messenger corps (David Zebedee’s)

• messenger corps (David Zebedee’s)

157:0.2Early in the af­ter­noon David’s mes­sen­gers brought Je­sus word that the Phar­isees were en­camped on the doorstep of his mother’s house, and there­fore he made no at­tempt to visit his fam­ily. And so again, through no fault of ei­ther, Je­sus and his earth fam­ily failed to make con­tact.

• messenger corps (David Zebedee’s)

163:5.2Af­ter the break­ing up of the Ma­g­a­dan Camp, David Zeb­e­dee re­turned to Beth­saida and be­gan im­me­di­ately to cur­tail the mes­sen­ger ser­vice. The king­dom was tak­ing on a new phase. Daily, pil­grims ar­rived from all parts of Pales­tine and even from re­mote re­gions of the Ro­man Em­pire. Be­liev­ers oc­ca­sion­ally came from Mes­o­po­ta­mia and from the lands east of the Tigris. Ac­cord­ingly, on Sun­day, De­cem­ber 18, David, with the help of his mes­sen­ger corps, loaded on to the pack an­i­mals the camp equipage, then stored in his fa­ther’s house, with which he had for­merly con­ducted the camp of Beth­saida by the lake. Bid­ding farewell to Beth­saida for the time be­ing, he pro­ceeded down the lake shore and along the Jor­dan to a point about one-half mile north of the apos­tolic camp; and in less than a week he was pre­pared to of­fer hos­pi­tal­ity to al­most fif­teen hun­dred pil­grim vis­i­tors. The apos­tolic camp could ac­com­mo­date about five hun­dred. This was the rainy sea­son in Pales­tine, and these ac­com­mo­da­tions were re­quired to take care of the ever-in­creas­ing num­ber of in­quir­ers, mostly earnest, who came into Perea to see Je­sus and to hear his teach­ing.

163:5.3David did all this on his own ini­tia­tive, though he had taken coun­sel with Philip and Mat­thew at Ma­g­a­dan. He em­ployed the larger part of his for­mer mes­sen­ger corps as his helpers in con­duct­ing this camp; he now used less than twenty men on reg­u­lar mes­sen­ger duty. Near the end of De­cem­ber and be­fore the re­turn of the sev­enty, al­most eight hun­dred vis­i­tors were gath­ered about the Mas­ter, and they found lodg­ing in David’s camp.

154:6.7An­drew did not re­call that David had posted some twenty-five sen­tinels about the Zeb­e­dee house, and that no one could take them by sur­prise; so he asked Je­sus what should be done. The Mas­ter stood there in si­lence while his mother, hav­ing heard the words, “I have no mother,” was re­cov­er­ing from the shock in the gar­den. It was at just this time that a woman in the room stood up and ex­claimed, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and blessed are the breasts that nursed you.” Je­sus turned aside a mo­ment from his con­ver­sa­tion with An­drew to an­swer this woman by say­ing, “No, rather is the one blessed who hears the word of God and dares to obey it.”

190:1.3From the tomb David and Joseph went im­me­di­ately to the home of Eli­jah Mark, where they held a con­fer­ence with the ten apos­tles in the up­per cham­ber. Only John Zeb­e­dee was dis­posed to be­lieve, even faintly, that Je­sus had risen from the dead. Pe­ter had be­lieved at first but, when he failed to find the Mas­ter, fell into grave doubt­ing. They were all dis­posed to be­lieve that the Jews had re­moved the body. David would not ar­gue with them, but when he left, he said: “You are the apos­tles, and you ought to un­der­stand these things. I will not con­tend with you; nev­er­the­less, I now go back to the home of Nicode­mus, where I have ap­pointed with the mes­sen­gers to as­sem­ble this morn­ing, and when they have gath­ered to­gether, I will send them forth on their last mis­sion, as her­alds of the Mas­ter’s res­ur­rec­tion. I heard the Mas­ter say that, af­ter he should die, he would rise on the third day, and I be­lieve him.” And thus speak­ing to the de­jected and for­lorn am­bas­sadors of the king­dom, this self-ap­pointed chief of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and in­tel­li­gence took leave of the apos­tles. On his way from the up­per cham­ber he dropped the bag of Ju­das, con­tain­ing all the apos­tolic funds, in the lap of Mat­thew Levi.

