Should We Be "Students" of TUB?

toto wrote:

And then there is this claim:

fanofVan wrote:

In my 40+ years of study, I have enjoyed many forms and benefitted from them all....including insightful presentations from lecturns at conferences, intimate discussions at local study groups, break out panels and group roundtable discussions at conferences, using written study materials and secondary works like the Paramony and Concordex and now the digital search engines and other topical guides, formal classes within formal curriculum at UBIS where students learn by discussion of thoughtful and thought provoking questions and not by lecture or lesson, and then of course, and most enjoyably to me is the learning by consideration of the questions and debates and discussions by other students here and other internet discussion and study group sites. And then there is the socialization with other readers over the decades at study groups, conferences big and small, Jesus Birthday gatherings and celebrations, and here and many other places and formats....as we are instructed that association with other religionists is good for us on many levels and in many ways.

Sounds like quite a resume. What teaching post are you applying to?

Louis

An odd response and provocation don't you think? This is merely a recital of some the many forms of contact, association, study, and learning I have shared with other students...as a student myself. Not as organizer or teacher. The point is to further support your own contention when you said: "The question thus remains as to HOW the Revelation should be studied. There are many study techniques as you know. The are many approaches to teaching as well. The goal of study is to learn, so now we must think in terms of theories of education."

Indeed so!! And thus my supporting comments on my own experience of study. I only hoped to encourage others to engage in learning by multiple ways and opportunities by the many forms of socialization and study that are available in the movement and student body today!!

I did not require nor criticize any format but merely acknowledged that different forms of study and learning appeal to different people differently. You find this prideful? Interesting....and entirely weird.

I would say more about the topic of conflict and its value to the ascenders of time as presented in the UB. There are those who find conflict disagreeable and something to avoid and will not participate in that which might include any form of confrontation, disagreement, defense, or interactions which bring discomfort....rather than to embrace conflict as an opportunity to discover, learn, grow, and benefit therefrom. Jesus is a great example of the many forms of conflict the mind faces in its spiritual journey and the mortal person in the material world.

We are advised/taught that the TA and the angels have no interest in a life of ease and lack of conflict for their charges and that the edges of conflict and vicissitudes of life are not avoided by the spiritizing life of the faithful believer! Jesus had conflict with his own earthly parents and neighbor children and community leaders. He had to forgo his own plans when his earthly father perished by accident and become father/brother/son and bread winner and household manager. He had emotional conflicts and uncertainties and doubts as to how best to proceed at many an intersection of choice and decision. And his ministry was one within immense conflict and suffering requiring great faith and strength of character amidst all conflict and suffering.

Life is not easy. Transformation is not easy. Transferring the seat of our identity from the temporal to the eternal is not easy. It is not intended nor designed to be easy. Those who seek comfort and avoid conflict are not in harmony with the reality of such ascending transcendence. One learns and acquires experiential wisdom by doing, not by avoiding.

52:6.1 [Part II]
The bestowal Son is the Prince of Peace. He arrives with the message, "Peace on earth and good will among men." On normal worlds this is a dispensation of world-wide peace; the nations no more learn war. But such salutary influences did not attend the coming of your bestowal Son, Christ Michael. Urantia is not proceeding in the normal order. Your world is out of step in the planetary procession. Your Master, when on earth, warned his disciples that his advent would not bring the usual reign of peace on Urantia. He distinctly told them that there would be "wars and rumors of wars," and that nation would rise against nation. At another time he said, "Think not that I have come to bring peace upon earth."

160:5.10 [Part IV]
I see in the teachings of Jesus, religion at its best. This gospel enables us to seek for the true God and to find him. But are we willing to pay the price of this entrance into the kingdom of heaven? Are we willing to be born again? to be remade? Are we willing to be subject to this terrible and testing process of self-destruction and soul reconstruction? Has not the Master said: "Whoso would save his life must lose it. Think not that I have come to bring peace but rather a soul struggle"? True, after we pay the price of dedication to the Father's will, we do experience great peace provided we continue to walk in these spiritual paths of consecrated living.

Me here: We are to find peace within....not expect peace in life itself! Jesus said we as believers should remain assured, poised, and happy even when we are abused, reviled, tormented, tortured, assailed, killed or suffering from whatever source or reason...the peace we are to find is internal and in relationship to the Spirit. We will not find it in this world in this temporal life...indeed, the Master warned a life of ease is a danger to our progress. What is the "peace" of Jesus?

