rabbis

137:7.3This pe­riod of wait­ing and teach­ing was es­pe­cially hard on Si­mon Pe­ter. He re­peat­edly sought to per­suade Je­sus to launch forth with the preach­ing of the king­dom in Gal­i­lee while John con­tin­ued to preach in Judea. But Je­sus’ re­ply to Pe­ter ever was: “Be pa­tient, Si­mon. Make prog­ress. We shall be none too ready when the Fa­ther calls.” And An­drew would calm Pe­ter now and then with his more sea­soned and philo­sophic coun­sel. An­drew was tremen­dously im­pressed with the hu­man nat­u­ral­ness of Je­sus. He never grew weary of con­tem­plat­ing how one who could live so near God could be so friendly and con­sid­er­ate of men.

137:7.4Through­out this en­tire pe­riod Je­sus spoke in the syn­a­gogue but twice. By the end of these many weeks of wait­ing the re­ports about his bap­tism and the wine of Cana had be­gun to quiet down. And Je­sus saw to it that no more ap­par­ent mir­a­cles hap­pened dur­ing this time. But even though they lived so qui­etly at Beth­saida, re­ports of the strange do­ings of Je­sus had been car­ried to Herod An­tipas, who in turn sent spies to as­cer­tain what he was about. But Herod was more con­cerned about the preach­ing of John. He de­cided not to mo­lest Je­sus, whose work con­tin­ued along so qui­etly at Ca­per­naum.

137:7.5In this time of wait­ing Je­sus en­deav­ored to teach his as­so­ciates what their at­ti­tude should be to­ward the var­i­ous re­li­gious groups and the po­lit­i­cal par­ties of Pales­tine. Je­sus’ words al­ways were, “We are seek­ing to win all of them, but we are not of any of them.”

142:2.2When Ja­cob fin­ished speak­ing, Je­sus re­plied: “Ja­cob, you have well stated the teach­ings of the olden proph­ets who taught the chil­dren of their gen­er­a­tion in ac­cor­dance with the light of their day. Our Fa­ther in Par­a­dise is change­less. But the con­cept of his na­ture has en­larged and grown from the days of Moses down through the times of Amos and even to the gen­er­a­tion of the prophet Isa­iah. And now have I come in the flesh to re­veal the Fa­ther in new glory and to show forth his love and mercy to all men on all worlds. As the gospel of this king­dom shall spread over the world with its mes­sage of good cheer and good will to all men, there will grow up im­proved and bet­ter re­la­tions among the fam­i­lies of all na­tions. As time passes, fa­thers and their chil­dren will love each other more, and thus will be brought about a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the love of the Fa­ther in heaven for his chil­dren on earth. Re­mem­ber, Ja­cob, that a good and true fa­ther not only loves his fam­ily as a whole—as a fam­ily—but he also truly loves and af­fec­tion­ately cares for each in­di­vid­ual mem­ber.”

142:2.3Af­ter con­sid­er­able dis­cus­sion of the heav­enly Fa­ther’s char­ac­ter, Je­sus paused to say: “You, Ja­cob, be­ing a fa­ther of many, know well the truth of my words.” And Ja­cob said: “But, Mas­ter, who told you I was the fa­ther of six chil­dren? How did you know this about me?” And the Mas­ter replied: “Suf­fice it to say that the Fa­ther and the Son know all things, for in­deed they see all. Lov­ing your chil­dren as a fa­ther on earth, you must now ac­cept as a re­al­ity the love of the heav­enly Fa­ther for you—not just for all the chil­dren of Abra­ham, but for you, your in­di­vid­ual soul.”

142:2.4Then Je­sus went on to say: “When your chil­dren are very young and im­ma­ture, and when you must chas­tise them, they may re­flect that their fa­ther is an­gry and filled with re­sent­ful wrath. Their im­ma­tu­rity can­not pen­e­trate be­yond the pun­ish­ment to dis­cern the fa­ther’s farsee­ing and cor­rec­tive af­fec­tion. But when these same chil­dren be­come grown-up men and women, would it not be folly for them to cling to these ear­lier and mis­con­ceived no­tions re­gard­ing their fa­ther? As men and women they should now dis­cern their fa­ther’s love in all these early dis­ci­plines. And should not man­kind, as the cen­turies pass, come the bet­ter to un­der­stand the true na­ture and lov­ing char­ac­ter of the Fa­ther in heaven? What profit have you from suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions of spir­i­tual il­lu­mi­na­tion if you per­sist in view­ing God as Moses and the proph­ets saw him? I say to you, Ja­cob, un­der the bright light of this hour you should see the Fa­ther as none of those who have gone be­fore ever be­held him. And thus see­ing him, you should re­joice to en­ter the king­dom wherein such a mer­ci­ful Fa­ther rules, and you should seek to have his will of love dom­i­nate your life hence­forth.”