© 1995 Ann Bendall
© 1995 The Brotherhood of Man Library
| Volume 2 - No. 3 — Index | Unselfishness. Its Relationship to God-Consciousness and Religious Experience |
At the age of twenty three, Jesus looked forward to his first real holiday since the death of his father. After taking Simon to Jerusalem for the Passover, the two planned to sight see the whole of Palestine north of the Jerusalem district during their three week break.
Following a pleasant trip to Jerusalem, Jesus opted to forgo attendance at the Passover ceremonies, preferring to chat with gentile visitors to the city. And so he “chanced” to meet “a young Hellenist”, Stephen, who was visiting Jerusalem for the first time.
In true Urantia Book fashion we are supplied with the following information:
Stephen “chanced to meet Jesus on Thursday afternoon of Passover week. While they both strolled about viewing the Asmonean palace, Jesus began the casual conversation that resulted in their becoming interested in each other, and which led to a four-hour discussion of the way of life and the true God and his worship. Stephen was tremendously impressed with what Jesus said; he never forgot his words.”(UB 128:3.5)
This “chance” meeting was to be one of the “three factors of paramount value in the early setting of the stage for the rapid spread of Christianity throughout Europe,”(UB 132:0.5) a classic example of the “doing good as we pass by” phenomenon.
We don’t hear much about Stephen for almost fifteen years, but it appears that he either remained in Jerusalem or constantly returned there. I wonder if he ever prayed to again meet the young man with whom he had wiled away an enjoyable Thursday afternoon?
Fifteen years later, Peter was busy in Jerusalem trying to accommodate the Jewish beliefs into his new religion about Jesus. And he was reasonably successful—until large numbers of Greeks arrived from Alexandria, some of them being pupils of Rodan.
And here the plot thickens. Rodan was a Greek philosopher who, in approximately 29 AD, had “become a disciple of Jesus through the teachings of one of Abner’s associates who had conducted a mission at Alexandria.” (UB 160:0.1) Rodan came to Magadan on Sunday 18th September AD 29 to “secure a firsthand and authoritative version of the gospel from either Jesus or one of his apostles.” (UB 160:0.1), so as to harmonise “his philosophy of life with Jesus’ new religious teachings.” (UB 160:0.1). Jesus received him “graciously,” declining “to enter into such a conference with Rodan,” and directed that Nathaniel and Thomas “listen to all he had to say and tell him about the gospel in return.” (UB 160:0.1). This they did, taking approximately 10 days to achieve their ends.
And, on about Wednesday 28th September, Rodan “made his way back to Alexandria” (UB 161:2.12), meeting Jesus next on Tuesday evening, April 18, AD 30 at approximately half past eight o’clock, in Alexandria (Jesus twelfth appearance in morontia form). (UB 191:6.1). On this occasion Jesus bid Rodan and the others gathered at this meeting to “Go you, therefore, into all the world preaching this gospel, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the ages.” (UB 191:6.3). And this Greek philosopher, “One of the greatest of his race,” (UB 160:5.14) did Jesus’ bidding, going on to become “a mighty man in the later affairs of the kingdom of heaven; he was a faithful believer to the end of his earth days, yielding up his life in Greece with others when the persecutions were at their height.” (UB 161:2.12)
Two of Rodan’s pupils opted to preach the good news in Jerusalem, and now the web tightens!
These two converted many of the Hellenists in Jerusalem, amongst whom 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 (who became the leader of the Greek colony of Jesus’ believers in Jerusalem) 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.” (UB 194:4.11)
Where did Stephen get his courage from? “Some of Stephen’s extraordinary boldness in proclaiming his view of the new gospel was the direct result of this earlier interview with Jesus. But Stephen never even faintly surmised that the Galilean he had talked with some fifteen years previously was the very same person whom he later proclaimed the world’s Savior, and for whom he was so soon to die, thus becoming the first martyr of the newly evolving Christian faith.”(UB 128:3.6)
"Greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends.
—but indeed Jesus had an even greater love, for he also lay down his life for his enemies.
Stephen’s death precipitated “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.” (UB 194:4.12)
And, as “Stephen yielded up his life as the price of his attack upon the Jewish temple and its traditional practices, there stood by one named Saul, a citizen of Tarsus. And when Saul saw how this Greek could die for his faith, there were aroused in his heart those emotions which eventually led him to espouse the cause for which Stephen died; later on he became the aggressive and indomitable Paul, the philosopher, if not the sole founder, of the Christian religion.”(UB 128:3.6)
A chance encounter on a Thursday afternoon by two holiday-makers; a Greek philosopher seeking truth, and finding an associate of Abner on mission to his home town; fifteen years of emotional and spiritual maturity; a set of environmental circumstances; a death witnessed by a by-stander from Tarsus, and thus was born the best of Urantian religions, the Christian church, which “is only the larval stage of the thwarted spiritual kingdom, which will carry it through this material age and over into a more spiritual dispensation where the Master’s teachings may enjoy a fuller opportunity for development. Thus does the so-called Christian church become the cocoon in which the kingdom of Jesus’ concept now slumbers. The kingdom of the divine brotherhood is still alive and will eventually and certainly come forth from this long submergence, just as surely as the butterfly eventually emerges as the beautiful unfolding of its less attractive creature of metamorphic development.”(UB 170:5.21)
And all of the essential events, to outward appearances, were a set of fortuitous coincidences, certainly not consciously planned by any of the individuals involved, and hence was one of the most successful of stages set for the rapid evolution of religion on Urantia!.
| Volume 2 - No. 3 — Index | Unselfishness. Its Relationship to God-Consciousness and Religious Experience |