Episode:Jesus of Nazareth—Childhood Career (Part 3)
Material accidents, commonplace occurrences of a physical nature, are not arbitrarily interfered with by celestial personalities. Under ordinary circumstances only midway creatures can intervene in material conditions to safeguard the persons of men and women of destiny, and even in special situations these beings can so act only in obedience to the specific mandates of their superiors.
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Keywords: Urantia, Jesus, Play Life, Minor Accidents, Synagogue School
Opening thought: “…no other religion than that of the Bible has proved competent to control an advanced, or even an advancing, state of civilization. Every other bound has been successively passed and submerged by the rising tide; how deep only the student of history knows.” —Alfred Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life, Chapter 8
Closing thought: Reflect on these truths and let them enrich your life and the potential lives of children.
Summary by Dave
By Design
The revelation tells us that the universe is "mind planned, mind made, and mind administered." There is not one part that is not planned, made, and administered by mind that is not also fully coordinated in a wholeness. Every thing and every being is transcendently designed and coordinated. It's no coincidence that a countless number of parts can be perfectly coordinated in a wholeness as if by some random process could possibly produce such an enormous and harmoniously designed system. At the foundation of everything, there is an immutable absoluteness that connects all things and beings together. We need this foundation as a basis in our field of view at all times regardless of the perceived difficulty in the subject we're reading about. No matter how dense, like the papers on the Supreme, or how seemingly surface level the text appears, like the Master's seventh year, we do well to keep this in our minds at all times.
We all begin with a limited view that tends to focus on some of the specific details the revelation provides to us compared to, let's say, the New Testament. All of us need to set a guard upon making complete lifestyle solutions of this knowledge that's given to us through the revelation. It's entirely too common to get tunnel-visioned by the detailed specifics of the facts, or be charmed by poetic flurries, and stay in the feelings each of those produce. The immediate face value of the text ultimately short circuits our abilities to penetrate through to the truth that can be obeyed. We need recognition of fact, and recognition of goodness. As a consequence of having both, we can see the truth flowing above each of them. Truth can be hungered for, truth can be obeyed, and truth is the constant carrot on the stick in front us that is never satiated because there are always progressive and deeper qualities of it to be discovered and chosen each and every step of the way.
- You have made your souls pure by obeying the truth through the Holy Spirit. 1 Peter 1:22
The stairway that leads upwards to truth is free from the trampled footprints of the masses. It's narrow, like a bike lane intended for a single traveler. It is far less traveled because it takes independent courage. But such is the Fathers way. Most of us busy ourselves with the self delights in recognition of fact, or goodness, and ground our "good" ships upon the rocks just short of the attainment of truth because we hunger not for it. Instead, we allow our once insatiable hunger to get satisfied by a mere taste of it. Humility and patience go a long way here, and keep the stomach full, and yet hungry for more simultaneously.
123:4. The Seventh Year (A.D. 1)
There is a recognition to be discovered in the concept of play that is mind made, mind managed, and mind administered. The precision of the organized aspects of play can foster the beginnings of the scientific consciousness, and the potentials for values, and associativity consciousness development is also discoverable in play as well. The importance of play life in general can be abstracted from Jesus of Nazareth's play life by readers who maintain their curiosity past the surface level text that we all begin with, and who humbly, and patiently are open to being revealed to. There's even a religious nucleus that is being fostered and augmented through children at play with acceptable play fellows. There is always something that subtly augments the formation of that religious nuclear religious life, even with play.
The young Jesus cooperatively subordinated himself to the ten commandments by remembering the sabbath day to keep it holy, and honoring his father and mother—commandments four and five. He was obedient to those laws, when many others with a less than favorable home life would easily develop a "better" way. Jesus had exhibited an unquestioning loyalty. It's a lesson all of us who read the revelation must take to heart: if the revelation says do such and so, you do well to do it, unquestioningly, and without hesitation. Religiously, even! Having the knowledge of how the Master turned out, we study these papers of his early life to understand how he got that way—a solid religionist.
