John Zebedee

• John Zebedee

129:1.12Of the sons of Zeb­e­dee, James was the most in­ter­ested in Je­sus as a teacher, as a philoso­pher. John cared most for his re­li­gious teach­ing and opin­ions. David re­spected him as a me­chanic but took lit­tle stock in his re­li­gious views and philo­sophic teach­ings.

139:4.1When he be­came an apos­tle, John was twenty-four years old and was the young­est of the twelve. He was un­mar­ried and lived with his par­ents at Beth­saida; he was a fish­er­man and worked with his brother James in part­ner­ship with An­drew and Pe­ter. Both be­fore and af­ter be­com­ing an apos­tle, John func­tioned as the per­sonal agent of Je­sus in deal­ing with the Mas­ter’s fam­ily, and he con­tin­ued to bear this re­spon­si­bil­ity as long as Mary the mother of Je­sus lived.

139:4.2Since John was the young­est of the twelve and so closely as­so­ci­ated with Je­sus in his fam­ily af­fairs, he was very dear to the Mas­ter, but it can­not be truth­fully said that he was “the dis­ci­ple whom Je­sus loved.” You would hardly sus­pect such a mag­nan­i­mous per­son­al­ity as Je­sus to be guilty of show­ing fa­voritism, of lov­ing one of his apos­tles more than the oth­ers. The fact that John was one of the three per­sonal aides of Je­sus lent fur­ther color to this mis­taken idea, not to men­tion that John, along with his brother James, had known Je­sus longer than the oth­ers.

139:4.3Pe­ter, James, and John were as­signed as per­sonal aides to Je­sus soon af­ter they be­came apos­tles. Shortly af­ter the se­lec­tion of the twelve and at the time Je­sus ap­pointed An­drew to act as di­rec­tor of the group, he said to him: “And now I de­sire that you as­sign two or three of your as­so­ciates to be with me and to re­main by my side, to com­fort me and to min­is­ter to my daily needs.” And An­drew thought best to se­lect for this spe­cial duty the next three first-cho­sen apos­tles. He would have liked to vol­un­teer for such a blessed ser­vice him­self, but the Mas­ter had al­ready given him his com­mis­sion; so he im­me­di­ately di­rected that Pe­ter, James, and John at­tach them­selves to Je­sus.

139:4.4John Zeb­e­dee had many lovely traits of char­ac­ter, but one which was not so lovely was his in­or­di­nate but usu­ally well-con­cealed con­ceit. His long as­so­ci­a­tion with Je­sus made many and great changes in his char­ac­ter. This con­ceit was greatly less­ened, but af­ter grow­ing old and be­com­ing more or less child­ish, this self-es­teem reap­peared to a cer­tain ex­tent, so that, when en­gaged in di­rect­ing Nathan in the writ­ing of the Gospel which now bears his name, the aged apos­tle did not hes­i­tate re­peat­edly to re­fer to him­self as the “dis­ci­ple whom Je­sus loved.” In view of the fact that John came nearer to be­ing the chum of Je­sus than any other earth mor­tal, that he was his cho­sen per­sonal rep­re­sen­ta­tive in so many mat­ters, it is not strange that he should have come to re­gard him­self as the “dis­ci­ple whom Je­sus loved” since he most cer­tainly knew he was the dis­ci­ple whom Je­sus so fre­quently trusted.

139:4.5The strong­est trait in John’s char­ac­ter was his de­pend­abil­ity; he was prompt and coura­geous, faith­ful and de­voted. His great­est weak­ness was this char­ac­ter­is­tic con­ceit. He was the young­est mem­ber of his fa­ther’s fam­ily and the young­est of the apos­tolic group. Per­haps he was just a bit spoiled; maybe he had been hu­mored slightly too much. But the John of af­ter years was a very dif­fer­ent type of per­son than the self-ad­mir­ing and ar­bi­trary young man who joined the ranks of Je­sus’ apos­tles when he was twenty-four.

139:4.6Those char­ac­ter­is­tics of Je­sus which John most ap­pre­ci­ated were the Mas­ter’s love and un­selfish­ness; these traits made such an im­pres­sion on him that his whole sub­se­quent life be­came dom­i­nated by the sen­ti­ment of love and broth­erly de­vo­tion. He talked about love and wrote about love. This “son of thun­der” be­came the “apos­tle of love”; and at Eph­esus, when the aged bishop was no longer able to stand in the pul­pit and preach but had to be car­ried to church in a chair, and when at the close of the ser­vice he was asked to say a few words to the be­liev­ers, for years his only ut­ter­ance was, “My lit­tle chil­dren, love one an­other.”

139:4.7John was a man of few words ex­cept when his tem­per was aroused. He thought much but said lit­tle. As he grew older, his tem­per be­came more sub­dued, bet­ter con­trolled, but he never over­came his dis­in­cli­na­tion to talk; he never fully mas­tered this ret­i­cence. But he was gifted with a re­mark­able and cre­ative imag­i­na­tion.

139:4.8There was an­other side to John that one would not ex­pect to find in this quiet and in­tro­spec­tive type. He was some­what big­oted and in­or­di­nately in­tol­er­ant. In this re­spect he and James were much alike—they both wanted to call down fire from heaven on the heads of the dis­re­spect­ful Samar­i­tans. When John en­coun­tered some strangers teach­ing in Je­sus’ name, he promptly for­bade them. But he was not the only one of the twelve who was tainted with this kind of self-es­teem and su­pe­ri­or­ity con­scious­ness.

139:4.9John’s life was tremen­dously in­flu­enced by the sight of Je­sus’ go­ing about with­out a home as he knew how faith­fully he had made pro­vi­sion for the care of his mother and fam­ily. John also deeply sym­pa­thized with Je­sus be­cause of his fam­ily’s fail­ure to un­der­stand him, be­ing aware that they were grad­u­ally with­draw­ing from him. This en­tire sit­u­a­tion, to­gether with Je­sus’ ever de­fer­ring his slight­est wish to the will of the Fa­ther in heaven and his daily life of im­plicit trust, made such a pro­found im­pres­sion on John that it pro­duced marked and per­ma­nent changes in his char­ac­ter, changes which man­i­fested them­selves through­out his en­tire sub­se­quent life.

139:4.10John had a cool and dar­ing cour­age which few of the other apos­tles pos­sessed. He was the one apos­tle who fol­lowed right along with Je­sus the night of his ar­rest and dared to ac­com­pany his Mas­ter into the very jaws of death. He was pres­ent and near at hand right up to the last earthly hour and was found faith­fully car­ry­ing out his trust with re­gard to Je­sus’ mother and ready to re­ceive such ad­di­tional in­struc­tions as might be given dur­ing the last mo­ments of the Mas­ter’s mor­tal ex­is­tence. One thing is cer­tain, John was thor­oughly de­pend­able. John usu­ally sat on Je­sus’ right hand when the twelve were at meat. He was the first of the twelve re­ally and fully to be­lieve in the res­ur­rec­tion, and he was the first to rec­og­nize the Mas­ter when he came to them on the seashore af­ter his res­ur­rec­tion.

139:4.11This son of Zeb­e­dee was very closely as­so­ci­ated with Pe­ter in the early ac­tiv­i­ties of the Chris­tian move­ment, be­com­ing one of the chief sup­port­ers of the Je­ru­sa­lem church. He was the right-hand sup­port of Pe­ter on the day of Pen­te­cost.

139:4.12Sev­eral years af­ter the mar­tyr­dom of James, John mar­ried his brother’s widow. The last twenty years of his life he was cared for by a lov­ing grand­daugh­ter.

139:4.13John was in prison sev­eral times and was ban­ished to the Isle of Pat­mos for a pe­riod of four years un­til an­other em­peror came to power in Rome. Had not John been tact­ful and saga­cious, he would un­doubt­edly have been killed as was his more out­spo­ken brother James. As the years passed, John, to­gether with James the Lord’s brother, learned to prac­tice wise con­cil­i­a­tion when they ap­peared be­fore the civil mag­is­trates. They found that a “soft an­swer turns away wrath.” They also learned to rep­re­sent the church as a “spir­i­tual broth­er­hood de­voted to the so­cial ser­vice of man­kind” rather than as “the king­dom of heaven.” They taught lov­ing ser­vice rather than rul­ing power—king­dom and king.

139:4.14When in tem­po­rary ex­ile on Pat­mos, John wrote the Book of Rev­e­la­tion, which you now have in greatly abridged and dis­torted form. This Book of Rev­e­la­tion con­tains the sur­viv­ing frag­ments of a great rev­e­la­tion, large por­tions of which were lost, other por­tions of which were re­moved, sub­se­quent to John’s writ­ing. It is pre­served in only frag­men­tary and adul­ter­ated form.

139:4.15John trav­eled much, la­bored in­ces­santly, and af­ter be­com­ing bishop of the Asia churches, set­tled down at Eph­esus. He di­rected his as­so­ciate, Nathan, in the writ­ing of the so-called “Gospel ac­cord­ing to John,” at Eph­esus, when he was ninety-nine years old. Of all the twelve apos­tles, John Zeb­e­dee even­tu­ally be­came the out­stand­ing the­olo­gian. He died a nat­u­ral death at Eph­esus in A.D. 103 when he was one hun­dred and one years of age.

• John Zebedee

141:7.14More clearly John rec­og­nized that, not­with­stand­ing all of his di­vine en­dow­ments, af­ter all, he was hu­man. Je­sus lived as a man among men and un­der­stood, loved, and knew how to man­age men. In his per­sonal life he was so hu­man, and yet so fault­less. And he was al­ways un­selfish.

• John Zebedee

143:3.5When they went up the moun­tain, An­drew’s head was full of prob­lems. John was in­or­di­nately per­plexed in his heart. James was griev­ously trou­bled in his soul. Mat­thew was hard pressed for funds inas­much as they had been so­journ­ing among the gen­tiles. Pe­ter was over­wrought and had re­cently been more tem­per­a­men­tal than usual. Ju­das was suf­fer­ing from a pe­ri­odic at­tack of sen­si­tive­ness and self­ish­ness. Si­mon was un­usu­ally up­set in his ef­forts to rec­on­cile his pa­tri­o­tism with the love of the broth­er­hood of man. Philip was more and more non­plused by the way things were go­ing. Na­than­iel had been less hu­mor­ous since they had come in con­tact with the gen­tile pop­u­la­tions, and Thomas was in the midst of a se­vere sea­son of de­pres­sion. Only the twins were nor­mal and un­per­turbed. All of them were ex­ceed­ingly per­plexed about how to get along peace­ably with John’s dis­ci­ples.

• John Zebedee

143:5.12Nalda told this en­tire story to the Apos­tle John the next day, but he never re­vealed it fully to the other apos­tles, and Je­sus did not speak of it in de­tail to the twelve.

• John Zebedee

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.

• John Zebedee

178:2.6When Ju­das heard the Mas­ter speak­ing with Philip about these mat­ters, he drew closer that he might over­hear their con­ver­sa­tion. But David Zeb­e­dee, who was stand­ing near, stepped up and en­gaged Ju­das in con­ver­sa­tion while Philip, Pe­ter, and John went to one side to talk with the Mas­ter.

178:2.7Said Je­sus to the three: “Go im­me­di­ately into Je­ru­sa­lem, and as you en­ter the gate, you will meet a man bear­ing a wa­ter pitcher. He will speak to you, and then shall you fol­low him. When he leads you to a cer­tain house, go in af­ter him and ask of the good man of that house, ‘Where is the guest cham­ber wherein the Mas­ter is to eat sup­per with his apos­tles?’ And when you have thus in­quired, this house­holder will show you a large up­per room all fur­nished and ready for us.”

178:2.8When the apos­tles reached the city, they met the man with the wa­ter pitcher near the gate and fol­lowed on af­ter him to the home of John Mark, where the lad’s fa­ther met them and showed them the up­per room in readi­ness for the evening meal.

• John Zebedee

192:1.3As they dropped an­chor and pre­pared to en­ter the small boat for go­ing ashore, the man on the beach called to them, “Lads, have you caught any­thing?” And when they an­swered, “No,” he spoke again. “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find fish.” While they did not know it was Je­sus who had di­rected them, with one ac­cord they cast in the net as they had been in­structed, and im­me­di­ately it was filled, so much so that they were hardly able to draw it up. Now, John Zeb­e­dee was quick of per­cep­tion, and when he saw the heavy-laden net, he per­ceived that it was the Mas­ter who had spo­ken to them. When this thought came into his mind, he leaned over and whis­pered to Pe­ter, “It is the Mas­ter.” Pe­ter was ever a man of thought­less ac­tion and im­petu­ous de­vo­tion; so when John whis­pered this in his ear, he quickly arose and cast him­self into the wa­ter that he might the sooner reach the Mas­ter’s side. His breth­ren came up close be­hind him, hav­ing come ashore in the small boat, haul­ing the net of fishes af­ter them.

• John Zebedee

192:4.7On Thurs­day night the apos­tles had a won­der­ful meet­ing in this up­per cham­ber and all pledged them­selves to go forth in the pub­lic preach­ing of the new gospel of the risen Lord ex­cept Thomas, Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, and the Al­pheus twins. Al­ready had be­gun the first steps of chang­ing the gospel of the king­dom—son­ship with God and broth­er­hood with man—into the procla­ma­tion of the res­ur­rec­tion of Je­sus. Na­than­iel op­posed this shift in the bur­den of their pub­lic mes­sage, but he could not with­stand Pe­ter’s elo­quence, nei­ther could he over­come the en­thu­si­asm of the dis­ci­ples, es­pe­cially the women be­liev­ers.

• married brother James’s widow

82:5.5The first move away from brother and sis­ter mar­riages came about un­der the plu­ral-wife mores be­cause the sis­ter-wife would ar­ro­gantly dom­i­nate the other wife or wives. Some tribal mores for­bade mar­riage to a dead brother’s widow but re­quired the liv­ing brother to beget chil­dren for his de­parted brother. There is no bi­o­logic in­stinct against any de­gree of in-mar­riage; such re­stric­tions are wholly a mat­ter of taboo.

• married brother James’s widow

83:5.4The Jew­ish cus­tom re­quir­ing that a man con­sort with his de­ceased brother’s widow for the pur­pose of “rais­ing up seed for his brother,” was the cus­tom of more than half the an­cient world. This was a relic of the time when mar­riage was a fam­ily af­fair rather than an in­di­vid­ual as­so­ci­a­tion.

