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Urantia Book Paper 143 Going Through Samaria
SPIRITWEB ORG, PROMOTING SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS ON THE INTERNET.
Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART IV: The Life and Teachings
of Jesus : The Bestowal Of Michael On Urantia The Times Of Michael's Bestowal
Birth And Infancy Of Jesus The Early Childhood Of Jesus The Later Childhood Of
Jesus Jesus At Jerusalem The Two Crucial Years The Adolescent Years Jesus'
Early Manhood The Later Adult Life Of Jesus On The Way To Rome The World's
Religions The Sojourn At Rome The Return From Rome The Transition Years John
The Baptist Baptism And The Forty Days Tarrying Time In Galilee Training The
Kingdom's Messengers The Twelve Apostles The Ordination Of The Twelve Beginning
The Public Work The Passover At Jerusalem Going Through Samaria At Gilboa And
In The Decapolis Four Eventful Days At Capernaum First Preaching Tour Of
Galilee The Interlude Visit To Jerusalem Training Evangelists At Bethsaida The
Second Preaching Tour The Third Preaching Tour Tarrying And Teaching By The
Seaside Events Leading Up To The Capernaum Crisis The Crisis At Capernaum Last
Days At Capernaum Fleeing Through Northern Galilee The Sojourn At Tyre And
Sidon At Caesarea-philippi The Mount Of Transfiguration The Decapolis Tour
Rodan Of Alexandria Further Discussions With Rodan At The Feast Of Tabernacles
Ordination Of The Seventy At Magadan At The Feast Of Dedication The Perean
Mission Begins Last Visit To Northern Perea The Visit To Philadelphia The
Resurrection Of Lazarus Last Teaching At Pella The Kingdom Of Heaven On The Way
To Jerusalem Going Into Jerusalem Monday In Jerusalem ...
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Paper 143 Going Through Samaria
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Introduction
AT THE end of June, A.D. 27, because of the increasing opposition of the Jewish
religious rulers, Jesus and the twelve departed from Jerusalem, after sending
their tents and meager personal effects to be stored at the home of Lazarus at
Bethany. Going north into Samaria, they tarried over the Sabbath at Bethel.
Here they preached for several days to the people who came from Gophna and
Ephraim. A group of citizens from Arimathea and Thamna came over to invite
Jesus to visit their villages. The Master and his apostles spent more than two
weeks teaching the Jews and Samaritans of this region, many of whom came from
as far as Antipatris to hear the good news of the kingdom.
The people of southern Samaria heard Jesus gladly, and the apostles, with the
exception of Judas Iscariot, succeeded in overcoming much of their prejudice
against the Samaritans. It was very difficult for Judas to love these
Samaritans. The last week of July Jesus and his associates made ready to depart
for the new Greek cities of Phasaelis and Archelais near the Jordan.
1. PREACHING AT ARCHELAIS
The first half of the month of August the apostolic party made its headquarters
at the Greek cities of Archelais and Phasaelis, where they had their first
experience preaching to well-nigh exclusive gatherings of gentiles--Greeks,
Romans, and Syrians--for few Jews dwelt in these two Greek towns. In contacting
with these Roman citizens, the apostles encountered new difficulties in the
proclamation of the message of the coming kingdom, and they met with new
objections to the teachings of Jesus. At one of the many evening conferences
with his apostles, Jesus listened attentively to these objections to the gospel
of the kingdom as the twelve repeated their experiences with the subjects of
their personal labors.
A question asked by Philip was typical of their difficulties. Said Philip:
"Master, these Greeks and Romans make light of our message, saying that such
teachings are fit for only weaklings and slaves. They assert that the religion
of the heathen is superior to our teaching because it inspires to the
acquirement of a strong, robust, and aggressive character. They affirm that we
would convert all men into enfeebled specimens of passive nonresisters who
would soon perish from the face of the earth. They like you, Master, and freely
admit that your teaching is heavenly and ideal, but they will not take us
seriously. They assert that your religion is not for this world; that men
cannot live as you teach. And now, Master, what shall we say to these
gentiles?"
