Adapted from the original version here.
1. The Roman Empire included Egypt, Syria, northwest Africa, Asia Minor, and southern Europe. Jesus talked with almost five hundred people during his six months in Rome. This helped pave the way for the later preachers of the gospel and the rapid spread of Christianity.
2. Jesus picked thirty-two leaders from various religions to teach. These talks were individual, not group. Jesus didn’t tell them what they had wrong, but rather added to what they had right. That way it crowded out what was wrong in their beliefs.
3. Jesus taught about true values. He said the standard for values must be taken from the spiritual world. All others are partial and impermanent. A materialistic culture not balanced with moral insight can threaten civilization. Pure materialism holds the seed of its own destruction.
4. About good and evil, Jesus said they were just words showing our ability to understand the universe. The standard of the eternal soul is to follow the spirit of God in our minds and hearts. Until we reach perfection with God, goodness is more a desire than an achievement.
5. Truth, Jesus said, is the religious experience of spiritual living. Knowledge is the facts of science. At their highest levels they unite. Until then there may be conflict with human fears, beliefs, and prejudices. To know truth requires faith. Faith identifies us for eternal survival.
6. Jesus always assured the person of the love and mercy of God, that they were God’s children, and that the bond between them and God was personal because God was in fact in their hearts and minds. Jesus listened, people asked questions, and he taught them truth.
7. A rich man wanted to know what Jesus would do if he was wealthy. Jesus said he would in a wise manner direct his money so it improved people’s material lives, just like he gives wisdom and divine service to enrich people’s spiritual lives.
8. The rich man wanted to know what he should do with his money. Jesus told him there were ten ways a person could become rich. How money was acquired determines how and how much it should be used to help others. Jesus explained these ten ways and his responsibility.
9. Gonod asked Jesus about the Buddha. Jesus said the Buddha was a great man but an orphan prophet. Buddha lost sight of his Father in heaven. He sailed to the entrance of mortal salvation and then ran aground not knowing the way forward. His teachings lack the moral energy to change people and nations.
10. Ganid told Jesus they should make a new religion. Jesus said religions aren’t made. They come about over long periods of time. But God reveals himself by flashing forth in the lives of men who show God to others.
11. Ganid didn’t realize that the whole universe watched as he asked the creator of our universe to make a new religion. Nor did he realize they were in fact doing so by teaching the new way to eternal life by revealing God to man in and through Jesus. In partnership with God great things happen.
Okay, folks, that’s it for Son of Man: Urantia, Chapter 11, “While in Rome.”
This week’s Son of Man: Urantia, is Chapter 12, “The Return from Rome.”
Have a fantastic week out there.
Bob