190:1.4It was about half past nine o’clock when the last of David’s twenty-six mes­sen­gers ar­rived at the home of Nicode­mus. David promptly as­sem­bled them in the spa­cious court­yard and ad­dressed them:

190:1.5“Men and breth­ren, all this time you have served me in ac­cor­dance with your oath to me and to one an­other, and I call you to wit­ness that I have never yet sent out false in­for­ma­tion at your hands. I am about to send you on your last mis­sion as vol­un­teer mes­sen­gers of the king­dom, and in so do­ing I re­lease you from your oaths and thereby dis­band the mes­sen­ger corps. Men, I de­clare to you that we have fin­ished our work. No more does the Mas­ter have need of mor­tal mes­sen­gers; he has risen from the dead. He told us be­fore they ar­rested him that he would die and rise again on the third day. I have seen the tomb—it is empty. I have talked with Mary Mag­da­lene and four other women, who have talked with Je­sus. I now dis­band you, bid you farewell, and send you on your re­spec­tive as­sign­ments, and the mes­sage which you shall bear to the be­liev­ers is: ‘Je­sus has risen from the dead; the tomb is empty.’”

190:1.6The ma­jor­ity of those pres­ent en­deav­ored to per­suade David not to do this. But they could not in­flu­ence him. They then sought to dis­suade the mes­sen­gers, but they would not heed the words of doubt. And so, shortly be­fore ten o’clock this Sun­day morn­ing, these twenty-six run­ners went forth as the first her­alds of the mighty truth-fact of the res­ur­rected Je­sus. And they started out on this mis­sion as they had on so many oth­ers, in ful­fill­ment of their oath to David Zeb­e­dee and to one an­other. These men had great con­fi­dence in David. They de­parted on this as­sign­ment with­out even tar­ry­ing to talk with those who had seen Je­sus; they took David at his word. The ma­jor­ity of them be­lieved what David had told them, and even those who some­what doubted, car­ried the mes­sage just as cer­tainly and just as swiftly.

190:1.7The apos­tles, the spir­i­tual corps of the king­dom, are this day as­sem­bled in the up­per cham­ber, where they man­i­fest fear and ex­press doubts, while these lay­men, rep­re­sent­ing the first at­tempt at the so­cial­iza­tion of the Mas­ter’s gospel of the broth­er­hood of man, un­der the or­ders of their fear­less and ef­fi­cient leader, go forth to pro­claim the risen Sav­ior of a world and a uni­verse. And they en­gage in this event­ful ser­vice ere his cho­sen rep­re­sen­ta­tives are will­ing to be­lieve his word or to ac­cept the ev­i­dence of eye­wit­nesses.

190:1.8These twenty-six were dis­patched to the home of Laz­a­rus in Beth­any and to all of the be­liever cen­ters, from Beer­sheba in the south to Da­mas­cus and Sidon in the north; and from Phil­a­del­phia in the east to Alexan­dria in the west.

191:6.4When the Mas­ter had so spo­ken, he van­ished from their sight. All that night these be­liev­ers re­mained there to­gether re­count­ing their ex­pe­ri­ences as king­dom be­liev­ers and lis­ten­ing to the many words of Ro­dan and his as­so­ciates. And they all be­lieved that Je­sus had risen from the dead. Imag­ine the sur­prise of David’s her­ald of the res­ur­rec­tion, who ar­rived the sec­ond day af­ter this, when they replied to his an­nounce­ment, say­ing: “Yes, we know, for we have seen him. He ap­peared to us day be­fore yes­ter­day.”

