two-and-two

160:2.72. Union of souls—the mo­bi­liza­tion of wis­dom. Ev­ery hu­man be­ing sooner or later ac­quires a cer­tain con­cept of this world and a cer­tain vi­sion of the next. Now it is pos­si­ble, through per­son­al­ity as­so­ci­a­tion, to unite these views of tem­po­ral ex­is­tence and eter­nal prospects. Thus does the mind of one aug­ment its spir­i­tual val­ues by gain­ing much of the in­sight of the other. In this way men en­rich the soul by pool­ing their re­spec­tive spir­i­tual pos­ses­sions. Like­wise, in this same way, man is en­abled to avoid that ever-pres­ent ten­dency to fall vic­tim to dis­tor­tion of vi­sion, prej­u­dice of view­point, and nar­row­ness of judg­ment. Fear, envy, and con­ceit can be pre­vented only by in­ti­mate con­tact with other minds. I call your at­ten­tion to the fact that the Mas­ter never sends you out alone to la­bor for the ex­ten­sion of the king­dom; he al­ways sends you out two and two. And since wis­dom is super­knowl­edge, it fol­lows that, in the union of wis­dom, the so­cial group, small or large, mu­tu­ally shares all knowl­edge.

163:1.3Be­fore Je­sus laid his hands upon the heads of the sev­enty to set them apart as gospel mes­sen­gers, ad­dress­ing them, he said: “The har­vest is in­deed plen­teous, but the la­bor­ers are few; there­fore I ex­hort all of you to pray that the Lord of the har­vest will send still other la­bor­ers into his har­vest. I am about to set you apart as mes­sen­gers of the king­dom; I am about to send you to Jew and gen­tile as lambs among wolves. As you go your ways, two and two, I in­struct you to carry nei­ther purse nor ex­tra cloth­ing, for you go forth on this first mis­sion for only a short sea­son. Salute no man by the way, at­tend only to your work. When­ever you go to stay at a home, first say: Peace be to this house­hold. If those who love peace live therein, you shall abide there; if not, then shall you de­part. And hav­ing se­lected this home, re­main there for your stay in that city, eat­ing and drink­ing what­ever is set be­fore you. And you do this be­cause the la­borer is wor­thy of his sus­te­nance. Move not from house to house be­cause a bet­ter lodg­ing may be of­fered. Re­mem­ber, as you go forth pro­claim­ing peace on earth and good will among men, you must con­tend with bit­ter and self-de­ceived en­e­mies; there­fore be as wise as ser­pents while you are also as harm­less as doves.

181:2.12When Je­sus had fin­ished speak­ing to Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, he stepped over to Mat­thew Levi and said: “No longer will it de­volve upon you to pro­vide for the trea­sury of the apos­tolic group. Soon, very soon, you will all be scat­tered; you will not be per­mit­ted to en­joy the com­fort­ing and sus­tain­ing as­so­ci­a­tion of even one of your breth­ren. As you go on­ward preach­ing this gospel of the king­dom, you will have to find for your­selves new as­so­ciates. I have sent you forth two and two dur­ing the times of your train­ing, but now that I am leav­ing you, af­ter you have re­cov­ered from the shock, you will go out alone, and to the ends of the earth, pro­claim­ing this good news: That faith-quick­ened mor­tals are the sons of God.”

138:1.1The next day, Sun­day, June 23, A.D. 26, Je­sus im­parted his fi­nal in­struc­tions to the six. He di­rected them to go forth, two and two, to teach the glad tid­ings of the king­dom. He for­bade them to bap­tize and ad­vised against pub­lic preach­ing. He went on to ex­plain that later he would per­mit them to preach in pub­lic, but that for a sea­son, and for many rea­sons, he de­sired them to ac­quire prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence in deal­ing per­son­ally with their fel­low men. Je­sus pur­posed to make their first tour en­tirely one of per­sonal work. Al­though this an­nounce­ment was some­thing of a dis­ap­point­ment to the apos­tles, still they saw, at least in part, Je­sus’ rea­son for thus be­gin­ning the procla­ma­tion of the king­dom, and they started out in good heart and with con­fi­dent en­thu­si­asm. He sent them forth by twos, James and John go­ing to Kheresa, An­drew and Pe­ter to Ca­per­naum, while Philip and Na­than­iel went to Ta­ri­chea.

193:3.2“Peace be upon you. I have asked you to tarry here in Je­ru­sa­lem un­til I as­cend to the Fa­ther, even un­til I send you the Spirit of Truth, who shall soon be poured out upon all flesh, and who shall en­dow you with power from on high.” Si­mon Ze­lo­tes in­ter­rupted Je­sus, ask­ing, “Then, Mas­ter, will you re­store the king­dom, and will we see the glory of God man­i­fested on earth?” When Je­sus had lis­tened to Si­mon’s ques­tion, he an­swered: “Si­mon, you still cling to your old ideas about the Jew­ish Mes­siah and the ma­te­rial king­dom. But you will re­ceive spir­i­tual power af­ter the spirit has de­scended upon you, and you will pres­ently go into all the world preach­ing this gospel of the king­dom. As the Fa­ther sent me into the world, so do I send you. And I wish that you would love and trust one an­other. Ju­das is no more with you be­cause his love grew cold, and be­cause he re­fused to trust you, his loyal breth­ren. Have you not read in the Scrip­ture where it is writ­ten: ‘It is not good for man to be alone. No man lives to him­self’? And also where it says: ‘He who would have friends must show him­self friendly’? And did I not even send you out to teach, two and two, that you might not be­come lonely and fall into the mis­chief and mis­eries of iso­la­tion? You also well know that, when I was in the flesh, I did not per­mit my­self to be alone for long pe­ri­ods. From the very be­gin­ning of our as­so­ci­a­tions I al­ways had two or three of you con­stantly by my side or else very near at hand even when I com­muned with the Fa­ther. Trust, there­fore, and con­fide in one an­other. And this is all the more need­ful since I am this day go­ing to leave you alone in the world. The hour has come; I am about to go to the Fa­ther.”