• personal agent regarding Jesus’ family

129:2.3Be­fore leav­ing Ca­per­naum, Je­sus had a long talk with his new-found friend and close com­pan­ion, John Zeb­e­dee. He told John that he con­tem­plated trav­el­ing ex­ten­sively un­til “my hour shall come” and asked John to act in his stead in the mat­ter of send­ing some money to the fam­ily at Naz­a­reth each month un­til the funds due him should be ex­hausted. And John made him this prom­ise: “My Teacher, go about your busi­ness, do your work in the world; I will act for you in this or any other mat­ter, and I will watch over your fam­ily even as I would fos­ter my own mother and care for my own broth­ers and sis­ters. I will dis­burse your funds which my fa­ther holds as you have di­rected and as they may be needed, and when your money has been ex­pended, if I do not re­ceive more from you, and if your mother is in need, then will I share my own earn­ings with her. Go your way in peace. I will act in your stead in all these mat­ters.”

• personal agent regarding Jesus’ family
• purchased Capernaum house for Jesus

129:2.4There­fore, af­ter Je­sus had de­parted for Je­ru­sa­lem, John con­sulted with his fa­ther, Zeb­e­dee, re­gard­ing the money due Je­sus, and he was sur­prised that it was such a large sum. As Je­sus had left the mat­ter so en­tirely in their hands, they agreed that it would be the bet­ter plan to in­vest these funds in prop­erty and use the in­come for as­sist­ing the fam­ily at Naz­a­reth; and since Zeb­e­dee knew of a lit­tle house in Ca­per­naum which car­ried a mort­gage and was for sale, he di­rected John to buy this house with Je­sus’ money and hold the ti­tle in trust for his friend. And John did as his fa­ther ad­vised him. For two years the rent of this house was ap­plied on the mort­gage, and this, aug­mented by a cer­tain large fund which Je­sus pres­ently sent up to John to be used as needed by the fam­ily, al­most equaled the amount of this obli­ga­tion; and Zeb­e­dee sup­plied the dif­fer­ence, so that John paid up the re­main­der of the mort­gage when it fell due, thereby se­cur­ing clear ti­tle to this two-room house. In this way Je­sus be­came the owner of a house in Ca­per­naum, but he had not been told about it.

• personal agent regarding Jesus’ family
• purchased Capernaum house for Jesus

129:2.10Je­sus turned this large sum over to John the son of Zeb­e­dee. And you have been told how John ap­plied this money to­ward the liq­ui­da­tion of the mort­gage on the Ca­per­naum prop­erty. Je­sus took Zeb­e­dee fully into his con­fi­dence re­gard­ing this Med­i­ter­ra­nean jour­ney, but he en­joined him to tell no man, not even his own flesh and blood, and Zeb­e­dee never did dis­close his knowl­edge of Je­sus’ where­abouts dur­ing this long pe­riod of al­most two years. Be­fore Je­sus’ re­turn from this trip the fam­ily at Naz­a­reth had just about given him up as dead. Only the as­sur­ances of Zeb­e­dee, who went up to Naz­a­reth with his son John on sev­eral oc­ca­sions, kept hope alive in Mary’s heart.

• personal agent regarding Jesus’ family

129:2.11Dur­ing this time the Naz­a­reth fam­ily got along very well; Jude had con­sid­er­ably in­creased his quota and kept up this ex­tra con­tri­bu­tion un­til he was mar­ried. Not­with­stand­ing that they re­quired lit­tle as­sis­tance, it was the prac­tice of John Zeb­e­dee to take pres­ents each month to Mary and Ruth, as Je­sus had in­structed him.

• purchased Capernaum house for Jesus

134:1.1Af­ter tak­ing leave of Gonod and Ga­nid at Charax (in De­cem­ber of A.D. 23), Je­sus re­turned by way of Ur to Baby­lon, where he joined a desert car­a­van that was on its way to Da­mas­cus. From Da­mas­cus he went to Naz­a­reth, stop­ping only a few hours at Ca­per­naum, where he paused to call on Zeb­e­dee’s fam­ily. There he met his brother James, who had some­time pre­vi­ously come over to work in his place in Zeb­e­dee’s boat­shop. Af­ter talk­ing with James and Jude (who also chanced to be in Ca­per­naum) and af­ter turn­ing over to his brother James the lit­tle house which John Zeb­e­dee had man­aged to buy, Je­sus went on to Naz­a­reth.

• baptized by John in December A.D. 25

135:8.1By De­cem­ber of A.D. 25, when John reached the neigh­bor­hood of Pella in his jour­ney up the Jor­dan, his fame had ex­tended through­out all Pales­tine, and his work had be­come the chief topic of con­ver­sa­tion in all the towns about the lake of Gal­i­lee. Je­sus had spo­ken fa­vor­ably of John’s mes­sage, and this had caused many from Ca­per­naum to join John’s cult of re­pen­tance and bap­tism. James and John the fish­er­men sons of Zeb­e­dee had gone down in De­cem­ber, soon af­ter John took up his preach­ing po­si­tion near Pella, and had of­fered them­selves for bap­tism. They went to see John once a week and brought back to Je­sus fresh, first­hand re­ports of the evan­ge­list’s work.

• searched 40 days for Jesus

136:3.7Through­out all of these forty days of iso­la­tion James and John the sons of Zeb­e­dee were en­gaged in search­ing for Je­sus. Many times they were not far from his abid­ing place, but never did they find him.

• became apostle

137:1.5Af­ter Je­sus had re­turned to Pella for the night, and while An­drew and Si­mon were yet dis­cussing the na­ture of their ser­vice in the es­tab­lish­ment of the forth­com­ing king­dom, James and John the sons of Zeb­e­dee ar­rived upon the scene, hav­ing just re­turned from their long and fu­tile search­ing in the hills for Je­sus. When they heard Si­mon Pe­ter tell how he and his brother, An­drew, had be­come the first ac­cepted coun­selors of the new king­dom, and that they were to leave with their new Mas­ter on the mor­row for Gal­i­lee, both James and John were sad. They had known Je­sus for some time, and they loved him. They had searched for him many days in the hills, and now they re­turned to learn that oth­ers had been pre­ferred be­fore them. They in­quired where Je­sus had gone and made haste to find him.

137:1.6Je­sus was asleep when they reached his abode, but they awak­ened him, say­ing: “How is it that, while we who have so long lived with you are search­ing in the hills for you, you pre­fer oth­ers be­fore us and choose An­drew and Si­mon as your first as­so­ciates in the new king­dom?” Je­sus an­swered them, “Be calm in your hearts and ask your­selves, ‘who di­rected that you should search for the Son of Man when he was about his Fa­ther’s busi­ness?’” Af­ter they had re­cited the de­tails of their long search in the hills, Je­sus fur­ther in­structed them: “You should learn to search for the se­cret of the new king­dom in your hearts and not in the hills. That which you sought was al­ready pres­ent in your souls. You are in­deed my breth­ren—you needed not to be re­ceived by me—al­ready were you of the king­dom, and you should be of good cheer, mak­ing ready also to go with us to­mor­row into Gal­i­lee.” John then made bold to ask, “But, Mas­ter, will James and I be as­so­ciates with you in the new king­dom, even as An­drew and Si­mon?” And Je­sus, lay­ing a hand on the shoul­der of each of them, said: “My breth­ren, you were al­ready with me in the spirit of the king­dom, even be­fore these oth­ers made re­quest to be re­ceived. You, my breth­ren, have no need to make re­quest for en­trance into the king­dom; you have been with me in the king­dom from the be­gin­ning. Be­fore men, oth­ers may take prece­dence over you, but in my heart did I also num­ber you in the coun­cils of the king­dom, even be­fore you thought to make this re­quest of me. And even so might you have been first be­fore men had you not been ab­sent en­gaged in a well-in­ten­tioned but self-ap­pointed task of seek­ing for one who was not lost. In the com­ing king­dom, be not mind­ful of those things which fos­ter your anx­i­ety but rather at all times con­cern your­selves only with do­ing the will of the Fa­ther who is in heaven.”

137:1.7James and John re­ceived the re­buke in good grace; never more were they en­vi­ous of An­drew and Si­mon. And they made ready, with their two as­so­ciate apos­tles, to de­part for Gal­i­lee the next morn­ing. From this day on the term apos­tle was em­ployed to dis­tin­guish the cho­sen fam­ily of Je­sus’ ad­vis­ers from the vast mul­ti­tude of be­liev­ing dis­ci­ples who sub­se­quently fol­lowed him.

137:1.8Late that evening, James, John, An­drew, and Si­mon held con­verse with John the Bap­tist, and with tear­ful eye but steady voice the stal­wart Judean prophet sur­ren­dered two of his lead­ing dis­ci­ples to be­come the apos­tles of the Galilean Prince of the com­ing king­dom.

• selected Judas Alpheus

138:2.74. Ju­das Al­pheus, the twin brother of James Al­pheus, also a fish­er­man, was se­lected by John Zeb­e­dee.

• fishing partner of Andrew, Peter, and brother James

139:1.1An­drew, chair­man of the apos­tolic corps of the king­dom, was born in Ca­per­naum. He was the old­est child in a fam­ily of five—him­self, his brother Si­mon, and three sis­ters. His fa­ther, now dead, had been a part­ner of Zeb­e­dee in the fish-dry­ing busi­ness at Beth­saida, the fish­ing har­bor of Ca­per­naum. When he be­came an apos­tle, An­drew was un­mar­ried but made his home with his mar­ried brother, Si­mon Pe­ter. Both were fish­er­men and part­ners of James and John the sons of Zeb­e­dee.

• fishing partner of Andrew, Peter, and brother James

139:3.1James, the older of the two apos­tle sons of Zeb­e­dee, whom Je­sus nick­named “sons of thun­der,” was thirty years old when he be­came an apos­tle. He was mar­ried, had four chil­dren, and lived near his par­ents in the out­skirts of Ca­per­naum, Beth­saida. He was a fish­er­man, ply­ing his call­ing in com­pany with his younger brother John and in as­so­ci­a­tion with An­drew and Si­mon. James and his brother John en­joyed the ad­van­tage of hav­ing known Je­sus longer than any of the other apos­tles.

• laid hands on converts receiving Spirit of Truth

139:5.9The in­abil­ity of Philip to adapt him­self to a new sit­u­a­tion was well shown when the Greeks came to him at Je­ru­sa­lem, say­ing: “Sir, we de­sire to see Je­sus.” Now Philip would have said to any Jew ask­ing such a ques­tion, “Come.” But these men were for­eign­ers, and Philip could re­mem­ber no in­struc­tions from his su­pe­ri­ors re­gard­ing such mat­ters; so the only thing he could think to do was to con­sult the chief, An­drew, and then they both es­corted the in­quir­ing Greeks to Je­sus. Like­wise, when he went into Samaria preach­ing and bap­tiz­ing be­liev­ers, as he had been in­structed by his Mas­ter, he re­frained from lay­ing hands on his con­verts in to­ken of their hav­ing re­ceived the Spirit of Truth. This was done by Pe­ter and John, who pres­ently came down from Je­ru­sa­lem to ob­serve his work in be­half of the mother church.

• led Jesus to pool of Bethesda

147:3.1The af­ter­noon of the sec­ond Sab­bath in Je­ru­sa­lem, as the Mas­ter and the apos­tles were about to par­tic­i­pate in the tem­ple ser­vices, John said to Je­sus, “Come with me, I would show you some­thing.” John con­ducted Je­sus out through one of the Je­ru­sa­lem gates to a pool of wa­ter called Bethesda. Sur­round­ing this pool was a struc­ture of five porches un­der which a large group of suf­fer­ers lin­gered in quest of heal­ing. This was a hot spring whose red­dish-tinged wa­ter would bub­ble up at ir­reg­u­lar in­ter­vals be­cause of gas ac­cu­mu­la­tions in the rock cav­erns un­der­neath the pool. This pe­ri­odic dis­tur­bance of the warm wa­ters was be­lieved by many to be due to super­nat­u­ral in­flu­ences, and it was a pop­u­lar be­lief that the first per­son who en­tered the wa­ter af­ter such a dis­tur­bance would be healed of what­ever in­fir­mity he had.

147:3.2The apos­tles were some­what rest­less un­der the re­stric­tions im­posed by Je­sus, and John, the young­est of the twelve, was es­pe­cially restive un­der this re­straint. He had brought Je­sus to the pool think­ing that the sight of the as­sem­bled suf­fer­ers would make such an ap­peal to the Mas­ter’s com­pas­sion that he would be moved to per­form a mir­a­cle of heal­ing, and thereby would all Je­ru­sa­lem be as­tounded and pres­ently be won to be­lieve in the gospel of the king­dom. Said John to Je­sus: “Mas­ter, see all of these suf­fer­ing ones; is there noth­ing we can do for them?” And Je­sus replied: “John, why would you tempt me to turn aside from the way I have cho­sen? Why do you go on de­sir­ing to sub­sti­tute the work­ing of won­ders and the heal­ing of the sick for the procla­ma­tion of the gospel of eter­nal truth? My son, I may not do that which you de­sire, but gather to­gether these sick and af­flicted that I may speak words of good cheer and eter­nal com­fort to them.”

• forbade strange preacher

159:2.1Je­sus went over to Gamala to visit John and those who worked with him at that place. That evening, af­ter the ses­sion of ques­tions and an­swers, John said to Je­sus: “Mas­ter, yes­ter­day I went over to Ashtaroth to see a man who was teach­ing in your name and even claim­ing to be able to cast out dev­ils. Now this fel­low had never been with us, nei­ther does he fol­low af­ter us; there­fore I for­bade him to do such things.” Then said Je­sus: “For­bid him not. Do you not per­ceive that this gospel of the king­dom shall pres­ently be pro­claimed in all the world? How can you ex­pect that all who will be­lieve the gospel shall be sub­ject to your di­rec­tion? Re­joice that al­ready our teach­ing has be­gun to man­i­fest it­self be­yond the bounds of our per­sonal in­flu­ence. Do you not see, John, that those who pro­fess to do great works in my name must even­tu­ally sup­port our cause? They cer­tainly will not be quick to speak evil of me. My son, in mat­ters of this sort it would be bet­ter for you to reckon that he who is not against us is for us. In the gen­er­a­tions to come many who are not wholly wor­thy will do many strange things in my name, but I will not for­bid them. I tell you that, even when a cup of cold wa­ter is given to a thirsty soul, the Fa­ther’s mes­sen­gers shall ever make rec­ord of such a ser­vice of love.”