The revelators tell us about a real accident that occured as he took a spill down his steps during a sandstorm but the result of Mary being riddled with anxiety over the ordeal was a error in that it was mistaken judgement. Trust in God is the only antidote to all anxiety, and we're told to abandon it in favor of this sublime trust. Of course, she did birth the creator of our universe, so she get's some slack for her anxiety.
Intervention
Interestingly in this section the midwayers bring up the subject of how, in ordinary circumstances, only midwayers can intervene in the safe guarding of the persons of men and women of destiny. In [113:5.5] they mention how in certain instances, seraphic guardians have acted, and properly, on their own initiative.
174:5. School Days in Nazareth
The young Jesus was a fluid reader and writer in three languages by seven years old. Take a breath, remind yourself you are a perfecting child of God. We're not in competition with the Master but we can see at how at a very early age Jesus was curious, and followed his curiosity with action.
When we reflect on how different a child in that setting, with religious parents, and acceptable play fellows, and scientific and religious curiosity would end up, versus how most children end up now, we see the value of starting a child off in the law of God compared to the false notions that focus on teaching their children about only the love of God. The revelators are giving us instructions to follow here; parents, we do well to heed them. The foundation of the first epochal revelation wasn't to tell us about love and service. It was to teach us about law and order. The Master became a religious adult because his foundation was in law. If your family life is founded on love and service, your family life is humanistic, and is devoid of survival value, God knowingness, and God ascension. It's the same pattern for your national life as well. Divine law is the habits of God, and when law and order comes first and then your potential for survival value is present for you to take forward to the next sequence.
Brad's Notes
- "The universe of universes in toto is mind planned, mind made, and mind administered." [42:11.2]
- Everything in the cosmos is designed. Carbon atoms, mitochondria, toddlers. They're all designed.
- A "capacity" for play results from design.
- Play life is required for this designed creature to function and grow properly.
- There is purpose in play. Play life is important. It's part of the design.
- Games that are organized are an unfolding of the cosmos in miniature.
- This author remembers Mr. Gradgrind in Dickens' Hard Times being a teacher who, like the best materialist-utilitarianist, denied the need for play in children. "Just facts!" he said.
- How did Jesus become the solid religionist that he became?
- What can parents do to foster a child's growth?
- Play life
- Potential for development of altruism (seen is Jesus' administration of the dovecote proceeds)
- See what was taught to him at age 7, 8, and 9: The law.
- The foundation of and context in which love exists.
- Even though our culture is vastly different from Jesus' times, we must teach our children about divine law—the habits of God—and meditating thereon.
- Don't let a young child's family life be humanistic, and devoid of survival values.
- Don't underestimate children. Much was expected of young children in Jesus' times. The path of most resistance was okay to expect the children to walk.
- They started with the Book of Leviticus, well known as a momentum killer in linear read-throughs today.
- Just as the divine law is God's habits, children can received hardwired habits—religious habits.
- Don't replicate the substance of ancient Jewish life. But do observe its essence and see to it in our children's lives.
- This author reflected how utterly irreligious his childhood upbringing was compared to what we're reading here. Hence the emergency.
- Justin shared an analogy of a child being offered a glass of "living water" by his parent, but pridefully thinks he's fine without it. Eventually the child loses thirst.
- What can parents do to foster a child's growth?
- Being a serious student of The Urantia Papers
- Don't do this: "We must have a dovecote on our house and do what Jesus' parents did exactly." That's fact-based, not truth based study of this book.
- Be a truth seeker first, not a fact finder, when engaging the 5th ER.
- Come on, you can do it! People do this all the time with their devotion to truths portrayed in the Lord of the Rings novels. Can't you do at least as well with The Urantia Papers?
- Notice how age 14 (the middle of adolescent years) is when Jesus became less "lighthearted."
- When one comes into a deeper sense of their own responsibility to begin managing yourself.
- Unwise judgment is error. Can you learn from Mary's "unwise judgment?"
- What is a "real accident?" One that is not predictable in advance, even by angels.
- Do someone claim to love God and read the 5th ER but not follow its instructions or try to live its truths? We suspect they must not love the real God at all.
- Pattern is a Deity influence that engages energy and gives it purposing.
