Jesus and the Urantia Book
Blog Stories
Are You Lukewarm?
Did we Evolve from Apes?
Big Bang...Or
God Within
  Home Page

  Quote Of The Day

  Urantia Book Search Engine

  Urantia Book

  Jesus And The Urantia Book

  Urantia Book Video

  Urantia Book Audio

  The Gallery

  Heartwarming And Humorous Stories

  Discussion Forum

  Answers To Life's Toughest Questions

  News, Blogs, Games + Social

  How The Urantia Book Changed My Life

  Spiritual Studies

  Get Involved

  FAQ

  Links

  About Us

  Store

  Buscar solo en El libro de Urantia

  El Libro De Urantia

  Procure apenas no Livro de Urântia

  O Livro De Urantia

  The Urantia Book non illustrated

Atom    RSS

Fri, March 01, 2013

What is The Urantia Book stand on final judgment?

By truthbook staff  

As the world understands "final judgment,"it is commonly thought that there will be an ultimate "end of the world" when there will be a final reckoning of the evil, with goodness as the final victor...predictions about its arrival have been pretty frequent in these times, but we find ourselves here still.

Here are some historical references about final judgment from The Urantia Book, as background for the teachings of Jesus regarding this idea.

From The Kingdom of God:
135:5.5 All were agreed that some drastic purging or purifying discipline would of necessity precede the establishment of the new kingdom on earth. The literalists taught that a world-wide war would ensue which would destroy all unbelievers, while the faithful would sweep on to universal and eternal victory. The spiritists taught that the kingdom would be ushered in by the great judgment of God which would relegate the unrighteous to their well-deserved judgment of punishment and final destruction, at the same time elevating the believing saints of the chosen people to high seats of honor and authority with the Son of Man, who would rule over the redeemed nations in God’s name. And this latter group even believed that many devout gentiles might be admitted to the fellowship of the new kingdom.
In Mithraism, from which much of Christianity sprang, there is a similar understanding:
98:5.4The adherents of this cult worshiped in caves and other secret places, chanting hymns, mumbling magic, eating the flesh of the sacrificial animals, and drinking the blood. Three times a day they worshiped, with special weekly ceremonials on the day of the sun-god and with the most elaborate observance of all on the annual festival of Mithras, December twenty-fifth. It was believed that the partaking of the sacrament ensured eternal life, the immediate passing, after death, to the bosom of Mithras, there to tarry in bliss until the judgment day. On the judgment day the Mithraic keys of heaven would unlock the gates of Paradise for the reception of the faithful; whereupon all the unbaptized of the living and the dead would be annihilated upon the return of Mithras to earth. It was taught that, when a man died, he went before Mithras for judgment, and that at the end of the world Mithras would summon all the dead from their graves to face the last judgment. The wicked would be destroyed by fire, and the righteous would reign with Mithras forever.
When talking to the apostles about these matters, which were - and still are - connected with the Master's return to earth, Jesus taught a different concept, emphasizing the "immediate"judgment of the individual after death.
176:2.7 “But what is the significance of this teaching having to do with the coming of the Sons of God? Do you not perceive that, when each of you is called to lay down his life struggle and pass through the portal of death, you stand in the immediate presence of judgment, and that you are face to face with the facts of a new dispensation of service in the eternal plan of the infinite Father? What the whole world must face as a literal fact at the end of an age, you, as individuals, must each most certainly face as a personal experience when you reach the end of your natural life and thereby pass on to be confronted with the conditions and demands inherent in the next revelation of the eternal progression of the Father’s kingdom.”
As regards the "end of an age," we are taught:
113:6.7 And even so, when a planetary age ends, when those in the lower circles of mortal achievement are forgathered, it is their group guardians who reassemble them in the resurrection halls of the mansion spheres, even as your record tells: "And he shall send his angels with a great voice and shall gather together his elect from one end of the realm to another."