181:1.10 (1955.1) The peace of Jesus is, then, the peace and assurance of a son who fully believes that his career for time and eternity is safely and wholly in the care and keeping of an all-wise, all-loving, and all-powerful spirit Father. And this is, indeed, a peace which passes the understanding of mortal mind, but which can be enjoyed to the full by the believing human heart.

(1916.2) 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.

And Jesus said:

178:1.10 (1931.1) Under the soon-coming persecutions by those who hate this gospel of joy and liberty, you will thrive and the kingdom will prosper. But you will stand in grave danger in subsequent times when most men will speak well of kingdom believers and many in high places nominally accept the gospel of the heavenly kingdom. Learn to be faithful to the kingdom even in times of peace and prosperity. Tempt not the angels of your supervision to lead you in troublous ways as a loving discipline designed to save your ease-drifting souls.

Me here: The angels might lead us into troublous ways as a loving discipline to save our ease-seeking and ease-drifting souls??!! You bet they will....and do! As will and does the TA too!

113:4.3 (1245.3) Seraphim function as teachers of men by guiding the footsteps of the human personality into paths of new and progressive experiences. To accept the guidance of a seraphim rarely means attaining a life of ease. In following this leading you are sure to encounter, and if you have the courage, to traverse, the rugged hills of moral choosing and spiritual progress.

108:5.5 (1191.6) The Mystery Monitors are not thought helpers; they are thought adjusters. They labor with the material mind for the purpose of constructing, by adjustment and spiritualization, a new mind for the new worlds and the new name of your future career. Their mission chiefly concerns the future life, not this life. They are called heavenly helpers, not earthly helpers. They are not interested in making the mortal career easy; rather are they concerned in making your life reasonably difficult and rugged, so that decisions will be stimulated and multiplied. The presence of a great Thought Adjuster does not bestow ease of living and freedom from strenuous thinking, but such a divine gift should confer a sublime peace of mind and a superb tranquillity of spirit.

48:5.8 (551.3) One of the purposes of the morontia career is to effect the permanent eradication from the mortal survivors of such animal vestigial traits as procrastination, equivocation, insincerity, problem avoidance, unfairness, and ease seeking. The mansonia life early teaches the young morontia pupils that postponement is in no sense avoidance. After the life in the flesh, time is no longer available as a technique of dodging situations or of circumventing disagreeable obligations.

181:1.2 (1953.4) “When I have returned to live in you and work through you, I can the better lead you on through this life and guide you through the many abodes in the future life in the heaven of heavens. Life in the Father’s eternal creation is not an endless rest of idleness and selfish ease but rather a ceaseless progression in grace, truth, and glory....

And on conflict:

100:4.1 [Part III]
Religious living is devoted living, and devoted living is creative living, original and spontaneous. New religious insights arise out of conflicts which initiate the choosing of new and better reaction habits in the place of older and inferior reaction patterns. New meanings only emerge amid conflict; and conflict persists only in the face of refusal to espouse the higher values connoted in superior meanings.

100:4.2 [Part III]
Religious perplexities are inevitable; there can be no growth without psychic conflict and spiritual agitation. The organization of a philosophic standard of living entails considerable commotion in the philosophic realms of the mind. Loyalties are not exercised in behalf of the great, the good, the true, and the noble without a struggle. Effort is attendant upon clarification of spiritual vision and enhancement of cosmic insight. And the human intellect protests against being weaned from subsisting upon the nonspiritual energies of temporal existence. The slothful animal mind rebels at the effort required to wrestle with cosmic problem solving.

100:5.2 [Part III]
The progression of religious growth leads from stagnation through conflict to co-ordination, from insecurity to undoubting faith, from confusion of cosmic consciousness to unification of personality, from the temporal objective to the eternal, from the bondage of fear to the liberty of divine sonship.

Me here: And finally, for now, the poison of prejudice and the inability of some to learn by fact and knowledge as they cling to misconceptions and preconceptions which contradict reality.

(1459.4) 132:3.4 Revealed truth, personally discovered truth, is the supreme delight of the human soul; it is the joint creation of the material mind and the indwelling spirit. The eternal salvation of this truth-discerning and beauty-loving soul is assured by that hunger and thirst for goodness which leads this mortal to develop a singleness of purpose to do the Father’s will, to find God and to become like him. There is never conflict between true knowledge and truth. There may be conflict between knowledge and human beliefs, beliefs colored with prejudice, distorted by fear, and dominated by the dread of facing new facts of material discovery or spiritual progress.

toto wrote:

It was God's will that man's will be done on Earth on this mission. Not even Jesus could resist this.

Louis

This is too fascinating a declaration to not consider further!

