Pella

• Pella

128:3.2They jour­neyed to Je­ru­sa­lem by way of the De­capo­lis and through Pella, Gerasa, Phil­a­del­phia, Hes­h­bon, and Jeri­cho. They re­turned to Naz­a­reth by the coast route, touch­ing Ly­dda, Joppa, Cae­sarea, thence around Mount Carmel to Ptole­mais and Naz­a­reth. This trip fairly well ac­quainted Je­sus with the whole of Pales­tine north of the Je­ru­sa­lem dis­trict.

• Pella

141:1.2The first day Je­sus and the apos­tles only jour­neyed as far as Ta­ri­chea, where they rested for the night. The next day they trav­eled to a point on the Jor­dan near Pella where John had preached about one year be­fore, and where Je­sus had re­ceived bap­tism. Here they tar­ried for more than two weeks, teach­ing and preach­ing. By the end of the first week sev­eral hun­dred peo­ple had as­sem­bled in a camp near where Je­sus and the twelve dwelt, and they had come from Gal­i­lee, Phoeni­cia, Syria, the De­capo­lis, Perea, and Judea.

144:8.1The lat­ter part of De­cem­ber they all went over near the Jor­dan, close by Pella, where they again be­gan to teach and preach. Both Jews and gen­tiles came to this camp to hear the gospel. It was while Je­sus was teach­ing the mul­ti­tude one af­ter­noon that some of John’s spe­cial friends brought the Mas­ter the last mes­sage which he ever had from the Bap­tist.

144:8.2John had now been in prison a year and a half, and most of this time Je­sus had la­bored very qui­etly; so it was not strange that John should be led to won­der about the king­dom. John’s friends in­ter­rupted Je­sus’ teach­ing to say to him: “John the Bap­tist has sent us to ask—are you truly the De­liv­erer, or shall we look for an­other?”

144:8.3Je­sus paused to say to John’s friends: “Go back and tell John that he is not for­got­ten. Tell him what you have seen and heard, that the poor have good tid­ings preached to them.” And when Je­sus had spo­ken fur­ther to the mes­sen­gers of John, he turned again to the mul­ti­tude and said: “Do not think that John doubts the gospel of the king­dom. He makes in­quiry only to as­sure his dis­ci­ples who are also my dis­ci­ples. John is no weak­ling. Let me ask you who heard John preach be­fore Herod put him in prison: What did you be­hold in John—a reed shaken with the wind? A man of change­able moods and clothed in soft rai­ment? As a rule they who are gor­geously ap­par­eled and who live del­i­cately are in kings’ courts and in the man­sions of the rich. But what did you see when you be­held John? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and much more than a prophet. Of John it was writ­ten: ‘Be­hold, I send my mes­sen­ger be­fore your face; he shall pre­pare the way be­fore you.’

144:8.4“Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Bap­tist; yet he who is but small in the king­dom of heaven is greater be­cause he has been born of the spirit and knows that he has be­come a son of God.”

144:8.5Many who heard Je­sus that day sub­mit­ted them­selves to John’s bap­tism, thereby pub­licly pro­fess­ing en­trance into the king­dom. And the apos­tles of John were firmly knit to Je­sus from that day for­ward. This oc­cur­rence marked the real union of John’s and Je­sus’ fol­low­ers.

144:8.6Af­ter the mes­sen­gers had con­versed with Ab­ner, they de­parted for Machaerus to tell all this to John. He was greatly com­forted, and his faith was strength­ened by the words of Je­sus and the mes­sage of Ab­ner.

144:8.7On this af­ter­noon Je­sus con­tin­ued to teach, say­ing: “But to what shall I liken this gen­er­a­tion? Many of you will re­ceive nei­ther John’s mes­sage nor my teach­ing. You are like the chil­dren play­ing in the mar­ket place who call to their fel­lows and say: ‘We piped for you and you did not dance; we wailed and you did not mourn.’ And so with some of you. John came nei­ther eat­ing nor drink­ing, and they said he had a devil. The Son of Man comes eat­ing and drink­ing, and these same peo­ple say: ‘Be­hold, a glut­tonous man and a winebib­ber, a friend of pub­li­cans and sin­ners!’ Truly, wis­dom is jus­ti­fied by her chil­dren.

144:8.8“It would ap­pear that the Fa­ther in heaven has hid­den some of these truths from the wise and haughty, while he has re­vealed them to babes. But the Fa­ther does all things well; the Fa­ther re­veals him­self to the uni­verse by the meth­ods of his own choos­ing. Come, there­fore, all you who la­bor and are heavy laden, and you shall find rest for your souls. Take upon you the di­vine yoke, and you will ex­pe­ri­ence the peace of God, which passes all un­der­stand­ing.”