"The technique of justice demands that personal or group guardians shall respond to the dispensational roll call in behalf of all nonsurviving personalities. The Adjusters of such nonsurvivors do not return, and when the rolls are called, the seraphim respond, but the Adjusters make no answer. This constitutes the "resurrection of the unjust," in reality the formal recognition of the cessation of creature existence. This roll call of justice always immediately follows the roll call of mercy, the resurrection of the sleeping survivors. But these are matters which are of concern to none but the supreme and all-knowing Judges of survival values. Such problems of adjudication do not really concern us.
At these times, thousands upon thousands of sleeping survivors will find themselves at judgment, as in the dispensational resurrection following Jesus resurrection - but, will there really be an "end of the world?

Jesus speaks of it as a possibility, but that we are not to be concerned. As individuals, our only concern should be that we embrace our sonship with God:
176:3.2“And even you, Thomas, fail to comprehend what I have been saying. Have I not all this time taught you that your connection with the kingdom is spiritual and individual, wholly a matter of personal experience in the spirit by the faith-realization that you are a son of God. What more shall I say? The downfall of nations, the crash of empires, the destruction of the unbelieving Jews, the end of an age, even the end of the world, what have these things to do with one who believes this gospel, and who has hid his life in the surety of the eternal kingdom? You who are God-knowing and gospel-believing have already received the assurances of eternal life. Since your lives have been lived in the spirit and for the Father, nothing can be of serious concern to you. Kingdom builders, the accredited citizens of the heavenly worlds, are not to be disturbed by temporal upheavals or perturbed by terrestrial cataclysms. What does it matter to you who believe this gospel of the kingdom if nations overturn, the age ends, or all things visible crash, since you know that your life is the gift of the Son, and that it is eternally secure in the Father? Having lived the temporal life by faith and having yielded the fruits of the spirit as the righteousness of loving service for your fellows, you can confidently look forward to the next step in the eternal career with the same survival faith that has carried you through your first and earthly adventure in sonship with God.
Thanks again for writing...hope that this reply is useful to you...

Labels:  end of the world   final judgment   God   Jesus   Urantia Book   Mithraism   Christianity     

Permalink |  Link to External Source Article

Fri, January 11, 2013

Was Jesus' First Miracle a Mistake?

By Corey Landreth  

Have you ever wondered this?  I mean, God sends His One and Only Son to earth as a baby with the purpose of saving every person ever born, or to be born, from their sins.  Hebrews says He is the creator and sustainer of all things.  Jesus, who healed the lame, gave sight to the blind, cured leprosy and sent demons packing comes to the critical moment of his first miracle and... let down.

Surely He knew that for the rest of time this particular miracle would bring stark disagreement and even violent debate.  This one story, recorded only in John's Gospel has sparked much debate over the centuries. What does the word translated "wine" mean?  It can mean fermented or unfermented, so no conclusive evidence there.  Teetotalers believe it MUST mean grape juice and others assume it means an alcoholic beverage.  Was the "grape juice" saved for the last of the party or the "alcohol"?  I just heard an argument that it MUST have been grape juice they were drinking because how could a drunk person tell if the "wine" was good or not?  Of course, the counterpoint is that if the master of the ceremony was hammered he wouldn't have been very good at his job.

This is a very interesting article. See "Link to External Source Article" below to read further.


Evidently, Biblical scholars have a problem with Jesus' first miracle having to do with wine, which many Christian religions prohibit. At the end of the article, the author wonders whether Mary was "showing off," and why Jesus performed this feat, when he has just told Mary that his time had not yet come...? 

Both, good questions...and The Urantia Book has answers.

On this topic, The Urantia Book is very clear. The turning of the water into wine is not considered a miracle at all, even though it appears to be. Here, we are told why: 

137:4.13 But this was in no sense a miracle. No law of nature was modified, abrogated, or even transcended. Nothing happened but the abrogation of time in association with the celestial assembly of the chemical elements requisite for the elaboration of the wine. At Cana on this occasion the agents of the Creator made wine just as they do by the ordinary natural processes except that they did it independently of time and with the intervention of superhuman agencies in the matter of the space assembly of the necessary chemical ingredients.

