ABOUT
one o’clock, as the one hundred and twenty believers were engaged in
prayer, they all became aware of a strange presence in the room. At the
same time these disciples all became conscious of a new and profound
sense of spiritual joy, security, and confidence. This new consciousness
of spiritual strength was immediately followed by a strong urge to go
out and publicly proclaim the gospel of the kingdom and the good news
that Jesus had risen from the dead.
Peter
stood up and declared that this must be the coming of the Spirit of
Truth which the Master had promised them and proposed that they go to
the temple and begin the proclamation of the good news committed to
their hands. And they did just what Peter suggested.
These
men had been trained and instructed that the gospel which they should
preach was the fatherhood of God and the sonship of man, but at just
this moment of spiritual ecstasy and personal triumph, the best tidings,
the greatest news, these men could think of was the fact of
the risen Master. And so they went forth, endowed with power from on
high, preaching glad tidings to the people—even salvation through
Jesus—but they unintentionally stumbled into the error of substituting
some of the facts associated with the gospel for the gospel message
itself. Peter unwittingly led off in this mistake, and others followed
after him on down to Paul, who created a new religion out of the new
version of the good news.
The
gospel of the kingdom is: the fact of the fatherhood of God, coupled
with the resultant truth of the sonship-brotherhood of men.
Christianity, as it developed from that day, is: the fact of God as the
Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, in association with the experience of
believer-fellowship with the risen and glorified Christ.
It
is not strange that these spirit-infused men should have seized upon
this opportunity to express their feelings of triumph over the forces
which had sought to destroy their Master and end the influence of his
teachings. At such a time as this it was easier to remember their
personal association with Jesus and to be thrilled with the assurance
that the Master still lived, that their friendship had not ended, and
that the spirit had indeed come upon them even as he had promised.
These
believers felt themselves suddenly translated into another world, a new
existence of joy, power, and glory. The Master had told them the
kingdom would come with power, and some of them thought they were
beginning to discern what he meant.
And when all of this is taken into consideration, it is not difficult to understand how these men came to preach a new gospel about Jesus in the place of their former message of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men.
1. The Pentecost Sermon
The
apostles had been in hiding for forty days. This day happened to be the
Jewish festival of Pentecost, and thousands of visitors from all parts
of the world were in Jerusalem. Many arrived for this feast, but a
majority had tarried in the city since the Passover. Now these
frightened apostles emerged from their weeks of seclusion to appear
boldly in the temple, where they began to preach the new message of a
risen Messiah. And all the disciples were likewise conscious of having
received some new spiritual endowment of insight and power.
It
was about two o’clock when Peter stood up in that very place where his
Master had last taught in this temple, and delivered that impassioned
appeal which resulted in the winning of more than two thousand souls.
The Master had gone, but they suddenly discovered that this story about
him had great power with the people. No wonder they were led on into the
further proclamation of that which vindicated their former devotion to
Jesus and at the same time so constrained men to believe in him. Six of
the apostles participated in this meeting: Peter, Andrew, James, John,
Philip, and Matthew. They talked for more than an hour and a half and
delivered messages in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, as well as a few words
in even other tongues with which they had a speaking acquaintance.
The
leaders of the Jews were astounded at the boldness of the apostles, but
they feared to molest them because of the large numbers who believed
their story.
By
half past four o’clock more than two thousand new believers followed
the apostles down to the pool of Siloam, where Peter, Andrew, James, and
John baptized them in the Master’s name. And it was dark when they had
finished with baptizing this multitude.
Pentecost
was the great festival of baptism, the time for fellowshipping the
proselytes of the gate, those gentiles who desired to serve Yahweh. It
was, therefore, the more easy for large numbers of both the Jews and
believing gentiles to submit to baptism on this day. In doing this, they
were in no way disconnecting themselves from the Jewish faith. Even for
some time after this the believers in Jesus were a sect within Judaism.
All of them, including the apostles, were still loyal to the essential
requirements of the Jewish ceremonial system.
2. The Significance of Pentecost
Jesus
lived on earth and taught a gospel which redeemed man from the
superstition that he was a child of the devil and elevated him to the
dignity of a faith son of God. Jesus’ message, as he preached it and
lived it in his day, was an effective solvent for man’s spiritual
difficulties in that day of its statement. And now that he has
personally left the world, he sends in his place his Spirit of Truth,
who is designed to live in man and, for each new generation, to restate
the Jesus message so that every new group of mortals to appear upon the
face of the earth shall have a new and up-to-date version of the gospel,
just such personal enlightenment and group guidance as will prove to be
an effective solvent for man’s ever-new and varied spiritual
difficulties.