163:5.1Je­sus and the twelve now pre­pared to es­tab­lish their last head­quar­ters in Perea, near Pella, where the Mas­ter was bap­tized in the Jor­dan. The last ten days of Novem­ber were spent in coun­cil at Ma­g­a­dan, and on Tues­day, De­cem­ber 6, the en­tire com­pany of al­most three hun­dred started out at day­break with all their ef­fects to lodge that night near Pella by the river. This was the same site, by the spring, that John the Bap­tist had oc­cu­pied with his camp sev­eral years be­fore.

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.

165:3.1By the end of Jan­uary the Sab­bath-af­ter­noon mul­ti­tudes num­bered al­most three thou­sand. On Sat­ur­day, Jan­uary 28, Je­sus preached the mem­o­rable ser­mon on “Trust and Spir­i­tual Pre­pared­ness.” Af­ter pre­lim­i­nary re­marks by Si­mon Pe­ter, the Mas­ter said:

165:3.2“What I have many times said to my apos­tles and to my dis­ci­ples, I now de­clare to this mul­ti­tude: Be­ware of the leaven of the Phar­isees which is hypocrisy, born of prej­u­dice and nur­tured in tra­di­tional bond­age, al­beit many of these Phar­isees are hon­est of heart and some of them abide here as my dis­ci­ples. Pres­ently all of you shall un­der­stand my teach­ing, for there is noth­ing now cov­ered that shall not be re­vealed. That which is now hid from you shall all be made known when the Son of Man has com­pleted his mis­sion on earth and in the flesh.

165:3.3“Soon, very soon, will the things which our en­e­mies now plan in se­crecy and in dark­ness be brought out into the light and be pro­claimed from the house­tops. But I say to you, my friends, when they seek to de­stroy the Son of Man, be not afraid of them. Fear not those who, al­though they may be able to kill the body, af­ter that have no more power over you. I ad­mon­ish you to fear none, in heaven or on earth, but to re­joice in the knowl­edge of Him who has power to de­liver you from all un­righ­teous­ness and to pre­sent you blame­less be­fore the judg­ment seat of a uni­verse.

165:3.4“Are not five spar­rows sold for two pen­nies? And yet, when these birds flit about in quest of their sus­te­nance, not one of them ex­ists with­out the knowl­edge of the Fa­ther, the source of all life. To the se­raphic guard­i­ans the very hairs of your head are num­bered. And if all of this is true, why should you live in fear of the many tri­fles which come up in your daily lives? I say to you: Fear not; you are of much more value than many spar­rows.

165:3.5“All of you who have had the cour­age to con­fess faith in my gospel be­fore men I will pres­ently ac­knowl­edge be­fore the an­gels of heaven; but he who shall know­ingly deny the truth of my teach­ings be­fore men shall be de­nied by his guard­ian of des­tiny even be­fore the an­gels of heaven.

165:3.6“Say what you will about the Son of Man, and it shall be for­given you; but he who pre­sumes to blas­pheme against God shall hardly find for­give­ness. When men go so far as know­ingly to as­cribe the do­ings of God to the forces of evil, such de­lib­er­ate rebels will hardly seek for­give­ness for their sins.

165:3.7“And when our en­e­mies bring you be­fore the rulers of the syn­a­gogues and be­fore other high au­thor­i­ties, be not con­cerned about what you should say and be not anx­ious as to how you should an­swer their ques­tions, for the spirit that dwells within you shall cer­tainly teach you in that very hour what you should say in honor of the gospel of the king­dom.

165:3.8“How long will you tarry in the val­ley of de­ci­sion? Why do you halt be­tween two opin­ions? Why should Jew or gen­tile hes­i­tate to ac­cept the good news that he is a son of the eter­nal God? How long will it take us to per­suade you to en­ter joy­fully into your spir­i­tual in­her­i­tance? I came into this world to re­veal the Fa­ther to you and to lead you to the Fa­ther. The first I have done, but the last I may not do with­out your con­sent; the Fa­ther never com­pels any man to en­ter the king­dom. The in­vi­ta­tion ever has been and al­ways will be: Whoso­ever will, let him come and freely par­take of the wa­ter of life.”

165:3.9When Je­sus had fin­ished speak­ing, many went forth to be bap­tized by the apos­tles in the Jor­dan while he lis­tened to the ques­tions of those who re­mained.

