Episode:Jesus Goes Public—Preparation and Preaching (Part 19)
Jesus lived his earth life to the full satisfaction of the Father, and his incarnation in the flesh enabled him fully to comprehend man. Jesus was the perfection of man; he attained just such perfection as all true believers are destined to attain in him and through him. Jesus revealed a God of perfection to man and presented in himself the perfected son of the realms to God the Father.
Keywords: Urantia, Jesus, Family Life, Kingdom of the Spirit, The Spirit Father
Opening thought: While religious, social, and educational institutions are all essential to the survival of cultural civilization, the family is the master civilizer. A child learns most of the essentials of life from his family and the neighbors. [82:0.2]
Closing thought: What is the "ear of the spirit?" What is "spirit perception?" Think about what it was that had Jesus so longsuffering with Thomas?
Summary by Kermit
Commentary after Review
The brief pre-reading commentary consisted of reflections on recent experiences of our team members with presentations highlighting the pervasive promotion of nihilistic philosophies. We are reminded of the more militant efforts of secularists to replace religion in modern culture with the godless philosophy of secular humanism which we are further warned in [195:8.5] will lead only to "unrest, animosity, unhappiness, war, and world-wide disaster." Careful perusal of [Paper 195] discloses the course of history from Jesus’ proclamation of the Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man to the current day emergency where the threat of secular totalitarianism has prompted the superuniverse administrators to dispatch the 5th ER to our world.
142:7 The Lesson on Family Life
Jesus and his apostles spent a restful Wednesday in Bethany following their busy time in Jerusalem during Passover week. Thomas recognizing their special status as ambassadors of the kingdom with respect to their personal mode of living as apostles inquired as to what they should teach the multitudes about living in the world and navigating the many material issues related thereto (discipleship). Further, are law and justice to be set aside to be set aside that mercy alone might prevail? The remainder of this section is a midwayer summary of Jesus’ response to Thomas’s inquiry.
Material issues are ever with us and religious prescriptions and proscriptions concerning them have their place in early evolutionary religion helping to regulate and stabilize primitive societies. Jesus’ entire ministry was focused on establishing the kingdom of heaven in the inner lives of his apostles, disciples, and the multitudes through uplifting the outer-life religiosity of his hearers. Unfortunately, this attempted reciprocation of religious consciousness from the outer to inner life has gone largely unrealized. Religion today is still largely practiced as an adherence to rules of conduct and a prayer life of petitioning God to arrange the affairs of our lives more favorably.
Jesus made several disclosures to the twelve having to do with the evolutionary nature of the kingdom of heaven beginning with the life in the flesh and forecasting successive life stations of the Paradise ascent. He even promised to return to visit this world in spiritual power and divine glory. He went so far as to explain how the kingdom idea was not really the best way to illustrate God’s relation to man. Future generations will better appreciate the kingdom of heaven in terms of a family—the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.
Jesus then proceeded to discuss at some length the fundamental characteristics of family life and their application to the relationship between God and man, i.e. the relations of man, the earth child to God, the Paradise Father. According to Jesus the true family is founded on seven facts. In discussing application of these seven facts to man’s relationship to God, SoS attempted to focus on the God-as-Paradise-Father side of the relationship more than the material (human/mammalian parenting) details involved with each fact.
First, the fact of existence establishes the existential foundation of the individual in the initiating (personality) and directionizing (will) gift from the Father. The conscious I AM-anchoring of being in the existential Father prevents the turning of the religious impulse inside out to focus on the outer life.
The second family fact involves moving beyond the existential into the experiential where additional facets of Deity must be reckoned with. Here true fathers provide for security and pleasure of their children.
Thirdly, wise fathers provide for education and training of their children. Further aspects of Deity, all of which depend upon the existential Father provide for the potentialization of education and training in the form of the cosmic insights delivered via the Divine Minister, establishing the universe child as educable and trainable.
The discipline and restraint which farseeing fathers provide is seen to be operational in the requirements for moving up the levels of the ascension scheme.
Affectionate fathers provide for companionship and loyalty through the ministry of the descending Sons of God. Even Jesus’ bestowal mission itself is an expression thereof.
The love and mercy a compassionate father exercises on behalf of his children is found derived from the ministry of the Mother whereby the progressive ascending attainment of the levels of cosmic meaning redound to greater exhibition of the facets of cosmic character, three of which are mentioned in the text: tolerance, patience, and forgiveness.
Temporal fathers recognize the continuity of the biological family, a shadow of the ongoing-ness of eternity. The Paradise Father has provided for an eternal career as his provision for the future.
Jesus concludes the discussion explaining that he knows in perfection the entire relationship of a son to the Father and his bestowal has literally opened wider the way (through the bestowal of his Spirit of Truth and the Father’s universal bestowal of Thought Adjusters) for all to see God and attain perfection. The startled apostles recalled the Baptist’s declaration of the divinity of Jesus upon his return from his forty days of isolation in the Perean hills. Notwithstanding Jesus’ perfection he still embodies what we are and what we can be as we take our first steps Paradiseward as mortal faith-sons of the Heavenly Father.
Following the hours long discussion Thomas asked a question which essentially reveals that he and no doubt the rest of the apostles utterly failed to register the spiritual content of Jesus’ teaching. Why do we still suffer and many of our prayers go unanswered? An exasperated Jesus replies with the dreaded double-barreled "Thomas, Thomas, how long before you acquire the ability to listen with the ear of the spirit?" Jesus implores the twelve to cease turning his teachings concerning the inner life of the kingdom inside out to considerations of the external world. But, as usual the Master concludes with his message of comfort and promise to bear with them to the end of their association in the flesh and beyond.
142:8 In Southern Judea
Antagonism against Jesus on the part of the religious rulers in Jerusalem led the Master and apostles to leave for points south wherein the apostles pursued personal work and home visits teaching the gospel and ministering to the sick in lieu of public preaching. The Master with Abner visited the Nazarite colony at Engedi, the place from which John the Baptist had launched his mission. However, agitation against Jesus subsided prompting the apostolic party to return to the Jerusalem environs where they camped in Gethsemane and received inquirers for more private instruction. But when a member of the Sanhedrin publicly espoused the teachings of Jesus, renewed calls for his arrest caused the troop to retire to the cities of Samaria and the Decapolis.
