preference

138:7.1Je­sus had planned for a quiet mis­sion­ary cam­paign of five months’ per­sonal work. He did not tell the apos­tles how long this was to last; they worked from week to week. And early on this first day of the week, just as he was about to an­nounce this to his twelve apos­tles, Si­mon Pe­ter, James Zeb­e­dee, and Ju­das Is­car­iot came to have pri­vate con­verse with him. Tak­ing Je­sus aside, Pe­ter made bold to say: “Mas­ter, we come at the be­hest of our as­so­ciates to in­quire whether the time is not now ripe to en­ter into the king­dom. And will you pro­claim the king­dom at Ca­per­naum, or are we to move on to Je­ru­sa­lem? And when shall we learn, each of us, the po­si­tions we are to oc­cupy with you in the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom—” and Pe­ter would have gone on ask­ing fur­ther ques­tions, but Je­sus raised an ad­mon­i­tory hand and stopped him. And beck­on­ing the other apos­tles stand­ing near by to join them, Je­sus said: “My lit­tle chil­dren, how long shall I bear with you! Have I not made it plain to you that my king­dom is not of this world? I have told you many times that I have not come to sit on David’s throne, and now how is it that you are in­quir­ing which place each of you will oc­cupy in the Fa­ther’s king­dom? Can you not per­ceive that I have called you as am­bas­sadors of a spir­i­tual king­dom? Do you not un­der­stand that soon, very soon, you are to rep­re­sent me in the world and in the procla­ma­tion of the king­dom, even as I now rep­re­sent my Fa­ther who is in heaven? Can it be that I have cho­sen you and in­structed you as mes­sen­gers of the king­dom, and yet you do not com­pre­hend the na­ture and sig­nif­i­cance of this com­ing king­dom of di­vine pre-em­i­nence in the hearts of men? My friends, hear me once more. Ban­ish from your minds this idea that my king­dom is a rule of power or a reign of glory. In­deed, all power in heaven and on earth will pres­ently be given into my hands, but it is not the Fa­ther’s will that we use this di­vine en­dow­ment to glo­rify our­selves dur­ing this age. In an­other age you shall in­deed sit with me in power and glory, but it be­hooves us now to sub­mit to the will of the Fa­ther and to go forth in hum­ble obe­di­ence to ex­e­cute his bid­ding on earth.”

158:4.4The nine apos­tles were much sur­prised and con­sid­er­ably per­turbed when this man, ac­com­pa­nied by al­most forty other per­sons who were look­ing for Je­sus, sud­denly came upon them. At the time of the ar­rival of this group the nine apos­tles, at least the ma­jor­ity of them, had suc­cumbed to their old temp­ta­tion—that of dis­cussing who should be great­est in the com­ing king­dom; they were busily ar­gu­ing about the prob­a­ble po­si­tions which would be as­signed the in­di­vid­ual apos­tles. They sim­ply could not free them­selves en­tirely from the long-cher­ished idea of the ma­te­rial mis­sion of the Mes­siah. And now that Je­sus him­self had ac­cepted their con­fes­sion that he was in­deed the De­liv­erer—at least he had ad­mit­ted the fact of his di­vin­ity—what was more nat­u­ral than that, dur­ing this pe­riod of sep­a­ra­tion from the Mas­ter, they should fall to talk­ing about those hopes and am­bi­tions which were up­per­most in their hearts. And they were en­gaged in these dis­cus­sions when James of Safed and his fel­low seek­ers af­ter Je­sus came upon them.

158:6.2And Je­sus an­swered Thomas, say­ing: “Ev­ery­thing which your breth­ren heard on the moun­tain shall be re­vealed to you in due sea­son. But I will now show you the cause of your de­feat in that which you so un­wisely at­tempted. While your Mas­ter and his com­pan­ions, your breth­ren, as­cended yon­der moun­tain yes­ter­day to seek for a larger knowl­edge of the Fa­ther’s will and to ask for a richer en­dow­ment of wis­dom ef­fec­tively to do that di­vine will, you who re­mained on watch here with in­struc­tions to strive to ac­quire the mind of spir­i­tual in­sight and to pray with us for a fuller rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther’s will, failed to ex­er­cise the faith at your com­mand but, in­stead, yielded to the temp­ta­tion and fell into your old evil ten­den­cies to seek for your­selves pre­ferred places in the king­dom of heaven—the ma­te­rial and tem­po­ral king­dom which you per­sist in con­tem­plat­ing. And you cling to these er­ro­neous con­cepts in spite of the re­it­er­ated dec­la­ra­tion that my king­dom is not of this world.