• collected Palm Sunday donkey

172:3.6Je­sus had long tried by di­rect teach­ing to im­press upon his apos­tles and his dis­ci­ples that his king­dom was not of this world, that it was a purely spir­i­tual mat­ter; but he had not suc­ceeded in this ef­fort. Now, what he had failed to do by plain and per­sonal teach­ing, he would at­tempt to ac­com­plish by a sym­bolic ap­peal. Ac­cord­ingly, right af­ter the noon lunch, Je­sus called Pe­ter and John, and af­ter di­rect­ing them to go over to Beth­page, a neigh­bor­ing vil­lage a lit­tle off the main road and a short dis­tance north­west of Beth­any, he fur­ther said: “Go to Beth­page, and when you come to the junc­tion of the roads, you will find the colt of an ass tied there. Loose the colt and bring it back with you. If any­one asks you why you do this, merely say, ‘The Mas­ter has need of him.’” And when the two apos­tles had gone into Beth­page as the Mas­ter had di­rected, they found the colt tied near his mother in the open street and close to a house on the cor­ner. As Pe­ter be­gan to un­tie the colt, the owner came over and asked why they did this, and when Pe­ter an­swered him as Je­sus had di­rected, the man said: “If your Mas­ter is Je­sus from Gal­i­lee, let him have the colt.” And so they re­turned bring­ing the colt with them.

• personal agent regarding Jesus’ family

174:0.2This morn­ing he greeted each of the twelve with a per­sonal salu­ta­tion. To An­drew he said: “Be not dis­mayed by the events just ahead. Keep a firm hold on your breth­ren and see that they do not find you down­cast.” To Pe­ter he said: “Put not your trust in the arm of flesh nor in weapons of steel. Es­tab­lish your­self on the spir­i­tual foun­da­tions of the eter­nal rocks.” To James he said: “Fal­ter not be­cause of out­ward ap­pear­ances. Re­main firm in your faith, and you shall soon know of the re­al­ity of that which you be­lieve.” To John he said: “Be gen­tle; love even your en­e­mies; be tol­er­ant. And re­mem­ber that I have trusted you with many things.” To Na­than­iel he said: “Judge not by ap­pear­ances; re­main firm in your faith when all ap­pears to van­ish; be true to your com­mis­sion as an am­bas­sador of the king­dom.” To Philip he said: “Be un­moved by the events now im­pend­ing. Re­main un­shaken, even when you can­not see the way. Be loyal to your oath of con­se­cra­tion.” To Mat­thew he said: “For­get not the mercy that re­ceived you into the king­dom. Let no man cheat you of your eter­nal re­ward. As you have with­stood the in­cli­na­tions of the mor­tal na­ture, be will­ing to be stead­fast.” To Thomas he said: “No mat­ter how dif­fi­cult it may be, just now you must walk by faith and not by sight. Doubt not that I am able to fin­ish the work I have be­gun, and that I shall even­tu­ally see all of my faith­ful am­bas­sadors in the king­dom be­yond.” To the Al­pheus twins he said: “Do not al­low the things which you can­not un­der­stand to crush you. Be true to the af­fec­tions of your hearts and put not your trust in ei­ther great men or the chang­ing at­ti­tude of the peo­ple. Stand by your breth­ren.” And to Si­mon Ze­lo­tes he said: “Si­mon, you may be crushed by dis­ap­point­ment, but your spirit shall rise above all that may come upon you. What you have failed to learn from me, my spirit will teach you. Seek the true re­al­i­ties of the spirit and cease to be at­tracted by un­real and ma­te­rial shad­ows.” And to Ju­das Is­car­iot he said: “Ju­das, I have loved you and have prayed that you would love your breth­ren. Be not weary in well do­ing; and I would warn you to be­ware the slip­pery paths of flat­tery and the poi­son darts of ridicule.”

• claimed preferred seat at Last Supper

179:1.4They ex­pected the Mas­ter to ar­rive any mo­ment, but they were in a quandary as to whether they should seat them­selves or await his com­ing and de­pend on him to as­sign them their places. While they hes­i­tated, Ju­das stepped over to the seat of honor, at the left of the host, and sig­ni­fied that he in­tended there to re­cline as the pre­ferred guest. This act of Ju­das im­me­di­ately stirred up a heated dis­pute among the other apos­tles. Ju­das had no sooner seized the seat of honor than John Zeb­e­dee laid claim to the next pre­ferred seat, the one on the right of the host. Si­mon Pe­ter was so en­raged at this as­sump­tion of choice po­si­tions by Ju­das and John that, as the other an­gry apos­tles looked on, he marched clear around the ta­ble and took his place on the low­est couch, the end of the seat­ing or­der and just op­po­site to that cho­sen by John Zeb­e­dee. Since oth­ers had seized the high seats, Pe­ter thought to choose the low­est, and he did this, not merely in protest against the un­seemly pride of his breth­ren, but with the hope that Je­sus, when he should come and see him in the place of least honor, would call him up to a higher one, thus dis­plac­ing one who had pre­sumed to honor him­self.

• personal agent regarding Jesus’ family

181:2.2To John, Je­sus said: “You, John, are the young­est of my breth­ren. You have been very near me, and while I love you all with the same love which a fa­ther be­stows upon his sons, you were des­ig­nated by An­drew as one of the three who should al­ways be near me. Be­sides this, you have acted for me and must con­tinue so to act in many mat­ters con­cern­ing my earthly fam­ily. And I go to the Fa­ther, John, hav­ing full con­fi­dence that you will con­tinue to watch over those who are mine in the flesh. See to it that their pres­ent con­fu­sion re­gard­ing my mis­sion does not in any way pre­vent your ex­tend­ing to them all sym­pa­thy, coun­sel, and help even as you know I would if I were to re­main in the flesh. And when they all come to see the light and en­ter fully into the king­dom, while you all will wel­come them joy­ously, I de­pend upon you, John, to wel­come them for me.

181:2.3“And now, as I en­ter upon the clos­ing hours of my earthly ca­reer, re­main near at hand that I may leave any mes­sage with you re­gard­ing my fam­ily. As con­cerns the work put in my hands by the Fa­ther, it is now fin­ished ex­cept for my death in the flesh, and I am ready to drink this last cup. But as for the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties left to me by my earthly fa­ther, Joseph, while I have at­tended to these dur­ing my life, I must now de­pend upon you to act in my stead in all these mat­ters. And I have cho­sen you to do this for me, John, be­cause you are the young­est and will there­fore very likely out­live these other apos­tles.

• personal agent regarding Jesus’ family

187:4.7Just af­ter the re­pen­tant thief heard the Mas­ter’s prom­ise that they should some­time meet in Par­a­dise, John re­turned from the city, bring­ing with him his mother and a com­pany of al­most a dozen women be­liev­ers. John took up his po­si­tion near Mary the mother of Je­sus, sup­port­ing her. Her son Jude stood on the other side. As Je­sus looked down upon this scene, it was noon­tide, and he said to his mother, “Woman, be­hold your son!” And speak­ing to John, he said, “My son, be­hold your mother!” And then he ad­dressed them both, say­ing, “I de­sire that you de­part from this place.” And so John and Jude led Mary away from Gol­go­tha. John took the mother of Je­sus to the place where he tar­ried in Je­ru­sa­lem and then has­tened back to the scene of the cru­ci­fix­ion. Af­ter the Pass­over Mary re­turned to Beth­saida, where she lived at John’s home for the rest of her nat­u­ral life. Mary did not live quite one year af­ter the death of Je­sus.

• helped bear Jesus’ body to tomb

188:1.3At about half past four o’clock the burial pro­ces­sion of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth started from Gol­go­tha for Joseph’s tomb across the way. The body was wrapped in a linen sheet as the four men car­ried it, fol­lowed by the faith­ful women watch­ers from Gal­i­lee. The mor­tals who bore the ma­te­rial body of Je­sus to the tomb were: Joseph, Nicode­mus, John, and the Ro­man cen­tu­rion.

138:10.32. Pe­ter, James, and John were ap­pointed per­sonal com­pan­ions of Je­sus. They were to at­tend him day and night, to min­is­ter to his phys­i­cal and sundry needs, and to ac­com­pany him on those night vig­ils of prayer and mys­te­ri­ous com­mu­nion with the Fa­ther in heaven.

• impetuous

38:0.1There are three dis­tinct or­ders of the per­son­al­i­ties of the In­fi­nite Spirit. The im­petu­ous apos­tle un­der­stood this when he wrote re­spect­ing Je­sus, “who has gone to heaven and is on the right hand of God, an­gels and au­thor­i­ties and pow­ers be­ing made sub­ject to him.” An­gels are the min­is­ter­ing spir­its of time; au­thor­i­ties, the mes­sen­ger hosts of space; pow­ers, the higher per­son­al­i­ties of the In­fi­nite Spirit.

• conceited, bigoted and intolerant; self-contained

139:3.4The out­stand­ing fea­ture of James’s per­son­al­ity was his abil­ity to see all sides of a propo­si­tion. Of all the twelve, he came the near­est to grasp­ing the real im­port and sig­nif­i­cance of Je­sus’ teach­ing. He, too, was slow at first to com­pre­hend the Mas­ter’s mean­ing, but ere they had fin­ished their train­ing, he had ac­quired a su­pe­rior con­cept of Je­sus’ mes­sage. James was able to un­der­stand a wide range of hu­man na­ture; he got along well with the ver­sa­tile An­drew, the im­petu­ous Pe­ter, and his self-con­tained brother John.

• bid fire devour insolent Samaritans
• son of thunder

139:3.5Though James and John had their trou­bles try­ing to work to­gether, it was in­spir­ing to ob­serve how well they got along. They did not suc­ceed quite so well as An­drew and Pe­ter, but they did much bet­ter than would or­di­nar­ily be ex­pected of two broth­ers, es­pe­cially such head­strong and de­ter­mined broth­ers. But, strange as it may seem, these two sons of Zeb­e­dee were much more tol­er­ant of each other than they were of strangers. They had great af­fec­tion for one an­other; they had al­ways been happy play­mates. It was these “sons of thun­der” who wanted to call fire down from heaven to de­stroy the Samar­i­tans who pre­sumed to show dis­re­spect for their Mas­ter. But the un­timely death of James greatly mod­i­fied the ve­he­ment tem­per­a­ment of his younger brother John.

• favored proclaiming Jesus king

152:2.5Philip had pro­vided a three days’ sup­ply of food for Je­sus and the twelve, which was in the cus­tody of the Mark lad, their boy of all chores. By af­ter­noon of this, the third day for al­most half of this mul­ti­tude, the food the peo­ple had brought with them was nearly ex­hausted. David Zeb­e­dee had no tented city here to feed and ac­com­mo­date the crowds. Nei­ther had Philip made food pro­vi­sion for such a mul­ti­tude. But the peo­ple, even though they were hun­gry, would not go away. It was be­ing qui­etly whis­pered about that Je­sus, de­sir­ing to avoid trou­ble with both Herod and the Je­ru­sa­lem lead­ers, had cho­sen this quiet spot out­side the ju­ris­dic­tion of all his en­e­mies as the proper place to be crowned king. The en­thu­si­asm of the peo­ple was ris­ing ev­ery hour. Not a word was said to Je­sus, though, of course, he knew all that was go­ing on. Even the twelve apos­tles were still tainted with such no­tions, and es­pe­cially the younger evan­ge­lists. The apos­tles who fa­vored this at­tempt to pro­claim Je­sus king were Pe­ter, John, Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, and Ju­das Is­car­iot. Those op­pos­ing the plan were An­drew, James, Na­than­iel, and Thomas. Mat­thew, Philip, and the Al­pheus twins were non­com­mit­tal. The ringleader of this plot to make him king was Joab, one of the young evan­ge­lists.

• bid fire devour insolent Samaritans

162:0.2Af­ter Philip and Mat­thew had re­turned to their fel­lows and re­ported how they had been driven out of the vil­lage, James and John stepped up to Je­sus and said: “Mas­ter, we pray you to give us per­mis­sion to bid fire come down from heaven to de­vour these in­so­lent and im­pen­i­tent Samar­i­tans.” But when Je­sus heard these words of vengeance, he turned upon the sons of Zeb­e­dee and severely re­buked them: “You know not what man­ner of at­ti­tude you man­i­fest. Vengeance sa­vors not of the out­look of the king­dom of heaven. Rather than dis­pute, let us jour­ney over to the lit­tle vil­lage by the Jor­dan ford.” Thus be­cause of sec­tar­ian prej­u­dice these Samar­i­tans de­nied them­selves the honor of show­ing hos­pi­tal­ity to the Cre­ator Son of a uni­verse.

• grasped significance of entry into Jerusalem
• naturally thought in symbols

172:5.5John Zeb­e­dee came some­where near un­der­stand­ing why Je­sus did this; at least he grasped in part the spir­i­tual sig­nif­i­cance of this so-called tri­umphal en­try into Je­ru­sa­lem. As the mul­ti­tude moved on to­ward the tem­ple, and as John be­held his Mas­ter sit­ting there astride the colt, he re­called hear­ing Je­sus one­time quote the pas­sage of Scrip­ture, the ut­ter­ance of Zechariah, which de­scribed the com­ing of the Mes­siah as a man of peace and rid­ing into Je­ru­sa­lem on an ass. As John turned this Scrip­ture over in his mind, he be­gan to com­pre­hend the sym­bolic sig­nif­i­cance of this Sun­day-af­ter­noon pageant. At least, he grasped enough of the mean­ing of this Scrip­ture to en­able him some­what to en­joy the episode and to pre­vent his be­com­ing over­much de­pressed by the ap­par­ent pur­pose­less end­ing of the tri­umphal pro­ces­sion. John had a type of mind which nat­u­rally tended to think and feel in sym­bols.

• apostle of new commandment
• bid fire devour insolent Samaritans
• conceited, bigoted and intolerant; self-contained
• son of thunder

181:2.4“Once we called you and your brother sons of thun­der. You started out with us strong-minded and in­tol­er­ant, but you have changed much since you wanted me to call fire down upon the heads of ig­no­rant and thought­less un­be­liev­ers. And you must change yet more. You should be­come the apos­tle of the new com­mand­ment which I have this night given you. Ded­i­cate your life to teach­ing your breth­ren how to love one an­other, even as I have loved you.”

