The school year is back in full swing. I am tutoring several students a week in History, English, Grammar, even Religion (with my Catholic school student). Many times I reflect on how much “the kids” have taught me over the past year. “The true teacher maintains his intellectual integrity by ever remaining a learner." (The Urantia Book, The UB, 130:3.7)
Their natural interest in human rights, the “narrative of human tolerance,” and the ideals of fairness upon which our Western civilization was founded inspires me. I wonder if they too feel the threats to it, if they question whether our institutions are working well, protecting the human rights that have been achieved. For example, this current hot topic, “If men would maintain their freedom, they must, after having chosen their charter of liberty, provide for its wise, intelligent, and fearless interpretation to the end that there may be prevented … Failure of social and economic fairness.” (The UB, 70:12.6-16)
This teaching experience has been so fascinating and rewarding that quite naturally I wanted to reread The Urantia Book, Papers 130 to 133, about “the mission of Joshua the teacher,” where we enjoy the privilege of observing up close his service as a tutor from a box seat courtesy of the midwayers. In his 28th year (A.D. 22), on a visit to Jerusalem, Jesus was hired on as both tutor and interpreter for Ganid, the son of Gonod, an Indian merchant. It was a journey that would last almost two years.
Here are just some of the lessons about ideas, ideals, and higher ways of thinking and behaving that Jesus set out to reinforce in his 17 year old protege as they sojourned at Rome and other cities of the Mediterranean. In this personal ministry, Jesus tried out many ideas he would later use in the public ministry that he would begin upon his return to Israel.
Show sympathetic understanding, initiate conversations, “To become acquainted with one’s brothers and sisters, to know their problems and to learn to love them, is the supreme experience of living." (130:2.6)
Lead a life of friendly and loving service: He taught Ganid his technique of making friends. “Become interested in your fellows; learn how to love them and watch for the opportunity to do something for them which you are sure they want done," (130:7.2) so refreshing in our time when dog-eat-dog competitiveness is becoming the norm in the business world.
Guide seekers into doing the will of God, into making “wholehearted” decisions, spiritual choices. In answering Ganid’s question about whether a dog had a soul, Jesus said, “Human wills which are fully occupied with passing only upon temporal decisions having to do with the material problems of animal existence are doomed to perish in time. Those who make wholehearted moral decisions and unqualified spiritual choices are thus progressively identified with the indwelling and divine spirit, and thereby are they increasingly transformed into the values of eternal survival—unending progression of divine service." (130:2.9)
Live the truth and thus lead others to living a spiritual life. “You, my son, will be like this lighthouse [in Alexandria] when you return to India, … you will become like the light of life to those who sit about you in darkness, showing all who so desire the way to reach the harbor of salvation in safety.” (130:3.2) Ganid squeezed his hand in acknowledgement, saying, “I will.”
“All those who know the way of truth and enjoy the assurance of knowing God should esteem it a privilege, not a duty, to offer guidance to their fellows in their efforts to find the satisfactions of living.” (132:6.1)
I’m often not consciously aware of such opportunities in my own work except that I’m always ready to give my students an education in religious history they haven’t received anywhere else.
Later in Rome, Jesus reinforced this message when Ganid was surprised that they passed a “thoughtless pagan” without making conversation as he frequently did. Jesus explained that the man was “not hungry for truth.” “If we know God, our real business on earth is so to live as to permit the Father to reveal himself in our lives, and thus will all God-seeking persons see the Father and ask for our help in finding out more about the God who in this manner finds expression in our lives.” (132:7.2)
Guide others to the safety and security of a life with God: “Did we not supremely enjoy this ministry of restoring the child to his mother? So do those who lead men to God experience the supreme satisfaction of human service.” And from that day forward, for the remainder of his natural life, Ganid was continually on the lookout for lost children whom he might restore to their homes.” (132:6.1)
Discern the universal truth in the many paths taken in all religious teachings and revelations: As “they discussed again and again all the religions of the world,” Jesus tried “to point out to this young mind the truth in each” (130:3.4). Ganid was inspired to make “a collection of the teachings of the world’s religions about God and his relations with mortal man.” At his father’s expense, Ganid employed several translators to make an “abstract of the religious doctrines of the world.” (131:0.1)
I can’t help wondering if “Ganid’s manuscript … prepared at Alexandria and Rome, and … preserved in India for hundreds of years after his death,” (131:0.2) will one day be discovered. [Note: Matthew Block’s source research identifies Robert Ernest Hume’s Treasure-House of the Living Religions as the parallel to “Ganid’s manuscript.”]
My students sometimes experience conflict about what direction to take in their “earth careers.” They are about to choose between a materialistic profession or making the idealistic choice to serve humanity. We see how old this primal conflict is, once again, a father urging his son to get a good-paying job. Ganid’s father comments one evening, "I propose to make a scholar or a businessman of my son, and now you start out to make a philosopher or philanthropist of him." And Jesus smilingly replied: "Perhaps we will make him all four; then can he enjoy a fourfold satisfaction in life as his ear for the recognition of human melody will be able to recognize four tones instead of one." (132:6.3)
Above all, be of good cheer! “You are born into the world, but no amount of anxiety and no manifestation of impatience will help you to grow up. You must, in all such matters, wait upon time. Time alone will ripen the green fruit upon the tree. Season follows season and sundown follows sunrise only with the passing of time. I am now on the way to Rome with you and your father, and that is sufficient for today. My tomorrow is wholly in the hands of my Father in heaven.” (130:5.3)
