(rough draft)
The Stop at Ramah
At Ramah, Jesus and the others ran into in a well-aged Greek philosopher who taught people that science and philosophy were enough to satisfy their lives. Jesus was patient and sympathetic as he listened to this man’s teachings. When he was through, Jesus agreed that there was a lot of truth in what he said, but he also told the man that he hadn’t explained the “why, whence, and whither” of the human experience. Jesus said, “Where you leave off, we begin. Religion reveals to man’s soul spiritual realities that cannot be known by just using the mind alone. Intellectual learning teaches the facts of life, but the gospel of the kingdom brings forth the truths of existence. You’ve been talking about the material shadows of truth. Now, would you like to hear about the actual eternal and spiritual realities that originally cast those transient material facts?” For over an hour Jesus talked with this old philosopher, and being of honest heart he quickly accepted the gospel of heaven.
The apostles, who had been listening in on this talk, were a bit flustered when they heard Jesus agree with a lot of the Greek’s philosophy. Later, in private, Jesus told them, “My children, don’t be surprised that I was tolerant of the Greek’s philosophy. When a person is sure of their beliefs they’re not afraid to examine them, and truth doesn’t resent honest criticism. Don’t forget that intolerance is just a mask covering up a person’s own secret doubts in their beliefs. When you are confident in your own beliefs, it doesn’t matter to you what another person thinks. With courage and confidence, those who are sincere in their beliefs are willing to honestly examine their true convictions.”
The second night they were in Ramah, Thomas asked Jesus, “Master, how can someone new to your teaching really know, really be certain, about the truth of the gospel of the kingdom?”
And Jesus said to Thomas, “A person’s proof of the kingdom of heaven and their eternal survival is based on their personal religious experience and their faith in that truth; this determines the degree to which a person is certain of the eternal realities of divine truth. In other words, spiritual assurance equals your personal religious experience, plus your intellectual understanding of eternal realities, plus your faith, and minus your doubts.
“The Son is naturally endowed with the life of the Father. Having been given the living spirit of the Father, you are therefore sons of God. You survive your material life in the flesh because you identify with the Father’s living spirit, the gift of eternal life. Many people had this life before I came forth from the Father, and many more have received this spirit because they believed me. But after I return to my Father, he’ll send his spirit into the hearts of all men.
“While you can’t see the divine spirit working in your mind, you can determine the degree to which you’ve allowed yourself to be guided by the spirit of God by the level of love you have for your fellow man. Your spirit guide is the Father’s love, and as that loves takes over a person’s life it always leads to divine worship and unconditional love for one’s fellows. In the beginning, you believe you’re the sons of God because I’ve taught you to be more conscious of your Father’s presence inside you. But soon the Spirit of Truth will be poured out on to humanity and it will live among you teaching the truth even as I’m doing now, and in this way you will know that you are the son of God. It will bear witness alongside the spirit of God that will then be in all men, as it is now in some.
“At first you believed that you are sons of God because my teaching has made you more conscious of the inner leadings of our Father’s indwelling presence. But presently the Spirit of Truth shall be poured out upon all flesh, and it will live among men and teach all men, even as I now live among you and speak to you words of truth. And this Spirit of Truth, speaking for the spiritual endowments of your souls, will help you to know that you are the sons of God. It will unfailingly bear witness with the Father’s indwelling presence, your spirit, which will then be dwelling in all men as it now dwells in some, telling you that you are in reality the sons of God.
“Every person who follows the leading of this spirit will eventually know the will of God, and those who surrender to the will of my Father will abide forever. The way from life on Earth to the eternal estate hasn’t been made plain to you, but there is a way, there always has been, and I’ve come to make that way new and living. He who enters the kingdom has eternal life already—he will never die. But a lot of this you’ll better understand after I’ve returned to the Father and you’re able to look back on these experiences with hindsight.”
Everyone who heard these words was happily excited. The Jewish teachings were confused and uncertain when it came to the survival of the righteous, and it was inspiring for Jesus’ followers to be assured of eternal survival in such a definite and positive way.
The apostles continued to preach to and baptize believers, as well as visit with the people in their houses comforting the downcast and ministering to the sick. During this time and until they went down to Jerusalem for the next Passover, each of Jesus’s apostles was paired up with one of John’s, with Abner working along with Andrew.
Jesus’ earlier special talk to the apostles in Zebulun was mostly about the mutual obligations of the kingdom, and clarifying the difference between personal religious experiences and maintaining harmonious relationships in religious social groups. Over his lifetime, Jesus gave his followers only a little guidance on the social aspects of creating a religion, and this was one of those few times. The people in Zebulun were a mixed race, not Jew or gentile, and few of them believed in Jesus even though they had heard about him healing of the sick in Capernaum.
