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"Jesus explained that he had purposely ignored the 'great men of earth.'" (1594)
Apparently the task carried out by Jesus in his revelation, and now to be continued by this new revelation in the Urantia Papers, could be carried out effectively only by the "ordinary" men and women of Jesus' day. More and more, it is beginning to appear also that this new revelation can only be made effective through the actual lives lived by the modern equivalent of the same kind of "ordinary" folk.
Most of the "great men of earth" who belonged to the society into which Jesus was born lacked the qualities required from those destined to become his followers. And though Jesus despised no man, nevertheless he drew his apostles and other dedicated followers from humble fisher folk and even outcasts of society such as tax-gatherers and prostitutes. God-players were not welcome on his team.
Jesus was fond of making comments such as, "He who would be greatest among you, let him first be the servant of all." This type of qualification was not at all a part of the make-up of the "great men of earth" of the Jewish populace of that day. They had a quite different outlook upon life, one we would now term as an acute egocentricity. Jesus described them in this way:
"Furthermore, these self-centered rulers delight in doing their good works so that they will be seen by men. They make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their official robes. They crave the chief places at the feasts and demand the chief seats in the synagogues. They covet laudatory salutations in the market places and desire to be called rabbi by all men. And even while they seek all this honor from men, they secretly lay hold of widows' houses and take profit from the services of the sacred temple. For a pretense these hypocrites make long prayers in public and give alms to attract the notice of their fellows." (1907)
Jesus lived his life as a revelation of the nature of his heavenly Father--a God of love, mercy, and compassion. Jesus lived for people like you and me. And Jesus died for people like you and me.
At his death Jesus had only a handful of distressed and distraught followers. He left no written record of his life. All that remained on record was the merest sketchy outline of what he said and did. Yet millions upon millions of people have tried to emulate that life in the two thousand years that have elapsed since his death.
We now have a full and unsullied record of that life and death. What are we going to do to make it known to the men and women of the third millennium? In the words of our old friend, Billy Shakespeare:
"That is the burning question."
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