After Jesus had heard similar objections to the gospel of the kingdom presented
by Thomas, Nathaniel, Simon Zelotes, and Matthew, he said to the twelve:
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"I have come into this world to do the will of my Father and to reveal his
loving character to all mankind. That, my brethren, is my mission. And this one
thing I will do, regardless of the misunderstanding of my teachings by Jews or
gentiles of this day or of another generation. But you should not overlook the
fact that even divine love has its severe disciplines. A father's love for his
son oftentimes impels the father to restrain the unwise acts of his thoughtless
offspring. The child does not always comprehend the wise and loving motives of
the father's restraining discipline. But I declare to you that my Father in
Paradise does rule a universe of universes by the compelling power of his love.
Love is the greatest of all spirit realities. Truth is a liberating revelation,
but love is the supreme relationship. And no matter what blunders your fellow
men make in their world management of today, in an age to come the gospel which
I declare to you will rule this very world. The ultimate goal of human progress
is the reverent recognition of the fatherhood of God and the loving
materialization of the brotherhood of man.
"But who told you that my gospel was intended only for slaves and weaklings? Do
you, my chosen apostles, resemble weaklings? Did John look like a weakling? Do
you observe that I am enslaved by fear? True, the poor and oppressed of this
generation have the gospel preached to them. The religions of this world have
neglected the poor, but my Father is no respecter of persons. Besides, the poor
of this day are the first to heed the call to repentance and acceptance of
sonship. The gospel of the kingdom is to be preached to all men--Jew and
gentile, Greek and Roman, rich and poor, free and bond--and equally to young
and old, male and female.
"Because my Father is a God of love and delights in the practice of mercy, do
not imbibe the idea that the service of the kingdom is to be one of monotonous
ease. The Paradise ascent is the supreme adventure of all time, the rugged
achievement of eternity. The service of the kingdom on earth will call for all
the courageous manhood that you and your coworkers can muster. Many of you will
be put to death for your loyalty to the gospel of this kingdom. It is easy to
die in the line of physical battle when your courage is strengthened by the
presence of your fighting comrades, but it requires a higher and more profound
form of human courage and devotion calmly and all alone to lay down your life
for the love of a truth enshrined in your mortal heart.
"Today, the unbelievers may taunt you with preaching a gospel of nonresistance
and with living lives of nonviolence, but you are the first volunteers of a
long line of sincere believers in the gospel of this kingdom who will astonish
all mankind by their heroic devotion to these teachings. No armies of the world
have ever displayed more courage and bravery than will be portrayed by you and
your loyal successors who shall go forth to all the world proclaiming the good
news--the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men. The courage of the
flesh is the lowest form of bravery. Mind bravery is a higher type of human
courage, but the highest and supreme is uncompromising loyalty to the
enlightened convictions of profound spiritual realities. And such courage
constitutes the heroism of the God-knowing man. And you are all God-knowing
men; you are in very truth the personal associates of the Son of Man."
This was not all that Jesus said on that occasion, but it is the introduction
of his address, and he went on at great length in amplification and in
illustration of this pronouncement. This was one of the most impassioned
addresses which
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Jesus ever delivered to the twelve. Seldom did the Master speak to his apostles
with evident strong feeling, but this was one of those few occasions when he
spoke with manifest earnestness, accompanied by marked emotion.
The result upon the public preaching and personal ministry of the apostles was
immediate; from that very day their message took on a new note of courageous
dominance. The twelve continued to acquire the spirit of positive aggression in
the new gospel of the kingdom. From this day forward they did not occupy
themselves so much with the preaching of the negative virtues and the passive
injunctions of their Master's many-sided teaching.
2. LESSON ON SELF-MASTERY
The Master was a perfected specimen of human self-control. When he was reviled,
he reviled not; when he suffered, he uttered no threats against his tormentors;
when he was denounced by his enemies, he simply committed himself to the
righteous judgment of the Father in heaven.