158:6.3“No sooner does your faith grasp the iden­tity of the Son of Man than your self­ish de­sire for worldly prefer­ment creeps back upon you, and you fall to dis­cussing among your­selves as to who should be great­est in the king­dom of heaven, a king­dom which, as you per­sist in con­ceiv­ing it, does not ex­ist, nor ever shall. Have not I told you that he who would be great­est in the king­dom of my Fa­ther’s spir­i­tual broth­er­hood must be­come lit­tle in his own eyes and thus be­come the server of his breth­ren? Spir­i­tual great­ness con­sists in an un­der­stand­ing love that is God­like and not in an en­joy­ment of the ex­er­cise of ma­te­rial power for the ex­al­ta­tion of self. In what you at­tempted, in which you so com­pletely failed, your pur­pose was not pure. Your mo­tive was not di­vine. Your ideal was not spir­i­tual. Your am­bi­tion was not al­tru­is­tic. Your pro­ce­dure was not based on love, and your goal of at­tain­ment was not the will of the Fa­ther in heaven.

158:8.1En­ter­ing Ca­per­naum at twi­light, they went by un­fre­quented thor­ough­fares di­rectly to the home of Si­mon Pe­ter for their evening meal. While David Zeb­e­dee made ready to take them across the lake, they lin­gered at Si­mon’s house, and Je­sus, look­ing up at Pe­ter and the other apos­tles, asked: “As you walked along to­gether this af­ter­noon, what was it that you talked about so earnestly among your­selves?” The apos­tles held their peace be­cause many of them had con­tin­ued the dis­cus­sion be­gun at Mount Her­mon as to what po­si­tions they were to have in the com­ing king­dom; who should be the great­est, and so on. Je­sus, know­ing what it was that oc­cu­pied their thoughts that day, beck­oned to one of Pe­ter’s lit­tle ones and, set­ting the child down among them, said: “Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, ex­cept you turn about and be­come more like this child, you will make lit­tle prog­ress in the king­dom of heaven. Whoso­ever shall hum­ble him­self and be­come as this lit­tle one, the same shall be­come great­est in the king­dom of heaven. And whoso re­ceives such a lit­tle one re­ceives me. And they who re­ceive me re­ceive also Him who sent me. If you would be first in the king­dom, seek to min­is­ter these good truths to your breth­ren in the flesh. But whoso­ever causes one of these lit­tle ones to stum­ble, it would be bet­ter for him if a mill­stone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea. If the things you do with your hands, or the things you see with your eyes give of­fense in the prog­ress of the king­dom, sac­ri­fice these cher­ished idols, for it is bet­ter to en­ter the king­dom mi­nus many of the beloved things of life rather than to cling to these idols and find your­self shut out of the king­dom. But most of all, see that you de­spise not one of these lit­tle ones, for their an­gels do al­ways be­hold the faces of the heav­enly hosts.”

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.

179:1.1When the apos­tles had been shown up­stairs by John Mark, they be­held a large and com­modi­ous cham­ber, which was com­pletely fur­nished for the sup­per, and ob­served that the bread, wine, wa­ter, and herbs were all in readi­ness on one end of the ta­ble. Ex­cept for the end on which rested the bread and wine, this long ta­ble was sur­rounded by thir­teen re­clin­ing couches, just such as would be pro­vided for the cel­e­bra­tion of the Pass­over in a well-to-do Jew­ish house­hold.

