(rough draft)
On Sunday, October 3rd, A.D. 28, Jesus, the twelve apostles, 117 newly taught evangelists, and quite a few other curious folk embarked on the second series of public teachings throughout Galilee. This time they visited Gadara, Ptolemais, Japhia, Dabaritta, Megiddo, Jezreel, Scythopolis, Tarichea, Hippos, Gamala, Bethsaida-Julias, and many other villages along the way, ending this excursion almost three months later on December 30th.
Before everyone headed out that Sunday morning, Andrew and Peter asked Jesus to give the final charge to the new evangelists. Jesus said no, that it wasn’t his place to do work that others could manage themselves. After talking it over, the apostles decided that James Zebedee would be the one to give the new guys their marching orders, and when he was done speaking to the 117 members of the group, Jesus stepped up and said, “Go forth now to do the work as you have been instructed, and later on, when you have shown yourselves competent and faithful, I will ordain you to preach the gospel of the kingdom.”
This time around, only James and John were assigned to stay with Jesus. The other ten apostles split up the new members into ten groups of about a dozen people each, and then went their separate ways. They all kept in close contact with Jesus, James, and John as they went about their work baptizing believers into the kingdom just as soon as they were ready to enter it.
Jesus, James, and John stayed on the road almost every day, sometimes visiting two cities a day to watch and encourage the new evangelists’ work. The main reason for these three months was to give the new crew practical experience teaching the people.
Meanwhile, during this period and up until Jesus and the twelve left for the final time for Jerusalem, David Zebedee managed the permanent headquarters for the work at his father’s house in Bethsaida. He put together a group of 40 to 50 people to act as spies, relays, and messengers to maintain contact between all of the various people working to bring about the new kingdom. At times, to supplement the groups funds, he’d have to go back to work fishing for a few days at a time. Zebedee did all of this on his own, but of course with Andrew’s approval.
The Widespread Fame of Jesus
By the time this teaching tour began, Jesus’s fame as a healer had spread throughout Palestine, Syria, and into the surrounding countries. For weeks after they left the Bethsaida camp, people continued to show up wanting to be healed, and when they didn’t find Jesus they’d then go searching for him. During this time Jesus didn’t perform any so-called miracles to heal people, but because of their intense faith in Jesus many people were brought to health.
About this time, and continuing throughout the remainder of Jesus’ time on Earth, some strange things started to happen when people came to be healed . During this particular trip teaching for three months, more than one hundred people from cities far away were somehow unconsciously healed by Jesus. They’d in turn go back home and tell everyone about what happened, even though every single time Jesus had told them to tell no one. All of this did a lot to increase Jesus’ fame throughout the region.
The celestial host was never told just what happened in these cases of spontaneous healing, other than a few times where Jesus simply said, “I perceive that power has gone forth from me,” like one time when he was touched by a sick child, and he said, “I perceive that life has gone forth from me.”
Since Jesus didn’t tell us exactly what happened at these times, it’s not our place to try and explain the specifics of how these events occurred. But, it is okay for us to give you our opinion about what happened. We believe three powerful and inter-related influences came together to result in these cases of spontaneous healing.
The first power relates to the degree of living faith in the heart of the person wanting to be healed, and the fact that the person wanted to be healed for its spiritual benefits rather than just physical relief. The second, the sympathy and compassion of a mercy-dominated Creator Son with almost unlimited healing powers. And the third, the fact that Jesus was the personified expression of God’s will. That means that when Jesus would meet someone with a human need that his divine nature could fulfill, and if in that moment God was not willing otherwise, it was. While these events weren’t conscious to Jesus’ human side when they happened, they were immediately recognized by his divine nature.
So in other words, we believe the cause behind these events of spontaneous healing can be found in the great law of creation that we have long known, which is, “What the Creator Son desires and the eternal Father wills, IS.” Our opinion is that when people were in Jesus’ presence, that some levels of their faith were so strong that at times it actually compelled healing by the spiritual forces associated with Jesus. It’s therefore a fact of record that there were many times when Jesus caused men to heal themselves through the strength of their own faith.
A lot of other people, though, only wanted to be healed for selfish reasons. One example was the rich woman from Tyre, who along with all of her servants showed up wanting to be healed. And, as they followed Jesus throughout the land she kept offering him more and more money, as if God’s power was for sale to the highest bidder. At no time did this woman ever become interested in the gospel: she was only interested in healing her physical body.
The People’s Attitude
Jesus understood men; he knew what was in their hearts and minds. If his teachings had been left as he had taught them, combined with the superb story of his life on Earth, all of the nations on Earth would have quickly chosen his gospel of the kingdom. While Jesus’ early followers meant well when they restated his teachings to make them more acceptable to certain peoples, nations, and religions, this only resulted in making his teachings less acceptable to all other peoples, nations, and religions.
