Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 149
THE SECOND PREACHING TOUR
1. The second public preaching tour of Galilee began on Sunday, October 3, A. D. 28, and continued for almost three months, ending on December 30. Participating in this effort were Jesus and his twelve apostles, assisted by the newly recruited corps of 117 evangelists and by numerous other interested persons... Before the departure on this Sunday morning Andrew and Peter asked Jesus to give the final charge to the new evangelists, but the Master declined, saying that it was not his province to do those things which others could acceptably perform ...This entire second preaching tour was principally an effort to afford practical experience for this corps of 117 newly trained evangelists.
2. Throughout this period and subsequently, up to the time of the final departure of Jesus and the twelve for Jerusalem, David Zebedee maintained a permanent headquarters for the work of the kingdom in his father's house at Bethsaida. This was the clearinghouse for Jesus' work on earth and the relay station for the messenger service which David carried on between the workers in various parts of Palestine and adjacent regions. He did all of this on his own initiative but with the approval of Andrew. David employed forty to fifty messengers in this intelligence division of the rapidly enlarging and extending work of the kingdom. While thus employed, he partially supported himself by spending some of his time at his old work of fishing.
3. There began to appear about the time of this mission—and continued throughout the remainder of Jesus' life on earth—a peculiar and unexplained series of healing phenomena. In the course of this three months' tour more than one hundred men, women, and children ...were beneficiaries of this unconscious healing by Jesus... It was never revealed to us just what occurred in these cases of spontaneous or unconscious healing. The Master never explained to his apostles how these healings were effected, other than that on several occasions he merely said, "I perceive that power has gone forth from me."
4. We believe that many of these apparent miracles of healing, as they occurred in the course of Jesus' earth ministry, were the result of the coexistence of the following three powerful, potent, and associated influences:
1. The presence of strong, dominant, and living faith...together with the fact that such healing was desired for its spiritual benefits rather than for purely physical restoration.
2. The existence... of the great sympathy and compassion of the incarnated and mercy‑dominated Creator Son of God.
3. Along with the faith of the creature and the life of the Creator it should also be noted that this God‑man was the personified expression of the Father's will ...The explanation, then, of many of these cases of healing must be found in a great law which has long been known to us, namely, What the Creator Son desires and the eternal Father wills IS.
It is, then, our opinion that, in the personal presence of Jesus, certain forms of profound human faith were literally and truly compelling in the manifestation of healing.
5. Many others sought healing for wholly selfish purposes. A rich widow of Tyre, with her retinue, came seeking to be healed of her infirmities, which were many; and as she followed Jesus sbout through Galilee, she continued to offer more and more money, as if the power of God were something to be purchased by the highest bidder. But never would she become interested in the gospel of the kingdom; it was only the cure of her physical ailments that she sought.
6. Jesus understood the minds of men. He Knew what was in the heart of man, and had his teachings been left as he presented them, the only commentary being the inspired interpretation afforded by his earth life, all nations and all religions of the world would speedily have embraced the gospel of the kingdom.
7. The Apostle Paul, in his efforts to bring the teachings of Jesus to the favorable notice of certain groups in his day, wrote many letters of instruction and admonition. Other teachers of Jesus' gospel did likewise, but none of them realized that some of these writings would subsequently be brought together by those who would set them forth as the embodiment of the teachings of Jesus.
8. Aside from the incorporation of many teachings from the Persian mysteries and much of the Greek philosophy into early Christianity, two great mistakes were made:
1. The effort to connect the gospel teaching directly onto the Jewish theology, as illustrated by the Christian doctrines of the atonement.
2. The second great blunder of the Master's early followers, and one which all subsequent generations have persisted in perpetuating, was to organize the Christian teaching so completely about the person of Jesus.
9. When the Creator himself was on earth,. it was inevitable that some extraordinary things should happen ...Learn to approach the miracle through Jesus, but do not make the mistake of approaching Jesus through the miracle.
10. The most astonishing and the most revolutionary feature of Michael's mission on earth was his attitude toward women. In a day and generation when a man was not supposed to salute oven his own wife in a public place, Jesus dared to take women along as teachers of the gospel in connection with his third tour of Galilee...In one generation Jesus lifted women out of the disrespectful oblivion and the slavish drudgery of the ages. And it is the one shameful thing about the religion that presumed to take Jesus' name that it lacked the moral courage to follow this noble example in its subsequent attitude toward women.
11. Jesus transcended all the teachings of his forebears when he boldly substituted clean hearts for clean hands as the mark of true religion. He put reality in the place of tradition and swept aside all pretensions of vanity and hypocrisy...He was not a militant revolutionist; he was a progressive evolutionist.
