For a Jew living in Palestine two thousand years ago, who would have been the "great men of earth?"

   In those days, Jews had a very strong belief in themselves as "God's chosen people." So simply on racial grounds, all non-Jews would be ruled out. Also for Jesus to ignore them, these "great men" would need to have been living Jews, not "men of old." Next we can rule out those Jews appointed as men of authority by their Roman masters, men such as Antipas and Philip, the sons of Herod the Great.

   That leaves relatively few Jews to be considered, among them the scribes and teachers in the great temple at Jerusalem, the lawyers and the rabbis of the synagogue schools--men whom we would now class as "academics," the highly educated group in the Jewish society of those times.

   The next clause in our quote from p.1594 states, "He began his work with the poor." But even among this group (which constituted most of the remainder of the Jewish population), Jesus was seeking a special group--those people who would take his revelation of the Father in heaven so seriously that they would actually seek to emulate Jesus in their own lives.

   The importance afforded to this group is demonstrated by the repeated references in the Urantia Papers to the mission assigned to it--firstly for the dissemination of the Fourth Epochal Revelation, and now for the dissemination of the revelatory message of the Papers themselves. Examples are:

   From Jesus to Ganid about a stranger: "If we could have him live with us, we might by our lives show him the Father in heaven, and thus would he become so attracted by our lives as sons of God that he would be constrained to inquire about our Father." (1466)

   "If we know God, our real business on earth is so to live as to permit the Father to reveal himself in our lives." (1466)

   Jesus endeavored to make clear that he desired his disciples, having tasted of the good spirit realities of the kingdom, so to live in the world that men, by seeing their lives, would become kingdom conscious and hence be led to inquire of believers concerning the ways of the kingdom." (1593)

   Jesus had come "to establish and demonstrate a standard of human life for all peoples upon all worlds throughout his entire universe. And this standard approached the highest perfection, even the final goodness of the Universal Father" (1594)

   "Your mission to the world is founded on the fact that I lived a God-revealing life among you; on the truth that you and all other men are the sons of God; and it shall consist in the life which you will live among men--the actual and living experience of loving men and serving them, even as I have loved and served you." (2043)
   "As the Father sent me into the world, so send I you. As I have revealed the Father, so shall you reveal the divine love, not merely with words, but in your daily living. I send you forth, not to love the souls of men, but rather to love men. You are not merely to proclaim the joys of heaven but also to exhibit in your daily experience those spirit realities of the divine life." (2043)

   The climactic statement in the Urantia Papers is found on p. 2090:

   "To 'follow Jesus' means to personally share his religious faith and to enter into the spirit of the Master's life of unselfish service for man. One of the most important things in human living is to find out what Jesus believed, to discover his ideals, and to strive for the achievement of his exalted life purpose. Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it."

   Certainly if we make our mission in life the emulation of Jesus' revelation of the Father in our own lives, and the unselfish service of man, then a thorough knowledge of Jesus' life and how he lived it is of critical importance.

   But this knowledge of Jesus' life is also of importance in that, in assimilating it, we unconsciously accumulate a "feeling" for what does or does not have spiritual value, the only "stuff" from which our souls can be formed.

   Jesus could readily carry out his decision to ignore "the great men" of his day simply by avoiding them. He could also personally seek out those who might decide to emulate his revelatory life. But if this same task was set for the revelators of the Urantia Papers, then it would appear that the only path open to them to do so would be in the actual manner of presentation of the Papers.