The
first mission of this spirit is, of course, to foster and personalize
truth, for it is the comprehension of truth that constitutes the highest
form of human liberty. Next, it is the purpose of this spirit to
destroy the believer’s feeling of orphanhood. Jesus having been among
men, all believers would experience a sense of loneliness had not the
Spirit of Truth come to dwell in men’s hearts.
This
bestowal of the Son’s spirit effectively prepared all normal men’s
minds for the subsequent universal bestowal of the Father’s spirit (the
Adjuster) upon all mankind. In a certain sense, this Spirit of Truth is
the spirit of both the Universal Father and the Creator Son.
Do
not make the mistake of expecting to become strongly intellectually
conscious of the outpoured Spirit of Truth. The spirit never creates a
consciousness of himself, only a consciousness of Michael, the Son. From
the beginning Jesus taught that the spirit would not speak of himself.
The proof, therefore, of your fellowship with the Spirit of Truth is not
to be found in your consciousness of this spirit but rather in your
experience of enhanced fellowship with Michael.
The
spirit also came to help men recall and understand the words of the
Master as well as to illuminate and reinterpret his life on earth.
Next,
the Spirit of Truth came to help the believer to witness to the
realities of Jesus’ teachings and his life as he lived it in the flesh,
and as he now again lives it anew and afresh in the individual believer
of each passing generation of the spirit-filled sons of God.
Thus
it appears that the Spirit of Truth comes really to lead all believers
into all truth, into the expanding knowledge of the experience of the
living and growing spiritual consciousness of the reality of eternal and
ascending sonship with God.
Jesus
lived a life which is a revelation of man submitted to the Father’s
will, not an example for any man literally to attempt to follow. This
life in the flesh, together with his death on the cross and subsequent
resurrection, presently became a new gospel of the ransom which had thus
been paid in order to purchase man back from the clutch of the evil
one—from the condemnation of an offended God. Nevertheless, even though
the gospel did become greatly distorted, it remains a fact that this new
message about Jesus carried along with it many of the fundamental
truths and teachings of his earlier gospel of the kingdom. And, sooner
or later, these concealed truths of the fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of men will emerge to effectually transform the civilization
of all mankind.
But
these mistakes of the intellect in no way interfered with the
believer’s great progress in growth in spirit. In less than a month
after the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, the apostles made more
individual spiritual progress than during their almost four years of
personal and loving association with the Master. Neither did this
substitution of the fact of the resurrection of Jesus for the saving gospel truth
of sonship with God in any way interfere with the rapid spread of their
teachings; on the contrary, this overshadowing of Jesus’ message by the
new teachings about his person and resurrection seemed greatly to
facilitate the preaching of the good news.
The
term “baptism of the spirit,” which came into such general use about
this time, merely signified the conscious reception of this gift of the
Spirit of Truth and the personal acknowledgment of this new spiritual
power as an augmentation of all spiritual influences previously
experienced by God-knowing souls.
Since
the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, man is subject to the teaching and
guidance of a threefold spirit endowment: the spirit of the Father, the
Thought Adjuster; the spirit of the Son, the Spirit of Truth; the
spirit of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit.
In
a way, mankind is subject to the double influence of the sevenfold
appeal of the universe spirit influences. The early evolutionary races
of mortals are subject to the progressive contact of the seven adjutant
mind-spirits of the local universe Mother Spirit. As man progresses
upward in the scale of intelligence and spiritual perception, there
eventually come to hover over him and dwell within him the seven higher
spirit influences. And these seven spirits of the advancing worlds are:
1. The bestowed spirit of the Universal Father—the Thought Adjusters.
2.
The spirit presence of the Eternal Son—the spirit gravity of the
universe of universes and the certain channel of all spirit communion.
3.
The spirit presence of the Infinite Spirit—the universal spirit-mind of
all creation, the spiritual source of the intellectual kinship of all
progressive intelligences.
4.
The spirit of the Universal Father and the Creator Son—the Spirit of
Truth, generally regarded as the spirit of the Universe Son.
5.
The spirit of the Infinite Spirit and the Universe Mother Spirit—the
Holy Spirit, generally regarded as the spirit of the Universe Spirit.
6. The mind-spirit of the Universe Mother Spirit—the seven adjutant mind-spirits of the local universe.
7.