At one of the evening conferences, Andrew asked Jesus: "Master, are we to
practice self-denial as John taught us, or are we to strive for the
self-control of your teaching? Wherein does your teaching differ from that of
John?" Jesus answered: "John indeed taught you the way of righteousness in
accordance with the light and laws of his fathers, and that was the religion of
self-examination and self-denial. But I come with a new message of
self-forgetfulness and self-control. I show to you the way of life as revealed
to me by my Father in heaven.
"Verily, verily, I say to you, he who rules his own self is greater than he who
captures a city. Self-mastery is the measure of man's moral nature and the
indicator of his spiritual development. In the old order you fasted and prayed;
as the new creature of the rebirth of the spirit, you are taught to believe and
rejoice. In the Father's kingdom you are to become new creatures; old things
are to pass away; behold I show you how all things are to become new. And by
your love for one another you are to convince the world that you have passed
from bondage to liberty, from death into life everlasting.
"By the old way you seek to suppress, obey, and conform to the rules of living;
by the new way you are first transformed by the Spirit of Truth and thereby
strengthened in your inner soul by the constant spiritual renewing of your
mind, and so are you endowed with the power of the certain and joyous
performance of the gracious, acceptable, and perfect will of God. Forget
not--it is your personal faith in the exceedingly great and precious promises
of God that ensures your becoming partakers of the divine nature. Thus by your
faith and the spirit's transformation, you become in reality the temples of
God, and his spirit actually dwells within you. If, then, the spirit dwells
within you, you are no longer bondslaves of the flesh but free and liberated
sons of the spirit. The new law of the spirit endows you with the liberty of
self-mastery in place of the old law of the fear of self-bondage and the
slavery of self-denial.
"Many times, when you have done evil, you have thought to charge up your acts
to the influence of the evil one when in reality you have but been led astray
by your own natural tendencies. Did not the Prophet Jeremiah long ago tell you
that the human heart is deceitful above all things and sometimes even
desperately wicked? How easy for you to become self-deceived and thereby fall
into
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foolish fears, divers lusts, enslaving pleasures, malice, envy, and even
vengeful hatred!
"Salvation is by the regeneration of the spirit and not by the self-righteous
deeds of the flesh. You are justified by faith and fellowshipped by grace, not
by fear and the self-denial of the flesh, albeit the Father's children who have
been born of the spirit are ever and always masters of the self and all that
pertains to the desires of the flesh. When you know that you are saved by
faith, you have real peace with God. And all who follow in the way of this
heavenly peace are destined to be sanctified to the eternal service of the
ever-advancing sons of the eternal God. Henceforth, it is not a duty but rather
your exalted privilege to cleanse yourselves from all evils of mind and body
while you seek for perfection in the love of God.
"Your sonship is grounded in faith, and you are to remain unmoved by fear. Your
joy is born of trust in the divine word, and you shall not therefore be led to
doubt the reality of the Father's love and mercy. It is the very goodness of
God that leads men into true and genuine repentance. Your secret of the mastery
of self is bound up with your faith in the indwelling spirit, which ever works
by love. Even this saving faith you have not of yourselves; it also is the gift
of God. And if you are the children of this living faith, you are no longer the
bondslaves of self but rather the triumphant masters of yourselves, the
liberated sons of God.
"If, then, my children, you are born of the spirit, you are forever delivered
from the self-conscious bondage of a life of self-denial and watchcare over the
desires of the flesh, and you are translated into the joyous kingdom of the
spirit, whence you spontaneously show forth the fruits of the spirit in your
daily lives; and the fruits of the spirit are the essence of the highest type
of enjoyable and ennobling self-control, even the heights of terrestrial mortal
attainment--true self-mastery."
3. DIVERSION AND RELAXATION
About this time a state of great nervous and emotional tension developed among
the apostles and their immediate disciple associates. They had hardly become
accustomed to living and working together. They were experiencing increasing
difficulties in maintaining harmonious relations with John's disciples. The
contact with the gentiles and the Samaritans was a great trial to these Jews.