Jesus himself was surprised at this turn of events:

137:4.12 It was gradually dawning upon Jesus what had happened. Of all persons present at the marriage feast of Cana, Jesus was the most surprised. Others had expected him to work a wonder, but that was just what he had purposed not to do. And then the Son of Man recalled the admonition of his Personalized Thought Adjuster in the hills. He recounted how the Adjuster had warned him about the inability of any power or personality to deprive him of the creator prerogative of independence of time. On this occasion power transformers, midwayers, and all other required personalities were assembled near the water and other necessary elements, and in the face of the expressed wish of the Universe Creator Sovereign, there was no escaping the instantaneous appearance of wine. And this occurrence was made doubly certain since the Personalized Adjuster had signified that the execution of the Son’s desire was in no way a contravention of the Father’s will.

In other words, it was simply the power of Jesus desiring to fulfill his mother's request, coupled with this desire not going against God's will that made it happen. After this, Jesus was more careful about what he thought and when... 

Read the whole story in The Urantia Book HERE

Labels:  Corey Landreth   water into wine   Cana   wedding at Cana   Jesus   Christianity   Urantia Book   miracles of Jesus  

Permalink |  Link to External Source Article

Thu, December 06, 2012

Book Review: Jerusalem Diary: Searching for the Tomb and House of Jesus

By Joanna Kujawa   

A Melbourne academic and author joins two men who claim to have discovered new possible locations of Jesus’ home and tomb.

Joanna Kujawa, Ph.D., Jerusalem Diary: Searching for the Tomb and House of Jesus (Amazon.com)

Jerusalem Diary: Searching for the Tomb and House of Jesus is an Amazon.com and The Book Depository bestselling travelogue, a story of a life-changing spiritual and
archaeological adventure. After earning her Ph.D., Joanna joined two Melbourne men,
who claimed to have discovered new locations that could be the tomb and house
of Jesus.

Following cues from the Urantia Book, Joanna, Steven and Martin set out to Nazareth to look for possible locations for Jesus’ house and Jerusalem in search of his tomb. (Traditional site of Jesus’ tomb is considered to be the Holy Sepulcher by Catholics and the Tomb Garden by Anglicans).  As Joanna recounts their adventures, she challenges conventional ideas about the traditionally accepted locations of his house and tomb. The possible new location of the tomb at the centre of Jerusalem is now being considered for a site of Peace Garden in Jerusalem open to all faiths in this conflict ridden city.

See "Link to External Source Article" below to read further.

Labels:  Joanna Kujawa   Jesus   Urantia Book   book review   home of Jesus   Jerusalem  

Permalink |  Link to External Source Article

Fri, January 27, 2012

My take: Reclaiming Jesus’ sense of humor

By James Martin  

By James Martin, Special to CNN

Here’s a serious question about levity: The Bible clearly paints a picture of Jesus of Nazareth as a clever guy, but he never seems to laugh, much less crack a smile. Did Jesus really have no sense of humor; didn't he ever laugh?

Well, one difficulty with finding humor in the New Testament is that what was seen as funny to those living in Jesus' time may not seem funny to us.

If part of being human includes having a sense of humor, and if Jesus was “fully human,” as Christians believe, he must have had a fully developed sense of humor. Indeed, his sense of humor may be one unexamined reason for his ability to draw so many disciples around him with ease.

It’s time to set aside the notion that Jesus was a humorless, grim-faced, dour, unsmiling prude. Let’s begin to recover his humor and, in the process, his humanity.

See "Link to External Source Article" below to read further.