• believed Jesus had risen

189:5.3Pe­ter at first sug­gested that the grave had been ri­fled, that en­e­mies had stolen the body, per­haps bribed the guards. But John rea­soned that the grave would hardly have been left so or­derly if the body had been stolen, and he also raised the ques­tion as to how the ban­dages hap­pened to be left be­hind, and so ap­par­ently in­tact. And again they both went back into the tomb more closely to ex­am­ine the grave cloths. As they came out of the tomb the sec­ond time, they found Mary Mag­da­lene re­turned and weep­ing be­fore the en­trance. Mary had gone to the apos­tles be­liev­ing that Je­sus had risen from the grave, but when they all re­fused to be­lieve her re­port, she be­came down­cast and de­spair­ing. She longed to go back near the tomb, where she thought she had heard the fa­mil­iar voice of Je­sus.

• believed Jesus had risen

191:0.2All day long John up­held the idea that Je­sus had risen from the dead. He re­counted no less than five dif­fer­ent times when the Mas­ter had af­firmed he would rise again and at least three times when he al­luded to the third day. John’s at­ti­tude had con­sid­er­able in­flu­ence on them, es­pe­cially on his brother James and on Na­than­iel. John would have in­flu­enced them more if he had not been the young­est mem­ber of the group.

• became dominated by brotherly devotion

192:2.1When they had fin­ished break­fast, and while the oth­ers sat by the fire, Je­sus beck­oned to Pe­ter and to John that they should come with him for a stroll on the beach. As they walked along, Je­sus said to John, “John, do you love me?” And when John an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, with all my heart,” the Mas­ter said: “Then, John, give up your in­tol­er­ance and learn to love men as I have loved you. De­vote your life to prov­ing that love is the great­est thing in the world. It is the love of God that im­pels men to seek sal­va­tion. Love is the an­ces­tor of all spir­i­tual good­ness, the essence of the true and the beau­ti­ful.”

• believed Jesus would return before his death

192:2.5Pe­ter took this last state­ment lit­er­ally—that he should con­tinue to fol­low af­ter him—and turn­ing to Je­sus, he pointed to John, ask­ing, “If I fol­low on af­ter you, what shall this man do?” And then, per­ceiv­ing that Pe­ter had mis­un­der­stood his words, Je­sus said: “Pe­ter, be not con­cerned about what your breth­ren shall do. If I will that John should tarry af­ter you are gone, even un­til I come back, what is that to you? Only make sure that you fol­low me.”

192:2.6This re­mark spread among the breth­ren and was re­ceived as a state­ment by Je­sus to the ef­fect that John would not die be­fore the Mas­ter re­turned, as many thought and hoped, to es­tab­lish the king­dom in power and glory. It was this in­ter­pre­ta­tion of what Je­sus said that had much to do with get­ting Si­mon Ze­lo­tes back into ser­vice, and keep­ing him at work.

• four and twenty elders reference

45:4.1At the cen­ter of the seven an­gelic res­i­den­tial cir­cles on Je­ru­sem is lo­cated the head­quar­ters of the Uran­tia ad­vi­sory coun­cil, the four and twenty coun­selors. John the Rev­e­la­tor called them the four and twenty el­ders: “And round about the throne were four and twenty seats, and upon the seats I saw four and twenty el­ders sit­ting, clothed in white rai­ment.” The throne in the cen­ter of this group is the judg­ment seat of the pre­sid­ing arch­an­gel, the throne of the res­ur­rec­tion roll call of mercy and jus­tice for all Sa­ta­nia. This judg­ment seat has al­ways been on Je­ru­sem, but the twenty-four sur­round­ing seats were placed in po­si­tion no more than nine­teen hun­dred years ago, soon af­ter Christ Mi­chael was el­e­vated to the full sov­er­eignty of Neb­a­don. These four and twenty coun­selors are his per­sonal agents on Je­ru­sem, and they have au­thor­ity to rep­re­sent the Mas­ter Son in all mat­ters con­cern­ing the roll calls of Sa­ta­nia and in many other phases of the scheme of mor­tal as­cen­sion on the iso­lated worlds of the sys­tem. They are the des­ig­nated agents for ex­e­cut­ing the spe­cial re­quests of Ga­briel and the un­usual man­dates of Mi­chael.

121:8.104. The Gospel of John. The Gospel ac­cord­ing to John re­lates much of Je­sus’ work in Judea and around Je­ru­sa­lem which is not con­tained in the other rec­ords. This is the so-called Gospel ac­cord­ing to John the son of Zeb­e­dee, and though John did not write it, he did in­spire it. Since its first writ­ing it has sev­eral times been edited to make it ap­pear to have been writ­ten by John him­self. When this rec­ord was made, John had the other Gospels, and he saw that much had been omit­ted; ac­cord­ingly, in the year A.D. 101 he en­cour­aged his as­so­ciate, Nathan, a Greek Jew from Cae­sarea, to be­gin the writ­ing. John sup­plied his ma­te­rial from mem­ory and by ref­er­ence to the three rec­ords al­ready in ex­is­tence. He had no writ­ten rec­ords of his own. The Epis­tle known as “First John” was writ­ten by John him­self as a cov­er­ing let­ter for the work which Nathan ex­e­cuted un­der his di­rec­tion.

• Jesus’ avoidance of writing delayed

121:0.1Act­ing un­der the super­vi­sion of a com­mis­sion of twelve mem­bers of the United Broth­er­hood of Uran­tia Mid­way­ers, con­jointly spon­sored by the pre­sid­ing head of our or­der and the Mel­chiz­e­dek of rec­ord, I am the sec­ondary mid­wayer of one­time at­tach­ment to the Apos­tle An­drew, and I am au­tho­rized to place on rec­ord the nar­ra­tive of the life trans­ac­tions of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth as they were ob­served by my or­der of earth crea­tures, and as they were sub­se­quently par­tially re­corded by the hu­man sub­ject of my tem­po­ral guardian­ship. Know­ing how his Mas­ter so scrupu­lously avoided leav­ing writ­ten rec­ords be­hind him, An­drew stead­fastly re­fused to mul­ti­ply copies of his writ­ten nar­ra­tive. A sim­i­lar at­ti­tude on the part of the other apos­tles of Je­sus greatly de­layed the writ­ing of the Gospels.

• has viewpoint of Alexandrian Christians, disciples of Philo

121:6.6The Gospel of John, the last of the nar­ra­tives of Je­sus’ earth life, was ad­dressed to the West­ern peo­ples and pre­sents its story much in the light of the view­point of the later Alexan­drian Chris­tians, who were also dis­ci­ples of the teach­ings of Philo.

• Jesus’ avoidance of writing delayed

121:8.31. The Gospel by Mark. John Mark wrote the ear­li­est (ex­cept­ing the notes of An­drew), briefest, and most sim­ple rec­ord of Je­sus’ life. He pre­sented the Mas­ter as a min­is­ter, as man among men. Al­though Mark was a lad lin­ger­ing about many of the scenes which he de­picts, his rec­ord is in re­al­ity the Gospel ac­cord­ing to Si­mon Pe­ter. He was early as­so­ci­ated with Pe­ter; later with Paul. Mark wrote this rec­ord at the in­sti­ga­tion of Pe­ter and on the earnest pe­ti­tion of the church at Rome. Know­ing how con­sis­tently the Mas­ter re­fused to write out his teach­ings when on earth and in the flesh, Mark, like the apos­tles and other lead­ing dis­ci­ples, was hes­i­tant to put them in writ­ing. But Pe­ter felt the church at Rome re­quired the as­sis­tance of such a writ­ten nar­ra­tive, and Mark con­sented to un­der­take its prepa­ra­tion. He made many notes be­fore Pe­ter died in A.D. 67, and in ac­cor­dance with the out­line ap­proved by Pe­ter and for the church at Rome, he be­gan his writ­ing soon af­ter Pe­ter’s death. The Gospel was com­pleted near the end of A.D. 68. Mark wrote en­tirely from his own mem­ory and Pe­ter’s mem­ory. The rec­ord has since been con­sid­er­ably changed, nu­mer­ous pas­sages hav­ing been taken out and some later mat­ter added at the end to re­place the lat­ter one fifth of the orig­i­nal Gospel, which was lost from the first man­u­script be­fore it was ever copied. This rec­ord by Mark, in con­junc­tion with An­drew’s and Mat­thew’s notes, was the writ­ten ba­sis of all sub­se­quent Gospel nar­ra­tives which sought to por­tray the life and teach­ings of Je­sus.

• avoided all reference to casting out devils

145:2.13This young man was not pos­sessed of an un­clean spirit or de­mon; he was a vic­tim of or­di­nary epilepsy. But he had been taught that his af­flic­tion was due to pos­ses­sion by an evil spirit. He be­lieved this teach­ing and be­haved ac­cord­ingly in all that he thought or said con­cern­ing his ail­ment. The peo­ple all be­lieved that such phe­nom­ena were di­rectly caused by the pres­ence of un­clean spir­its. Ac­cord­ingly they be­lieved that Je­sus had cast a de­mon out of this man. But Je­sus did not at that time cure his epilepsy. Not un­til later on that day, af­ter sun­down, was this man re­ally healed. Long af­ter the day of Pen­te­cost the Apos­tle John, who was the last to write of Je­sus’ do­ings, avoided all ref­er­ence to these so-called acts of “cast­ing out dev­ils,” and this he did in view of the fact that such cases of de­mon pos­ses­sion never oc­curred af­ter Pen­te­cost.

• presents triumphant Jesus in full consciousness of divinity

196:2.3Mark, Mat­thew, and Luke re­tain some­thing of the pic­ture of the hu­man Je­sus as he en­gaged in the su­perb strug­gle to as­cer­tain the di­vine will and to do that will. John pre­sents a pic­ture of the tri­umphant Je­sus as he walked on earth in the full con­scious­ness of di­vin­ity. The great mis­take that has been made by those who have stud­ied the Mas­ter’s life is that some have con­ceived of him as en­tirely hu­man, while oth­ers have thought of him as only di­vine. Through­out his en­tire ex­pe­ri­ence he was truly both hu­man and di­vine, even as he yet is.

181:2.5As John Zeb­e­dee stood there in the up­per cham­ber, the tears rolling down his cheeks, he looked into the Mas­ter’s face and said: “And so I will, my Mas­ter, but how can I learn to love my breth­ren more?” And then an­swered Je­sus: “You will learn to love your breth­ren more when you first learn to love their Fa­ther in heaven more, and af­ter you have be­come truly more in­ter­ested in their wel­fare in time and in eter­nity. And all such hu­man in­ter­est is fos­tered by un­der­stand­ing sym­pa­thy, un­selfish ser­vice, and un­stinted for­give­ness. No man should de­spise your youth, but I ex­hort you al­ways to give due con­sid­er­a­tion to the fact that age of­ten­times rep­re­sents ex­pe­ri­ence, and that noth­ing in hu­man af­fairs can take the place of ac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence. Strive to live peace­ably with all men, es­pe­cially your friends in the broth­er­hood of the heav­enly king­dom. And, John, al­ways re­mem­ber, strive not with the souls you would win for the king­dom.”

134:9.1It was now near the end of the sum­mer, about the time of the day of atone­ment and the feast of taber­na­cles. Je­sus had a fam­ily meet­ing in Ca­per­naum over the Sab­bath and the next day started for Je­ru­sa­lem with John the son of Zeb­e­dee, go­ing to the east of the lake and by Gerasa and on down the Jor­dan val­ley. While he vis­ited some with his com­pan­ion on the way, John noted a great change in Je­sus.

• at transfiguration

158:0.2In a gen­eral way, Je­sus knew be­fore­hand what was to tran­spire on the moun­tain, and he much de­sired that all his apos­tles might share this ex­pe­ri­ence. It was to fit them for this rev­e­la­tion of him­self that he tar­ried with them at the foot of the moun­tain. But they could not at­tain those spir­i­tual lev­els which would jus­tify their ex­po­sure to the full ex­pe­ri­ence of the vis­i­ta­tion of the ce­les­tial be­ings so soon to ap­pear on earth. And since he could not take all of his as­so­ciates with him, he de­cided to take only the three who were in the habit of ac­com­pa­ny­ing him on such spe­cial vig­ils. Ac­cord­ingly, only Pe­ter, James, and John shared even a part of this unique ex­pe­ri­ence with the Mas­ter.

• at transfiguration

158:2.5Je­sus did not take Pe­ter, James, and John with him up to the mount of the trans­fig­u­ra­tion be­cause they were in any sense bet­ter pre­pared than the other apos­tles to wit­ness what hap­pened, or be­cause they were spir­i­tu­ally more fit to en­joy such a rare priv­i­lege. Not at all. He well knew that none of the twelve were spir­i­tu­ally qual­i­fied for this ex­pe­ri­ence; there­fore did he take with him only the three apos­tles who were as­signed to ac­com­pany him at those times when he de­sired to be alone to en­joy soli­tary com­mu­nion.

• asleep in Gethsemane

182:3.1Af­ter all was still and quiet about the camp, Je­sus, tak­ing Pe­ter, James, and John, went a short way up a near-by ravine where he had of­ten be­fore gone to pray and com­mune. The three apos­tles could not help rec­og­niz­ing that he was griev­ously op­pressed; never be­fore had they ob­served their Mas­ter to be so heavy-laden and sor­row­ful. When they ar­rived at the place of his de­vo­tions, he bade the three sit down and watch with him while he went off about a stone’s throw to pray. And when he had fallen down on his face, he prayed: “My Fa­ther, I came into this world to do your will, and so have I. I know that the hour has come to lay down this life in the flesh, and I do not shrink there­from, but I would know that it is your will that I drink this cup. Send me the as­sur­ance that I will please you in my death even as I have in my life.”

