Jesus, the apostles, and some of the former followers of John, spent about two months travelling around Galilee on this preaching tour. “This was the first time Jesus permitted these associates to preach without restraint, on this tour

“Now that John the Baptist had been executed, Jesus prepared to launch out into the first open and public preaching tour of Galilee.” Jesus taught in the Capernaum synagogue during their visit there, using the Hebrew scriptures to illustrate the message. It was also a time when a large number of people came to be healed of their infirmities by Jesus. The fame of this healing “spread throughout all Galilee and Judea and to the regions beyond.” “Chiefly because of this...demonstration of physical healing, throughout the remainder of the earth

”There were a number of reasons why Jesus and the apostles were in retirement at this time on the borders of Samaria and the Decapolis. The Jerusalem religious rulers were very antagonistic; Herod Antipas still held John in prison, continuing to entertain suspicions that John and Jesus were in some way associated. These conditions made it unwise to plan for aggressive work in either Judea or

“For more than six hundred years the Jews of Judea, and later on those of Galilee also, had been hostile to the Samaritans.” “The religious hostility between the Jews and

“Throughout this month Jesus or one of the apostles taught each day in the temple. When the Passover crowds were too great to find entrance to the temple teaching, the apostles conducted many teaching groups outside the sacred precincts.” “The multitudes who came to celebrate the Passover heard this teaching of Jesus, and hundreds of them gladly received it.” “Besides teaching in and about the temple, the apostles and other followers were engaged in doing much personal work among the Passover throngs. These interested followers carried the news of Jesus’ message from this Passover celebration to the uttermost parts of the Roman Empire and also to the East. This was the beginning of the spread of the doctrine of the new realm to the outside world.”

Jesus and the apostles spent more than two weeks teaching and preaching to several hundred people who had gathered near them. “Jesus did no public preaching. Andrew divided the multitude and assigned the preachers for the morning and afternoon assemblies. After the evening meal Jesus talked with the twelve, teaching them nothing new but reviewing former teaching and answering their many questions.” “From night to night Andrew carefully instructed the other apostles in the delicate and difficult task of getting along smoothly with the followers of John the Baptist. During this first year of Jesus’ public ministry more than

Jesus told the twelve, “Now that you are ambassadors of the Creator’s realm, you have become a class separate and distinct from all other people on earth. You are not now as

“The apostles learned from Jesus about the realm of the Creator, and Jesus learned much from them about the realm of mortals, human nature as it lives on Urantia and on the

“Until after the resurrection, Jesus’ entire family had very little to do with the public ministry.” As for the six apostles, Jesus directed them “...to go out, two and two, to teach the glad tidings of the new age. Jesus forbade them to baptize

After the period of isolation, Jesus returned and began the work of choosing the apostles, starting with Andrew and Peter, who had been followers of John, and also including James and John Zebedee. “...the term apostle was employed to distinguish the chosen family of Jesus’ advisers from the vast multitude of believing disciples who subsequently became followers.” Two more apostles, Philip