159:6.4About this time Ab­ner moved his base of op­er­a­tions from He­bron to Beth­le­hem, and this lat­ter place was also the head­quar­ters in Judea for David’s mes­sen­gers. David main­tained an overnight re­lay mes­sen­ger ser­vice be­tween Je­ru­sa­lem and Beth­saida. These run­ners left Je­ru­sa­lem each evening, re­lay­ing at Sy­char and Scythopo­lis, ar­riv­ing in Beth­saida by break­fast time the next morn­ing.

157:6.1Je­sus and the apos­tles re­mained an­other day at the home of Cel­sus, wait­ing for mes­sen­gers to ar­rive from David Zeb­e­dee with funds. Fol­low­ing the col­lapse of the pop­u­lar­ity of Je­sus with the masses there oc­curred a great falling off in rev­enue. When they reached Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi, the trea­sury was empty. Mat­thew was loath to leave Je­sus and his breth­ren at such a time, and he had no ready funds of his own to hand over to Ju­das as he had so many times done in the past. How­ever, David Zeb­e­dee had fore­seen this prob­a­ble diminu­tion of rev­enue and had ac­cord­ingly in­structed his mes­sen­gers that, as they made their way through Judea, Samaria, and Gal­i­lee, they should act as col­lec­tors of money to be for­warded to the ex­iled apos­tles and their Mas­ter. And so, by evening of this day, these mes­sen­gers ar­rived from Beth­saida bring­ing funds suf­fi­cient to sus­tain the apos­tles un­til their re­turn to em­bark upon the De­capo­lis tour. Mat­thew ex­pected to have money from the sale of his last piece of prop­erty in Ca­per­naum by that time, hav­ing ar­ranged that these funds should be anony­mously turned over to Ju­das.

159:6.3Few of Je­sus’ fol­low­ers at this time fully ap­pre­ci­ated the great value of the ser­vices of the mes­sen­ger corps. Not only did the mes­sen­gers keep the be­liev­ers through­out Pales­tine in touch with each other and with Je­sus and the apos­tles, but dur­ing these dark days they also served as col­lec­tors of funds, not only for the sus­te­nance of Je­sus and his as­so­ciates, but also for the sup­port of the fam­i­lies of the twelve apos­tles and the twelve evan­ge­lists.

186:3.2As soon as Je­sus was turned over to the Ro­man sol­diers by Pi­late for cru­ci­fix­ion, a mes­sen­ger has­tened away to Geth­sem­ane to in­form David, and within five min­utes run­ners were on their way to Beth­saida, Pella, Phil­a­del­phia, Sidon, Shechem, He­bron, Da­mas­cus, and Alexan­dria. And these mes­sen­gers car­ried the news that Je­sus was about to be cru­ci­fied by the Ro­mans at the in­sis­tent be­hest of the rulers of the Jews.

186:3.3Through­out this tragic day, un­til the mes­sage fi­nally went forth that the Mas­ter had been laid in the tomb, David sent mes­sen­gers about ev­ery half hour with re­ports to the apos­tles, the Greeks, and Je­sus’ earthly fam­ily, as­sem­bled at the home of Laz­a­rus in Beth­any. When the mes­sen­gers de­parted with the word that Je­sus had been buried, David dis­missed his corps of lo­cal run­ners for the Pass­over cel­e­bra­tion and for the com­ing Sab­bath of rest, in­struct­ing them to re­port to him qui­etly on Sun­day morn­ing at the home of Nicode­mus, where he pro­posed to go in hid­ing for a few days with An­drew and Si­mon Pe­ter.

187:6.1In the midst of the dark­ness of the sand­storm, about half past three o’clock, David Zeb­e­dee sent out the last of the mes­sen­gers car­ry­ing the news of the Mas­ter’s death. The last of his run­ners he dis­patched to the home of Martha and Mary in Beth­any, where he sup­posed the mother of Je­sus stopped with the rest of her fam­ily.