182:3.2The Mas­ter re­mained in a prayer­ful at­ti­tude for a few mo­ments, and then, go­ing over to the three apos­tles, he found them sound asleep, for their eyes were heavy and they could not re­main awake. As Je­sus awoke them, he said: “What! can you not watch with me even for one hour? Can­not you see that my soul is ex­ceed­ingly sor­row­ful, even to death, and that I crave your com­pan­ion­ship?” Af­ter the three had aroused from their slum­ber, the Mas­ter again went apart by him­self and, falling down on the ground, again prayed: “Fa­ther, I know it is pos­si­ble to avoid this cup—all things are pos­si­ble with you—but I have come to do your will, and while this is a bit­ter cup, I would drink it if it is your will.” And when he had thus prayed, a mighty an­gel came down by his side and, speak­ing to him, touched him and strength­ened him.

182:3.3When Je­sus re­turned to speak with the three apos­tles, he again found them fast asleep. He awak­ened them, say­ing: “In such an hour I need that you should watch and pray with me—all the more do you need to pray that you en­ter not into temp­ta­tion—where­fore do you fall asleep when I leave you?”

182:3.4And then, for a third time, the Mas­ter with­drew and prayed: “Fa­ther, you see my sleep­ing apos­tles; have mercy upon them. The spirit is in­deed will­ing, but the flesh is weak. And now, O Fa­ther, if this cup may not pass, then would I drink it. Not my will, but yours, be done.” And when he had fin­ished pray­ing, he lay for a mo­ment pros­trate on the ground. When he arose and went back to his apos­tles, once more he found them asleep. He sur­veyed them and, with a pity­ing ges­ture, ten­derly said: “Sleep on now and take your rest; the time of de­ci­sion is past. The hour is now upon us wherein the Son of Man will be be­trayed into the hands of his en­e­mies.” As he reached down to shake them that he might awaken them, he said: “Arise, let us be go­ing back to the camp, for, be­hold, he who be­trays me is at hand, and the hour has come when my flock shall be scat­tered. But I have al­ready told you about these things.”

• near Jesus after his arrest

183:4.3Five of the apos­tles, Na­than­iel, Mat­thew, Philip, and the twins, went into hid­ing at Beth­page and Beth­any. Thomas, An­drew, James, and Si­mon Ze­lo­tes were hid­ing in the city. Si­mon Pe­ter and John Zeb­e­dee fol­lowed along to the home of An­nas.

• at crucifixion (only apostle)
• near Jesus after his arrest

183:4.5Un­til the very end of the cru­ci­fix­ion, John Zeb­e­dee re­mained, as Je­sus had di­rected him, al­ways near at hand, and it was he who sup­plied David’s mes­sen­gers with in­for­ma­tion from hour to hour which they car­ried to David at the gar­den camp, and which was then re­layed to the hid­ing apos­tles and to Je­sus’ fam­ily.

• as designated observer at Jewish court
• near Jesus after his arrest

183:5.3About this time John Zeb­e­dee, re­mem­ber­ing his Mas­ter’s in­struc­tions to re­main al­ways near at hand, hur­ried up near Je­sus as he marched along be­tween the two cap­tains. The com­man­der of the tem­ple guards, see­ing John come up along­side, said to his as­sis­tant: “Take this man and bind him. He is one of this fel­low’s fol­low­ers.” But when the Ro­man cap­tain heard this and, look­ing around, saw John, he gave or­ders that the apos­tle should come over by him, and that no man should mo­lest him. Then the Ro­man cap­tain said to the Jew­ish cap­tain: “This man is nei­ther a traitor nor a cow­ard. I saw him in the gar­den, and he did not draw a sword to re­sist us. He has the cour­age to come for­ward to be with his Mas­ter, and no man shall lay hands on him. The Ro­man law al­lows that any pris­oner may have at least one friend to stand with him be­fore the judg­ment bar, and this man shall not be pre­vented from stand­ing by the side of his Mas­ter, the pris­oner.” And when Ju­das heard this, he was so ashamed and hu­mil­i­ated that he dropped back be­hind the marchers, com­ing up to the palace of An­nas alone.

183:5.4And this ex­plains why John Zeb­e­dee was per­mit­ted to re­main near Je­sus all the way through his try­ing ex­pe­ri­ences this night and the next day. The Jews feared to say aught to John or to mo­lest him in any way be­cause he had some­thing of the sta­tus of a Ro­man coun­selor des­ig­nated to act as ob­server of the trans­ac­tions of the Jew­ish ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal court. John’s po­si­tion of priv­i­lege was made all the more se­cure when, in turn­ing Je­sus over to the cap­tain of the tem­ple guards at the gate of An­nas’s palace, the Ro­man, ad­dress­ing his as­sis­tant, said: “Go along with this pris­oner and see that these Jews do not kill him with­out Pi­late’s con­sent. Watch that they do not as­sas­si­nate him, and see that his friend, the Galilean, is per­mit­ted to stand by and ob­serve all that goes on.” And thus was John able to be near Je­sus right on up to the time of his death on the cross, though the other ten apos­tles were com­pelled to re­main in hid­ing. John was act­ing un­der Ro­man pro­tec­tion, and the Jews dared not mo­lest him un­til af­ter the Mas­ter’s death.

• as designated observer at Jewish court

184:3.2This was not a reg­u­larly called meet­ing of the San­hedrin and was not held in the usual place, the cham­ber of hewn stone in the tem­ple. This was a spe­cial trial court of some thirty San­hedrists and was con­vened in the palace of the high priest. John Zeb­e­dee was pres­ent with Je­sus through­out this so-called trial.

• in adjoining room during Jesus’ humiliation

184:4.2Dur­ing this tragic hour of suf­fer­ing and mock tri­als be­fore the ig­no­rant and un­feel­ing guards and ser­vants, John Zeb­e­dee waited in lonely ter­ror in an ad­join­ing room. When these abuses first started, Je­sus in­di­cated to John, by a nod of his head, that he should re­tire. The Mas­ter well knew that, if he per­mit­ted his apos­tle to re­main in the room to wit­ness these in­dig­ni­ties, John’s re­sent­ment would be so aroused as to pro­duce such an out­break of protest­ing in­dig­na­tion as would prob­a­bly re­sult in his death.

• at Jesus’ examination by Pilate

185:3.1Pi­late took Je­sus and John Zeb­e­dee into a pri­vate cham­ber, leav­ing the guards out­side in the hall, and re­quest­ing the pris­oner to sit down, he sat down by his side and asked sev­eral ques­tions. Pi­late be­gan his talk with Je­sus by as­sur­ing him that he did not be­lieve the first count against him: that he was a per­verter of the na­tion and an in­citer to re­bel­lion. Then he asked, “Did you ever teach that trib­ute should be re­fused Cae­sar?” Je­sus, point­ing to John, said, “Ask him or any other man who has heard my teach­ing.” Then Pi­late ques­tioned John about this mat­ter of trib­ute, and John tes­ti­fied con­cern­ing his Mas­ter’s teach­ing and ex­plained that Je­sus and his apos­tles paid taxes both to Cae­sar and to the tem­ple. When Pi­late had ques­tioned John, he said, “See that you tell no man that I talked with you.” And John never did re­veal this mat­ter.

• at crucifixion (only apostle)

187:2.7The Apos­tle John, with Mary the mother of Je­sus, Ruth, and Jude, ar­rived on the scene just af­ter Je­sus had been hoisted to his po­si­tion on the cross, and just as the cap­tain was nail­ing the ti­tle above the Mas­ter’s head. John was the only one of the eleven apos­tles to wit­ness the cru­ci­fix­ion, and even he was not pres­ent all of the time since he ran into Je­ru­sa­lem to bring back his mother and her friends soon af­ter he had brought Je­sus’ mother to the scene.

• at crucifixion (only apostle)

187:3.2Stand­ing near the cross at one time or an­other dur­ing the cru­ci­fix­ion were Mary, Ruth, Jude, John, Sa­lome (John’s mother), and a group of earnest women be­liev­ers in­clud­ing Mary the wife of Clopas and sis­ter of Je­sus’ mother, Mary Mag­da­lene, and Re­becca, one­time of Sep­pho­ris. These and other friends of Je­sus held their peace while they wit­nessed his great pa­tience and for­ti­tude and gazed upon his in­tense suf­fer­ings.

• at crucifixion (only apostle)

187:5.1Al­though it was early in the sea­son for such a phe­nom­e­non, shortly af­ter twelve o’clock the sky dark­ened by rea­son of the fine sand in the air. The peo­ple of Je­ru­sa­lem knew that this meant the com­ing of one of those hot-wind sand­storms from the Ara­bian Desert. Be­fore one o’clock the sky was so dark the sun was hid, and the re­main­der of the crowd has­tened back to the city. When the Mas­ter gave up his life shortly af­ter this hour, less than thirty peo­ple were pres­ent, only the thir­teen Ro­man sol­diers and a group of about fif­teen be­liev­ers. These be­liev­ers were all women ex­cept two, Jude, Je­sus’ brother, and John Zeb­e­dee, who re­turned to the scene just be­fore the Mas­ter ex­pired.

• at crucifixion (only apostle)

187:5.4The sand­storm grew in in­ten­sity and the heav­ens in­creas­ingly dark­ened. Still the sol­diers and the small group of be­liev­ers stood by. The sol­diers crouched near the cross, hud­dled to­gether to pro­tect them­selves from the cut­ting sand. The mother of John and oth­ers watched from a dis­tance where they were some­what shel­tered by an over­hang­ing rock. When the Mas­ter fi­nally breathed his last, there were pres­ent at the foot of his cross John Zeb­e­dee, his brother Jude, his sis­ter Ruth, Mary Mag­da­lene, and Re­becca, one­time of Sep­pho­ris.

189:5.1As the two apos­tles raced for Gol­go­tha and the tomb of Joseph, Pe­ter’s thoughts al­ter­nated be­tween fear and hope; he feared to meet the Mas­ter, but his hope was aroused by the story that Je­sus had sent spe­cial word to him. He was half per­suaded that Je­sus was re­ally alive; he re­called the prom­ise to rise on the third day. Strange to re­late, this prom­ise had not oc­curred to him since the cru­ci­fix­ion un­til this mo­ment as he hur­ried north through Je­ru­sa­lem. As John has­tened out of the city, a strange ec­stasy of joy and hope welled up in his soul. He was half con­vinced that the women re­ally had seen the risen Mas­ter.

189:5.2John, be­ing younger than Pe­ter, out­ran him and ar­rived first at the tomb. John tar­ried at the door, view­ing the tomb, and it was just as Mary had de­scribed it. Very soon Si­mon Pe­ter rushed up and, en­ter­ing, saw the same empty tomb with the grave cloths so pe­cu­liarly ar­ranged. And when Pe­ter had come out, John also went in and saw it all for him­self, and then they sat down on the stone to pon­der the mean­ing of what they had seen and heard. And while they sat there, they turned over in their minds all that had been told them about Je­sus, but they could not clearly per­ceive what had hap­pened.

189:5.4As Mary lin­gered af­ter Pe­ter and John had gone, the Mas­ter again ap­peared to her, say­ing: “Be not doubt­ing; have the cour­age to be­lieve what you have seen and heard. Go back to my apos­tles and again tell them that I have risen, that I will ap­pear to them, and that pres­ently I will go be­fore them into Gal­i­lee as I prom­ised.”

189:5.5Mary hur­ried back to the Mark home and told the apos­tles she had again talked with Je­sus, but they would not be­lieve her. But when Pe­ter and John re­turned, they ceased to ridicule and be­came filled with fear and ap­pre­hen­sion.

191:2.1Shortly af­ter nine o’clock that evening, af­ter the de­par­ture of Cleopas and Ja­cob, while the Al­pheus twins com­forted Pe­ter, and while Na­than­iel re­mon­strated with An­drew, and as the ten apos­tles were there as­sem­bled in the up­per cham­ber with all the doors bolted for fear of ar­rest, the Mas­ter, in mor­ontia form, sud­denly ap­peared in the midst of them, say­ing: “Peace be upon you. Why are you so fright­ened when I ap­pear, as though you had seen a spirit? Did I not tell you about these things when I was pres­ent with you in the flesh? Did I not say to you that the chief priests and the rulers would de­liver me up to be killed, that one of your own num­ber would be­tray me, and that on the third day I would rise? Where­fore all your doubt­ings and all this dis­cus­sion about the re­ports of the women, Cleopas and Ja­cob, and even Pe­ter? How long will you doubt my words and refuse to be­lieve my promises? And now that you ac­tu­ally see me, will you be­lieve? Even now one of you is ab­sent. When you are gath­ered to­gether once more, and af­ter all of you know of a cer­tainty that the Son of Man has risen from the grave, go hence into Gal­i­lee. Have faith in God; have faith in one an­other; and so shall you en­ter into the new ser­vice of the king­dom of heaven. I will tarry in Je­ru­sa­lem with you un­til you are ready to go into Gal­i­lee. My peace I leave with you.”

191:2.2When the mor­ontia Je­sus had spo­ken to them, he van­ished in an in­stant from their sight. And they all fell on their faces, prais­ing God and ven­er­at­ing their van­ished Mas­ter. This was the Mas­ter’s ninth mor­ontia ap­pear­ance.

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.

191:5.2They were hav­ing their evening meal a lit­tle af­ter six o’clock, with Pe­ter sit­ting on one side of Thomas and Na­than­iel on the other, when the doubt­ing apos­tle said: “I will not be­lieve un­less I see the Mas­ter with my own eyes and put my fin­ger in the mark of the nails.” As they thus sat at sup­per, and while the doors were se­curely shut and barred, the mor­ontia Mas­ter sud­denly ap­peared in­side the cur­va­ture of the ta­ble and, stand­ing di­rectly in front of Thomas, said:

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.”

191:5.4When the Mas­ter had so spo­ken, he looked down into the face of Thomas and said: “And you, Thomas, who said you would not be­lieve un­less you could see me and put your fin­ger in the nail marks of my hands, have now be­held me and heard my words; and though you see no nail marks on my hands, since I am raised in the form that you also shall have when you de­part from this world, what will you say to your breth­ren? You will ac­knowl­edge the truth, for al­ready in your heart you had be­gun to be­lieve even when you so stoutly as­serted your un­be­lief. Your doubts, Thomas, al­ways most stub­bornly as­sert them­selves just as they are about to crum­ble. Thomas, I bid you be not faith­less but be­liev­ing—and I know you will be­lieve, even with a whole heart.”

