Teherma the Persian

• not a fire worshiper

141:6.1Near the end of the last week at Am­athus, Si­mon Ze­lo­tes brought to Je­sus one Teherma, a Per­sian do­ing busi­ness at Da­mas­cus. Teherma had heard of Je­sus and had come to Ca­per­naum to see him, and there learn­ing that Je­sus had gone with his apos­tles down the Jor­dan on the way to Je­ru­sa­lem, he set out to find him. An­drew had pre­sented Teherma to Si­mon for in­struc­tion. Si­mon looked upon the Per­sian as a “fire wor­shiper,” al­though Teherma took great pains to ex­plain that fire was only the vis­i­ble sym­bol of the Pure and Holy One. Af­ter talk­ing with Je­sus, the Per­sian sig­ni­fied his in­ten­tion of re­main­ing for sev­eral days to hear the teach­ing and lis­ten to the preach­ing.

141:6.2When Si­mon Ze­lo­tes and Je­sus were alone, Si­mon asked the Mas­ter: “Why is it that I could not per­suade him? Why did he so re­sist me and so read­ily lend an ear to you?” Je­sus an­swered: “Si­mon, Si­mon, how many times have I in­structed you to re­frain from all ef­forts to take some­thing out of the hearts of those who seek sal­va­tion? How of­ten have I told you to la­bor only to put some­thing into these hun­gry souls? Lead men into the king­dom, and the great and liv­ing truths of the king­dom will pres­ently drive out all se­ri­ous er­ror. When you have pre­sented to mor­tal man the good news that God is his Fa­ther, you can the eas­ier per­suade him that he is in re­al­ity a son of God. And hav­ing done that, you have brought the light of sal­va­tion to the one who sits in dark­ness. Si­mon, when the Son of Man came first to you, did he come de­nounc­ing Moses and the proph­ets and pro­claim­ing a new and bet­ter way of life? No. I came not to take away that which you had from your fore­fa­thers but to show you the per­fected vi­sion of that which your fa­thers saw only in part. Go then, Si­mon, teach­ing and preach­ing the king­dom, and when you have a man safely and se­curely within the king­dom, then is the time, when such a one shall come to you with in­quiries, to im­part in­struc­tion hav­ing to do with the pro­gres­sive ad­vance­ment of the soul within the di­vine king­dom.”

141:6.3Si­mon was as­ton­ished at these words, but he did as Je­sus had in­structed him, and Teherma, the Per­sian, was num­bered among those who en­tered the king­dom.