Chapter 12 - At Gilboa and in the Decapolis

CHAPTER 12

AT GILBOA AND IN THE DECAPOLIS

SEPTEMBER and October were spent in retirement at a secluded camp upon the slopes of Mount Gilboa. The month of September Jesus spent here alone with his apostles, teaching and instructing them in the truths of the kingdom.

The Discourse on Prayer

The central theme of the discussions throughout the entire month of September was prayer and worship. After they had discussed worship for some days, Jesus finally delivered his memorable discourse on prayer in answer to Thomas's request:

• "Master, teach us how to pray."

The apostles very early perceived that their Master did not fully approve of the practice of uttering set and formal prayers. Nevertheless, believers constantly requested to be taught how to pray. The twelve longed to know what form of petition Jesus would approve. It was chiefly because of this need for some simple petition for the common people that Jesus at this time consented, in answer to Thomas's request, to teach them a suggestive form of prayer.

Jesus gave this lesson one afternoon in the third week of their sojourn on Mount Gilboa:

• "John indeed taught you a simple form of prayer: `O Father, cleanse us from sin, show us your glory, reveal your love, and let your spirit sanctify our hearts forevermore, Amen!' He taught this prayer that you might have something to teach the multitude. He did not intend that you should use such a set and formal petition as the expression of your own souls in prayer.

• "Prayer is entirely a personal and spontaneous expression of the attitude of the soul toward the spirit. Prayer should be the communion of sonship and the expression of fellowship. Prayer, when indited by the spirit, leads to co-operative spiritual progress. The ideal prayer is a form of spiritual communion that leads to intelligent worship. True praying is the sincere attitude of reaching heavenward for the attainment of your ideals.

• "Prayer is the breath of the soul and should lead you to be persistent in your attempt to ascertain the Father's will. If any one of you has a neighbor, and you go to him at midnight and say, `friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine on a journey has come to see me, and I have nothing to set before him'. And if your neighbor answers, `trouble me not, for the door is now shut and the children and I are in bed. Therefore I cannot rise and give you bread,' you will persist, explaining that your friend hungers, and that you have no food to offer him. I say to you, though your neighbor will not rise and give you bread because he is your friend, yet because of your importunity he will get up and give you as many loaves as you need. If, then, persistence will win favors even from mortal man, how much more will your persistence in the spirit win the bread of life for you from the willing hands of the Father in heaven. Again I say to you: Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks the door of salvation will be opened.

• "Which of you who is a father, if his son asks unwisely, would hesitate to give in accordance with parental wisdom rather than in the terms of the son's faulty petition? If the child needs a loaf, will you give him a stone just because he unwisely asks for it? If your son needs a fish, will you give him a water snake just because it may chance to come up in the net with the fish and the child foolishly asks for the serpent? If you, then, being mortal and finite, know how to answer prayer and give good and appropriate gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the spirit and many additional blessings to those who ask him? Men ought always to pray and not become discouraged.

• "Let me tell you the story of a certain judge who lived in a wicked city. This judge feared not God nor had respect for man. Now there was a needy widow in that city who came repeatedly to this unjust judge, saying, `protect me from my adversary.' For some time he would not give ear to her, but presently he said to himself: `though I fear not God nor have regard for man, yet because this widow ceases not to trouble me, I will vindicate her lest she wear me out by her continual coming.' These stories I tell you to encourage you to persist in praying and not to intimate that your petitions will change the just and righteous Father above. Your persistence, however, is not to win favor with God, but to change your earth attitude and to enlarge your soul's capacity for spirit receptivity.

• "But when you pray, you exercise so little faith. Genuine faith will remove mountains of material difficulty that may chance to lie in the path of soul expansion and spiritual progress."

The Believer’s Prayer

After listening to this discourse on prayer, James Zebedee said:

• "Very good, Master, but we do not desire a form of prayer for ourselves so much as for the newer believers who so frequently beseech us, `teach us how acceptably to pray to the Father in heaven.'"

