Adapted from the Urantia Book original paper here
1. Talking on the nature of reality, Jesus said the source of all reality is the Infinite, which is the base of all being. It combines mental, physical, and spiritual realities in perfect and divine order.
2. Keeping God’s will in our minds conforms our finite will to God’s divine will to achieve oneness. Personality is the flavor of our progressive selfhood: it’s our identity and what makes each of our souls unique.
3. Adapting to universe reality requires continually reaching to better know God. If not, the person moves away from the family of God. Eventually they lose their desire to know God. The end result is the loss of the spirit of God inside and the annihilation of their existence.
4. Jesus explained that knowledge is knowing facts, but that truth is gained by experience. Knowledge combined with the experience of living God’s will is wisdom.
5. Evil is error, or anything not yet perfect with God. Since our universe is not yet to perfection, evil, or error, exists. The potential for evil conditions our choices and gains us wisdom. But error, or evil, done deliberately becomes sin.
6. Ganid wanted to know why Jesus wasn’t out teaching the people. Jesus told him all things have to happen in their own time. Like a green fruit has to wait to ripen, and a young person has to wait to grow up and gain wisdom. Jesus wasn’t mature or wise enough yet.
7. The three met a lad named Fortune, who was depressed. After Jesus spoke with him, Fortune went to his knee’s begging the way. Jesus told him to stand like a man, and to face his problems as he found them. Put aside your human fears and open yourself to God inside you.
8. Jesus told a priest from Persia that in Paradise there is no time and space. Outside of paradise time and space is seen as a linear sequence of events. The only thing that can transcend time and space is the human personality because we’re paired with God.
9. Ezra, a backslidden Jew, said he was looking for God but couldn’t find him. Jesus said if Ezra was really looking for God, God had already found him. Ezra’s problem wasn’t that he couldn’t find God, it was that he didn’t know God. To do so he needed to listen to his heart.
10. On the street, Jesus gave a beggar a coin but he didn’t speak to him like with the others. Ganid asked why. Jesus said the man’s mind wasn’t capable of having a Thought Adjuster. He couldn’t respond to spiritual leading and wasn’t capable of sonship with God.
11. Jesus, Gonod, and Ganid are now walking along the Appian Way with their pack animals. The three travelers are almost to Rome, the greatest city in all their known world, and all three of them are excited to reach their destination.
Okay, folks, that’s it for the highlights to Son of Man: Urantia, Chapter 9, “On the Way to Rome,” part 2.
This week’s full Son of Man: Urantia, Chapter 10, is titled, “The World’s Religions.”
Have a fantastic week out there.
Bob