12. Jesus received the obedience of his followers without exacting it. Only three men who received his personal call refused to accept the invitation to discipleship. He exercised a peculiar drawing power over men, but he was not dictatorial. He commanded confidence, and no man ever resented his giving a command.
13. On both friends and foes he exercised a strong and peculiarly fascinating influence. Multitudes would follow him for weeks, just to hear his gracious words and behold his simple life. Devoted men and women loved Jesus with a well‑nigh superhuman affection. And the better they knew him the more they loved him. And all this is still true; even today and in all future ages, the more man comes to know this God‑man, the more he will love and follow after him.
14. The religious leaders at Jerusalem were becoming well‑nigh frantic as a result of the recent conversion of young Abraham and by the desertion of the three spies who had been baptized by Peter...When men shut off the appeal to the spirit that dwells within them, there is little that can be done to modify their attitude.
15. "You should remember that in body and mind—emotionally—men react individually. The only uniform thing about men is the indwelling spirit ...Only through, and by appeal to, this spirit can mankind ever attain unity and brotherhood."
16. "Anger is a material manifestation which represents, in a general way, the measure of the failure of the spiritual nature to gain control of the combined intellectual and physical natures ...Anger depletes the health, debases the mind, and handicaps the spirit teacher of man's soul.”
17. On this same occasion the Master talked to the group about the desirability of possessing well‑balanced characters. He recognized that it was necessary for most men to devote themselves to the mastery of some vocation, but he deplored all tendency toward overspecialization, toward becoming arrow‑minded and circumscribed in life's activities. He called attention to the fact that any virtue, if carried to extremes, may become a vice...Jesus discoursed on the dangers of courage and faith, how they sometimes lead unthinking souls on to recklessness and presumption. He also showed how prudence and discretion, when carried too far, lead to cowardice and failure. He exhorted his hearers to strive for originality while they shunned all tendency toward eccentricity.
18. "Simon, some persons are naturally more happy than others. Much, very much, depends upon the willingness of man to be led and directed by the Father's spirit which lives within him...Much of man's sorrow is born of the disappointment of his ambitions and the wounding of his pride. Although men owe a duty to themselves to make the best of their lives on earth, having thus sincerely exerted themselves, they should cheerfully accept their lot and exercise ingenuity in making the most of that which has fallen to their hands. All too many of man's troubles take origin in the fear soil of his own natural heart.
19. "The ‘fear of the Lord' has had different meanings in the successive ages, coming up from fear, through anguish and dread, to awe and reverence. And now from reverence I would lead you up, through recognition, realization, and appreciation, to love ...A dutiful and affectionate son does not fear or dread even a mighty and noble father. I have come into the world to put love in the place of fear, joy in the place of sorrow, confidence in the place of dread, loving service and appreciative worship in the place of slavish bondage and meaningless ceremonies.
20. "In the kingdom of heaven, which I have come to declare, there is no high and mighty king; this kingdom is a divine family. The universally recognized and unreservedly worshiped center and head of this far‑flung brotherhood of intelligent beings is my Father and your Father. I am his Son, and you are also his sons.
21. "Humility, indeed, becomes mortal man who receives all these gifts from the Father in heaven, albeit there is a divine dignity attached to all such faith candidates for the eternal ascent of the heavenly kingdom... "You do well to be meek before God and self‑controlled before men, but let your meekness be of spiritual origin and not the self‑deceptive display of a self‑conscious sense of self‑righteous superiority ...And it was to emphasize the value of sincerity and perfect trust in the loving support and faithful guidance of the heavenly Father that I have so often referred to the little child as illustrative of the attitude of mind and the response of spirit which are so essential to the entrance of mortal man into the spirit realities of the kingdom of heaven.”
22. Of the 117 evangelists who participated in this second preaching tour of Galilee, only about seventy‑five survived the test of actual experience and were on hand to be assigned to service at the end of the two weeks' recess.
Discussion Questions
1. Now that we have the teachings of Jesus as he presented them, will all nations and all religions “speedily embrace the gospel of the kingdom?
2. Why were some of the writings of Paul’s and others made into a “revelatory canon?”
3. What religious and cultural changes are required to invalidate the atonement doctrine and substitute the religion of Jesus for the religion about Jesus?
4. Why is it misleading to approach Jesus through his miracles?
5. Why did Christianity lack the moral courage to make women equal to men in religion and society?
6. What is the road to unity and brother/sisterhood among the religions of the world?
7. How does one overcome feeling angry?
A Service of
The Urantia Book Fellowship