The apostle Paul wrote a lot of letters instructing people on the new religion as he tried to win over certain groups that were present in those days. Other apostles did the same, but none of them realized that someday someone would come along and combine all of these letters and put them out there as Jesus’s actual teachings. So, the end result is that while Christianity does contain more of Jesus’ teachings than any other religion, it also has a lot in it that Jesus didn’t teach.
Aside from incorporating many of the Persian mysteries and later Greek philosophy into early Christianity, two other great mistakes were made. First, the new Christian leaders tried to attach Jesus’ gospel directly on to Judaism, like we see with the Christian doctrines of atonement – the idea that Jesus was killed as a sacrifice to satisfy God’s stern justice and divine wrath. This idea, which Jesus never taught and goes against his teaching of a loving and merciful God, was put into the gospel just to make it more acceptable to some unbelieving Jews. In the end, the Jews still didn’t believe in Jesus, and the atonement doctrine then and now continues to confuse people and still causes many honest seekers to reject the gospel of the kingdom up to this very day.
The second big blunder of Jesus’ early followers, and another one that continues to this day, was to make Christianity about Jesus the person, and not the teachings of Jesus. This overemphasis on Jesus’ personality has made it increasingly hard for people of all other religions to accept his words. This isn’t to say that there isn’t a place for Jesus’ personality in Christianity, but it shouldn’t be put before knowing his life or his saving message: the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.
Those spreading Christianity should approach other religions by recognizing the truths they both hold in common, many that come directly or indirectly from Jesus’ message, while not placing so much emphasis on their differences.
Back in his day, Jesus’ fame resulted mostly from his reputation as a healer. But soon, more and more people came to him for spiritual help, even if it was the physical cures that most directly appealed to the common people. Increasingly people who had moral or mental problems, parents who were looking for help managing their children, and others who found themselves sitting in darkness came to Jesus looking for help. And invariably, he taught them the light of life and the way of deliverance.
When Jesus, our Creator, was on Earth as a man it was inevitable that some extraordinary things would happen. But you should never approach Jesus through these so-called miracles. Instead, learn to approach the miracle through Jesus. And this warning comes regardless of the fact that Jesus is the only founder of a religion that did perform miraculous acts while on Earth.
The most astonishing and revolutionary aspect of Jesus’ time with us was his attitude toward women. During a time when a man wasn’t even supposed to say hi to his wife in public, Jesus dared to take women along to teach people the gospel during his third trip through Galilee. And he had the courage to do this even though the Jews were teaching people that it was, “better that the words of the law should be burned than delivered to women.”
In one generation Jesus lifted women out of the disrespectful oblivion and the slavish drudgery they had been accustomed to for ages. And it’s shameful that the religion that presumed to take Jesus’ name lacked the moral courage to follow his noble example toward women.
The people who chatted with Jesus found that he held none of the superstitions common at the time. He had no religious prejudices and was never intolerant of other people’s beliefs. He held no social grudges. While he followed the parts of Judaism that were true, he didn’t hesitate to disregard teachings that were just superstitious man-made traditions designed to enslave people. He dared to teach that accidents, catastrophes, and other bad times weren’t sent from God for some reason to punish man. He did away with unthinking devotion to meaningless ceremonies, and showed the error in worshiping material things. With boldness Jesus declared man’s spiritual freedom, and he dared to teach that humans are in truth the sons of the living God. Jesus surpassed all previous teachings when, with courage, he substituted having clean hearts rather than clean hands as the hallmark of true religion.
Jesus put reality in the place of tradition, and he left no room for pride and hypocrisy. At the same time, Jesus didn’t criticize or disregard the social, economic, political, or religious aspects of his day. He wasn’t a militant: he was a progressive evolutionist. He only did away with something the people believed in when he had something better with which to replace it.
People followed Jesus because they wanted to: he didn’t force them to believe in him. Only three men that Jesus invited to be disciples ever refused him. He had a peculiar way to draw men to him, but he wasn’t dictatorial with them. Jesus’ confidence was compelling, and no man ever had a problem with him giving orders. His authority was absolute, but no one ever objected to it. He let people call him Master.
Jesus was admired by everyone except those with deep-seated religious hatreds, or those who saw him as a threat to their political power. The people were astonished that his teachings were so original and authoritative, and they marveled at his patience when he had to deal with backward and troublesome people. Jesus inspired hope and confidence in all of his followers. The only people who feared Jesus were those who had not met him, and the only people to hate Jesus were those wanting to cling to the evil in their hearts at all costs. Jesus exercised a strong and fascinating influence on both foes and friends. People would follow him for weeks just to be around him, and his devotees loved him beyond what human words can express. And this is still true to this day, as it will continue to be true throughout all ages, that the more people get to know Jesus, the more they will love and follow him.
Bob