149:0.4Through­out this pe­riod and sub­se­quently, up to the time of the fi­nal de­par­ture of Je­sus and the twelve for Je­ru­sa­lem, David Zeb­e­dee main­tained a per­ma­nent head­quar­ters for the work of the king­dom in his fa­ther’s house at Beth­saida. This was the clear­ing­house for Je­sus’ work on earth and the re­lay sta­tion for the mes­sen­ger ser­vice which David car­ried on be­tween the work­ers in var­i­ous parts of Pales­tine and ad­ja­cent re­gions. He did all of this on his own ini­tia­tive but with the ap­proval of An­drew. David em­ployed forty to fifty mes­sen­gers in this in­tel­li­gence di­vi­sion of the rapidly en­larg­ing and ex­tend­ing work of the king­dom. While thus em­ployed, he par­tially sup­ported him­self by spend­ing some of his time at his old work of fish­ing.

154:2.3This week of rest en­abled Je­sus to visit many fam­i­lies and groups about the sea­side. He also went fish­ing with David Zeb­e­dee on sev­eral oc­ca­sions, and while he went about alone much of the time, there al­ways lurked near by two or three of David’s most trusted mes­sen­gers, who had no un­cer­tain or­ders from their chief re­spect­ing the safe­guard­ing of Je­sus. There was no pub­lic teach­ing of any sort dur­ing this week of rest.

154:5.1May 22 was an event­ful day in the life of Je­sus. On this Sun­day morn­ing, be­fore day­break, one of David’s mes­sen­gers ar­rived in great haste from Tiberias, bring­ing the word that Herod had au­tho­rized, or was about to au­tho­rize, the ar­rest of Je­sus by the of­fi­cers of the San­hedrin. The re­ceipt of the news of this im­pend­ing dan­ger caused David Zeb­e­dee to arouse his mes­sen­gers and send them out to all the lo­cal groups of dis­ci­ples, sum­mon­ing them for an emer­gency coun­cil at seven o’clock that morn­ing. When the sis­ter-in-law of Jude (Je­sus’ brother) heard this alarm­ing re­port, she has­tened word to all of Je­sus’ fam­ily who dwelt near by, sum­mon­ing them forth­with to as­sem­ble at Zeb­e­dee’s house. And in re­sponse to this hasty call, pres­ently there were as­sem­bled Mary, James, Joseph, Jude, and Ruth.

154:5.2At this early morn­ing meet­ing Je­sus im­parted his farewell in­struc­tions to the as­sem­bled dis­ci­ples; that is, he bade them farewell for the time be­ing, know­ing well that they would soon be dis­persed from Ca­per­naum. He di­rected them all to seek God for guid­ance and to carry on the work of the king­dom re­gard­less of con­se­quences. The evan­ge­lists were to la­bor as they saw fit un­til such time as they might be called. He se­lected twelve of the evan­ge­lists to ac­com­pany him; the twelve apos­tles he di­rected to re­main with him no mat­ter what hap­pened. The twelve women he in­structed to re­main at the Zeb­e­dee house and at Pe­ter’s house un­til he should send for them.

154:5.3Je­sus con­sented to David Zeb­e­dee’s con­tin­u­ing his coun­try­wide mes­sen­ger ser­vice, and in bid­ding the Mas­ter farewell pres­ently, David said: “Go forth to your work, Mas­ter. Don’t let the big­ots catch you, and never doubt that the mes­sen­gers will fol­low af­ter you. My men will never lose con­tact with you, and through them you shall know of the king­dom in other parts, and by them we will all know about you. Noth­ing that might hap­pen to me will in­ter­fere with this ser­vice, for I have ap­pointed first and sec­ond lead­ers, even a third. I am nei­ther a teacher nor a preacher, but it is in my heart to do this, and none can stop me.”

