Sidon

• Sidon

130:0.3Af­ter their stay in Rome they went over­land to Tar­en­tum, where they set sail for Athens in Greece, stop­ping at Nicopo­lis and Corinth. From Athens they went to Eph­esus by way of Troas. From Eph­esus they sailed for Cyprus, putting in at Rhodes on the way. They spent con­sid­er­able time vis­it­ing and rest­ing on Cyprus and then sailed for An­ti­och in Syria. From An­ti­och they jour­neyed south to Sidon and then went over to Da­mas­cus. From there they trav­eled by car­a­van to Mes­o­po­ta­mia, pass­ing through Thap­sacus and Larissa. They spent some time in Baby­lon, vis­ited Ur and other places, and then went to Susa. From Susa they jour­neyed to Charax, from which place Gonod and Ga­nid em­barked for In­dia.

• Sidon

133:8.4Af­ter prepar­ing their lug­gage for the camel car­a­van, they passed on down to Sidon and thence over to Da­mas­cus, and af­ter three days they made ready for the long trek across the desert sands.

• Sidon

140:7.2For weeks and weeks small groups of earnest truth seek­ers, to­gether with cu­ri­ous spec­ta­tors, had been com­ing to Beth­saida to see Je­sus. Al­ready word about him had spread over the coun­try­side; in­quir­ing groups had come from cities as far away as Tyre, Sidon, Da­mas­cus, Cae­sarea, and Je­ru­sa­lem. Here­to­fore, Je­sus had greeted these peo­ple and taught them con­cern­ing the king­dom, but the Mas­ter now turned this work over to the twelve. An­drew would se­lect one of the apos­tles and as­sign him to a group of vis­i­tors, and some­times all twelve of them were so en­gaged.

• Sidon

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.

• Sidon

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.

• Sidon

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.

156:0.1On Fri­day af­ter­noon, June 10, Je­sus and his as­so­ciates ar­rived in the en­vi­rons of Sidon, where they stopped at the home of a well-to-do woman who had been a pa­tient in the Beth­saida hos­pi­tal dur­ing the times when Je­sus was at the height of his pop­u­lar fa­vor. The evan­ge­lists and the apos­tles were lodged with her friends in the im­me­di­ate neigh­bor­hood, and they rested over the Sab­bath day amid these re­fresh­ing sur­round­ings. They spent al­most two and one-half weeks in Sidon and vicin­ity be­fore they pre­pared to visit the coast cities to the north.

156:2.1In en­ter­ing Sidon, Je­sus and his as­so­ciates passed over a bridge, the first one many of them had ever seen. As they walked over this bridge, Je­sus, among other things, said: “This world is only a bridge; you may pass over it, but you should not think to build a dwell­ing place upon it.”

156:2.2As the twenty-four be­gan their labors in Sidon, Je­sus went to stay in a home just north of the city, the house of Justa and her mother, Ber­nice. Je­sus taught the twenty-four each morn­ing at the home of Justa, and they went abroad in Sidon to teach and preach dur­ing the af­ter­noons and evenings.

156:2.3The apos­tles and the evan­ge­lists were greatly cheered by the man­ner in which the gen­tiles of Sidon re­ceived their mes­sage; dur­ing their short so­journ many were added to the king­dom. This pe­riod of about six weeks in Phoeni­cia was a very fruit­ful time in the work of win­ning souls, but the later Jew­ish writ­ers of the Gospels were wont lightly to pass over the rec­ord of this warm re­cep­tion of Je­sus’ teach­ings by these gen­tiles at this very time when such a large num­ber of his own peo­ple were in hos­tile ar­ray against him.

156:2.4In many ways these gen­tile be­liev­ers ap­pre­ci­ated Je­sus’ teach­ings more fully than the Jews. Many of these Greek-speak­ing Sy­rophoeni­cians came to know not only that Je­sus was like God but also that God was like Je­sus. These so-called hea­then achieved a good un­der­stand­ing of the Mas­ter’s teach­ings about the uni­for­mity of the laws of this world and the en­tire uni­verse. They grasped the teach­ing that God is no re­specter of per­sons, races, or na­tions; that there is no fa­voritism with the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther; that the uni­verse is wholly and ever law-abid­ing and un­fail­ingly de­pend­able. These gen­tiles were not afraid of Je­sus; they dared to ac­cept his mes­sage. All down through the ages men have not been un­able to com­pre­hend Je­sus; they have been afraid to.

156:2.5Je­sus made it clear to the twenty-four that he had not fled from Gal­i­lee be­cause he lacked cour­age to con­front his en­e­mies. They com­pre­hended that he was not yet ready for an open clash with es­tab­lished re­li­gion, and that he did not seek to be­come a mar­tyr. It was dur­ing one of these con­fer­ences at the home of Justa that the Mas­ter first told his dis­ci­ples that “even though heaven and earth shall pass away, my words of truth shall not.”

156:2.6The theme of Je­sus’ in­struc­tions dur­ing the so­journ at Sidon was spir­i­tual pro­gres­sion. He told them they could not stand still; they must go for­ward in righ­teous­ness or ret­rogress into evil and sin. He ad­mon­ished them to “for­get those things which are in the past while you push for­ward to em­brace the greater re­al­i­ties of the king­dom.” He be­sought them not to be con­tent with their child­hood in the gospel but to strive for the at­tain­ment of the full stature of di­vine son­ship in the com­mu­nion of the spirit and in the fel­low­ship of be­liev­ers.

156:2.7Said Je­sus: “My dis­ci­ples must not only cease to do evil but learn to do well; you must not only be cleansed from all con­scious sin, but you must refuse to har­bor even the feel­ings of guilt. If you con­fess your sins, they are for­given; there­fore must you main­tain a con­science void of of­fense.”

156:2.8Je­sus greatly en­joyed the keen sense of hu­mor which these gen­tiles ex­hib­ited. It was the sense of hu­mor dis­played by No­rana, the Syr­ian woman, as well as her great and per­sis­tent faith, that so touched the Mas­ter’s heart and ap­pealed to his mercy. Je­sus greatly re­gret­ted that his peo­ple—the Jews—were so lack­ing in hu­mor. He once said to Thomas: “My peo­ple take them­selves too se­ri­ously; they are just about de­void of an ap­pre­ci­a­tion of hu­mor. The bur­den­some re­li­gion of the Phar­isees could never have had ori­gin among a peo­ple with a sense of hu­mor. They also lack con­sis­tency; they strain at gnats and swal­low camels.”

163:6.5Then, speak­ing to all the dis­ci­ples, he said: “You have heard how many cities and vil­lages have re­ceived the good news of the king­dom, and how my min­is­ters and teach­ers have been re­ceived by both the Jew and the gen­tile. And blessed in­deed are these com­mu­ni­ties which have elected to be­lieve the gospel of the king­dom. But woe upon the light-re­ject­ing in­hab­i­tants of Cho­ra­zin, Beth­saida-Ju­lias, and Ca­per­naum, the cities which did not well re­ceive these mes­sen­gers. I de­clare that, if the mighty works done in these places had been done in Tyre and Sidon, the peo­ple of these so-called hea­then cities would have long since re­pented in sack­cloth and ashes. It shall in­deed be more tol­er­a­ble for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judg­ment.”