The spirit of the Father, Sons, and Spirits—the new-name spirit of the
ascending mortals of the realms after the fusion of the mortal
spirit-born soul with the Paradise Thought Adjuster and after the
subsequent attainment of the divinity and glorification of the status of
the Paradise Corps of the Finality.
And
so did the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth bring to the world and its
peoples the last of the spirit endowment designed to aid in the
ascending search for God.
3. What Happened at Pentecost
Many
queer and strange teachings became associated with the early narratives
of the day of Pentecost. In subsequent times the events of this day, on
which the Spirit of Truth, the new teacher, came to dwell with mankind,
have become confused with the foolish outbreaks of rampant
emotionalism. The chief mission of this outpoured spirit of the Father
and the Son is to teach men about the truths of the Father’s love and
the Son’s mercy. These are the truths of divinity which men can
comprehend more fully than all the other divine traits of character. The
Spirit of Truth is concerned primarily with the revelation of the
Father’s spirit nature and the Son’s moral character. The Creator Son,
in the flesh, revealed God to men; the Spirit of Truth, in the heart,
reveals the Creator Son to men. When man yields the “fruits of the
spirit” in his life, he is simply showing forth the traits which the
Master manifested in his own earthly life. When Jesus was on earth, he
lived his life as one personality—Jesus of Nazareth. As the indwelling
spirit of the “new teacher,” the Master has, since Pentecost, been able
to live his life anew in the experience of every truth-taught believer.
Many
things which happen in the course of a human life are hard to
understand, difficult to reconcile with the idea that this is a universe
in which truth prevails and in which righteousness triumphs. It so
often appears that slander, lies, dishonesty, and
unrighteousness—sin—prevail. Does faith, after all, triumph over evil,
sin, and iniquity? It does. And the life and death of Jesus are the
eternal proof that the truth of goodness and the faith of the spirit-led
creature will always be vindicated. They taunted Jesus on the cross,
saying, “Let us see if God will come and deliver him.” It looked dark on
that day of the crucifixion, but it was gloriously bright on the
resurrection morning; it was still brighter and more joyous on the day
of Pentecost. The religions of pessimistic despair seek to obtain
release from the burdens of life; they crave extinction in endless
slumber and rest. These are the religions of primitive fear and dread.
The religion of Jesus is a new gospel of faith to be proclaimed to
struggling humanity. This new religion is founded on faith, hope, and
love.
To
Jesus, mortal life had dealt its hardest, cruelest, and bitterest
blows; and this man met these ministrations of despair with faith,
courage, and the unswerving determination to do his Father’s will. Jesus
met life in all its terrible reality and mastered it—even in death. He
did not use religion as a release from life. The religion of Jesus does
not seek to escape this life in order to enjoy the waiting bliss of
another existence. The religion of Jesus provides the joy and peace of
another and spiritual existence to enhance and ennoble the life which
men now live in the flesh.
If
religion is an opiate to the people, it is not the religion of Jesus.
On the cross he refused to drink the deadening drug, and his spirit,
poured out upon all flesh, is a mighty world influence which leads man
upward and urges him onward. The spiritual forward urge is the most
powerful driving force present in this world; the truth-learning
believer is the one progressive and aggressive soul on earth.
On
the day of Pentecost the religion of Jesus broke all national
restrictions and racial fetters. It is forever true, “Where the spirit
of the Lord is, there is liberty.” On this day the Spirit of Truth
became the personal gift from the Master to every mortal. This spirit
was bestowed for the purpose of qualifying believers more effectively to
preach the gospel of the kingdom, but they mistook the experience of
receiving the outpoured spirit for a part of the new gospel which they
were unconsciously formulating.
Do
not overlook the fact that the Spirit of Truth was bestowed upon all
sincere believers; this gift of the spirit did not come only to the
apostles. The one hundred and twenty men and women assembled in the
upper chamber all received the new teacher, as did all the honest of
heart throughout the whole world. This new teacher was bestowed upon
mankind, and every soul received him in accordance with the love for
truth and the capacity to grasp and comprehend spiritual realities. At
last, true religion is delivered from the custody of priests and all
sacred classes and finds its real manifestation in the individual souls
of men.
The
religion of Jesus fosters the highest type of human civilization in
that it creates the highest type of spiritual personality and proclaims
the sacredness of that person.
