah­weh to a low point among the gods in the eyes of the sur­round­ing Ca­naan­ites. Or­di­nar­ily, Saul’s de­feat would have been as­cribed to apos­tasy from Yah­weh, but this time the Ju­dahite ed­i­tors at­tributed it to rit­ual er­rors. They re­quired the tra­di­tion of Saul and Samuel as a back­ground for the king­ship of David.