191:5.5When Thomas heard these words, he fell on his knees be­fore the mor­ontia Mas­ter and ex­claimed, “I be­lieve! My Lord and my Mas­ter!” Then said Je­sus to Thomas: “You have be­lieved, Thomas, be­cause you have re­ally seen and heard me. Blessed are those in the ages to come who will be­lieve even though they have not seen with the eye of flesh nor heard with the mor­tal ear.”

191:5.6And then, as the Mas­ter’s form moved over near the head of the ta­ble, he ad­dressed them all, say­ing: “And now go all of you to Gal­i­lee, where I will pres­ently ap­pear to you.” Af­ter he said this, he van­ished from their sight.

191:5.7The eleven apos­tles were now fully con­vinced that Je­sus had risen from the dead, and very early the next morn­ing, be­fore the break of day, they started out for Gal­i­lee.

192:1.1About six o’clock Fri­day morn­ing, April 21, the mor­ontia Mas­ter made his thir­teenth ap­pear­ance, the first in Gal­i­lee, to the ten apos­tles as their boat drew near the shore close to the usual land­ing place at Beth­saida.

192:1.2Af­ter the apos­tles had spent the af­ter­noon and early evening of Thurs­day in wait­ing at the Zeb­e­dee home, Si­mon Pe­ter sug­gested that they go fish­ing. When Pe­ter pro­posed the fish­ing trip, all of the apos­tles de­cided to go along. All night they toiled with the nets but caught no fish. They did not much mind the fail­ure to make a catch, for they had many in­ter­est­ing ex­pe­ri­ences to talk over, things which had so re­cently hap­pened to them at Je­ru­sa­lem. But when day­light came, they de­cided to re­turn to Beth­saida. As they neared the shore, they saw some­one on the beach, near the boat land­ing, stand­ing by a fire. At first they thought it was John Mark, who had come down to wel­come them back with their catch, but as they drew nearer the shore, they saw they were mis­taken—the man was too tall for John. It had oc­curred to none of them that the per­son on the shore was the Mas­ter. They did not al­to­gether un­der­stand why Je­sus wanted to meet with them amidst the scenes of their ear­lier as­so­ci­a­tions and out in the open in con­tact with na­ture, far away from the shut-in en­vi­ron­ment of Je­ru­sa­lem with its tragic as­so­ci­a­tions of fear, be­trayal, and death. He had told them that, if they would go into Gal­i­lee, he would meet them there, and he was about to ful­fill that prom­ise.

192:1.4By this time John Mark was up and, see­ing the apos­tles com­ing ashore with the heavy-laden net, ran down the beach to greet them; and when he saw eleven men in­stead of ten, he sur­mised that the un­rec­og­nized one was the risen Je­sus, and as the as­ton­ished ten stood by in si­lence, the youth rushed up to the Mas­ter and, kneel­ing at his feet, said, “My Lord and my Mas­ter.” And then Je­sus spoke, not as he had in Je­ru­sa­lem, when he greeted them with “Peace be upon you,” but in com­mon­place tones he ad­dressed John Mark: “Well, John, I am glad to see you again and in care­free Gal­i­lee, where we can have a good visit. Stay with us, John, and have break­fast.”

192:1.5As Je­sus talked with the young man, the ten were so as­ton­ished and sur­prised that they ne­glected to haul the net of fish in upon the beach. Now spoke Je­sus: “Bring in your fish and pre­pare some for break­fast. Al­ready we have the fire and much bread.”

192:1.6While John Mark had paid homage to the Mas­ter, Pe­ter had for a mo­ment been shocked at the sight of the coals of fire glow­ing there on the beach; the scene re­minded him so vividly of the mid­night fire of char­coal in the court­yard of An­nas, where he had dis­owned the Mas­ter, but he shook him­self and, kneel­ing at the Mas­ter’s feet, ex­claimed, “My Lord and my Mas­ter!”

192:1.7Pe­ter then joined his com­rades as they hauled in the net. When they had landed their catch, they counted the fish, and there were 153 large ones. And again was the mis­take made of call­ing this an­other mirac­u­lous catch of fish. There was no mir­a­cle con­nected with this episode. It was merely an ex­er­cise of the Mas­ter’s pre­knowl­edge. He knew the fish were there and ac­cord­ingly di­rected the apos­tles where to cast the net.

192:1.8Je­sus spoke to them, say­ing: “Come now, all of you, to break­fast. Even the twins should sit down while I visit with you; John Mark will dress the fish.” John Mark brought seven good-sized fish, which the Mas­ter put on the fire, and when they were cooked, the lad served them to the ten. Then Je­sus broke the bread and handed it to John, who in turn served it to the hun­gry apos­tles. When they had all been served, Je­sus bade John Mark sit down while he him­self served the fish and the bread to the lad. And as they ate, Je­sus vis­ited with them and re­counted their many ex­pe­ri­ences in Gal­i­lee and by this very lake.

192:1.9This was the third time Je­sus had man­i­fested him­self to the apos­tles as a group. When Je­sus first ad­dressed them, ask­ing if they had any fish, they did not sus­pect who he was be­cause it was a com­mon ex­pe­ri­ence for these fish­er­men on the Sea of Gal­i­lee, when they came ashore, to be thus ac­costed by the fish mer­chants of Ta­ri­chea, who were usu­ally on hand to buy the fresh catches for the dry­ing es­tab­lish­ments.

192:1.10Je­sus vis­ited with the ten apos­tles and John Mark for more than an hour, and then he walked up and down the beach, talk­ing with them two and two—but not the same cou­ples he had at first sent out to­gether to teach. All eleven of the apos­tles had come down from Je­ru­sa­lem to­gether, but Si­mon Ze­lo­tes grew more and more de­spon­dent as they drew near Gal­i­lee, so that, when they reached Beth­saida, he for­sook his breth­ren and re­turned to his home.

192:1.11Be­fore tak­ing leave of them this morn­ing, Je­sus di­rected that two of the apos­tles should vol­un­teer to go to Si­mon Ze­lo­tes and bring him back that very day. And Pe­ter and An­drew did so.

192:2.2Je­sus then turned to­ward Pe­ter and asked, “Pe­ter, do you love me?” Pe­ter an­swered, “Lord, you know I love you with all my soul.” Then said Je­sus: “If you love me, Pe­ter, feed my lambs. Do not ne­glect to min­is­ter to the weak, the poor, and the young. Preach the gospel with­out fear or fa­vor; re­mem­ber al­ways that God is no re­specter of per­sons. Serve your fel­low men even as I have served you; for­give your fel­low mor­tals even as I have for­given you. Let ex­pe­ri­ence teach you the value of med­i­ta­tion and the power of in­tel­li­gent re­flec­tion.”

192:2.3Af­ter they had walked along a lit­tle far­ther, the Mas­ter turned to Pe­ter and asked, “Pe­ter, do you re­ally love me?” And then said Si­mon, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” And again said Je­sus: “Then take good care of my sheep. Be a good and a true shep­herd to the flock. Be­tray not their con­fi­dence in you. Be not taken by sur­prise at the en­emy’s hand. Be on guard at all times—watch and pray.”

192:2.4When they had gone a few steps far­ther, Je­sus turned to Pe­ter and, for the third time, asked, “Pe­ter, do you truly love me?” And then Pe­ter, be­ing slightly grieved at the Mas­ter’s seem­ing dis­trust of him, said with con­sid­er­able feel­ing, “Lord, you know all things, and there­fore do you know that I re­ally and truly love you.” Then said Je­sus: “Feed my sheep. Do not for­sake the flock. Be an ex­am­ple and an in­spi­ra­tion to all your fel­low shep­herds. Love the flock as I have loved you and de­vote your­self to their wel­fare even as I have de­voted my life to your wel­fare. And fol­low af­ter me even to the end.”

192:2.7When they re­turned to the oth­ers, Je­sus went for a walk and talk with An­drew and James. When they had gone a short dis­tance, Je­sus said to An­drew, “An­drew, do you trust me?” And when the for­mer chief of the apos­tles heard Je­sus ask such a ques­tion, he stood still and an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, of a cer­tainty I trust you, and you know that I do.” Then said Je­sus: “An­drew, if you trust me, trust your breth­ren more—even Pe­ter. I once trusted you with the lead­er­ship of your breth­ren. Now must you trust oth­ers as I leave you to go to the Fa­ther. When your breth­ren be­gin to scat­ter abroad be­cause of bit­ter per­se­cu­tions, be a con­sid­er­ate and wise coun­selor to James my brother in the flesh when they put heavy bur­dens upon him which he is not qual­i­fied by ex­pe­ri­ence to bear. And then go on trust­ing, for I will not fail you. When you are through on earth, you shall come to me.”

192:2.8Then Je­sus turned to James, ask­ing, “James, do you trust me?” And of course James replied, “Yes, Mas­ter, I trust you with all my heart.” Then said Je­sus: “James, if you trust me more, you will be less im­pa­tient with your breth­ren. If you will trust me, it will help you to be kind to the broth­er­hood of be­liev­ers. Learn to weigh the con­se­quences of your say­ings and your do­ings. Re­mem­ber that the reap­ing is in ac­cor­dance with the sow­ing. Pray for tran­quil­lity of spirit and cul­ti­vate pa­tience. These graces, with liv­ing faith, shall sus­tain you when the hour comes to drink the cup of sac­ri­fice. But never be dis­mayed; when you are through on earth, you shall also come to be with me.”

192:2.9Je­sus next talked with Thomas and Na­than­iel. Said he to Thomas, “Thomas, do you serve me?” Thomas replied, “Yes, Lord, I serve you now and al­ways.” Then said Je­sus: “If you would serve me, serve my breth­ren in the flesh even as I have served you. And be not weary in this well-do­ing but per­se­vere as one who has been or­dained by God for this ser­vice of love. When you have fin­ished your ser­vice with me on earth, you shall serve with me in glory. Thomas, you must cease doubt­ing; you must grow in faith and the knowl­edge of truth. Be­lieve in God like a child but cease to act so child­ishly. Have cour­age; be strong in faith and mighty in the king­dom of God.”

192:2.10Then said the Mas­ter to Na­than­iel, “Na­than­iel, do you serve me?” And the apos­tle an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, and with an un­di­vided af­fec­tion.” Then said Je­sus: “If, there­fore, you serve me with a whole heart, make sure that you are de­voted to the wel­fare of my breth­ren on earth with tire­less af­fec­tion. Ad­mix friend­ship with your coun­sel and add love to your phi­los­o­phy. Serve your fel­low men even as I have served you. Be faith­ful to men as I have watched over you. Be less crit­i­cal; ex­pect less of some men and thereby lessen the ex­tent of your dis­ap­point­ment. And when the work down here is over, you shall serve with me on high.”

192:2.11Af­ter this the Mas­ter talked with Mat­thew and Philip. To Philip he said, “Philip, do you obey me?” Philip an­swered, “Yes, Lord, I will obey you even with my life.” Then said Je­sus: “If you would obey me, go then into the lands of the gen­tiles and pro­claim this gospel. The proph­ets have told you that to obey is bet­ter than to sac­ri­fice. By faith have you be­come a God-know­ing king­dom son. There is but one law to obey—that is the com­mand to go forth pro­claim­ing the gospel of the king­dom. Cease to fear men; be un­afraid to preach the good news of eter­nal life to your fel­lows who lan­guish in dark­ness and hunger for the light of truth. No more, Philip, shall you busy your­self with money and goods. You now are free to preach the glad tid­ings just as are your breth­ren. And I will go be­fore you and be with you even to the end.”

192:2.12And then, speak­ing to Mat­thew, the Mas­ter asked, “Mat­thew, do you have it in your heart to obey me?” Mat­thew an­swered, “Yes, Lord, I am fully ded­i­cated to do­ing your will.” Then said the Mas­ter: “Mat­thew, if you would obey me, go forth to teach all peo­ples this gospel of the king­dom. No longer will you serve your breth­ren the ma­te­rial things of life; hence­forth you are also to pro­claim the good news of spir­i­tual sal­va­tion. From now on have an eye sin­gle only to obey­ing your com­mis­sion to preach this gospel of the Fa­ther’s king­dom. As I have done the Fa­ther’s will on earth, so shall you ful­fill the di­vine com­mis­sion. Re­mem­ber, both Jew and gen­tile are your breth­ren. Fear no man when you pro­claim the sav­ing truths of the gospel of the king­dom of heaven. And where I go, you shall pres­ently come.”

192:2.13Then he walked and talked with the Al­pheus twins, James and Ju­das, and speak­ing to both of them, he asked, “James and Ju­das, do you be­lieve in me?” And when they both an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, we do be­lieve,” he said: “I will soon leave you. You see that I have al­ready left you in the flesh. I tarry only a short time in this form be­fore I go to my Fa­ther. You be­lieve in me—you are my apos­tles, and you al­ways will be. Go on be­liev­ing and re­mem­ber­ing your as­so­ci­a­tion with me, when I am gone, and af­ter you have, per­chance, re­turned to the work you used to do be­fore you came to live with me. Never al­low a change in your out­ward work to in­flu­ence your al­le­giance. Have faith in God to the end of your days on earth. Never for­get that, when you are a faith son of God, all up­right work of the realm is sa­cred. Noth­ing which a son of God does can be com­mon. Do your work, there­fore, from this time on, as for God. And when you are through on this world, I have other and bet­ter worlds where you shall like­wise work for me. And in all of this work, on this world and on other worlds, I will work with you, and my spirit shall dwell within you.”

192:2.14It was al­most ten o’clock when Je­sus re­turned from his visit with the Al­pheus twins, and as he left the apos­tles, he said: “Farewell, un­til I meet you all on the mount of your or­di­na­tion to­mor­row at noon­time.” When he had thus spo­ken, he van­ished from their sight.

192:3.1At noon on Sat­ur­day, April 22, the eleven apos­tles as­sem­bled by ap­point­ment on the hill near Ca­per­naum, and Je­sus ap­peared among them. This meet­ing oc­curred on the very mount where the Mas­ter had set them apart as his apos­tles and as am­bas­sadors of the Fa­ther’s king­dom on earth. And this was the Mas­ter’s four­teenth mor­ontia man­i­fes­ta­tion.