And besides all this, the recent utterances of Jesus had augmented their
disturbed state of mind. Andrew was almost beside himself; he did not know what
next to do, and so he went to the Master with his problems and perplexities.
When Jesus had listened to the apostolic chief relate his troubles, he said:
"Andrew, you cannot talk men out of their perplexities when they reach such a
stage of involvement, and when so many persons with strong feelings are
concerned. I cannot do what you ask of me--I will not participate in these
personal social difficulties--but I will join you in the enjoyment of a
three-day period of rest and relaxation. Go to your brethren and announce that
all of you are to go with me up on Mount Sartaba, where I desire to rest for a
day or two.
"Now you should go to each of your eleven brethren and talk with him privately,
saying: `The Master desires that we go apart with him for a season to rest and
relax. Since we all have recently experienced much vexation of spirit and
stress of mind, I suggest that no mention be made of our trials and troubles
while on this holiday. Can I depend upon you to co-operate with me in this
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matter?' In this way privately and personally approach each of your brethren."
And Andrew did as the Master had instructed him.
This was a marvelous occasion in the experience of each of them; they never
forgot the day going up the mountain. Throughout the entire trip hardly a word
was said about their troubles. Upon reaching the top of the mountain, Jesus
seated them about him while he said: "My brethren, you must all learn the value
of rest and the efficacy of relaxation. You must realize that the best method
of solving some entangled problems is to forsake them for a time. Then when you
go back fresh from your rest or worship, you are able to attack your troubles
with a clearer head and a steadier hand, not to mention a more resolute heart.
Again, many times your problem is found to have shrunk in size and proportions
while you have been resting your mind and body."
The next day Jesus assigned to each of the twelve a topic for discussion. The
whole day was devoted to reminiscences and to talking over matters not related
to their religious work. They were momentarily shocked when Jesus even
neglected to give thanks--verbally--when he broke bread for their noontide
lunch. This was the first time they had ever observed him to neglect such
formalities.
When they went up the mountain, Andrew's head was full of problems. John was
inordinately perplexed in his heart. James was grievously troubled in his soul.
Matthew was hard pressed for funds inasmuch as they had been sojourning among
the gentiles. Peter was overwrought and had recently been more temperamental
than usual. Judas was suffering from a periodic attack of sensitiveness and
selfishness. Simon was unusually upset in his efforts to reconcile his
patriotism with the love of the brotherhood of man. Philip was more and more
nonplused by the way things were going. Nathaniel had been less humorous since
they had come in contact with the gentile populations, and Thomas was in the
midst of a severe season of depression. Only the twins were normal and
unperturbed. All of them were exceedingly perplexed about how to get along
peaceably with John's disciples.
The third day when they started down the mountain and back to their camp, a
great change had come over them. They had made the important discovery that
many human perplexities are in reality nonexistent, that many pressing troubles
are the creations of exaggerated fear and the offspring of augmented
apprehension. They had learned that all such perplexities are best handled by
being forsaken; by going off they had left such problems to solve themselves.
Their return from this holiday marked the beginning of a period of greatly
improved relations with the followers of John. Many of the twelve really gave
way to mirth when they noted the changed state of everybody's mind and observed
the freedom from nervous irritability which had come to them as a result of
their three days' vacation from the routine duties of life. There is always
danger that monotony of human contact will greatly multiply perplexities and
magnify difficulties.
Not many of the gentiles in the two Greek cities of Archelais and Phasaelis
believed in the gospel, but the twelve apostles gained a valuable experience in
this their first extensive work with exclusively gentile populations. On a
Monday morning, about the middle of the month, Jesus said to Andrew: "We go
into Samaria." And they set out at once for the city of Sychar, near Jacob's
well.