The
coming of the Spirit of Truth on Pentecost made possible a religion
which is neither radical nor conservative; it is neither the old nor the
new; it is to be dominated neither by the old nor the young. The fact
of Jesus’ earthly life provides a fixed point for the anchor of time,
while the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth provides for the everlasting
expansion and endless growth of the religion which he lived and the
gospel which he proclaimed. The spirit guides into all truth;
he is the teacher of an expanding and always-growing religion of endless
progress and divine unfolding. This new teacher will be forever
unfolding to the truth-seeking believer that which was so divinely
folded up in the person and nature of the Son of Man.
The
manifestations associated with the bestowal of the “new teacher,” and
the reception of the apostles’ preaching by the men of various races and
nations gathered together at Jerusalem, indicate the universality of
the religion of Jesus. The gospel of the kingdom was to be identified
with no particular race, culture, or language. This day of Pentecost
witnessed the great effort of the spirit to liberate the religion of
Jesus from its inherited Jewish fetters. Even after this demonstration
of pouring out the spirit upon all flesh, the apostles at first
endeavored to impose the requirements of Judaism upon their converts.
Even Paul had trouble with his Jerusalem brethren because he refused to
subject the gentiles to these Jewish practices. No revealed religion can
spread to all the world when it makes the serious mistake of becoming
permeated with some national culture or associated with established
racial, social, or economic practices.
The
bestowal of the Spirit of Truth was independent of all forms,
ceremonies, sacred places, and special behavior by those who received
the fullness of its manifestation. When the spirit came upon those
assembled in the upper chamber, they were simply sitting there, having
just been engaged in silent prayer. The spirit was bestowed in the
country as well as in the city. It was not necessary for the apostles to
go apart to a lonely place for years of solitary meditation in order to
receive the spirit. For all time, Pentecost disassociates the idea of
spiritual experience from the notion of especially favorable
environments.
Pentecost,
with its spiritual endowment, was designed forever to loose the
religion of the Master from all dependence upon physical force; the
teachers of this new religion are now equipped with spiritual weapons.
They are to go out to conquer the world with unfailing forgiveness,
matchless good will, and abounding love. They are equipped to overcome
evil with good, to vanquish hate by love, to destroy fear with a
courageous and living faith in truth. Jesus had already taught his
followers that his religion was never passive; always were his disciples
to be active and positive in their ministry of mercy and in their
manifestations of love. No longer did these believers look upon Yahweh
as “the Lord of Hosts.” They now regarded the eternal Deity as the “God
and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.” They made that progress, at least,
even if they did in some measure fail fully to grasp the truth that God
is also the spiritual Father of every individual.
Pentecost
endowed mortal man with the power to forgive personal injuries, to keep
sweet in the midst of the gravest injustice, to remain unmoved in the
face of appalling danger, and to challenge the evils of hate and anger
by the fearless acts of love and forbearance. Urantia has passed through
the ravages of great and destructive wars in its history. All
participants in these terrible struggles met with defeat. There was but
one victor; there was only one who came out of these embittered
struggles with an enhanced reputation—that was Jesus of Nazareth and his
gospel of overcoming evil with good. The secret of a better
civilization is bound up in the Master’s teachings of the brotherhood of
man, the good will of love and mutual trust.
Up
to Pentecost, religion had revealed only man seeking for God; since
Pentecost, man is still searching for God, but there shines out over the
world the spectacle of God also seeking for man and sending his spirit
to dwell within him when he has found him.
Before
the teachings of Jesus which culminated in Pentecost, women had little
or no spiritual standing in the tenets of the older religions. After
Pentecost, in the brotherhood of the kingdom woman stood before God on
an equality with man. Among the one hundred and twenty who received this
special visitation of the spirit were many of the women disciples, and
they shared these blessings equally with the men believers. No longer
can man presume to monopolize the ministry of religious service. The
Pharisee might go on thanking God that he was “not born a woman, a
leper, or a gentile,” but among the followers of Jesus woman has been
forever set free from all religious discriminations based on sex.
Pentecost obliterated all religious discrimination founded on racial
distinction, cultural differences, social caste, or sex prejudice. No
wonder these believers in the new religion would cry out, “Where the
spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
Both
the mother and brother of Jesus were present among the one hundred and
twenty believers, and as members of this common group of disciples, they
also received the outpoured spirit. They received no more of the good
gift than did their fellows. No special gift was bestowed upon the
members of Jesus’ earthly family. Pentecost marked the end of special
priesthoods and all belief in sacred families.
Before
Pentecost the apostles had given up much for Jesus. They had sacrificed
their homes, families, friends, worldly goods, and positions. At
Pentecost they gave themselves to God, and the Father and the Son
responded by giving themselves to man—sending their spirits to live
within men. This experience of losing self and finding the spirit was
not one of emotion; it was an act of intelligent self-surrender and
unreserved consecration.