From The Urantia Book:

141:3.6 The pictures of Jesus have been most unfortunate. These paintings of the Christ have exerted a deleterious influence on youth; the temple merchants would hardly have fled before Jesus if he had been such a man as your artists usually have depicted. His was a dignified manhood; he was good, but natural. Jesus did not pose as a mild, sweet, gentle, and kindly mystic. His teaching was thrillingly dynamic. He not only meant well, but he went about actually doing good.

Jesus at Age Fourteen

123:4.3 Jesus, in company with a neighbor boy and later his brother James, delighted to play in the far corner of the family carpenter shop, where they had great fun with the shavings and the blocks of wood. It was always difficult for Jesus to comprehend the harm of certain sorts of play which were forbidden on the Sabbath, but he never failed to conform to his parents' wishes. He had a capacity for humor and play which was afforded little opportunity for expression in the environment of his day and generation, but up to the age of fourteen he was cheerful and lighthearted most of the time.

The Apostle Thomas Appreciated Jesus' Humor

139:8.7 ...Thomas revered his Master because of his superbly balanced character. Increasingly Thomas admired and honored one who was so lovingly merciful yet so inflexibly just and fair; so firm but never obstinate; so calm but never indifferent; so helpful and so sympathetic but never meddlesome or dictatorial; so strong but at the same time so gentle; so positive but never rough or rude; so tender but never vacillating; so pure and innocent but at the same time so virile, aggressive, and forceful; so truly courageous but never rash or foolhardy; such a lover of nature but so free from all tendency to revere nature; so humorous and so playful, but so free from levity and frivolity. It was this matchless symmetry of personality that so charmed Thomas. He probably enjoyed the highest intellectual understanding and personality appreciation of Jesus of any of the twelve.


Labels:  James Martin   Jesus   humor   Bible   New Testament     

Permalink |  Link to External Source Article

Wed, January 12, 2011

A Revelation of Cosmic Evolution

By Byron Belitsos   

Purported to be a modern revelation to humankind, The Urantia Book comes across at first glance as a futuristic encyclopedia of spirituality, history, philosophy, science, and metaphysics—all framed within a striking evolutionary and integral cosmology. The book’s 2,097 pages of teachings are vast in scope, depicting, for example:

    • a “prime directive”: the evolutionary imperative that rules space-time reality

    • eternal life: a detailed guide to the soul’s evolution after death

    • the unique self: why each human personality is unique in all eternity

    • the divine indwelling: each of us has a pure spark of God within

    • cosmic history: a “revelatory” history of our planet (whose name is “Urantia”)

    • the Integral Absolute: the unity of evolutionary and existential (perfect) realities

For me, the Urantia text has long served me as an integral guide to evolutionary cosmic reality. At times it has served me by taking on the role of a postmodern sacred text (especially just after I first stumbled upon it in 1974), but over these 36 years, The Urantia Book has always for me been an indispensable philosophic/cosmic reference text. For example, it was the integral philosophy of the Urantia revelation that—in the mid-1990s—led me to take Ken Wilber much more seriously after his publication of Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality. I went on to create one of the earliest integral websites, ikosmos.com (founded in 1997), after which Ken invited me to be an inaugural member of the Integral Institute. I also then met and was for a time a student of Andrew Cohen.

But these days, in my current reading of the Urantia revelation, I focus especially on its teachings about the nature and purpose of the human soul—how our personal soul is an evolutionary-experiential reality that actually grows in depth and breadth through our daily moral choices. In other words: The evolutionary import of each decision and each personal experience, at any moment of waking life, is actually preserved as our soul; all meaningful experience that is based on choosing true values gets incorporated into us as a new divine invasion of the personal soul.

Further, personal soul growth continues throughout our eternal life and yet ends in our perfection in the far-distant future—and this reality is in actually the secret of the evolution of Deity itself. The evolution of God is (in part) constituted by the accumulated evolutionary soul growth of all beings in all domains; and this reality, when combined with the physical and biological evolution of the grand universe itself, equals the God of Evolution. And this “face” of God is both a counterpoint and complement to existential, eternal, non-experiential, creator Deity, mythically known as God the Father/Mother.

