What is spiritual brotherhood?

[Mara]

I am thrilled others are participating here.  I can tell by your words you are inspired.  We inspire each other and I truly believe each of us is getting new insights through the process of our sharing here.  I’m always worried about the philosophic fallacy of abstraction which is the practice of focusing the attention upon one aspect of reality and then of pronouncing such an isolated aspect to be the whole truth. (P.42 – §6)

Jesus of Nazareth, as a man among men, personally achieved the status of light and life over nineteen hundred years ago on Urantia. (P.636 – §0)   Our Creator Son and God are one.  He admonishes every kingdom believer to become one with him even as he and his Father are one.  (P.1985 – §1)  This is about the individual, not the temporal group.  Our Creator Son Jesus stands. for both the Father and the Eternal Son to the creatures of ten million inhabited worlds.  (P.80 – §0)

 

Vern wrote: “The true church—the Jesus brotherhood—is invisible, spiritual. . . .” [Paper 195:10.11, page 2085.3]

 

The true church is not temporal. It has no man-made boundaries. No organizations, churches or communities can encompass it.  It’s invisible because it is within.  It is personal.

 

P.1862 – §7   The religion of the kingdom is personal, individual; the fruits, the results, are familial, social. Jesus never failed to exalt the sacredness of the individual as contrasted with the community. But he also recognized that man develops his character by unselfish service; that he unfolds his moral nature in loving relations with his fellows.

– §8   By teaching that the kingdom is within, by exalting the individual, Jesus struck the deathblow of the old society in that he ushered in the new dispensation of true social righteousness. This new order of society the world has little known because it has refused to practice the principles of the gospel of the kingdom of heaven. And when this kingdom of spiritual per-eminence does come upon the earth, it will not be manifested in mere improved social and material conditions, but rather in the glories of those enhanced and enriched spiritual values which are characteristic of the approaching age of improved human relations and advancing spiritual attainments.

 

It’s the “Jesus brotherhood” because —

P.1711 – §3   “The Father and I are one; the Son does only that which the Father teaches him, while all those who are given to the Son by the Father, the Son will receive to himself. You have read where it is written in the Prophets, You shall all be taught by God,' and thatThose whom the Father teaches will hear also his Son.’ Every one who yields to the teaching of the Father’s indwelling spirit will eventually come to me.”

 

“Eventually,” he says,  because there are religions whose practitioners do not believe Jesus is the Son of God.  Do you think the Jesus brotherhood is a subset of the spiritual brotherhood?  Or is spiritual brotherhood a subset of of the Jesus brotherhood?  Or are they one and the same?

 

 

[Bradly]

I think they are one and the same.  At least for mortals on the material worlds.  Knowledge of specifics is not a requirement to be in the circle of believers.  It is the belief and faith OF Jesus that defines this singular group and not, yet, any belief IN Jesus or Michael or any other being other than the Father…or so I understand the teachings.  All who hear the true voice, hear the same voice.  All who respond to the Spirits of the Father, Mother, and Son respond to the same spirit.  All who bring their will into reality alignment are abiding in the same family and same brotherhood/sisterhood.  The words chosen to acknowledge or describe this reality experience in love and in service are irrelevant compared to the experience itself and the results which flow….the fruits of the spirit derive from the true vine.  Always.

196:0.13 (2089.3) Jesus does not require his disciples to believe in him but rather to believe with him, believe in the reality of the love of God and in full confidence accept the security of the assurance of sonship with the heavenly Father. The Master desires that all his followers should fully share his transcendent faith. Jesus most touchingly challenged his followers, not only to believe what he believed, but also to believe as he believed. This is the full significance of his one supreme requirement, “Follow me.”

196:0.14 (2090.1) Jesus’ earthly life was devoted to one great purpose — doing the Father’s will, living the human life religiously and by faith. The faith of Jesus was trusting, like that of a child, but it was wholly free from presumption. He made robust and manly decisions, courageously faced manifold disappointments, resolutely surmounted extraordinary difficulties, and unflinchingly confronted the stern requirements of duty. It required a strong will and an unfailing confidence to believe what Jesus believed and as he believed.

170:5.11 (1865.1) The kingdom, to the Jews, was the Israelite community; to the gentiles it became the Christian church. To Jesus the kingdom was the sum of those individuals who had confessed their faith in the fatherhood of God, thereby declaring their wholehearted dedication to the doing of the will of God, thus becoming members of the spiritual brotherhood of man.

[Mara]

Well said Bradly!  Thank you.

 

We self-identify as faith-sons, sons of the living God. God is always first and foremost to me. We worship him, not Jesus. Jesus founded the religion of personal experience in doing the will of God. Jesus makes the living God more real to us by the life he lived and as his SoT ever reveals to us. Christianity got it wrong, because Paul, the organizer and overseer of his enlarging flock of believers, saw the glorified Jesus as the object of worship. Paul’s idea of the kingdom of God included his flock of believers and eventually it became the brotherhood-church, as against other people who believed in God but who had other religious traditions which did not accept Jesus as the Son of God. Are those others who do not accept Jesus as the Son of God included in the spiritual brotherhood?