183:4.2An­drew had been re­leased from all re­spon­si­bil­ity in the group man­age­ment of his fel­low apos­tles; ac­cord­ingly, in this great­est of all crises in their lives, he was silent. Af­ter a short in­for­mal dis­cus­sion, Si­mon Ze­lo­tes stood up on the stone wall of the olive press and, mak­ing an im­pas­sioned plea for loy­alty to the Mas­ter and the cause of the king­dom, ex­horted his fel­low apos­tles and the other dis­ci­ples to has­ten on af­ter the mob and ef­fect the res­cue of Je­sus. The ma­jor­ity of the com­pany would have been dis­posed to fol­low his ag­gres­sive lead­er­ship had it not been for the ad­vice of Na­than­iel, who stood up the mo­ment Si­mon had fin­ished speak­ing and called their at­ten­tion to Je­sus’ oft-re­peated teach­ings re­gard­ing non­re­sis­tance. He fur­ther re­minded them that Je­sus had that very night in­structed them that they should pre­serve their lives for the time when they should go forth into the world pro­claim­ing the good news of the gospel of the heav­enly king­dom. And Na­than­iel was en­cour­aged in this stand by James Zeb­e­dee, who now told how Pe­ter and oth­ers drew their swords to de­fend the Mas­ter against ar­rest, and that Je­sus bade Si­mon Pe­ter and his fel­low swords­men sheathe their blades. Mat­thew and Philip also made speeches, but noth­ing def­i­nite came of this dis­cus­sion un­til Thomas, call­ing their at­ten­tion to the fact that Je­sus had coun­seled Laz­a­rus against ex­pos­ing him­self to death, pointed out that they could do noth­ing to save their Mas­ter inas­much as he re­fused to al­low his friends to de­fend him, and since he per­sisted in re­frain­ing from the use of his di­vine pow­ers to frus­trate his hu­man en­e­mies. Thomas per­suaded them to scat­ter, ev­ery man for him­self, with the un­der­stand­ing that David Zeb­e­dee would re­main at the camp to main­tain a clear­ing­house and mes­sen­ger head­quar­ters for the group. By half past two o’clock that morn­ing the camp was de­serted; only David re­mained on hand with three or four mes­sen­gers, the oth­ers hav­ing been dis­patched to se­cure in­for­ma­tion as to where Je­sus had been taken, and what was go­ing to be done with him.

183:4.8This was the sit­u­a­tion dur­ing the last half of Thurs­day night and the early morn­ing hours of Fri­day as re­gards the apos­tles, the chief dis­ci­ples, and the earthly fam­ily of Je­sus. And all these groups and in­di­vid­u­als were kept in touch with each other by the mes­sen­ger ser­vice which David Zeb­e­dee con­tin­ued to op­er­ate from his head­quar­ters at the Geth­sem­ane camp.

171:1.5David was pres­ent in Je­ru­sa­lem dur­ing the tragic last week, tak­ing his mother back with him to Beth­saida af­ter the cru­ci­fix­ion. While await­ing Je­sus and the apos­tles, David stopped with Laz­a­rus at Beth­any and be­came tremen­dously ag­i­tated by the man­ner in which the Phar­isees had be­gun to per­se­cute and ha­rass him since his res­ur­rec­tion. An­drew had di­rected David to dis­con­tinue the mes­sen­ger ser­vice; and this was con­strued by all as an in­di­ca­tion of the early es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom at Je­ru­sa­lem. David found him­self with­out a job, and he had about de­cided to be­come the self-ap­pointed de­fender of Laz­a­rus when pres­ently the ob­ject of his in­dig­nant so­lic­i­tude fled in haste to Phil­a­del­phia. Ac­cord­ingly, some­time af­ter the res­ur­rec­tion and also af­ter the death of his mother, David be­took him­self to Phil­a­del­phia, hav­ing first as­sisted Martha and Mary in dis­pos­ing of their real es­tate; and there, in as­so­ci­a­tion with Ab­ner and Laz­a­rus, he spent the re­main­der of his life, be­com­ing the fi­nan­cial over­seer of all those large in­ter­ests of the king­dom which had their cen­ter at Phil­a­del­phia dur­ing the life­time of Ab­ner.