An integral, evolutionary picture of Jesus and Christianity

“Read The Urantia Book and spiritualize your thinking.”
—Deepak Chopra

Some regard The Urantia Book as a postmodern Bible, and since its publication in 1955, the book has sold over 650,000 copies in English and has been translated into eleven languages. Not unlike A Course in Miracles, the Urantia material updates and expands the teachings of Jesus. Followers of Jesus are especially attracted by the book’s magnificent detail on his life, and its clearer, deeper, and far more philosophical presentation of Jesus’ gospel. Its seven-hundred page narration of the life of Jesus (which is Part IV of the Urantia text) enhances our concept of the love of God—i.e., our heavenly “Father and Mother”—and greatly augments our understanding of ethics, health, happiness, love, service, forgiveness, mercy, friendship, marriage, and spirituality.

Finally, the Urantia revelation provided the world with an “integral, evolutionary Christianity” long before latecomers in the Integral Institute began talking about Integral Christianity. Thus, when it first appeared in 1955, The Urantia Book was, in my view, far ahead of the current trend. However, none of this exempts the Urantia book and movement from critique and critical analysis.

The mythic heaven (of old) is not the last stop

“The Urantia Book has been very important to me.
Any spiritual seeker is bound to find sustenance here.”
—Marianne Williamson

By all accounts, The Urantia Book is a unique artifact in the history of religion and revelation. Its off-planet pedigree is a subject of intense controversy, but tens of thousands worldwide regard The Urantia Book as revelatory, and now dozens of writers, teachers, healers, and visionaries are beginning to create a global cultural phenomenon around this mysterious tome. It is arguably a leading feature of the emergent integral, global, worldcentric culture.

In the publishing domain, the current outpouring is evidenced by ambitious reference works, several novels (including an international bestselling series in Spanish authored by J.J. Benitez and published by Planeta), a proliferation of excerpt books, and now, the first professional-quality interpretive work, a new book entitled Heaven Is Not the Last Stop (Document It! 2010) by Sheila Keene-Lund, a well-known teacher in the Urantia community. In this, the sixth decade since its appearance, a rich underground literature has arisen among the diverse and far-flung worldwide Urantia community, but not until Keene-Lund’s work has a single author succeeded in comprehensively relating the complex teachings of the Urantia text to existing knowledge in multiple fields.

The Urantia Book is a book-with-a-mission that is unique in its category: its readership has grown entirely by word of mouth; and oddly, this has been the intention from the beginning of the Chicago-based Urantia Foundation, the original publisher and copyright holder, whose trustees solemnly refused to spend on publicity in its first decades of existence—and whose permissions policy discouraged interpretive works. Even so, hundreds of study groups are now spread out across the world, and many celebrities have come forward to defend the teaching, including the Deepak Chopra and Marianne Williamson, and even Hollywood stars such as Edie Adams, Jackie Gleason, and writer-producer Norman Lear. Still, the Urantia text has been met with very little notice by the religious establishment, even though it contains a highly ambitious challenge to contemporary Christianity with its claim to contain the true life and teachings of Jesus—in such depth that its adherents claim its teachings far exceed the New Testament in religious significance. Keene-Lund, for example, examines this claim in detail. Truly, the Urantia phenomenon is a new religious movement to watch, offer profound teachings suitable for any Evolutionary. And Keene-Lund’s acclaimed new book is likely to be a lead-off secondary work for anyone hoping to delve into its rich revelations.

I now believe that the Urantia text—after a long period of obscurity due in part to the postmodern rebellion against Christianity—can now take its place among the classics of universal, evolutionary spirituality, providing as it does a “megasynthesis” suitable for the twenty-first century that rivals (and complements) those of Ken Wilber, Aurobindo, Teilhard, and other great synthesizers of knowledge.