Let's begin by verifying the purpose of Michael's 7th and final bestowal:

120:1.1 (1325.3) “My Creator brother, I am about to witness your seventh and final universe bestowal. Most faithfully and perfectly have you executed the six previous commissions, and I entertain no thought but that you will be equally triumphant on this, your terminal sovereignty bestowal. Heretofore you have appeared on your bestowal spheres as a fully developed being of the order of your choosing. Now you are about to appear upon Urantia, the disordered and disturbed planet of your choice, not as a fully developed mortal, but as a helpless babe. This, my comrade, will be a new and untried experience for you. You are about to pay the full price of bestowal and to experience the complete enlightenment of the incarnation of a Creator in the likeness of a creature.

120:1.2 (1325.4) “Throughout each of your former bestowals you have voluntarily chosen to subject yourself to the will of the three Paradise Deities and their divine interassociations. Of the seven phases of the will of the Supreme you have in your previous bestowals been subject to all but the personal will of your Paradise Father. Now that you have elected to be wholly subject to your Father’s will throughout your seventh bestowal, I, as the personal representative of our Father, assume the unqualified jurisdiction of your universe for the time of your incarnation.

120:1.3 (1325.5) “In entering upon the Urantia bestowal, you have voluntarily divested yourself of all extraplanetary support and special assistance such as might be rendered by any creature of your own creation. As your created sons of Nebadon are wholly dependent upon you for safe conduct throughout their universe careers, so now must you become wholly and unreservedly dependent upon your Paradise Father for safe conduct throughout the unrevealed vicissitudes of your ensuing mortal career. And when you shall have finished this bestowal experience, you will know in very truth the full meaning and the rich significance of that faith-trust which you so unvaryingly require all your creatures to master as a part of their intimate relationship with you as their local universe Creator and Father.

120:1.4 (1326.1) “Throughout your Urantia bestowal you need be concerned with but one thing, the unbroken communion between you and your Paradise Father; and it will be by the perfection of such a relationship that the world of your bestowal, even all the universe of your creation, will behold a new and more understandable revelation of your Father and my Father, the Universal Father of all. Your concern, therefore, has only to do with your personal life on Urantia. I will be fully and efficiently responsible for the security and unbroken administration of your universe from the moment of your voluntary relinquishment of authority until you return to us as Universe Sovereign, confirmed by Paradise, and receive back from my hands, not the vicegerent authority which you now surrender to me, but, instead, the supreme power over, and jurisdiction of, your universe.

120:4.4 (1331.4) Never lose sight of the fact that the supreme spiritual purpose of the Michael bestowal was to enhance the revelation of God.

Me here: So near the end, did Jesus know of what was to come? Could he have averted or avoided the result of human betrayal and the hopes of his enemies? Yes, indeed. To be sure, only students of TUB might know this fact and truth for certain!! It was NOT God's will that Jesus be betrayed or hated by any, or put on public trial and beaten, and turned over to the Romans for cruxifiction....what a claim!! Jesus was no sacrifice we are taught by the UB. God requires none to suffer or die for him or his will. God does not relinquish his will to others. Jesus came to "enhance the revelation of God" and his supreme love and power and purpose and plan....that of eternal life in a friendly universe.

NO.....it is obvious that the end of Jesus life was known to him and allowed by him...and was so allowed to demonstrate his assurance of the love of Father and to demonstrate to a universe the power of the spirit over the material. His mortal life must come to an end. He has chosen and lived this public ministry of faith and leadership. He has assembled those who must carry on after his departure. He has enemies of his own, his message, and his followers now. What shall he do? What is the way forward to the end of his mission and bestowal?

Jesus has told them this before but now it is time for the Farewell:

180:0.3 (1944.3) “The time has now come for the Son of Man to be glorified, and the Father shall be glorified in me. My friends, I am to be with you only a little longer. Soon you will seek for me, but you will not find me, for I am going to a place to which you cannot, at this time, come. But when you have finished your work on earth as I have now finished mine, you shall then come to me even as I now prepare to go to my Father. In just a short time I am going to leave you, you will see me no more on earth, but you shall all see me in the age to come when you ascend to the kingdom which my Father has given to me.”

180:4.2 (1948.3) “In just a few hours the world will see me no more; but you will continue to know me in your hearts even until I send you this new teacher, the Spirit of Truth. As I have lived with you in person, then shall I live in you; I shall be one with your personal experience in the spirit kingdom. And when this has come to pass, you shall surely know that I am in the Father, and that, while your life is hid with the Father in me, I am also in you. I have loved the Father and have kept his word; you have loved me, and you will keep my word. As my Father has given me of his spirit, so will I give you of my spirit. And this Spirit of Truth which I will bestow upon you shall guide and comfort you and shall eventually lead you into all truth.