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4. THE JEWS AND THE SAMARITANS
For more than six hundred years the Jews of Judea, and later on those of
Galilee also, had been at enmity with the Samaritans. This ill feeling between
the Jews and the Samaritans came about in this way: About seven hundred years
B.C., Sargon, king of Assyria, in subduing a revolt in central Palestine,
carried away and into captivity over twenty-five thousand Jews of the northern
kingdom of Israel and installed in their place an almost equal number of the
descendants of the Cuthites, Sepharvites, and the Hamathites. Later on,
Ashurbanipal sent still other colonies to dwell in Samaria.
The religious enmity between the Jews and the Samaritans dated from the return
of the former from the Babylonian captivity, when the Samaritans worked to
prevent the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Later they offended the Jews by extending
friendly assistance to the armies of Alexander. In return for their friendship
Alexander gave the Samaritans permission to build a temple on Mount Gerizim,
where they worshiped Yahweh and their tribal gods and offered sacrifices much
after the order of the temple services at Jerusalem. At least they continued
this worship up to the time of the Maccabees, when John Hyrcanus destroyed
their temple on Mount Gerizim. The Apostle Philip, in his labors for the
Samaritans after the death of Jesus, held many meetings on the site of this old
Samaritan temple.
The antagonisms between the Jews and the Samaritans were time-honored and
historic; increasingly since the days of Alexander they had had no dealings
with each other. The twelve apostles were not averse to preaching in the Greek
and other gentile cities of the Decapolis and Syria, but it was a severe test
of their loyalty to the Master when he said, "Let us go into Samaria." But in
the year and more they had been with Jesus, they had developed a form of
personal loyalty which transcended even their faith in his teachings and their
prejudices against the Samaritans.
5. THE WOMAN OF SYCHAR
When the Master and the twelve arrived at Jacob's well, Jesus, being weary from
the journey, tarried by the well while Philip took the apostles with him to
assist in bringing food and tents from Sychar, for they were disposed to stay
in this vicinity for a while. Peter and the Zebedee sons would have remained
with Jesus, but he requested that they go with their brethren, saying: "Have no
fear for me; these Samaritans will be friendly; only our brethren, the Jews,
seek to harm us." And it was almost six o'clock on this summer's evening when
Jesus sat down by the well to await the return of the apostles.
The water of Jacob's well was less mineral than that from the wells of Sychar
and was therefore much valued for drinking purposes. Jesus was thirsty, but
there was no way of getting water from the well. When, therefore, a woman of
Sychar came up with her water pitcher and prepared to draw from the well, Jesus
said to her, "Give me a drink." This woman of Samaria knew Jesus was a Jew by
his appearance and dress, and she surmised that he was a Galilean Jew from his
accent. Her name was Nalda and she was a comely creature. She was much
surprised to have a Jewish man thus speak to her at the well and ask for water,
for it was not deemed proper in those days for a self-respecting man to
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speak to a woman in public, much less for a Jew to converse with a Samaritan.
Therefore Nalda asked Jesus, "How is it that you, being a Jew, ask for a drink
of me, a Samaritan woman?" Jesus answered: "I have indeed asked you for a
drink, but if you could only understand, you would ask me for a draught of the
living water." Then said Nalda: "But, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and
the well is deep; whence, then, have you this living water? Are you greater
than our father Jacob who gave us this well, and who drank thereof himself and
his sons and his cattle also?"
Jesus replied: "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but
whosoever drinks of the water of the living spirit shall never thirst. And this
living water shall become in him a well of refreshment springing up even to
eternal life." Nalda then said: "Give me this water that I thirst not neither
come all the way hither to draw. Besides, anything which a Samaritan woman
could receive from such a commendable Jew would be a pleasure."
Nalda did not know how to take Jesus' willingness to talk with her. She beheld
in the Master's face the countenance of an upright and holy man, but she
mistook friendliness for commonplace familiarity, and she misinterpreted his
figure of speech as a form of making advances to her. And being a woman of lax
morals, she was minded openly to become flirtatious, when Jesus, looking
straight into her eyes, with a commanding voice said, "Woman, go get your
husband and bring him hither." This command brought Nalda to her senses. She
saw that she had misjudged the Master's kindness; she perceived that she had
misconstrued his manner of speech. She was frightened; she began to realize
that she stood in the presence of an unusual person, and groping about in her
mind for a suitable reply, in great confusion, she said, "But, Sir, I cannot
call my husband, for I have no husband." Then said Jesus: "You have spoken the
truth, for, while you may have once had a husband, he with whom you are now
living is not your husband. Better it would be if you would cease to trifle
with my words and seek for the living water which I have this day offered you."
