Episode:Jesus the Tutor—Return from Rome (Part 3)
To a Greek contractor and builder Jesus said: “My friend, as you build the material structures of men, grow a spiritual character in the similitude of the divine spirit within your soul. Ever remember, there is a city whose foundations are righteousness and truth, and whose builder and maker is God.”
Keywords: Urantia, Jesus, Indwelling Spirit, Heart, Soul
Summary by Kermit
Commentary on the Review
We pondered the possible reason for the revelators including seemingly incidental confirmation of New Testament scripture linking Paul and two prominent Corinthian Christians Aquila and Priscilla by their shared vocation of tentmakers. The SoS team remains puzzled by this.
133:4. Personal Work in Corinth
We noted the apparent redundancy of the authors’ repeated mention of the numerous and profitable personal conversations Jesus and Ganid had with individuals of Corinth. The many citations of specific Corinthian believers and their connection with Jesus during these travels testify to his sagacity in sowing seeds of truth as he went before Paul preparing the religious soil for the gospel messengers years later.
What follows is a series of eleven vignettes wherein Jesus dispenses loving instruction and divine truth to various individuals he met with during his two months’ stay in Corinth, which by the way, next to Athens was the most important Greek city during those times.
The core themes running through these narratives include:
- the distinction between material and spiritual domains,
- the Father’s indwelling spirit,
- knowing God and striving to become more like Him,
- certainty of salvation and securing a connection to eternity, and more.
In the first lesson with a miller, using the illustration of grinding the grains of truth in the mill of living experience, Jesus addresses the issue of the need to temper the rugged truths of the divine life more receivable by even the weak and feeble. The closer one approaches truth, the closer becomes the approach to law. As we mention many times, many of the rugged truths of the 5th ER may be difficult of consumption for the child of God. Children of God need the milk of truth made palatable with an appropriate measure of mercy. This first story suggests the importance of establishing a sphere of truth into which the facts of time fit.
The second scenario involves a Roman centurion whom Jesus instructs to discriminate between things of the spirit and things of the material domain. Here we see the familiar teaching; “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s, well in advance of his public ministry. We took note of the reference to the qualifying condition of God knowingness, which as we have discussed previously has specific technical significance involving the levels of meaning.
Throughout the stories we find the characteristic precision of language referencing numerous specific and technical details found all through the revelation. We paid specific attention to the authors’ use of the terms “heart” and “soul.” In common parlance these words are most often interpreted to refer to centers of feeling. Failure to recognize that these terms are referring to the spiritualized mind of the personalized self in the inner life leads to serious misunderstanding of the 5th ER.
Jesus’ suggested to the traveler from Britain that he endeavor to talk with his indwelling gift from the Father. He went on to essentially guarantee that every such honest attempt meets with certain success notwithstanding it must long remain as superconscious registrations in the soul and usually not a conscious experience.
In the final story Jesus comforts a condemned criminal in his final hour. Jesus acknowledged the state’s right to impose the death penalty, but also made clear that such temporal judgment and punishment is not binding on the universe judges. Decisions rendered by the capital “J” Judges of the universe are based on the wrongdoer’s real motives and better intentions rather than behavior. Further, that if repentance is genuine and faith sincere, the condemned man can expect to obtain justice and mercy before the heavenly courts.
The time spent in Corinth by our travelers proved to be one of the most interesting of all their stops on their way back from Rome.
Notes by Brad
- How did the later early Christians at Corinth not make the connection that Jesus from this time was "their" Jesus?
- Lots of Joshua's around then.
- The frame of mind of the time (unlike today) didn't imagine people traveling around.
- Preconceived opinions, settled ideas, and long-standing prejudices. Perhaps they already had their mind made up on the matter.
- Truth is innately rugged, hence "grinding up the grains of truth." Divine life is far being free from conflict.
- "Truth? You can't handle the truth!"
- Soul in the 5th ER has context-dependent meanings
- A literal morontia object
- The upper domain of one's mind, more generally (as the case here with the Mithraic leader). The word heart also is used to refer to this domain in the 5th ER.
- But never the level of the feelings in the levels of meaning (e.g. our misnomer of "soulful music").
- Epicureanism: what was it all about?
- "Don't worry, be happy" "Live a little." Maybe with a touch of hedonistic living, but temperate.
- Concerning prcise language and trying to avoid watering truth down in our daily lives.
- It's a balancing act.
- Don't get so tortured in your precision that your phraseology calls undue attention to itself (an affectation) and your meaning gets lost
- But try a few things. Can you avoid misusing the word "nice" maybe by just not using it, for example?
- Are you willing to stop using "heart" and "soul" to refer to feelings?
- Can you avoid being as fluffy? Can you meet people where they are without being "of" what they are?
- A common theme in section 4: the difference between matter and spirit. But not to the point of false dichotomy.
- Are we seeing Jesus "practice his material" here? Or are we seeing him try to achieve the 1st psychic circle?
- In either case, you can't achieve cosmic levels in isolation (they are cosmic, not spiritual).
- Also, remember that these are not transcripts or transliterations of Jesus' words. The authors are required to use existing thought forms written by others, to point to the truth of what Jesus said. [0:12.12]
- Paper 48 reminds us we can be technically right as to fact, yet everlastingly wrong in the truth. Fact versus truth is a thorny issue!
- just fair patient kind... levels of meaning also, insofar s they are a sequence of progressing higher levels (don't equate "just" with "level of flesh" that is)
- Ideals have to do with spirit, not matter.
- Are all of your idealistic musics about material things? Can you reflect enough to see if this is the case?
- And if so are you courageous enough to call this false idealism?
- Modern society often wonders what a real man ought to be about: be determined to face life bravely and intelligently.
- This notetaker observes that his recently deceased father modeled these qualities--a real treasure.
- Non-program note: Brad constructed a eulogy for his father around [34:7.8], but quoted John 14 and John 16 to meet the mourners where they were.