The Gospel at Iron
At Iron, like in many of the smaller cities of Galilee and Judea, there was a synagogue. During the early days of Jesus’ ministry, it was his custom to speak in these synagogues on Saturdays, the sabbath. Sometimes Jesus would work the morning service, and Peter or one of the other apostles would preach in the afternoons. And many times during the week the crew would preach in the evenings.
The Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem were becoming increasingly upset with Jesus and his work, but at that time they didn’t have direct control of the synagogues outside of Jerusalem proper. Later, though, the Sanhedrin managed to create such a degree of resentment against Jesus and the apostles that almost all of the synagogues across the land were closed to them, but at this time, almost all of them in Galilee and Judea were still open to Jesus.
Iron was a mining town, and Jesus had never before shared the life of the miner. So while the apostles went out and talked with people in their homes and preached in the public spaces, Jesus worked underground with the men in the mines so he could better understand their life experiences.
Jesus’ fame had spread to even this remote village, and many sick people benefited from his ministry. But the only miracle that happened during this time in Iron was the healing of the leper.
It was late in the afternoon on the third day that they were in Iron, and Jesus was coming back from the mines. He decided to take a narrow side street he hadn’t before used to get back to his room. A man with leprosy, known to everyone as the sick one, lived in a small hovel alongside this road. He had heard of Jesus’ fame as a healer, so when Jesus passed by he came outside and gathered the courage to kneel before Jesus and say, “Lord, if only you would, you could make me clean. I have heard the message of your teachers, and I would enter the kingdom if I could be made clean.”
The leper spoke as he did because according to Jewish law lepers were forbidden to attend the synagogue or engage in any other type of public worship. Because of this, the man really did believe that he couldn’t enter the kingdom of heaven unless he was cured of his leprosy first. When Jesus saw that this man really did have leprosy, and he heard him clinging to his faith asking to be healed, it touched Jesus’ human heart and moved his divine mind with compassion. And, as Jesus was looking down on him, the man fell upon his face and worshiped.
Then the Master stretched forth his hand and, touching him, said: “I will: be clean.” And immediately the man was healed; he no longer had leprosy.
When Jesus lifted the man upon his feet, he told him, “See that you tell no man about your healing, but rather go quietly about your business, showing yourself to the priest and offering those sacrifices commanded by Moses in testimony of your cleansing.”
But this man didn’t do what Jesus asked. Instead, he went out and told everyone in town that Jesus had cured his leprosy, and since he was well known in town, everyone was able to see that he really had been cured of the disease. And, he didn’t also didn’t go the priests like Jesus had told him to do. Because of this, there were so many people coming to Jesus that he had to get up early the next morning and leave town. He never went back into Iron after that, but he did camp out for two days near the mines and continued his ministry to the men working there.
This event, healing the leper, was the first miracle that Jesus intentionally did up to this time. And the man had a real case of leprosy.
From Iron, Jesus and the apostles went to Gischala where they spent two days proclaiming the gospel, before moving on to Chorazin, where they spent almost a week preaching the good news. But this wasn’t a successful stop. Nowhere else was Jesus rejected like he was in Chorazin, and the apostles were unable to bring many people into the kingdom of heaven. This was a pretty depressing time for most of the crew, and Andrew and Abner had a difficult time keeping up everyone’s courage.
After leaving Chorazin, they quietly went through Capernaum and made their way to Madon, where they had a little more luck with people. Most of the apostles were harboring the thought that their recent lack of success in spreading the message of the kingdom of God in these small villages was because Jesus was insisting that they not call him a healer when they were working with the people. They really wished he’d go out and heal another leper, or do some other miracle to get the people’s attention. But Jesus was adamant, and wouldn’t budge.
Back in Cana
Everyone cheered up when Jesus told them, “Tomorrow we go to Cana.” Jesus was well known there, and they knew they’d get a better reception. Everything was going well, when on the third day a nobleman from Capernaum named Titus showed up. Titus believed part of Jesus’ message, and he also had a son at home in Capernaum who was sick to the point of dying. When he heard that Jesus was in Cana, he hurried over to see him because the people in Capernaum believed that Jesus could heal anything.
When Titus found Jesus in Cana, he tried to get him to hurry back to Capernaum and heal his son. The apostles were there at the time, and holding their breath as they waited to see what would happen. Jesus looked at the father, and said, “How long shall I bear with you? The power of God is in your midst, but you only see signs and wonders, and you refuse to believe.”
But the nobleman begged Jesus, and said, “My Lord, I do believe, but hurry up and come before my child dies, because when I left him he was then at the point of death.”
And after Jesus bowed his head a moment in silent meditation, he suddenly spoke, “Return to your home; your son will live.”