• Pella

167:0.1Through­out this pe­riod of the Perean min­istry, when men­tion is made of Je­sus and the apos­tles vis­it­ing the var­i­ous lo­cal­i­ties where the sev­enty were at work, it should be re­called that, as a rule, only ten were with him since it was the prac­tice to leave at least two of the apos­tles at Pella to in­struct the mul­ti­tude. As Je­sus pre­pared to go on to Phil­a­del­phia, Si­mon Pe­ter and his brother, An­drew, re­turned to the Pella en­camp­ment to teach the crowds there as­sem­bled. When the Mas­ter left the camp at Pella to visit about Perea, it was not un­com­mon for from three to five hun­dred of the campers to fol­low him. When he ar­rived at Phil­a­del­phia, he was ac­com­pa­nied by over six hun­dred fol­low­ers.

171:1.1On the forenoon of Mon­day, March 13, Je­sus and his twelve apos­tles took fi­nal leave of the Pella en­camp­ment, start­ing south on their tour of the cities of south­ern Perea, where Ab­ner’s as­so­ciates were at work. They spent more than two weeks vis­it­ing among the sev­enty and then went di­rectly to Je­ru­sa­lem for the Pass­over.

171:1.2When the Mas­ter left Pella, the dis­ci­ples en­camped with the apos­tles, about one thou­sand in num­ber, fol­lowed af­ter him. About one half of this group left him at the Jor­dan ford on the road to Jeri­cho when they learned he was go­ing over to Hes­h­bon, and af­ter he had preached the ser­mon on “Count­ing the Cost.” They went on up to Je­ru­sa­lem, while the other half fol­lowed him for two weeks, vis­it­ing the towns in south­ern Perea.

171:1.3In a gen­eral way, most of Je­sus’ im­me­di­ate fol­low­ers un­der­stood that the camp at Pella had been aban­doned, but they re­ally thought this in­di­cated that their Mas­ter at last in­tended to go to Je­ru­sa­lem and lay claim to David’s throne. A large ma­jor­ity of his fol­low­ers never were able to grasp any other con­cept of the king­dom of heaven; no mat­ter what he taught them, they would not give up this Jew­ish idea of the king­dom.

171:1.4Act­ing on the in­struc­tions of the Apos­tle An­drew, David Zeb­e­dee closed the vis­i­tors’ camp at Pella on Wednes­day, March 15. At this time al­most four thou­sand vis­i­tors were in res­i­dence, and this does not in­clude the one thou­sand and more per­sons who so­journed with the apos­tles at what was known as the teach­ers’ camp, and who went south with Je­sus and the twelve. Much as David dis­liked to do it, he sold the en­tire equip­ment to nu­mer­ous buy­ers and pro­ceeded with the funds to Je­ru­sa­lem, sub­se­quently turn­ing the money over to Ju­das Is­car­iot.

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.

171:1.6Within a short time af­ter the de­struc­tion of Je­ru­sa­lem, An­ti­och be­came the head­quar­ters of Pauline Chris­tian­ity, while Phil­a­del­phia re­mained the cen­ter of the Ab­ne­r­ian king­dom of heaven. From An­ti­och the Pauline ver­sion of the teach­ings of Je­sus and about Je­sus spread to all the West­ern world; from Phil­a­del­phia the mis­sion­ar­ies of the Ab­ne­r­ian ver­sion of the king­dom of heaven spread through­out Mes­o­po­ta­mia and Ara­bia un­til the later times when these un­com­pro­mis­ing emis­saries of the teach­ings of Je­sus were over­whelmed by the sud­den rise of Is­lam.

• Pella

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.

165:1.1By the mid­dle of Jan­uary more than twelve hun­dred per­sons were gath­ered to­gether at Pella, and Je­sus taught this mul­ti­tude at least once each day when he was in res­i­dence at the camp, usu­ally speak­ing at nine o’clock in the morn­ing if not pre­vented by rain. Pe­ter and the other apos­tles taught each af­ter­noon. The evenings Je­sus re­served for the usual ses­sions of ques­tions and an­swers with the twelve and other ad­vanced dis­ci­ples. The evening groups av­er­aged about fifty.

165:1.2By the mid­dle of March, the time when Je­sus be­gan his jour­ney to­ward Je­ru­sa­lem, over four thou­sand per­sons com­posed the large au­di­ence which heard Je­sus or Pe­ter preach each morn­ing. The Mas­ter chose to ter­mi­nate his work on earth when the in­ter­est in his mes­sage had reached a high point, the high­est point at­tained un­der this sec­ond or non­mirac­u­lous phase of the prog­ress of the king­dom. While three quar­ters of the mul­ti­tude were truth seek­ers, there were also pres­ent a large num­ber of Phar­isees from Je­ru­sa­lem and else­where, to­gether with many doubters and cav­il­ers.