Jesus said:

• "If, then, you still desire such a prayer, I would present the one that I taught my brothers and sisters in Nazareth: “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our bread for tomorrow. Refresh our souls with the water of life. And forgive us every one our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Save us in temptation, deliver us from evil, and increasingly make us perfect like yourself.”

Conference with John’s Apostles

Andrew and Abner alternated in presiding over these joint meetings of the two apostolic groups. These men had many difficulties to discuss and numerous problems to solve. Again and again would they take their troubles to Jesus, only to hear him say:

• "I am concerned only with your personal and purely religious problems. I am the representative of the Father to the individual, not to the group. If you are in personal difficulty in your relations with God, come to me, and I will hear you and counsel you in the solution of your problem. But when you enter upon the co-ordination of divergent human interpretations of religious questions and upon the socialization of religion, you are destined to solve all such problems by your own decisions. Albeit, I am ever sympathetic and always interested, and when you arrive at your conclusions touching these matters of non-spiritual import, provided you are all agreed, then I pledge in advance my full approval and hearty co-operation. And now, in order to leave you unhampered in your deliberations, I am leaving you for two weeks. Be not anxious about me, for I will return to you. I will be about my Father's business, for we have other realms besides this one."

In Camp Near Pella

The latter part of December they all went over near the Jordan, close by Pella, where they again began to teach and preach.

John's friends interrupted Jesus' teaching to say to him:

• "John the Baptist has sent us to ask -- are you truly the Deliverer, or shall we look for another?"

Jesus paused to say to John's friends:

• "Go back and tell John that he is not forgotten. Tell him what you have seen and heard, that the poor have good tidings preached to them."

And when Jesus had spoken further to the messengers of John, he turned again to the multitude and said:

• "Do not think that John doubts the gospel of the kingdom. He makes inquiry only to assure his disciples who are also my disciples. John is no weakling. Let me ask you who heard John preach before Herod put him in prison: What did you behold in John -- a reed shaken with the wind, a man of changeable moods and clothed in soft raiment? As a rule they who are gorgeously appareled and who live delicately are in kings' courts and in the mansions of the rich. But what did you see when you beheld John? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and much more than a prophet. Of John it was written: `Behold, I send my messenger before your face, he shall prepare the way before you.'

• "Verily, verily, I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist. Yet he who is but small in the kingdom of heaven is greater because he has been born of the spirit and knows that he has become a son of God."

Many who heard Jesus that day submitted themselves to John's baptism, thereby publicly professing entrance into the kingdom. The apostles of John were firmly knit to Jesus from that day forward. This occurrence marked the real union of John and Jesus' followers.

After the messengers had conversed with Abner, they departed for Machaerus to tell all this to John. He was greatly comforted, and his faith was strengthened by the words of Jesus and the message of Abner.

On this afternoon Jesus continued to teach, saying:

• "But to what shall I liken this generation? Many of you will receive neither John's message nor my teaching. You are like the children playing in the market place who call to their fellows and say, `we piped for you and you did not dance, we wailed and you did not mourn.' And so with some of you, John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said he had a devil. The Son of Man comes eating and drinking, and these same people say: `Behold, a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!' Truly, wisdom is justified by her children.

• "It would appear that the Father in heaven has hidden some of these truths from the wise and haughty, while he has revealed them to babes. But the Father does all things well. The Father reveals himself to the universe by the methods of his own choosing. Come, therefore, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and you shall find rest for your souls. Take upon you the divine yoke, and you will experience the peace of God, which passes all understanding."

Death of John the Baptist

John the Baptist was executed by order of Herod Antipas on the evening of January 10, A.D. 28. When Jesus heard the report, he dismissed the multitude, and calling the twenty-four together, said:

• "John is dead. Herod has beheaded him. Tonight go into joint council and arrange your affairs accordingly. There shall be delay no longer. The hour has come to proclaim the kingdom openly and with power. Tomorrow we go into Galilee."