Titus believed Jesus and hurried back to his home in Capernaum. As he got close to his house, his servants came out to meet him, and said, “Rejoice, your son is better: he lives.”
Then Titus asked his servants at what time the boy started to get better, and when they said, “yesterday about the seventh hour the fever left him,” the father remembered that it was about that time when Jesus had said, “Your son will live.” And from then on, Titus and all his family believed in Jesus and the kingdom of heaven with all of their hearts.
Titus’ son became a mighty minister of the kingdom, and he was later killed with the others who suffered in Rome. Even though Titus’ entire household, their friends, and even the apostles thought that this event was a miracle, it wasn’t. At least it wasn’t a miracle in the sense of curing a physical disease. It was just a case of pre-knowledge about the course of natural law, the same type of knowing that Jesus used many times after his baptism.
And again, Jesus and the crew had to leave Cana in a hurry because of all of the attention over this second miraculous event in the village. All of the townspeople remembered the water and the wine, and now that Jesus was supposed to have healed the nobleman’s son from so far away, the people came to him not only bringing their sick but also sending messengers asking Jesus to heal them from afar. So when Jesus saw that the whole countryside was aroused, he told the apostles, “Let us go to Nain.”
Nain and the Widow’s Son
Back in Jesus’ day, everyone believed in signs; they were a wonder-seeking generation. By this time, the people of central and southern Galilee looked at Jesus and his personal ministry in terms of miracles. Hundreds of honest people who suffered from nothing more than emotional problems went to be around Jesus, and then they went home to their friends and told everyone that Jesus had healed them. And the ignorant and simple-minded people back then believed that these were actually miraculous events of physical healing.
When Jesus tried to leave Cana to go to Nain, a large number of believers, and others who were just curious, followed after him. They were intent on seeing miracles and wonders, and they were not going to be disappointed.
As Jesus and his apostles were coming up on to the gate to the city, they ran into a funeral procession on its way to the near-by cemetery. They were carrying the only son of a widow from Nain. This woman was well respected, and half of the village was following coffin bearers of this supposedly dead boy. When the crowd got close to Jesus and his followers, the widow and her friends recognized the Master and asked him to bring the boy back to life.
The people were so focused on miracles that they thought that if Jesus could cure any disease, why couldn’t he even raise the dead? Jesus, a little bothered by all of this, stepped up and opened the lid of the coffin to look at the boy. Jesus could tell immediately that the boy wasn’t dead, and he could see the tragedy he was preventing. So, he turned to the mother and said, “Weep not. Your son is not dead: he sleeps. He will be restored to you.” Then, taking the young man by the hand, Jesus said, “Awake and arise.” And the boy who was supposed to be dead soon sat up and began to talk, and then Jesus sent everyone back to their homes.
Jesus tried to calm everyone down, and to explain that the lad was not really dead: that he had not brought him back from the grave. But it was useless. The masses of people that followed him, along with the whole village of Nain, were in an emotional frenzy. Fear seized many people, panic took over others, and some fell to their knees praying and wailing over their sins. It wasn’t until long after sundown that the clamoring crowd of people could be sent home.
Of course, even though Jesus had said that the boy was not dead, everyone insisted that a miracle had happened: that Jesus had raised the boy from the dead. Even though he had told them the boy was just in a deep sleep, the people just rationalized this as his way of speaking, and pointed out that Jesus had always been modest and tried to hide his miracles.
Word of this event, that Jesus had raised the widow’s son from the dead, spread throughout Galilee and into Judea. Many of the people who heard this, believed it. Jesus couldn’t even get all of his apostles to understand that the boy really hadn’t been dead when Jesus told him to arise. He impressed on them not to put this event in their later records, and none did, except Luke who recorded it as it was told to him. And again, so many people were coming to Jesus to be healed that they all had to get up early the next morning and head out for Endor.
At Endor
At Endor, Jesus managed to get a break from the people for a few days. While they were there, Jesus taught his apostles the story of King Saul and the witch of Endor.
Jesus told his apostles that the rebellious midwayers who many times impersonated the supposed spirits of the dead, would soon be brought under control so that they couldn’t do these strange things any more. He told them that after he returned to the Father, and after they had poured out their spirit upon all flesh, that these kinds of semi-spirit beings, known then to the people as unclean spirits, could no longer possess the feeble and evil-minded people among us.
Jesus explained to his apostles that the spirits of the dead don’t come back to their world of their origin to communicate with people. Only after the passing of a dispensational age would it be possible for an advancing spirit of a mortal man to return to Earth, and then only in exceptional cases and as a part of the spiritual administration of the planet.
After two days rest, Jesus said to his apostles, “Tomorrow let’s return to Capernaum to hang-out for a while and teach while the countryside quiets down. By now, at home, the people will have calmed down a bit.
Bob