Meredith Sprunger's Synopsis of The Urantia Book
Synopsis of Paper 133
THE RETURN FROM ROME
1. When preparing to leave Rome, Jesus said good-bye to none of his friends. The scribe of Damascus appeared in Rome without announcement and disappeared in like manner. It was a full year before those who knew and loved him gave up hope of seeing him again. Before the end of the second year small groups of those who had known him found themselves drawn together by their common interests in his teachings and through mutual memory of their good times with him.
2. There are only two groups of mortals in the eyes of God: those who desire to do his will and those who do not...Those who cannot know God are reckoned among the animals of any given realm... God is truly no respecter of persons. Although you cannot escape the recognition of differential human abilities and endowments in matters intellectual, social, and moral, you should make no such distinctions in the spiritual brotherhood of men when assembled for worship in the presence of God.
3. Mercy ministry is always the work of the individual, but justice punishment is the function of the social, governmental, or universe administrative groups...In the universe, judgment is vested in those who fully know the antecedents of all wrongdoing as well as its motivation.
4. Ganid, I have absolute confidence in my heavenly Father's overcare; I am consecrated to doing the will of my Father in heaven. I do not believe that real harm can befell me... I am absolutely assured that the entire universe is friendly to me—this all‑powerful truth I insist on believing with a wholehearted trust in spite of all appearances to the contrary.
5. In my heart, Teacher, I agree with you, but in my head I still think that if I had been Jacob, I would have enjoyed. punishing those rude fellows who presumed to attack you just because they thought you would not defend yourself.
6. While tarrying at the ship landing, waiting for the boat to unload cargo, the travelers observed a man mistreating his wife...It was not so much what he said that touched this man's heart as the kindly look and the sympathetic smile which Jesus bestowed upon him at the conclusion of his remarks. Said the man: "1 perceive you are a priest of the Cynics, and I am thankful you restrained. me ...And then, in bidding him farewell. Jesus said: "My brother, always remember that man has no rightful authority over woman unless the woman has willingly and voluntarily given him such authority...If you can only love your children as God loves you, you will love and cherish your wife as the Father in heaven honors and exalts the Infinite Spirit, the mother of all the spirit children of a vast universe."
7. While Ganid studied family life, Jesus was teaching Crispus the better ways of religious living. Jesus held more than twenty sessions with this forward‑looking Jew; and it is not surprising, years afterward, when Paul was preaching in this very synagogue...that Crispus with his entire family embraced the new religion, and that be became one of the chief supports of the Christian church which Paul subsequently organized at Corinth.
8. Jesus and Ganid were often guests in another Jewish home, that of Justus, a devout merchant, who lived alongside the synagogue. And many times, subsequently, when the Apostle Paul sojourned in this home, did. he listen to the recounting of these visits with the Indian lad and his Jewish tutor, while both Paul and Justus wondered whatever became of such a wise and brilliant Hebrew teacher.
9. One evening as they strolled about Corinth out near where the wall of the citadel ran down to the sea, they were accosted by two public women. Ganid. had imbibed the idea, and rightly, that Jesus was a man of high ideals...accordingly he spoke sharply to these women and rudely motioned them away. When Jesus saw this, he said to Ganid: "You mean well, but you should not presume thus to speak to the children of God, even though they chance to be his erring children...Do you happen to know all of the circumstances which led them to resort to such methods of obtaining a livelihood? ...The courtesans were astonished at what he said even more than was Ganid.
10. I perceive, Ganid, that neither of these women is willfully wicked. I can tell by their faces that they have experienced much sorrow; they have suffered much at the hands of an apparently cruel fate; they have not intentionally chosen this sort of life...as you look into these now tear‑stained. faces, do you see anything bad. or wicked?"...Ganid's voice choked up as he stammered out his answer: "No, Teacher, I do not. And I apologize for my rudeness to them—I crave their forgiveness." Then said Jesus: "And I bespeak for them that they have forgiven you as I speak for my Father in heaven that he has forgiven them. Now al1 of you come with me to a friend's house where we will seek refreshment and plan for the new and better life ahead."
11.Imagine the surprise of Justus' wife when, at this late hour. Jesus appeared with Ganid and these two strangers, saying: "You will forgive us for coming at this hour, but Ganid and I desire a bite to eat, and. we would share it with these our newfound friends, who are also in need of nourishment; and besides all this, we come to you with the thought that you will be interested in counseling with us as to the best way to help these women get a new start in life...As it is getting late, and. since the young man's father will be awaiting us, we pray to be excused while we leave you here together—three women—the beloved children of the Most High ...Thus did Jesus and Ganid take leave of the women. So far the courtesans had said nothing; likewise was Ganid speechless. And for a few moments so was Martha, but presently she rose to the occasion and did everything for these strangers that Jesus had hoped for. The elder of these two women died a short time thereafter, with bright hopes of eternal survival, and the younger woman worked at Justus' place of business and later became a lifelong member of the first Christian Church in Corinth.
12. During these two months in Corinth they held intimate conversations with scores of worth‑while individuals, and as a result of all these apparently casual contacts more than half of the individuals so affected. became members of the subsequent Christian community.