***************

Please access the entire page HERE

Labels:  The Urantia Book   Byron Belitsos   revelation   evolution   spirituality   spiritual evolution   philosophy   soul   Sheila Keene-Lund   knowledge   synthesis   Christianity   Jesus     

Permalink |  Link to External Source Article

Fri, November 19, 2010

Are there specific reasons for the dates of this and previous revelations?

By Truthbook staff  

Q: Are there specific reasons for the dates of this and previous revelations?

A: Thanks for writing to us here at Truthbook.com. It is an interesting question that you ask...I ended up doing a bit of research.

In order of occurrence, I found the following passages about generalized reasons for timing of the revelations:

Caligastia - The Planetary Prince

(66:0.1) THE ADVENT OF a Lanonandek Son on an average world signifies that will, the ability to choose the path of eternal survival, has developed in the mind of primitive man. But on Urantia the Planetary Prince arrived almost half a million years after the appearance of human will.
About five hundred thousand years ago and concurrent with the appearance of the six colored or Sangik races, Caligastia, the Planetary Prince, arrived on Urantia. There were almost one-half billion primitive human beings on earth at the time of the Prince's arrival, and they were well scattered over Europe, Asia, and Africa. The Prince's headquarters, established in Mesopotamia, was at about the center of world population.
Adam and Eve
(73:0.1) ...there came a time in the planetary history, almost forty thousand years ago, when the Life Carriers on duty took note that, from a purely biologic standpoint, the developmental progress of the Urantia races was nearing its apex. The Melchizedek receivers, concurring in this opinion, readily agreed to join the Life Carriers in a petition to the Most Highs of Edentia asking that Urantia be inspected with a view to authorizing the dispatch of biologic uplifters, a Material Son and Daughter.
Melchizedek
(93:1.1) Revealed truth was threatened with extinction during the millenniums which followed the miscarriage of the Adamic mission on Urantia. Though making progress intellectually, the human races were slowly losing ground spiritually. About 3000 B.C. the concept of God had grown very hazy in the minds of men.
The twelve Melchizedek receivers knew of Michael's impending bestowal on their planet, but they did not know how soon it would occur; therefore they convened in solemn council and petitioned the Most Highs of Edentia that some provision be made for maintaining the light of truth on Urantia...
Michael of Nebadon
(119:0.7) The local universe of Nebadon is now ruled by a Creator Son who has completed his service of bestowal; he reigns in just and merciful supremacy over all the vast realms of his evolving and perfecting universe. Michael of Nebadon is the 611,121st bestowal of the Eternal Son upon the universes of time and space, and he began the organization of your local universe about four hundred billion years ago. Michael made ready for his first bestowal adventure about the time Urantia was taking on its present form, one billion years ago. His bestowals have occurred about one hundred and fifty million years apart, the last taking place on Urantia nineteen hundred years ago. I will now proceed to unfold the nature and character of these bestowals as fully as my commission permits.
I find it interesting that Michael of Nebadon began his bestowals on his universe of Satania almost one billion years ago, and by the time he got to us, it was just at a time when he was most needed He assumed sovereignty by becoming truly human, and living a life as the son of man, but he also was here at time when he could unseat the then-deposed Planetary Prince, Caligastia, assuming the title for himself forevermore. He wrapped up many loose ends that had accrued due to the Lucifer rebellion.

Finally - The timing of The Urantia Book: To answer, I am referring you to a similar question that we answered awhile back.

You have to remember that linear time, as we view it, is peculiar to worlds of time and space. In the universes, time is reckoned differently. What seems a long time to us, is seen quite differently through celestial eyes. But the good news is that we are being lovingly cared-for, even though it sometimes may seem that our world is disintegrating before our eyes. 