By this time Nalda was sobered, and her better self was awakened. She was not
an immoral woman wholly by choice. She had been ruthlessly and unjustly cast
aside by her husband and in dire straits had consented to live with a certain
Greek as his wife, but without marriage. Nalda now felt greatly ashamed that
she had so unthinkingly spoken to Jesus, and she most penitently addressed the
Master, saying: "My Lord, I repent of my manner of speaking to you, for I
perceive that you are a holy man or maybe a prophet." And she was just about to
seek direct and personal help from the Master when she did what so many have
done before and since--dodged the issue of personal salvation by turning to the
discussion of theology and philosophy. She quickly turned the conversation from
her own needs to a theological controversy. Pointing over to Mount Gerizim, she
continued: "Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and yet you would say that
in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship; which, then, is the right
place to worship God?"
Jesus perceived the attempt of the woman's soul to avoid direct and searching
contact with its Maker, but he also saw that there was present in her soul a
desire to know the better way of life. After all, there was in Nalda's heart a
true thirst for the living water; therefore he dealt patiently with her,
saying: "Woman, let me say to you that the day is soon coming when neither on
this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. But now you worship
that which you know not, a mixture of the religion of many pagan gods and
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gentile philosophies. The Jews at least know whom they worship; they have
removed all confusion by concentrating their worship upon one God, Yahweh. But
you should believe me when I say that the hour will soon come--even now
is--when all sincere worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth,
for it is just such worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and they who
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Your salvation comes not
from knowing how others should worship or where but by receiving into your own
heart this living water which I am offering you even now."
But Nalda would make one more effort to avoid the discussion of the
embarrassing question of her personal life on earth and the status of her soul
before God. Once more she resorted to questions of general religion, saying:
"Yes, I know, Sir, that John has preached about the coming of the Converter, he
who will be called the Deliverer, and that, when he shall come, he will declare
to us all things"--and Jesus, interrupting Nalda, said with startling
assurance, "I who speak to you am he."
This was the first direct, positive, and undisguised pronouncement of his
divine nature and sonship which Jesus had made on earth; and it was made to a
woman, a Samaritan woman, and a woman of questionable character in the eyes of
men up to this moment, but a woman whom the divine eye beheld as having been
sinned against more than as sinning of her own desire and as now being a human
soul who desired salvation, desired it sincerely and wholeheartedly, and that
was enough.
As Nalda was about to voice her real and personal longing for better things and
a more noble way of living, just as she was ready to speak the real desire of
her heart, the twelve apostles returned from Sychar, and coming upon this scene
of Jesus' talking so intimately with this woman--this Samaritan woman, and
alone--they were more than astonished. They quickly deposited their supplies
and drew aside, no man daring to reprove him, while Jesus said to Nalda:
"Woman, go your way; God has forgiven you. Henceforth you will live a new life.
You have received the living water, and a new joy will spring up within your
soul, and you shall become a daughter of the Most High." And the woman,
perceiving the disapproval of the apostles, left her waterpot and fled to the
city.
As she entered the city, she proclaimed to everyone she met: "Go out to Jacob's
well and go quickly, for there you will see a man who told me all I ever did.
Can this be the Converter?" And ere the sun went down, a great crowd had
assembled at Jacob's well to hear Jesus. And the Master talked to them more
about the water of life, the gift of the indwelling spirit.