165:1.3Je­sus and the twelve apos­tles de­voted much of their time to the mul­ti­tude as­sem­bled at the Pella camp. The twelve paid lit­tle or no at­ten­tion to the field work, only go­ing out with Je­sus to visit Ab­ner’s as­so­ciates from time to time. Ab­ner was very fa­mil­iar with the Perean dis­trict since this was the field in which his for­mer mas­ter, John the Bap­tist, had done most of his work. Af­ter be­gin­ning the Perean mis­sion, Ab­ner and the sev­enty never re­turned to the Pella camp.

176:1.5The apos­tles sat in si­lence in the moon­light for a con­sid­er­able time while these as­tound­ing pre­dic­tions of the Mas­ter sank into their be­wil­dered minds. And it was in con­for­mity with this very warn­ing that prac­ti­cally the en­tire group of be­liev­ers and dis­ci­ples fled from Je­ru­sa­lem upon the first ap­pear­ance of the Ro­man troops, find­ing a safe shel­ter in Pella to the north.

121:8.7Isador es­caped from Je­ru­sa­lem in A.D. 70 af­ter the in­vest­ment of the city by the armies of Ti­tus, tak­ing with him to Pella a copy of Mat­thew’s notes. In the year 71, while liv­ing at Pella, Isador wrote the Gospel ac­cord­ing to Mat­thew. He also had with him the first four fifths of Mark’s nar­ra­tive.

137:0.1Early on Sat­ur­day morn­ing, Febru­ary 23, A.D. 26, Je­sus came down from the hills to re­join John’s com­pany en­camped at Pella. All that day Je­sus min­gled with the mul­ti­tude. He min­is­tered to a lad who had in­jured him­self in a fall and jour­neyed to the near-by vil­lage of Pella to de­liver the boy safely into the hands of his par­ents.

137:1.1Dur­ing this Sab­bath two of John’s lead­ing dis­ci­ples spent much time with Je­sus. Of all John’s fol­low­ers one named An­drew was the most pro­foundly im­pressed with Je­sus; he ac­com­pa­nied him on the trip to Pella with the in­jured boy. On the way back to John’s ren­dezvous he asked Je­sus many ques­tions, and just be­fore reach­ing their des­ti­na­tion, the two paused for a short talk, dur­ing which An­drew said: “I have ob­served you ever since you came to Ca­per­naum, and I be­lieve you are the new Teacher, and though I do not un­der­stand all your teach­ing, I have fully made up my mind to fol­low you; I would sit at your feet and learn the whole truth about the new king­dom.” And Je­sus, with hearty as­sur­ance, wel­comed An­drew as the first of his apos­tles, that group of twelve who were to la­bor with him in the work of es­tab­lish­ing the new king­dom of God in the hearts of men.

137:1.4The par­ents of the in­jured lad who lived at Pella had be­sought Je­sus to spend the night with them, to make their house his home, and he had prom­ised. Be­fore leav­ing An­drew and his brother, Je­sus said, “Early on the mor­row we go into Gal­i­lee.”

135:8.3Just be­fore the noon rest, Je­sus laid down his tools, re­moved his work apron, and merely an­nounced to the three work­men in the room with him, “My hour has come.” He went out to his broth­ers James and Jude, re­peat­ing, “My hour has come—let us go to John.” And they started im­me­di­ately for Pella, eat­ing their lunch as they jour­neyed. This was on Sun­day, Jan­uary 13. They tar­ried for the night in the Jor­dan val­ley and ar­rived on the scene of John’s bap­tiz­ing about noon of the next day.

134:9.8As time passed, ru­mors came to Ca­per­naum of one John who was preach­ing while bap­tiz­ing pen­i­tents in the Jor­dan, and John preached: “The king­dom of heaven is at hand; re­pent and be bap­tized.” Je­sus lis­tened to these re­ports as John slowly worked his way up the Jor­dan val­ley from the ford of the river near­est to Je­ru­sa­lem. But Je­sus worked on, mak­ing boats, un­til John had jour­neyed up the river to a point near Pella in the month of Jan­uary of the next year, A.D. 26, when he laid down his tools, declar­ing, “My hour has come,” and pres­ently pre­sented him­self to John for bap­tism.