When you look over the revelations of God to this planet - the vast time frames. the drama and excitement, the intensity, the disappointment, the victories and the love - we can only have faith that we are never forgotten and that when we need it most, we all have exactly what we need - as an evolutionary planet of time and space, and as beloved individual children of God. It is up to us to take the gift of revelation, let it pass over us and through us and enrich our world with its truths. I hope you'll follow the links provided, and read more about the five revelations...

I hope this reply has been of some help to you. Please feel free to write back any time!


Labels:  revelation   Adam and Eve   Urantia Book   Melchizedek   Michael of Nebadon   Jesus   Caligastia   planetary prince   Luciver rebellion  

Permalink |  Link to External Source Article

Thu, November 11, 2010

Is this Christianity's FIRST church? Cave where '70 beloved by God worshipped while Christ was alive' is found.

By Daily Mail Reporter  

Jordan archaeologists have unearthed what could be the world's oldest church dating back 2,000 years.

Resembling scenes out of an Indiana Jones movie, scientists explored the  underground cavern and discovered a cave underneath the church which they believe it is an even more ancient site of Christian worship than the church site above it.

Archaeologist Abdel-Qader Hussein, head of the Rihab Center for Archaeological Studies, Abdul Qader al-Husan told The Jordan Times:'We have uncovered what we believe to be the first church in the world, dating from 33 AD to 70 AD.

Enlarge   Oldest church

Archeeologists have discovered a cave underneath the Saint Georgeous Church in Jordan which they claim dates back to the time of Christ

'We have evidence to believe this church sheltered the early Christians - the 70 disciples of Jesus Christ.'

Mr Hussein said there was evidence that the underground cave was used in the first century after Christ's death, which would make it the oldest Christian site of worship in the world.

The cave was unearthed in the northern Jordanian city of Rihab after three months of excavation and shows evidence of early Christian rituals.

It lies under St. Georgeous church, which was built in 230 A.D.

Enlarge   Old church

A tourist takes a picture of an of Saint Georgeous Church in Rehab, 65 km northeast of the Jordanian capital Amman

Enlarge   Old church

An archaeologist walks 'inside' the old church

He described a circular worship area with stone seats separated from a living area that had a long tunnel leading to a source of water and said the early Christians hid there from persecution.

A mosaic inscription on the floor of the later church of St. Georgeous above refers to 'the 70 beloved by God and the divine' who laid the foundations for the Christian church.

*******************
Please click on "external source article" below, to access the rest of this article. Could it be true?

From the Urantia Book:

163:1.3 Before Jesus laid his hands upon the heads of the seventy to set them apart as gospel messengers, addressing them, he said: "The harvest is indeed plenteous, but the laborers are few; therefore I exhort all of you to pray that the Lord of the harvest will send still other laborers into his harvest. I am about to set you apart as messengers of the kingdom; I am about to send you to Jew and gentile as lambs among wolves. As you go your ways, two and two, I instruct you to carry neither purse nor extra clothing, for you go forth on this first mission for only a short season. Salute no man by the way, attend only to your work. Whenever you go to stay at a home, first say: Peace be to this household. If those who love peace live therein, you shall abide there; if not, then shall you depart. And having selected this home, remain there for your stay in that city, eating and drinking whatever is set before you. And you do this because the laborer is worthy of his sustenance. Move not from house to house because a better lodging may be offered. Remember, as you go forth proclaiming peace on earth and good will among men, you must contend with bitter and self-deceived enemies; therefore be as wise as serpents while you are also as harmless as doves.

163:1.5 When Jesus had thus spoken to the seventy, he began with Abner and, as they knelt in a circle about him, laid his hands upon the head of every man.

163:1.6 Early the next morning Abner sent the seventy messengers into all the cities of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. And these thirty-five couples went forth preaching and teaching for about six weeks, all of them returning to the new camp near Pella, in Perea, on Friday, December 30.

 

Labels:  The Seventy   Urantia Book   Jesus   religion   church   ancient  

Permalink |  Link to External Source Article

Archives

Atom     RSS