The apostles never ceased to be shocked by Jesus' willingness to talk with
women, women of questionable character, even immoral women. It was very
difficult for Jesus to teach his apostles that women, even so-called immoral
women, have souls which can choose God as their Father, thereby becoming
daughters of God and candidates for life everlasting. Even nineteen centuries
later many show the same unwillingness to grasp the Master's teachings. Even
the Christian religion has been persistently built up around the fact of the
death of Christ instead of around the truth of his life. The world should be
more concerned with his happy and God-revealing life than with his tragic and
sorrowful death.
Nalda told this entire story to the Apostle John the next day, but he never
revealed it fully to the other apostles, and Jesus did not speak of it in
detail to the twelve.
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Nalda told John that Jesus had told her "all I ever did." John many times
wanted to ask Jesus about this visit with Nalda, but he never did. Jesus told
her only one thing about herself, but his look into her eyes and the manner of
his dealing with her had so brought all of her checkered life in panoramic
review before her mind in a moment of time that she associated all of this
self-revelation of her past life with the look and the word of the Master.
Jesus never told her she had had five husbands. She had lived with four
different men since her husband cast her aside, and this, with all her past,
came up so vividly in her mind at the moment when she realized Jesus was a man
of God that she subsequently repeated to John that Jesus had really told her
all about herself.
6. THE SAMARITAN REVIVAL
On the evening that Nalda drew the crowd out from Sychar to see Jesus, the
twelve had just returned with food, and they besought Jesus to eat with them
instead of talking to the people, for they had been without food all day and
were hungry. But Jesus knew that darkness would soon be upon them; so he
persisted in his determination to talk to the people before he sent them away.
When Andrew sought to persuade him to eat a bite before speaking to the crowd,
Jesus said, "I have meat to eat that you do not know about." When the apostles
heard this, they said among themselves: "Has any man brought him aught to eat?
Can it be that the woman gave him food as well as drink?" When Jesus heard them
talking among themselves, before he spoke to the people, he turned aside and
said to the twelve: "My meat is to do the will of Him who sent me and to
accomplish His work. You should no longer say it is such and such a time until
the harvest. Behold these people coming out from a Samaritan city to hear us; I
tell you the fields are already white for the harvest. He who reaps receives
wages and gathers this fruit to eternal life; consequently the sowers and the
reapers rejoice together. For herein is the saying true: `One sows and another
reaps.' I am now sending you to reap that whereon you have not labored; others
have labored, and you are about to enter into their labor." This he said in
reference to the preaching of John the Baptist.
Jesus and the apostles went into Sychar and preached two days before they
established their camp on Mount Gerizim. And many of the dwellers in Sychar
believed the gospel and made request for baptism, but the apostles of Jesus did
not yet baptize.
The first night of the camp on Mount Gerizim the apostles expected that Jesus
would rebuke them for their attitude toward the woman at Jacob's well, but he
made no reference to the matter. Instead he gave them that memorable talk on
"The realities which are central in the kingdom of God." In any religion it is
very easy to allow values to become disproportionate and to permit facts to
occupy the place of truth in one's theology. The fact of the cross became the
very center of subsequent Christianity; but it is not the central truth of the
religion which may be derived from the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
The theme of Jesus' teaching on Mount Gerizim was: That he wants all men to see
God as a Father-friend just as he (Jesus) is a brother-friend. And again and
again he impressed upon them that love is the greatest relationship in the
world--in the universe--just as truth is the greatest pronouncement of the
observation of these divine relationships.
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Jesus declared himself so fully to the Samaritans because he could safely do
so, and because he knew that he would not again visit the heart of Samaria to
preach the gospel of the kingdom.
Jesus and the twelve camped on Mount Gerizim until the end of August. They
preached the good news of the kingdom--the fatherhood of God--to the Samaritans
in the cities by day and spent the nights at the camp. The work which Jesus and
the twelve did in these Samaritan cities yielded many souls for the kingdom and
did much to prepare the way for the marvelous work of Philip in these regions
after Jesus' death and resurrection, subsequent to the dispersion of the
apostles to the ends of the earth by the bitter persecution of believers at
Jerusalem.