179:1.2As the twelve en­tered this up­per cham­ber, they no­ticed, just in­side the door, the pitch­ers of wa­ter, the basins, and tow­els for lav­ing their dusty feet; and since no ser­vant had been pro­vided to ren­der this ser­vice, the apos­tles be­gan to look at one an­other as soon as John Mark had left them, and each be­gan to think within him­self, Who shall wash our feet? And each like­wise thought that it would not be he who would thus seem to act as the ser­vant of the oth­ers.

179:1.3As they stood there, de­bat­ing in their hearts, they sur­veyed the seat­ing ar­range­ment of the ta­ble, tak­ing note of the higher di­van of the host with one couch on the right and eleven ar­ranged around the ta­ble on up to op­po­site this sec­ond seat of honor on the host’s right.

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.

179:1.5With the high­est and the low­est po­si­tions thus oc­cu­pied, the rest of the apos­tles chose places, some near Ju­das and some near Pe­ter, un­til all were lo­cated. They were seated about the U-shaped ta­ble on these re­clin­ing di­vans in the fol­low­ing or­der: on the right of the Mas­ter, John; on the left, Ju­das, Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, Mat­thew, James Zeb­e­dee, An­drew, the Al­pheus twins, Philip, Na­than­iel, Thomas, and Si­mon Pe­ter.

179:1.6They are gath­ered to­gether to cel­e­brate, at least in spirit, an in­sti­tu­tion which an­te­dated even Moses and re­ferred to the times when their fa­thers were slaves in Egypt. This sup­per is their last ren­dezvous with Je­sus, and even in such a solemn set­ting, un­der the lead­er­ship of Ju­das the apos­tles are led once more to give way to their old predilec­tion for honor, pref­er­ence, and per­sonal ex­al­ta­tion.

179:1.7They were still en­gaged in voic­ing an­gry re­crim­i­na­tions when the Mas­ter ap­peared in the door­way, where he hes­i­tated a mo­ment as a look of dis­ap­point­ment slowly crept over his face. With­out com­ment he went to his place, and he did not dis­turb their seat­ing ar­range­ment.

179:1.8They were now ready to be­gin the sup­per, ex­cept that their feet were still un­washed, and they were in any­thing but a pleas­ant frame of mind. When the Mas­ter ar­rived, they were still en­gaged in mak­ing un­com­pli­men­tary re­marks about one an­other, to say noth­ing of the thoughts of some who had suf­fi­cient emo­tional con­trol to re­frain from pub­licly ex­press­ing their feel­ings.

179:3.9“When I came into this cham­ber tonight, you were not con­tent proudly to refuse to wash one an­other’s feet, but you must also fall to dis­put­ing among your­selves as to who should have the places of honor at my ta­ble. Such hon­ors the Phar­isees and the chil­dren of this world seek, but it should not be so among the am­bas­sadors of the heav­enly king­dom. Do you not know that there can be no place of prefer­ment at my ta­ble? Do you not un­der­stand that I love each of you as I do the oth­ers? Do you not know that the place near­est me, as men re­gard such hon­ors, can mean noth­ing con­cern­ing your stand­ing in the king­dom of heaven? You know that the kings of the gen­tiles have lord­ship over their sub­jects, while those who ex­er­cise this au­thor­ity are some­times called bene­fac­tors. But it shall not be so in the king­dom of heaven. He who would be great among you, let him be­come as the younger; while he who would be chief, let him be­come as one who serves. Who is the greater, he who sits at meat, or he who serves? Is it not com­monly re­garded that he who sits at meat is the greater? But you will ob­serve that I am among you as one who serves. If you are will­ing to be­come fel­low ser­vants with me in do­ing the Fa­ther’s will, in the king­dom to come you shall sit with me in power, still do­ing the Fa­ther’s will in fu­ture glory.”

179:5.7Af­ter they had en­gaged in med­i­ta­tion for a few mo­ments, Je­sus con­tin­ued speak­ing: “When you do these things, re­call the life I have lived on earth among you and re­joice that I am to con­tinue to live on earth with you and to serve through you. As in­di­vid­u­als, con­tend not among your­selves as to who shall be great­est. Be you all as breth­ren. And when the king­dom grows to em­brace large groups of be­liev­ers, like­wise should you re­frain from con­tend­ing for great­ness or seek­ing prefer­ment be­tween such groups.”