Pentecost
was the call to spiritual unity among gospel believers. When the spirit
descended on the disciples at Jerusalem, the same thing happened in
Philadelphia, Alexandria, and at all other places where true believers
dwelt. It was literally true that “there was but one heart and soul
among the multitude of the believers.” The religion of Jesus is the most
powerful unifying influence the world has ever known.
Pentecost
was designed to lessen the self-assertiveness of individuals, groups,
nations, and races. It is this spirit of self-assertiveness which so
increases in tension that it periodically breaks loose in destructive
wars. Mankind can be unified only by the spiritual approach, and the
Spirit of Truth is a world influence which is universal.
The
coming of the Spirit of Truth purifies the human heart and leads the
recipient to formulate a life purpose single to the will of God and the
welfare of men. The material spirit of selfishness has been swallowed up
in this new spiritual bestowal of selflessness. Pentecost, then and
now, signifies that the Jesus of history has become the divine Son of
living experience. The joy of this outpoured spirit, when it is
consciously experienced in human life, is a tonic for health, a stimulus
for mind, and an unfailing energy for the soul.
Prayer
did not bring the spirit on the day of Pentecost, but it did have much
to do with determining the capacity of receptivity which characterized
the individual believers. Prayer does not move the divine heart to
liberality of bestowal, but it does so often dig out larger and deeper
channels wherein the divine bestowals may flow to the hearts and souls
of those who thus remember to maintain unbroken communion with their
Maker through sincere prayer and true worship.
4. Beginnings of the Christian Church
When
Jesus was so suddenly seized by his enemies and so quickly crucified
between two thieves, his apostles and disciples were completely
demoralized. The thought of the Master, arrested, bound, scourged, and
crucified, was too much for even the apostles. They forgot his teachings
and his warnings. He might, indeed, have been “a prophet mighty in deed
and word before God and all the people,” but he could hardly be the
Messiah they had hoped would restore the kingdom of Israel.
Then
comes the resurrection, with its deliverance from despair and the
return of their faith in the Master’s divinity. Again and again they see
him and talk with him, and he takes them out on Olivet, where he bids
them farewell and tells them he is going back to the Father. He has told
them to tarry in Jerusalem until they are endowed with power—until the
Spirit of Truth shall come. And on the day of Pentecost this new teacher
comes, and they go out at once to preach their gospel with new power.
They are the bold and courageous followers of a living Lord, not a dead
and defeated leader. The Master lives in the hearts of these
evangelists; God is not a doctrine in their minds; he has become a
living presence in their souls.
“Day
by day they continued steadfastly and with one accord in the temple and
breaking bread at home. They took their food with gladness and
singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.
They were all filled with the spirit, and they spoke the word of God
with boldness. And the multitudes of those who believed were of one
heart and soul; and not one of them said that aught of the things which
he possessed was his own, and they had all things in common.”
What
has happened to these men whom Jesus had ordained to go forth preaching
the gospel of the kingdom, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of
man? They have a new gospel; they are on fire with a new experience;
they are filled with a new spiritual energy. Their message has suddenly
shifted to the proclamation of the risen Christ: “Jesus of Nazareth, a
man God approved by mighty works and wonders; him, being delivered up by
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you did crucify and
slay. The things which God foreshadowed by the mouth of all the
prophets, he thus fulfilled. This Jesus did God raise up. God has made
him both Lord and Christ. Being, by the right hand of God, exalted and
having received from the Father the promise of the spirit, he has poured
forth this which you see and hear. Repent, that your sins may be
blotted out; that the Father may send the Christ, who has been appointed
for you, even Jesus, whom the heaven must receive until the times of
the restoration of all things.”
The
gospel of the kingdom, the message of Jesus, had been suddenly changed
into the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. They now proclaimed the facts
of his life, death, and resurrection and preached the hope of his speedy
return to this world to finish the work he began. Thus the message of
the early believers had to do with preaching about the facts of his
first coming and with teaching the hope of his second coming, an event
which they deemed to be very near at hand.
Christ
was about to become the creed of the rapidly forming church. Jesus
lives; he died for men; he gave the spirit; he is coming again. Jesus
filled all their thoughts and determined all their new concepts of God
and everything else. They were too much enthused over the new doctrine
that “God is the Father of the Lord Jesus” to be concerned with the old
message that “God is the loving Father of all men,” even of every single
individual. True, a marvelous manifestation of brotherly love and
unexampled good will did spring up in these early communities of
believers. But it was a fellowship of believers in Jesus, not a
fellowship of brothers in the family kingdom of the Father in heaven.