13. Said Jesus: "Give the milk of truth to those who are babes in spiritual perception. In your living and loving ministry serve spiritual food in attractive form and suited to the capacity of receptivity of each of your inquirers."
14. To the runaway lad Jesus said: "Remember, there are two things you cannot run away from —God and yourself. Wherever you may go, you take with you yourself and the spirit of the heavenly Father which lives within your heart. My son, stop trying to deceive yourself; settle down to the courageous practice of facing the facts of life.
15. To the condemned. criminal he said at the last hour: "My brother, you have fallen on evil times...From talking to you, I well know you did not plan to do the thing which is about to cost you your temporal life...You or I may not deny the state this right of self‑defense in the manner of its own choosing...Your fellows must judge you by what you did, but there is a Judge to whom you may appeal for forgiveness, and. who will judge you by your real motives and better intentions. You need not fear to meet the judgment of God. if your repentance is genuine and. your faith sincere.
16. Scientists may some day measure the energy, or force manifestations, of gravitation, light, and electricity, but these same scientists can never (scientifically) tell you. what these universe phenomena are...True philosophy grows out of the wisdom which does its best to correlate these quantitative and qualitative observations.
17. Logic is valid in the material world., and mathematics is reliable when limited in its application to physical things; but neither is to be regarded as wholly dependable or infallible when applied to life problems. Life embraces phenomena which are not wholly material.
18. A social group of human beings in co-ordinated working harmony stands for a force far greater than the simple sum of its parts.
19. When both science and religion become less dogmatic and more tolerant of criticism, philosophy will then begin to achieve unity in the intelligent comprehension of the universe...Regardless of how divergent the universe phenomena of fact and value may appear to be, they are, after all, unified the Supreme.
20. The sojourn in Athens was pleasant and profitable, but it was not particularly fruitful in his human contacts. Too many of the Athenians of that day were either intellectually proud. of their reputation of another day or mentally stupid and ignorant, being the offspring of the inferior slaves of those earlier periods when there was glory in Greece and wisdom in the minds of its people
21. The soul is the self‑reflective, truth‑discerning, and. spirit‑perceiving part of man which forever elevates the human being above the level of the animal world...Moral choice and. spiritual attainment, the ability to know God and the urge to be like him, are the characteristics of the soul. The soul of man cannot exist apart from moral thinking and. spiritual activity. A stagnant soul is a dying soul.
22. All forms of soul conflict consist in the lack of harmony between the moral, or spiritual self‑consciousness and the purely intellectual self‑consciousness...The evolving soul of a human being is difficult of description and more difficult of demonstration because it is not discoverable by the methods of either material investigation or spiritual proving…Notwithstanding the failure of both material science and spiritual standards to discover the existence of the human soul, every morally conscious mortal knows of the existence of his soul as a real and. actual personal experience.
23. When any animal becomes self‑conscious, it becomes a primitive man...It is this phenomenon which warrants the bestowal of an absolute focal point for the human personality, the spirit of the Father in heaven.
24. A human mind., built up solely out of the consciousness of physical sensations, could never attain spiritual levels; this kind of material mind would be utterly lacking in a sense of moral values...The human mind. early begins to manifest qualities which are supermaterial; the truly reflective human intellect is not altogether bound by the limits of time...The human mind. does not well stand the conflict of double allegiance...The supremely happy and efficiently unified mind is the one wholly dedicated to the doing of the will of the Father in heaven...But the survival character of a soul is not fostered by attempting to secure peace of mind at any price.
25. In bidding his teacher farewell, Ganid said.: "Farewell, Teacher, but not forever. When I come again to Damascus, I will look for you. I love you, for I think the Father in heaven must be something like you at least I know you are much like what you have told me about him. I will remember your teaching, but most of all, I will never forget you."
26. In India, Ganid grow up to become an influential man, a worthy successor of his eminent father, and he spread abroad many of the noble truths which he had. learned from Jesus, his beloved. teacher, Later on in life, when Ganid heard of the strange teacher in Palestine who terminated his career on a cross, though he recognized the similarity between the gospel of this Son of Men and the teachings of his Jewish tutor, it never occurred to him that these two were actually the same person.
27. Thus ended that chapter in the life of the Son of Man which might be termed.: The mission of Joshua the teacher.
Discussion Questions
1. Why didn’t Jesus say “Good-by” to his friends in Rome?
2. What do you think of the observation that mercy is an individual responsibility while judgment should always be a group decision?
3. What spiritual guidance do we have for determining the use of authority and decision-making in martial relationships and the home?
4. What do you think of Jesus’ handling of the courtesans?
5. What aspects of spiritual growth are the people of mainline Christianity ready for today?
6. What definition of the soul have the authors of The Urantia Synopsis of Papers added to the tradition concept of the soul?
7. Observing the way Chistianity built on the cultural-religious foundations of Judaism, how can the Fifth Epochal Revelation most effectively build on the cultural base of Christianity?
A Service of
The Urantia Book Fellowship