154:7.2Fol­low­ing the Mas­ter’s boat was an­other and smaller craft, con­tain­ing six of David’s mes­sen­gers, who had in­struc­tions to main­tain con­tact with Je­sus and his as­so­ciates and to see that in­for­ma­tion of their where­abouts and safety was reg­u­larly trans­mit­ted to the home of Zeb­e­dee in Beth­saida, which had served as head­quar­ters for the work of the king­dom for some time. But Je­sus was never again to make his home at the house of Zeb­e­dee. From now on, through­out the re­main­der of his earth life, the Mas­ter truly “had not where to lay his head.” No more did he have even the sem­blance of a set­tled abode.

150:6.2Af­ter spend­ing two or three days with one group of twelve evan­ge­lists, Je­sus would move on to join an­other group, be­ing in­formed as to the where­abouts and move­ments of all these work­ers by David’s mes­sen­gers. This be­ing their first tour, the women re­mained much of the time with Je­sus. Through the mes­sen­ger ser­vice each of these groups was kept fully in­formed con­cern­ing the prog­ress of the tour, and the re­ceipt of news from other groups was al­ways a source of en­cour­age­ment to these scat­tered and sep­a­rated work­ers.

155:4.1On Thurs­day morn­ing, June 9, af­ter re­ceiv­ing word re­gard­ing the prog­ress of the king­dom brought by the mes­sen­gers of David from Beth­saida, this group of twenty-five teach­ers of truth left Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi to be­gin their jour­ney to the Phoeni­cian coast. They passed around the marsh coun­try, by way of Luz, to the point of junc­tion with the Mag­dala-Mount Lebanon trail road, thence to the cross­ing with the road lead­ing to Sidon, ar­riv­ing there Fri­day af­ter­noon.

159:6.2On Fri­day, Septem­ber 16, the en­tire corps of work­ers as­sem­bled by pre­ar­range­ment at Ma­g­a­dan Park. On the Sab­bath day a coun­cil of more than one hun­dred be­liev­ers was held at which the fu­ture plans for ex­tend­ing the work of the king­dom were fully con­sid­ered. The mes­sen­gers of David were pres­ent and made re­ports con­cern­ing the wel­fare of the be­liev­ers through­out Judea, Samaria, Gal­i­lee, and ad­join­ing dis­tricts.

167:0.3Je­sus and the ten apos­tles ar­rived at Phil­a­del­phia on Wednes­day, Febru­ary 22, and spent Thurs­day and Fri­day rest­ing from their re­cent trav­els and labors. That Fri­day night James spoke in the syn­a­gogue, and a gen­eral coun­cil was called for the fol­low­ing evening. They were much re­joiced over the prog­ress of the gospel at Phil­a­del­phia and among the near-by vil­lages. The mes­sen­gers of David also brought word of the fur­ther ad­vance­ment of the king­dom through­out Pales­tine, as well as good news from Alexan­dria and Da­mas­cus.

191:0.3Their iso­la­tion had much to do with their trou­bles. John Mark kept them in touch with de­vel­op­ments about the tem­ple and in­formed them as to the many ru­mors gain­ing head­way in the city, but it did not oc­cur to him to gather up news from the dif­fer­ent groups of be­liev­ers to whom Je­sus had al­ready ap­peared. That was the kind of ser­vice which had here­to­fore been ren­dered by the mes­sen­gers of David, but they were all ab­sent on their last as­sign­ment as her­alds of the res­ur­rec­tion to those groups of be­liev­ers who dwelt re­mote from Je­ru­sa­lem. For the first time in all these years the apos­tles re­al­ized how much they had been de­pen­dent on David’s mes­sen­gers for their daily in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the af­fairs of the king­dom.