Their good will arose from the love born of the concept of Jesus’
bestowal and not from the recognition of the brotherhood of mortal man.
Nevertheless, they were filled with joy, and they lived such new and
unique lives that all men were attracted to their teachings about Jesus.
They made the great mistake of using the living and illustrative
commentary on the gospel of the kingdom for that gospel, but even that
represented the greatest religion mankind had ever known.
Unmistakably,
a new fellowship was arising in the world. “The multitude who believed
continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the
breaking of bread, and in prayers.” They called each other brother and
sister; they greeted one another with a holy kiss; they ministered to
the poor. It was a fellowship of living as well as of worship. They were
not communal by decree but by the desire to share their goods with
their fellow believers. They confidently expected that Jesus would
return to complete the establishment of the Father’s kingdom during
their generation. This spontaneous sharing of earthly possessions was
not a direct feature of Jesus’ teaching; it came about because these men
and women so sincerely and so confidently believed that he was to
return any day to finish his work and to consummate the kingdom. But the
final results of this well-meant experiment in thoughtless brotherly
love were disastrous and sorrow-breeding. Thousands of earnest believers
sold their property and disposed of all their capital goods and other
productive assets. With the passing of time, the dwindling resources of
Christian “equal-sharing” came to an end—but the world did not.
Very soon the believers at Antioch were taking up a collection to keep
their fellow believers at Jerusalem from starving.
In
these days they celebrated the Lord’s Supper after the manner of its
establishment; that is, they assembled for a social meal of good
fellowship and partook of the sacrament at the end of the meal.
At
first they baptized in the name of Jesus; it was almost twenty years
before they began to baptize in “the name of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit.” Baptism was all that was required for admission into
the fellowship of believers. They had no organization as yet; it was
simply the Jesus brotherhood.
This
Jesus sect was growing rapidly, and once more the Sadducees took notice
of them. The Pharisees were little bothered about the situation, seeing
that none of the teachings in any way interfered with the observance of
the Jewish laws. But the Sadducees began to put the leaders of the
Jesus sect in jail until they were prevailed upon to accept the counsel
of one of the leading rabbis, Gamaliel, who advised them: “Refrain from
these men and let them alone, for if this counsel or this work is of
men, it will be overthrown; but if it is of God, you will not be able to
overthrow them, lest haply you be found even to be fighting against
God.” They decided to follow Gamaliel’s counsel, and there ensued a time
of peace and quiet in Jerusalem, during which the new gospel about
Jesus spread rapidly.
And
so all went well in Jerusalem until the time of the coming of the
Greeks in large numbers from Alexandria. Two of the pupils of Rodan
arrived in Jerusalem and made many converts from among the Hellenists.
Among their early converts were Stephen and Barnabas. These able Greeks
did not so much have the Jewish viewpoint, and they did not so well
conform to the Jewish mode of worship and other ceremonial practices.
And it was the doings of these Greek believers that terminated the
peaceful relations between the Jesus brotherhood and the Pharisees and
Sadducees. Stephen and his Greek associate began to preach more as Jesus
taught, and this brought them into immediate conflict with the Jewish
rulers. In one of Stephen’s public sermons, when he reached the
objectionable part of the discourse, they dispensed with all formalities
of trial and proceeded to stone him to death on the spot.
Stephen,
the leader of the Greek colony of Jesus’ believers in Jerusalem, thus
became the first martyr to the new faith and the specific cause for the
formal organization of the early Christian church. This new crisis was
met by the recognition that believers could not longer go on as a sect
within the Jewish faith. They all agreed that they must separate
themselves from unbelievers; and within one month from the death of
Stephen the church at Jerusalem had been organized under the leadership
of Peter, and James the brother of Jesus had been installed as its
titular head.
And
then broke out the new and relentless persecutions by the Jews, so that
the active teachers of the new religion about Jesus, which subsequently
at Antioch was called Christianity, went forth to the ends of the
empire proclaiming Jesus. In carrying this message, before the time of
Paul the leadership was in Greek hands; and these first missionaries, as
also the later ones, followed the path of Alexander’s march of former
days, going by way of Gaza and Tyre to Antioch and then over Asia Minor
to Macedonia, then on to Rome and to the uttermost parts of the empire. Urantia Book
21st Century Sevenfold Revelation of Michael