180:4.3 (1948.4) “I am telling you these things while I am still with you that you may be the better prepared to endure those trials which are even now right upon us. And when this new day comes, you will be indwelt by the Son as well as by the Father. And these gifts of heaven will ever work the one with the other even as the Father and I have wrought on earth and before your very eyes as one person, the Son of Man. And this spirit friend will bring to your remembrance everything I have taught you.”

180:6.2 (1951.3) “Now that I am leaving you, seeing that the hour has come when I am about to go to the Father, I am surprised that none of you have asked me, Why do you leave us? Nevertheless, I know that you ask such questions in your hearts. I will speak to you plainly, as one friend to another. It is really profitable for you that I go away. If I go not away, the new teacher cannot come into your hearts. I must be divested of this mortal body and be restored to my place on high before I can send this spirit teacher to live in your souls and lead your spirits into the truth. And when my spirit comes to indwell you, he will illuminate the difference between sin and righteousness and will enable you to judge wisely in your hearts concerning them.

181:1.1 (1953.3) When the eleven had taken their seats, Jesus stood and addressed them: “As long as I am with you in the flesh, I can be but one individual in your midst or in the entire world. But when I have been delivered from this investment of mortal nature, I will be able to return as a spirit indweller of each of you and of all other believers in this gospel of the kingdom. In this way the Son of Man will become a spiritual incarnation in the souls of all true believers.

182:3.1 (1968.2) After all was still and quiet about the camp, Jesus, taking Peter, James, and John, went a short way up a near-by ravine where he had often before gone to pray and commune. The three apostles could not help recognizing that he was grievously oppressed; never before had they observed their Master to be so heavy-laden and sorrowful. When they arrived at the place of his devotions, he bade the three sit down and watch with him while he went off about a stone’s throw to pray. And when he had fallen down on his face, he prayed: “My Father, I came into this world to do your will, and so have I. I know that the hour has come to lay down this life in the flesh, and I do not shrink therefrom, but I would know that it is your will that I drink this cup. Send me the assurance that I will please you in my death even as I have in my life.”

182:3.2 (1968.3) The Master remained in a prayerful attitude for a few moments, and then, going over to the three apostles, he found them sound asleep, for their eyes were heavy and they could not remain awake. As Jesus awoke them, he said: “What! can you not watch with me even for one hour? Cannot you see that my soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death, and that I crave your companionship?” After the three had aroused from their slumber, the Master again went apart by himself and, falling down on the ground, again prayed: “Father, I know it is possible to avoid this cup — all things are possible with you — but I have come to do your will, and while this is a bitter cup, I would drink it if it is your will.” And when he had thus prayed, a mighty angel came down by his side and, speaking to him, touched him and strengthened him.

182:3.3 (1968.4) When Jesus returned to speak with the three apostles, he again found them fast asleep. He awakened them, saying: “In such an hour I need that you should watch and pray with me — all the more do you need to pray that you enter not into temptation — wherefore do you fall asleep when I leave you?”

182:3.4 (1968.5) And then, for a third time, the Master withdrew and prayed: “Father, you see my sleeping apostles; have mercy upon them. The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak. And now, O Father, if this cup may not pass, then would I drink it. Not my will, but yours, be done.” And when he had finished praying, he lay for a moment prostrate on the ground. When he arose and went back to his apostles, once more he found them asleep. He surveyed them and, with a pitying gesture, tenderly said: “Sleep on now and take your rest; the time of decision is past. The hour is now upon us wherein the Son of Man will be betrayed into the hands of his enemies.” As he reached down to shake them that he might awaken them, he said: “Arise, let us be going back to the camp, for, behold, he who betrays me is at hand, and the hour has come when my flock shall be scattered. But I have already told you about these things.”

Me here: We must now recall the Great Decisions immortalized in Paper 136 - that no celestial powers or celestial personalities would be used to overcome or overwhelm the material and temporal realities of his life in the flesh, He was determined to suffer what mortals suffer and endure what we endure to demonstrate that assurance of faith and truth that all of us may know and to both live and die as a revelation of God's love and power and our eternal natures. NO, it was not mortal will or any mortal's will that ended the life of Jesus and God did not submit his will to any man's either. Jesus lived and died in his trusting embrace of God's will....that the Spirit dominate the material and the temporal bow to the immortal by faith and by love....or so I understand the UB to teach!

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