hirelings

• at Nazareth rejection

150:7.3Thus did the Mas­ter find him­self in the midst of, not a wel­come home­com­ing, but a de­cid­edly hos­tile and hy­per­crit­i­cal at­mo­sphere. But this was not all. His en­e­mies, know­ing that he was to spend this Sab­bath day in Naz­a­reth and sup­pos­ing that he would speak in the syn­a­gogue, had hired nu­mer­ous rough and un­couth men to ha­rass him and in ev­ery way pos­si­ble make trou­ble.

• at Nazareth rejection

150:8.11It was cus­tom­ary in the syn­a­gogue, af­ter the con­clu­sion of the for­mal ser­vice, for the speaker to re­main so that those who might be in­ter­ested could ask him ques­tions. Ac­cord­ingly, on this Sab­bath morn­ing Je­sus stepped down into the crowd which pressed for­ward to ask ques­tions. In this group were many tur­bu­lent in­di­vid­u­als whose minds were bent on mis­chief, while about the fringe of this crowd there cir­cu­lated those de­based men who had been hired to make trou­ble for Je­sus. Many of the dis­ci­ples and evan­ge­lists who had re­mained with­out now pressed into the syn­a­gogue and were not slow to rec­og­nize that trou­ble was brew­ing. They sought to lead the Mas­ter away, but he would not go with them.

• at Nazareth rejection

150:9.3Je­sus would have good-na­turedly man­aged the crowd and ef­fec­tively dis­armed even his vi­o­lent en­e­mies had it not been for the tac­ti­cal blun­der of one of his own apos­tles, Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, who, with the help of Na­hor, one of the younger evan­ge­lists, had mean­while gath­ered to­gether a group of Je­sus’ friends from among the crowd and, as­sum­ing a bel­liger­ent at­ti­tude, had served no­tice on the en­e­mies of the Mas­ter to go hence. Je­sus had long taught the apos­tles that a soft an­swer turns away wrath, but his fol­low­ers were not ac­cus­tomed to see­ing their beloved teacher, whom they so will­ingly called Mas­ter, treated with such dis­cour­tesy and dis­dain. It was too much for them, and they found them­selves giv­ing ex­pres­sion to pas­sion­ate and ve­he­ment re­sent­ment, all of which only tended to arouse the mob spirit in this un­godly and un­couth as­sem­bly. And so, un­der the lead­er­ship of hire­lings, these ruf­fi­ans laid hold upon Je­sus and rushed him out of the syn­a­gogue to the brow of a near-by pre­cip­i­tous hill, where they were minded to shove him over the edge to his death be­low. But just as they were about to push him over the edge of the cliff, Je­sus turned sud­denly upon his cap­tors and, fac­ing them, qui­etly folded his arms. He said noth­ing, but his friends were more than as­ton­ished when, as he started to walk for­ward, the mob parted and per­mit­ted him to pass on un­mo­lested.

• flee when danger arises

165:2.8“But I also am the true shep­herd who is will­ing even to lay down his life for the sheep. The thief breaks into the fold only to steal, and to kill, and to de­stroy; but I have come that you all may have life and have it more abun­dantly. He who is a hire­ling, when dan­ger arises, will flee and al­low the sheep to be scat­tered and de­stroyed; but the true shep­herd will not flee when the wolf comes; he will pro­tect his flock and, if nec­es­sary, lay down his life for his sheep. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, friends and en­e­mies, I am the true shep­herd; I know my own and my own know me. I will not flee in the face of dan­ger. I will fin­ish this ser­vice of the com­ple­tion of my Fa­ther’s will, and I will not for­sake the flock which the Fa­ther has in­trusted to my keep­ing.