192:3.2At this time the eleven apos­tles knelt in a cir­cle about the Mas­ter and heard him re­peat the charges and saw him re-en­act the or­di­na­tion scene even as when they were first set apart for the spe­cial work of the king­dom. And all of this was to them as a mem­ory of their for­mer con­se­cra­tion to the Fa­ther’s ser­vice, ex­cept the Mas­ter’s prayer. When the Mas­ter—the mor­ontia Je­sus—now prayed, it was in tones of majesty and with words of power such as the apos­tles had never be­fore heard. Their Mas­ter now spoke with the rulers of the uni­verses as one who, in his own uni­verse, had had all power and au­thor­ity com­mit­ted to his hand. And these eleven men never for­got this ex­pe­ri­ence of the mor­ontia reded­i­ca­tion to the for­mer pledges of am­bas­sador­ship. The Mas­ter spent just one hour on this mount with his am­bas­sadors, and when he had taken an af­fec­tion­ate farewell of them, he van­ished from their sight.

192:3.3And no one saw Je­sus for a full week. The apos­tles re­ally had no idea what to do, not know­ing whether the Mas­ter had gone to the Fa­ther. In this state of un­cer­tainty they tar­ried at Beth­saida. They were afraid to go fish­ing lest he come to visit them and they miss see­ing him. Dur­ing this en­tire week Je­sus was oc­cu­pied with the mor­ontia crea­tures on earth and with the af­fairs of the mor­ontia tran­si­tion which he was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing on this world.

192:4.1Word of the ap­pear­ances of Je­sus was spread­ing through­out Gal­i­lee, and ev­ery day in­creas­ing num­bers of be­liev­ers ar­rived at the Zeb­e­dee home to in­quire about the Mas­ter’s res­ur­rec­tion and to find out the truth about these re­puted ap­pear­ances. Pe­ter, early in the week, sent out word that a pub­lic meet­ing would be held by the sea­side the next Sab­bath at three o’clock in the af­ter­noon.

192:4.2Ac­cord­ingly, on Sat­ur­day, April 29, at three o’clock, more than five hun­dred be­liev­ers from the en­vi­rons of Ca­per­naum as­sem­bled at Beth­saida to hear Pe­ter preach his first pub­lic ser­mon since the res­ur­rec­tion. The apos­tle was at his best, and af­ter he had fin­ished his ap­peal­ing dis­course, few of his hear­ers doubted that the Mas­ter had risen from the dead.

192:4.3Pe­ter ended his ser­mon, say­ing: “We af­firm that Je­sus of Naz­a­reth is not dead; we de­clare that he has risen from the tomb; we pro­claim that we have seen him and talked with him.” Just as he fin­ished mak­ing this dec­la­ra­tion of faith, there by his side, in full view of all these peo­ple, the Mas­ter ap­peared in mor­ontia form and, speak­ing to them in fa­mil­iar ac­cents, said, “Peace be upon you, and my peace I leave with you.” When he had thus ap­peared and had so spo­ken to them, he van­ished from their sight. This was the fif­teenth mor­ontia man­i­fes­ta­tion of the risen Je­sus.

192:4.4Be­cause of cer­tain things said to the eleven while they were in con­fer­ence with the Mas­ter on the mount of or­di­na­tion, the apos­tles re­ceived the im­pres­sion that their Mas­ter would pres­ently make a pub­lic ap­pear­ance be­fore a group of the Galilean be­liev­ers, and that, af­ter he had done so, they were to re­turn to Je­ru­sa­lem. Ac­cord­ingly, early the next day, Sun­day, April 30, the eleven left Beth­saida for Je­ru­sa­lem. They did con­sid­er­able teach­ing and preach­ing on the way down the Jor­dan, so that they did not ar­rive at the home of the Marks in Je­ru­sa­lem un­til late on Wednes­day, May 3.

192:4.5This was a sad home-com­ing for John Mark. Just a few hours be­fore he reached home, his fa­ther, Eli­jah Mark, sud­denly died from a hem­or­rhage in the brain. Al­though the thought of the cer­tainty of the res­ur­rec­tion of the dead did much to com­fort the apos­tles in their grief, at the same time they truly mourned the loss of their good friend, who had been their stanch sup­porter even in the times of great trou­ble and dis­ap­point­ment. John Mark did all he could to com­fort his mother and, speak­ing for her, in­vited the apos­tles to con­tinue to make their home at her house. And the eleven made this up­per cham­ber their head­quar­ters un­til af­ter the day of Pen­te­cost.

192:4.6The apos­tles had pur­posely en­tered Je­ru­sa­lem af­ter night­fall that they might not be seen by the Jew­ish au­thor­i­ties. Nei­ther did they pub­licly ap­pear in con­nec­tion with the fu­neral of Eli­jah Mark. All the next day they re­mained in quiet seclu­sion in this event­ful up­per cham­ber.

192:4.8And so, un­der the vig­or­ous lead­er­ship of Pe­ter and ere the Mas­ter as­cended to the Fa­ther, his well-mean­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives be­gan that sub­tle pro­cess of grad­u­ally and cer­tainly chang­ing the re­li­gion of Je­sus into a new and mod­i­fied form of re­li­gion about Je­sus.

193:0.1The six­teenth mor­ontia man­i­fes­ta­tion of Je­sus oc­curred on Fri­day, May 5, in the court­yard of Nicode­mus, about nine o’clock at night. On this evening the Je­ru­sa­lem be­liev­ers had made their first at­tempt to get to­gether since the res­ur­rec­tion. As­sem­bled here at this time were the eleven apos­tles, the women’s corps and their as­so­ciates, and about fifty other lead­ing dis­ci­ples of the Mas­ter, in­clud­ing a num­ber of the Greeks. This com­pany of be­liev­ers had been vis­it­ing in­for­mally for more than half an hour when, sud­denly, the mor­ontia Mas­ter ap­peared in full view and im­me­di­ately be­gan to in­struct them. Said Je­sus:

193:0.2“Peace be upon you. This is the most rep­re­sen­ta­tive group of be­liev­ers—apos­tles and dis­ci­ples, both men and women—to which I have ap­peared since the time of my de­liv­er­ance from the flesh. I now call you to wit­ness that I told you be­fore­hand that my so­journ among you must come to an end; I told you that pres­ently I must re­turn to the Fa­ther. And then I plainly told you how the chief priests and the rulers of the Jews would de­liver me up to be put to death, and that I would rise from the grave. Why, then, did you al­low your­selves to be­come so dis­con­certed by all this when it came to pass? and why were you so sur­prised when I rose from the tomb on the third day? You failed to be­lieve me be­cause you heard my words with­out com­pre­hend­ing the mean­ing thereof.

193:0.3“And now you should give ear to my words lest you again make the mis­take of hear­ing my teach­ing with the mind while in your hearts you fail to com­pre­hend the mean­ing. From the be­gin­ning of my so­journ as one of you, I taught you that my one pur­pose was to re­veal my Fa­ther in heaven to his chil­dren on earth. I have lived the God-re­veal­ing be­stowal that you might ex­pe­ri­ence the God-know­ing ca­reer. I have re­vealed God as your Fa­ther in heaven; I have re­vealed you as the sons of God on earth. It is a fact that God loves you, his sons. By faith in my word this fact be­comes an eter­nal and liv­ing truth in your hearts. When, by liv­ing faith, you be­come di­vinely God-con­scious, you are then born of the spirit as chil­dren of light and life, even the eter­nal life where­with you shall as­cend the uni­verse of uni­verses and at­tain the ex­pe­ri­ence of find­ing God the Fa­ther on Par­a­dise.

193:0.4“I ad­mon­ish you ever to re­mem­ber that your mis­sion among men is to pro­claim the gospel of the king­dom—the re­al­ity of the fa­ther­hood of God and the truth of the son­ship of man. Pro­claim the whole truth of the good news, not just a part of the sav­ing gospel. Your mes­sage is not changed by my res­ur­rec­tion ex­pe­ri­ence. Son­ship with God, by faith, is still the sav­ing truth of the gospel of the king­dom. You are to go forth preach­ing the love of God and the ser­vice of man. That which the world needs most to know is: Men are the sons of God, and through faith they can ac­tu­ally re­al­ize, and daily ex­pe­ri­ence, this en­nobling truth. My be­stowal should help all men to know that they are the chil­dren of God, but such knowl­edge will not suf­fice if they fail per­son­ally to faith-grasp the sav­ing truth that they are the liv­ing spirit sons of the eter­nal Fa­ther. The gospel of the king­dom is con­cerned with the love of the Fa­ther and the ser­vice of his chil­dren on earth.

193:0.5“Among your­selves, here, you share the knowl­edge that I have risen from the dead, but that is not strange. I have the power to lay down my life and to take it up again; the Fa­ther gives such power to his Par­a­dise Sons. You should the rather be stirred in your hearts by the knowl­edge that the dead of an age en­tered upon the eter­nal as­cent soon af­ter I left Joseph’s new tomb. I lived my life in the flesh to show how you can, through lov­ing ser­vice, be­come God-re­veal­ing to your fel­low men even as, by lov­ing you and serv­ing you, I have be­come God-re­veal­ing to you. I have lived among you as the Son of Man that you, and all other men, might know that you are all in­deed the sons of God. There­fore, go you now into all the world preach­ing this gospel of the king­dom of heaven to all men. Love all men as I have loved you; serve your fel­low mor­tals as I have served you. Freely you have re­ceived, freely give. Only tarry here in Je­ru­sa­lem while I go to the Fa­ther, and un­til I send you the Spirit of Truth. He shall lead you into the en­larged truth, and I will go with you into all the world. I am with you al­ways, and my peace I leave with you.”

193:0.6When the Mas­ter had spo­ken to them, he van­ished from their sight. It was near day­break be­fore these be­liev­ers dis­persed; all night they re­mained to­gether, earnestly dis­cussing the Mas­ter’s ad­mo­ni­tions and con­tem­plat­ing all that had be­fallen them. James Zeb­e­dee and oth­ers of the apos­tles also told them of their ex­pe­ri­ences with the mor­ontia Mas­ter in Gal­i­lee and re­cited how he had three times ap­peared to them.

193:3.1Early Thurs­day morn­ing, May 18, Je­sus made his last ap­pear­ance on earth as a mor­ontia per­son­al­ity. As the eleven apos­tles were about to sit down to break­fast in the up­per cham­ber of Mary Mark’s home, Je­sus ap­peared to them and said:

193:3.2“Peace be upon you. I have asked you to tarry here in Je­ru­sa­lem un­til I as­cend to the Fa­ther, even un­til I send you the Spirit of Truth, who shall soon be poured out upon all flesh, and who shall en­dow you with power from on high.” Si­mon Ze­lo­tes in­ter­rupted Je­sus, ask­ing, “Then, Mas­ter, will you re­store the king­dom, and will we see the glory of God man­i­fested on earth?” When Je­sus had lis­tened to Si­mon’s ques­tion, he an­swered: “Si­mon, you still cling to your old ideas about the Jew­ish Mes­siah and the ma­te­rial king­dom. But you will re­ceive spir­i­tual power af­ter the spirit has de­scended upon you, and you will pres­ently go into all the world preach­ing this gospel of the king­dom. As the Fa­ther sent me into the world, so do I send you. And I wish that you would love and trust one an­other. Ju­das is no more with you be­cause his love grew cold, and be­cause he re­fused to trust you, his loyal breth­ren. Have you not read in the Scrip­ture where it is writ­ten: ‘It is not good for man to be alone. No man lives to him­self’? And also where it says: ‘He who would have friends must show him­self friendly’? And did I not even send you out to teach, two and two, that you might not be­come lonely and fall into the mis­chief and mis­eries of iso­la­tion? You also well know that, when I was in the flesh, I did not per­mit my­self to be alone for long pe­ri­ods. From the very be­gin­ning of our as­so­ci­a­tions I al­ways had two or three of you con­stantly by my side or else very near at hand even when I com­muned with the Fa­ther. Trust, there­fore, and con­fide in one an­other. And this is all the more need­ful since I am this day go­ing to leave you alone in the world. The hour has come; I am about to go to the Fa­ther.”

193:3.3When he had spo­ken, he beck­oned for them to come with him, and he led them out on the Mount of Olives, where he bade them farewell prepara­tory to de­part­ing from Uran­tia. This was a solemn jour­ney to Oli­vet. Not a word was spo­ken by any of them from the time they left the up­per cham­ber un­til Je­sus paused with them on the Mount of Olives.

193:5.1It was al­most half past seven o’clock this Thurs­day morn­ing, May 18, when Je­sus ar­rived on the west­ern slope of Mount Oli­vet with his eleven silent and some­what be­wil­dered apos­tles. From this lo­ca­tion, about two thirds the way up the moun­tain, they could look out over Je­ru­sa­lem and down upon Geth­sem­ane. Je­sus now pre­pared to say his last farewell to the apos­tles be­fore he took leave of Uran­tia. As he stood there be­fore them, with­out be­ing di­rected they knelt about him in a cir­cle, and the Mas­ter said:

193:5.2“I bade you tarry in Je­ru­sa­lem un­til you were en­dowed with power from on high. I am now about to take leave of you; I am about to as­cend to my Fa­ther, and soon, very soon, will we send into this world of my so­journ the Spirit of Truth; and when he has come, you shall be­gin the new procla­ma­tion of the gospel of the king­dom, first in Je­ru­sa­lem and then to the ut­ter­most parts of the world. Love men with the love where­with I have loved you and serve your fel­low mor­tals even as I have served you. By the spirit fruits of your lives im­pel souls to be­lieve the truth that man is a son of God, and that all men are breth­ren. Re­mem­ber all I have taught you and the life I have lived among you. My love over­shad­ows you, my spirit will dwell with you, and my peace shall abide upon you. Farewell.”

193:5.3When the mor­ontia Mas­ter had thus spo­ken, he van­ished from their sight. This so-called as­cen­sion of Je­sus was in no way dif­fer­ent from his other dis­ap­pear­ances from mor­tal vi­sion dur­ing the forty days of his mor­ontia ca­reer on Uran­tia.

193:5.4The Mas­ter went to Eden­tia by way of Je­ru­sem, where the Most Highs, un­der the ob­ser­va­tion of the Par­a­dise Son, re­leased Je­sus of Naz­a­reth from the mor­ontia state and, through the spirit chan­nels of as­cen­sion, re­turned him to the sta­tus of Par­a­dise son­ship and su­preme sov­er­eignty on Sal­ving­ton.

