Symmetry of Soul Tuesdays

Throughout his ministry to mankind, Jesus sought to not bring any undue influence to bear upon his family or others which would lead them to believe in him against their honest convictions. He always refused to take undue or unfair advantage of the human mind. He did not want men to believe in him unless their hearts were responsive to the spiritual realities revealed in his teachings. The reading encompassed Paper 128:4-5, p. 1412

Jesus’ twenty-second year of life was one of several years during which his brothers and sisters were facing the trials and tribulations peculiar to the problems and readjustments of adolescence. Jesus then had brothers and sisters ranging in ages from seven to eighteen, and he was kept busy helping them to adjust themselves to the new awakenings of their intellectual and emotional lives. The reading encompassed Paper 128:1.14-3.9, p. 1409

As Jesus of Nazareth entered upon the early years of his adult life, he had lived, and continued to live, a normal and average human life on earth. Of his human nature he was never in doubt; it was self-evident and always present in his consciousness. But of his divine nature there was always room for doubt and conjecture, at least this was true right up to the event of his baptism. The reading encompassed Paper 128:0.1-1.13, p. 1407

As he approached his twentieth birthday, Jesus depended more and more upon the ultimate guidance of his heavenly Father, while he assumed the fatherly role of guiding and directing the children of his earth family. He was becoming experienced in the skillful wresting of victory from the very jaws of defeat; he was learning how to transform the difficulties of time into the triumphs of eternity. The reading encompassed Paper 127:6, p. 1403

Rebecca lived for only one purpose—to await the hour when Jesus, to her, the greatest man who ever lived would begin his career as a teacher of living truth. And she followed him devotedly through his eventful years of public labor, being present that day when he rode triumphantly into Jerusalem; and she stood by the side of Mary on that fateful and tragic afternoon when the Son of Man hung upon the cross. The reading encompassed Paper 127:4-5, p. 1401

On Saturday afternoon, December 3, A.D. 12, death for the second time struck at the Nazareth family. Little Amos, their baby brother, died after a week’s illness with a high fever. After passing through this time of sorrow with her first-born son as her only support, Mary at last and in the fullest sense recognized Jesus as the real head of the family; and he was truly a worthy head. The reading encompassed Paper 127:2.11-3.15, p. 1398

By the age of sixteen Jesus had acquired the full growth of his human intellect, not the full experience of human thinking but the fullness of capacity for such intellectual development. He possessed a keen and analytical mind, a kind and sympathetic disposition, a somewhat fluctuating but aggressive temperament, all of which were becoming organized into a strong, striking, and attractive personality. The reading encompassed Paper 127:1.1-2.10, p. 1395

With the close of this fifteenth year Jesus completed the traversal of that dangerous and difficult period in human existence, that time of transition between the more complacent years of childhood and the consciousness of approaching manhood with its increased responsibilities and opportunities for the acquirement of advanced experience in the development of a noble character. The reading encompassed Paper 126:5-127:0, p. 1392

The adolescent Jesus’ profound periods of meditation, his frequent journeys to the hilltop for prayer, and the many strange ideas which he advanced from time to time, thoroughly alarmed his mother. Sometimes she thought the lad was beside himself, and then she would steady her fears, remembering that he was, after all, a child of promise and in some manner different from other youths. The reading encompassed Paper 126:3.7-4.9, p. 1390

It was during the calendar year of his fifteenth birthday that Jesus first formulated the prayer which he subsequently taught to his apostles, and which to many has become known as “The Lord’s Prayer.” Also during that year, Jesus found a passage in the so-called Book of Enoch which influenced him in the later adoption of the term “Son of Man” as a designation for his bestowal mission on Urantia. The reading encompassed Paper 126:2.2-3.6, p. 1388