191:6.1While the eleven apos­tles were on the way to Gal­i­lee, draw­ing near their jour­ney’s end, on Tues­day evening, April 18, at about half past eight o’clock, Je­sus ap­peared to Ro­dan and some eighty other be­liev­ers, in Alexan­dria. This was the Mas­ter’s twelfth ap­pear­ance in mor­ontia form. Je­sus ap­peared be­fore these Greeks and Jews at the con­clu­sion of the re­port of David’s mes­sen­ger re­gard­ing the cru­ci­fix­ion. This mes­sen­ger, be­ing the fifth in the Je­ru­sa­lem-Alexan­dria re­lay of run­ners, had ar­rived in Alexan­dria late that af­ter­noon, and when he had de­liv­ered his mes­sage to Ro­dan, it was de­cided to call the be­liev­ers to­gether to re­ceive this tragic word from the mes­sen­ger him­self. At about eight o’clock, the mes­sen­ger, Nathan of Busiris, came be­fore this group and told them in de­tail all that had been told him by the pre­ced­ing run­ner. Nathan ended his touch­ing recital with these words: “But David, who sends us this word, re­ports that the Mas­ter, in fore­telling his death, de­clared that he would rise again.” Even as Nathan spoke, the mor­ontia Mas­ter ap­peared there in full view of all. And when Nathan sat down, Je­sus said:

163:1.2About two o’clock on this Sab­bath af­ter­noon, be­tween show­ers of rain, a com­pany of be­liev­ers, aug­mented by the ar­rival of David and the ma­jor­ity of his mes­sen­ger corps and num­ber­ing over four hun­dred, as­sem­bled on the shore of the lake of Gal­i­lee to wit­ness the or­di­na­tion of the sev­enty.

157:1.3All of this had been over­heard by the se­cret mes­sen­ger of David who stood near by, and who then sig­naled to an as­so­ciate, fish­ing near the shore, to come in quickly. When Pe­ter made ready to go out in the boat for a catch, this mes­sen­ger and his fish­er­man friend pre­sented him with sev­eral large bas­kets of fish and as­sisted him in car­ry­ing them to the fish mer­chant near by, who pur­chased the catch, pay­ing suf­fi­cient, with what was added by the mes­sen­ger of David, to meet the tem­ple tax for the three. The col­lec­tor ac­cepted the tax, for­go­ing the penalty for tardy pay­ment be­cause they had been for some time ab­sent from Gal­i­lee.

172:3.7By this time sev­eral hun­dred pil­grims had gath­ered around Je­sus and his apos­tles. Since mid­forenoon the vis­i­tors pass­ing by on their way to the Pass­over had tar­ried. Mean­while, David Zeb­e­dee and some of his for­mer mes­sen­ger as­so­ciates took it upon them­selves to has­ten on down to Je­ru­sa­lem, where they ef­fec­tively spread the re­port among the throngs of vis­it­ing pil­grims about the tem­ple that Je­sus of Naz­a­reth was mak­ing a tri­umphal en­try into the city. Ac­cord­ingly, sev­eral thou­sand of these vis­i­tors flocked forth to greet this much-talked-of prophet and won­der-worker, whom some be­lieved to be the Mes­siah. This mul­ti­tude, com­ing out from Je­ru­sa­lem, met Je­sus and the crowd go­ing into the city just af­ter they had passed over the brow of Oli­vet and had be­gun the de­scent into the city.

182:2.5Af­ter the eight apos­tles had fi­nally gone to their tents, and while Pe­ter, James, and John were stand­ing by to re­ceive the Mas­ter’s or­ders, Je­sus called to David Zeb­e­dee, “Send to me your most fleet and trust­wor­thy mes­sen­ger.” When David brought to the Mas­ter one Ja­cob, once a run­ner on the overnight mes­sen­ger ser­vice be­tween Je­ru­sa­lem and Beth­saida, Je­sus, ad­dress­ing him, said: “In all haste, go to Ab­ner at Phil­a­del­phia and say: ‘The Mas­ter sends greet­ings of peace to you and says that the hour has come when he will be de­liv­ered into the hands of his en­e­mies, who will put him to death, but that he will rise from the dead and ap­pear to you shortly, be­fore he goes to the Fa­ther, and that he will then give you guid­ance to the time when the new teacher shall come to live in your hearts.’” And when Ja­cob had re­hearsed this mes­sage to the Mas­ter’s sat­is­fac­tion, Je­sus sent him on his way, say­ing: “Fear not what any man may do to you, Ja­cob, for this night an un­seen mes­sen­ger will run by your side.”