7. TEACHINGS ABOUT PRAYER AND WORSHIP
At the evening conferences on Mount Gerizim, Jesus taught many great truths,
and in particular he laid emphasis on the following:
True religion is the act of an individual soul in its self-conscious relations
with the Creator; organized religion is man's attempt to socialize the worship
of individual religionists.
Worship--contemplation of the spiritual--must alternate with service, contact
with material reality. Work should alternate with play; religion should be
balanced by humor. Profound philosophy should be relieved by rhythmic poetry.
The strain of living--the time tension of personality--should be relaxed by the
restfulness of worship. The feelings of insecurity arising from the fear of
personality isolation in the universe should be antidoted by the faith
contemplation of the Father and by the attempted realization of the Supreme.
Prayer is designed to make man less thinking but more realizing; it is not
designed to increase knowledge but rather to expand insight.
Worship is intended to anticipate the better life ahead and then to reflect
these new spiritual significances back onto the life which now is. Prayer is
spiritually sustaining, but worship is divinely creative.
Worship is the technique of looking to the One for the inspiration of service
to the many. Worship is the yardstick which measures the extent of the soul's
detachment from the material universe and its simultaneous and secure
attachment to the spiritual realities of all creation.
Prayer is self-reminding--sublime thinking; worship is
self-forgetting--superthinking. Worship is effortless attention, true and ideal
soul rest, a form of restful spiritual exertion.
Worship is the act of a part identifying itself with the Whole; the finite with
the Infinite; the son with the Father; time in the act of striking step with
eternity. Worship is the act of the son's personal communion with the divine
Father, the assumption of refreshing, creative, fraternal, and romantic
attitudes by the human soul-spirit.
Although the apostles grasped only a few of his teachings at the camp, other
worlds did, and other generations on earth will.
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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART IV: The Life and Teachings
of Jesus : The Bestowal Of Michael On Urantia The Times Of Michael's Bestowal
Birth And Infancy Of Jesus The Early Childhood Of Jesus The Later Childhood Of
Jesus Jesus At Jerusalem The Two Crucial Years The Adolescent Years Jesus'
Early Manhood The Later Adult Life Of Jesus On The Way To Rome The World's
Religions The Sojourn At Rome The Return From Rome The Transition Years John
The Baptist Baptism And The Forty Days Tarrying Time In Galilee Training The
Kingdom's Messengers The Twelve Apostles The Ordination Of The Twelve Beginning
The Public Work The Passover At Jerusalem Going Through Samaria At Gilboa And
In The Decapolis Four Eventful Days At Capernaum First Preaching Tour Of
Galilee The Interlude Visit To Jerusalem Training Evangelists At Bethsaida The
Second Preaching Tour The Third Preaching Tour Tarrying And Teaching By The
Seaside Events Leading Up To The Capernaum Crisis The Crisis At Capernaum Last
Days At Capernaum Fleeing Through Northern Galilee The Sojourn At Tyre And
Sidon At Caesarea-philippi The Mount Of Transfiguration The Decapolis Tour
Rodan Of Alexandria Further Discussions With Rodan At The Feast Of Tabernacles
Ordination Of The Seventy At Magadan At The Feast Of Dedication The Perean
Mission Begins Last Visit To Northern Perea The Visit To Philadelphia The
Resurrection Of Lazarus Last Teaching At Pella The Kingdom Of Heaven On The Way
To Jerusalem Going Into Jerusalem Monday In Jerusalem Tuesday Morning In The
Temple The Last Temple Discourse Tuesday Evening On Mount Olivet Wednesday, The
Rest Day Last Day At The Camp The Last Supper The Farewell Discourse Final
Admonitions And Warnings In Gethsemane The Betrayal And Arrest Of Jesus Before
The Sanhedrin Court The Trial Before Pilate Just Before The Crucifixion The
Crucifixion The Time Of The Tomb The Resurrection Morontia Appearances Of Jesus
Appearances To The Apostles And Other Leaders Appearances In Galilee Final
Appearances And Ascension Bestowal Of The Spirit Of Truth After Pentecost The
Faith Of Jesus
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