strangers

70:3.6In the early ages each tribe was sur­rounded by con­cen­tric cir­cles of in­creas­ing fear and sus­pi­cion; hence it was once the cus­tom to kill all strangers, later on, to en­slave them. The old idea of friend­ship meant adop­tion into the clan; and clan mem­ber­ship was be­lieved to sur­vive death—one of the ear­li­est con­cepts of eter­nal life.

70:1.5With the emer­gence of so­cial group­ings, in­di­vid­ual ir­ri­ta­tions be­gan to be sub­merged in the group feel­ings, and this pro­moted in­tra­tribal tran­quil­lity but at the ex­pense of in­ter­tribal peace. Peace was thus first en­joyed by the in-group, or tribe, who al­ways dis­liked and hated the out-group, for­eign­ers. Early man re­garded it a virtue to shed alien blood.

140:10.4This same evening Thomas asked Je­sus: “Mas­ter, you say that we must be­come as lit­tle chil­dren be­fore we can gain en­trance to the Fa­ther’s king­dom, and yet you have warned us not to be de­ceived by false proph­ets nor to be­come guilty of cast­ing our pearls be­fore swine. Now, I am hon­estly puz­zled. I can­not un­der­stand your teach­ing.” Je­sus replied to Thomas: “How long shall I bear with you! Ever you in­sist on mak­ing lit­eral all that I teach. When I asked you to be­come as lit­tle chil­dren as the price of en­ter­ing the king­dom, I re­ferred not to ease of de­cep­tion, mere will­ing­ness to be­lieve, nor to quick­ness to trust pleas­ing strangers. What I did de­sire that you should gather from the il­lus­tra­tion was the child-fa­ther re­la­tion­ship. You are the child, and it is your Fa­ther’s king­dom you seek to en­ter. There is pres­ent that nat­u­ral af­fec­tion be­tween ev­ery nor­mal child and its fa­ther which in­sures an un­der­stand­ing and lov­ing re­la­tion­ship, and which for­ever pre­cludes all dis­po­si­tion to bar­gain for the Fa­ther’s love and mercy. And the gospel you are go­ing forth to preach has to do with a sal­va­tion grow­ing out of the faith-re­al­iza­tion of this very and eter­nal child-fa­ther re­la­tion­ship.”

165:2.4“The true shep­herd gath­ers his flock into the fold for the night in times of dan­ger. And when the morn­ing has come, he en­ters into the fold by the door, and when he calls, the sheep know his voice. Ev­ery shep­herd who gains en­trance to the sheep­fold by any other means than by the door is a thief and a rob­ber. The true shep­herd en­ters the fold af­ter the porter has opened the door for him, and his sheep, know­ing his voice, come out at his word; and when they that are his are thus brought forth, the true shep­herd goes be­fore them; he leads the way and the sheep fol­low him. His sheep fol­low him be­cause they know his voice; they will not fol­low a stranger. They will flee from the stranger be­cause they know not his voice. This mul­ti­tude which is gath­ered about us here are like sheep with­out a shep­herd, but when we speak to them, they know the shep­herd’s voice, and they fol­low af­ter us; at least, those who hunger for truth and thirst for righ­teous­ness do. Some of you are not of my fold; you know not my voice, and you do not fol­low me. And be­cause you are false shep­herds, the sheep know not your voice and will not fol­low you.”

130:2.6Ga­nid was, by this time, be­gin­ning to learn how his tu­tor spent his leisure in this un­usual per­sonal min­istry to his fel­low men, and the young In­dian set about to find out the mo­tive for these in­ces­sant ac­tiv­i­ties. He asked, “Why do you oc­cupy your­self so con­tin­u­ously with these vis­its with strangers?” And Je­sus an­swered: “Ga­nid, no man is a stranger to one who knows God. In the ex­pe­ri­ence of find­ing the Fa­ther in heaven you dis­cover that all men are your broth­ers, and does it seem strange that one should en­joy the ex­hil­a­ra­tion of meet­ing a newly dis­cov­ered brother? To be­come ac­quainted with one’s broth­ers and sis­ters, to know their prob­lems and to learn to love them, is the su­preme ex­pe­ri­ence of liv­ing.”