193:5.5It was about seven forty-five this morn­ing when the mor­ontia Je­sus dis­ap­peared from the ob­ser­va­tion of his eleven apos­tles to be­gin the as­cent to the right hand of his Fa­ther, there to re­ceive for­mal con­fir­ma­tion of his com­pleted sov­er­eignty of the uni­verse of Neb­a­don.

• among 120 at Pentecost

194:1.2It was about two o’clock when Pe­ter stood up in that very place where his Mas­ter had last taught in this tem­ple, and de­liv­ered that im­pas­sioned ap­peal which re­sulted in the win­ning of more than two thou­sand souls. The Mas­ter had gone, but they sud­denly dis­cov­ered that this story about him had great power with the peo­ple. No won­der they were led on into the fur­ther procla­ma­tion of that which vin­di­cated their for­mer de­vo­tion to Je­sus and at the same time so con­strained men to be­lieve in him. Six of the apos­tles par­tic­i­pated in this meet­ing: Pe­ter, An­drew, James, John, Philip, and Mat­thew. They talked for more than an hour and a half and de­liv­ered mes­sages in Greek, He­brew, and Ara­maic, as well as a few words in even other tongues with which they had a speak­ing ac­quain­tance.

141:3.2Pe­ter, James, and John did most of the pub­lic preach­ing. Philip, Na­than­iel, Thomas, and Si­mon did much of the per­sonal work and con­ducted classes for spe­cial groups of in­quir­ers; the twins con­tin­ued their gen­eral po­lice super­vi­sion, while An­drew, Mat­thew, and Ju­das de­vel­oped into a gen­eral man­age­rial com­mit­tee of three, al­though each of these three also did con­sid­er­able re­li­gious work.

140:10.9John asked Je­sus, “Mas­ter, what is the king­dom of heaven?” And Je­sus an­swered: “The king­dom of heaven con­sists in these three es­sen­tials: first, rec­og­ni­tion of the fact of the sov­er­eignty of God; sec­ond, be­lief in the truth of son­ship with God; and third, faith in the ef­fec­tive­ness of the su­preme hu­man de­sire to do the will of God—to be like God. And this is the good news of the gospel: that by faith ev­ery mor­tal may have all these es­sen­tials of sal­va­tion.”

148:6.1It was this same evening at Beth­saida that John also asked Je­sus why so many ap­par­ently in­no­cent peo­ple suf­fered from so many dis­eases and ex­pe­ri­enced so many af­flic­tions. In an­swer­ing John’s ques­tions, among many other things, the Mas­ter said:

34:4.11These are the “seven spir­its of God,” “like lamps burn­ing be­fore the throne,” which the prophet saw in the sym­bols of vi­sion. But he did not see the seats of the four and twenty sen­tinels about these seven ad­ju­tant mind-spir­its. This rec­ord rep­re­sents the con­fu­sion of two pre­sen­ta­tions, one per­tain­ing to the uni­verse head­quar­ters and the other to the sys­tem cap­i­tal. The seats of the four and twenty el­ders are on Je­ru­sem, the head­quar­ters of your lo­cal sys­tem of in­hab­ited worlds.

139:3.8He was mod­est and un­dra­matic, a daily server, an un­pre­ten­tious worker, seek­ing no spe­cial re­ward when he once grasped some­thing of the real mean­ing of the king­dom. And even in the story about the mother of James and John, who asked that her sons be granted places on the right hand and the left hand of Je­sus, it should be re­mem­bered that it was the mother who made this re­quest. And when they sig­ni­fied that they were ready to as­sume such re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, it should be rec­og­nized that they were cog­nizant of the dan­gers ac­com­pa­ny­ing the Mas­ter’s sup­posed re­volt against the Ro­man power, and that they were also will­ing to pay the price. When Je­sus asked if they were ready to drink the cup, they replied that they were. And as con­cerns James, it was lit­er­ally true—he did drink the cup with the Mas­ter, see­ing that he was the first of the apos­tles to ex­pe­ri­ence mar­tyr­dom, be­ing early put to death with the sword by Herod Agrippa. James was thus the first of the twelve to sac­ri­fice his life upon the new bat­tle line of the king­dom. Herod Agrippa feared James above all the other apos­tles. He was in­deed of­ten quiet and silent, but he was brave and de­ter­mined when his con­vic­tions were aroused and chal­lenged.

171:0.4It was on this Sun­day af­ter­noon that Sa­lome the mother of James and John Zeb­e­dee came to Je­sus with her two apos­tle sons and, in the man­ner of ap­proach­ing an Ori­en­tal po­ten­tate, sought to have Je­sus prom­ise in ad­vance to grant what­ever re­quest she might make. But the Mas­ter would not prom­ise; in­stead, he asked her, “What do you want me to do for you?” Then an­swered Sa­lome: “Mas­ter, now that you are go­ing up to Je­ru­sa­lem to es­tab­lish the king­dom, I would ask you in ad­vance to prom­ise me that these my sons shall have honor with you, the one to sit on your right hand and the other to sit on your left hand in your king­dom.”

171:0.5When Je­sus heard Sa­lome’s re­quest, he said: “Woman, you know not what you ask.” And then, look­ing straight into the eyes of the two honor-seek­ing apos­tles, he said: “Be­cause I have long known and loved you; be­cause I have even lived in your mother’s house; be­cause An­drew has as­signed you to be with me at all times; there­fore do you per­mit your mother to come to me se­cretly, mak­ing this un­seemly re­quest. But let me ask you: Are you able to drink the cup I am about to drink?” And with­out a mo­ment for thought, James and John an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, we are able.” Said Je­sus: “I am sad­dened that you know not why we go up to Je­ru­sa­lem; I am grieved that you un­der­stand not the na­ture of my king­dom; I am dis­ap­pointed that you bring your mother to make this re­quest of me; but I know you love me in your hearts; there­fore I de­clare that you shall in­deed drink of my cup of bit­ter­ness and share in my hu­mil­i­a­tion, but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give. Such hon­ors are re­served for those who have been des­ig­nated by my Fa­ther.”

171:0.6By this time some­one had car­ried word of this con­fer­ence to Pe­ter and the other apos­tles, and they were highly in­dig­nant that James and John would seek to be pre­ferred be­fore them, and that they would se­cretly go with their mother to make such a re­quest. When they fell to ar­gu­ing among them­selves, Je­sus called them all to­gether and said: “You well un­der­stand how the rulers of the gen­tiles lord it over their sub­jects, and how those who are great ex­er­cise au­thor­ity. But it shall not be so in the king­dom of heaven. Whoso­ever would be great among you, let him first be­come your ser­vant. He who would be first in the king­dom, let him be­come your min­is­ter. I de­clare to you that the Son of Man came not to be min­is­tered to but to min­is­ter; and I now go up to Je­ru­sa­lem to lay down my life in the do­ing of the Fa­ther’s will and in the ser­vice of my breth­ren.” When the apos­tles heard these words, they with­drew by them­selves to pray. That evening, in re­sponse to the labors of Pe­ter, James and John made suit­able apolo­gies to the ten and were re­stored to the good graces of their breth­ren.

171:0.7In ask­ing for places on the right hand and on the left hand of Je­sus at Je­ru­sa­lem, the sons of Zeb­e­dee lit­tle re­al­ized that in less than one month their beloved teacher would be hang­ing on a Ro­man cross with a dy­ing thief on one side and an­other trans­gres­sor on the other side. And their mother, who was pres­ent at the cru­ci­fix­ion, well re­mem­bered the fool­ish re­quest she had made of Je­sus at Pella re­gard­ing the hon­ors she so un­wisely sought for her apos­tle sons.

181:2.15Je­sus then stepped over to James Zeb­e­dee, who stood in si­lence as the Mas­ter ad­dressed him, say­ing: “James, when you and your younger brother once came to me seek­ing prefer­ment in the hon­ors of the king­dom, and I told you such hon­ors were for the Fa­ther to be­stow, I asked if you were able to drink my cup, and both of you an­swered that you were. Even if you were not then able, and if you are not now able, you will soon be pre­pared for such a ser­vice by the ex­pe­ri­ence you are about to pass through. By such be­hav­ior you an­gered your breth­ren at that time. If they have not al­ready fully for­given you, they will when they see you drink my cup. Whether your min­istry be long or short, pos­sess your soul in pa­tience. When the new teacher comes, let him teach you the poise of com­pas­sion and that sym­pa­thetic tol­er­ance which is born of sub­lime con­fi­dence in me and of per­fect sub­mis­sion to the Fa­ther’s will. Ded­i­cate your life to the dem­on­stra­tion of that com­bined hu­man af­fec­tion and di­vine dig­nity of the God-know­ing and Son-be­liev­ing dis­ci­ple. And all who thus live will re­veal the gospel even in the man­ner of their death. You and your brother John will go dif­fer­ent ways, and one of you may sit down with me in the eter­nal king­dom long be­fore the other. It would help you much if you would learn that true wis­dom em­braces dis­cre­tion as well as cour­age. You should learn sagac­ity to go along with your ag­gres­sive­ness. There will come those su­preme mo­ments wherein my dis­ci­ples will not hes­i­tate to lay down their lives for this gospel, but in all or­di­nary cir­cum­stances it would be far bet­ter to pla­cate the wrath of un­be­liev­ers that you might live and con­tinue to preach the glad tid­ings. As far as lies in your power, live long on the earth that your life of many years may be fruit­ful in souls won for the heav­enly king­dom.”

140:8.1Je­sus well knew that his apos­tles were not fully as­sim­i­lat­ing his teach­ings. He de­cided to give some spe­cial in­struc­tion to Pe­ter, James, and John, hop­ing they would be able to clar­ify the ideas of their as­so­ciates. He saw that, while some fea­tures of the idea of a spir­i­tual king­dom were be­ing grasped by the twelve, they stead­fastly per­sisted in at­tach­ing these new spir­i­tual teach­ings di­rectly onto their old and en­trenched lit­eral con­cepts of the king­dom of heaven as a restora­tion of David’s throne and the re-es­tab­lish­ment of Is­rael as a tem­po­ral power on earth. Ac­cord­ingly, on Thurs­day af­ter­noon Je­sus went out from the shore in a boat with Pe­ter, James, and John to talk over the af­fairs of the king­dom. This was a four hours’ teach­ing con­fer­ence, em­brac­ing scores of ques­tions and an­swers, and may most prof­itably be put in this rec­ord by re­or­ga­niz­ing the sum­mary of this mo­men­tous af­ter­noon as it was given by Si­mon Pe­ter to his brother, An­drew, the fol­low­ing morn­ing:

170:2.24By the time the Apos­tle John be­gan to write the story of Je­sus’ life and teach­ings, the early Chris­tians had ex­pe­ri­enced so much trou­ble with the king­dom-of-God idea as a breeder of per­se­cu­tion that they had largely aban­doned the use of the term. John talks much about the “eter­nal life.” Je­sus of­ten spoke of it as the “king­dom of life.” He also fre­quently re­ferred to “the king­dom of God within you.” He once spoke of such an ex­pe­ri­ence as “fam­ily fel­low­ship with God the Fa­ther.” Je­sus sought to sub­sti­tute many terms for the king­dom but al­ways with­out suc­cess. Among oth­ers, he used: the fam­ily of God, the Fa­ther’s will, the friends of God, the fel­low­ship of be­liev­ers, the broth­er­hood of man, the Fa­ther’s fold, the chil­dren of God, the fel­low­ship of the faith­ful, the Fa­ther’s ser­vice, and the lib­er­ated sons of God.

34:4.12But it was of Sal­ving­ton that John wrote: “And out of the throne pro­ceeded light­nings and thun­der­ings and voices”—the uni­verse broad­casts to the lo­cal sys­tems. He also en­vis­aged the di­rec­tional con­trol crea­tures of the lo­cal uni­verse, the liv­ing com­passes of the head­quar­ters world. This di­rec­tional con­trol in Neb­a­don is main­tained by the four con­trol crea­tures of Sal­ving­ton, who op­er­ate over the uni­verse cur­rents and are ably as­sisted by the first func­tion­ing mind-spirit, the ad­ju­tant of in­tu­ition, the spirit of “quick un­der­stand­ing.” But the de­scrip­tion of these four crea­tures—called beasts—has been sadly marred; they are of un­par­al­leled beauty and ex­qui­site form.

• mortals on Jerusem

47:10.2John the Rev­e­la­tor saw a vi­sion of the ar­rival of a class of ad­vanc­ing mor­tals from the sev­enth man­sion world to their first heaven, the glo­ries of Je­ru­sem. He re­corded: “And I saw as it were a sea of glass min­gled with fire; and those who had gained the vic­tory over the beast that was orig­i­nally in them and over the im­age that per­sisted through the man­sion worlds and fi­nally over the last mark and trace, stand­ing on the sea of glass, hav­ing the harps of God, and singing the song of de­liv­er­ance from mor­tal fear and death.” (Per­fected space com­mu­ni­ca­tion is to be had on all these worlds; and your any­where re­cep­tion of such com­mu­ni­ca­tions is made pos­si­ble by car­ry­ing the “harp of God,” a mor­ontia con­trivance com­pen­sat­ing for the in­abil­ity to di­rectly ad­just the im­ma­ture mor­ontia sen­sory mech­a­nism to the re­cep­tion of space com­mu­ni­ca­tions.)

• new Jerusalem in post-Teacher Son era

52:7.11It was of the con­clu­sion of the ter­mi­nal mis­sion of the Teacher Sons (at least that would be the chronol­ogy on a nor­mal world) that John wrote: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth and the new Je­ru­sa­lem com­ing down from God out of heaven, pre­pared as a princess adorned for the prince.”

• Lucifer rebellion

53:7.7Of the plan­e­tary an­gelic helpers, those as­signed to the Ma­te­rial Sons, about one third were de­ceived, and al­most ten per cent of the tran­si­tion min­is­ters were en­snared. In sym­bol John saw this when he wrote of the great red dragon, say­ing: “And his tail drew a third part of the stars of heaven and cast them down in dark­ness.”

184:0.3Je­sus spent about three hours at the palace of An­nas on Mount Oli­vet, not far from the gar­den of Geth­sem­ane, where they ar­rested him. John Zeb­e­dee was free and safe in the palace of An­nas not only be­cause of the word of the Ro­man cap­tain, but also be­cause he and his brother James were well known to the older ser­vants, hav­ing many times been guests at the palace as the for­mer high priest was a dis­tant rel­a­tive of their mother, Sa­lome.