 

196:2:6   Jesus founded the religion of personal experience in doing the will of God and serving the human brotherhood; Paul founded a religion in which the glorified Jesus became the object of worship and the brotherhood consisted of fellow believers in the divine Christ. In the bestowal of Jesus these two concepts were potential in his divine-human life, and it is indeed a pity that his followers failed to create a unified religion which might have given proper recognition to both the human and the divine natures of the Master as they were inseparably bound up in his earth life and so gloriously set forth in the original gospel of the kingdom.

196:3:19    The Hebrews had a religion of moral sublimity; the Greeks evolved a religion of beauty; Paul and his conferees founded a religion of faith, hope, and charity. Jesus revealed and exemplified a religion of love: security in the Father’s love, with joy and satisfaction consequent upon sharing this love in the service of the human brotherhood.

 

[Bradly]

The question I have is this:  are those who believe in God but exclude others by their creeds, doctrines, ceremonies, “holy” books, etc. IN the spiritual brotherhood or do they exclude themselves by their exclusion of others?  Must love overcome all such judgments and distinctions held by the believer for inclusion?  For does not the definition of member also require the recognition that all people are the children of God and we are all one family?  Does such ignorance matter?

I may include those who exclude me it seems.  It’s a quandary.  Glad to leave such parsing to those more qualified.  Certainly we all end up in the same place and family.

[Anonymous]

(1962.1) ^181:2.26 And then Jesus went over to Thomas, who, standing up, heard him say: “Thomas, you have often lacked faith; however, when you have had your seasons with doubt, you have never lacked courage. I know well that the false prophets and spurious teachers will not deceive you. After I have gone, your brethren will the more appreciate your critical way of viewing new teachings. And when you all are scattered to the ends of the earth in the times to come, remember that you are still my ambassador. Dedicate your life to the great work of showing how the critical material mind of man can triumph over the inertia of intellectual doubting when faced by the demonstration of the manifestation of living truth as it operates in the experience of spirit-born men and women who yield the fruits of the spirit in their lives, and who love one another, even as I have loved you. Thomas, I am glad you joined us, and I know, after a short period of perplexity, you will go on in the service of the kingdom. Your doubts have perplexed your brethren, but they have never troubled me. I have confidence in you, and I will go before you even to the uttermost parts of the earth.”

 

[Mara]

Bradly wrote: The question I have is this: are those who believe in God but exclude others by their creeds, doctrines, ceremonies, “holy” books, etc. IN the spiritual brotherhood or do they exclude themselves by their exclusion of others?

 

Your question is similar to mine.   My opinion is that if you believe in God (by whatever name you prefer to call him) and desire to do His will, you are in the spiritual brotherhood.  You may not actually be able to recognize or verbalize your membership in this brotherhood, because of your creeds, doctrines, ceremonies, holy book, prejudices and so on. Such people exclude themselves because of their reliance  on their holy books and their reliance on interpretations of others (teachers, priests, holy men, gurus).  But from God’s view, He sees us that way in spite of all other of our differences and preferences we might promulgate or manifest.

Jesus said the spiritual brotherhood is the sum of all individuals who confess their faith in the fatherhood of God and declare to do His will, the text of which you have so graciously provided us.

Bradly wrote: 170:5.11 (1865.1) The kingdom, to the Jews, was the Israelite community; to the gentiles it became the Christian church. To Jesus the kingdom was the sum of those individuals who had confessed their faith in the fatherhood of God, thereby declaring their wholehearted dedication to the doing of the will of God, thus becoming members of the spiritual brotherhood of man.

Bradly wrote:  For does not the definition of member also require the recognition that all people are the children of God and we are all one family?

Technically, we are one family.  From God’s view, there are two great groups: those who desire to do His will, and those who do not.  He encourages even the faintest flicker of faith, and we are admonished not to judge another’s faith.  Such matters are between God and the individual.  We can discern the results of loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace.   Are these divine fruits of the spirit exclusive only to one group of people?

Bradly wrote:  Does such ignorance matter?

In my opinion, no, because as you say we’re all going to end up in the same place and family in the morontia.  It does not matter whether you know or whether you do not know you are a member of the spiritual brotherhood.

Students of the UB do know more, and therefore, these discussions take place among us for our mutual edification.  The more we know, the more we are accountable for.

Bradly wrote:  Must love overcome all such judgments and distinctions held by the believer for inclusion?

In my opinion, yes, eventually love will by its benign virus of its contagion.  Thanks Midi for that great reference to what Jesus told Thomas.  It’s spot on.

 

 

[Mark Kurtz]

Friends, do you recall Jesus would say to individuals, “My friend, I perceive you are not far from the Kingdom of Heaven”?  In observing such persons, he did not place judgements about their spiritual difficulties or “pigeon hole” them.  Instead, he observed them moving in the right direction.  Recall the authors tell us our present situation is not as important as the direction in which we are moving.  It is our decisions that place us into the Kingdom, which if we continue in sustaining and sincere desire, will maintain us in the spiritual brotherhood.  Being within the spiritual brotherhood is a divine judgment on high, perhaps each day.  Continual choosing (moving) is observed on high as accumulating affirmation of our soul’s desire.  This continued affirmation and moving in the right direction eventually results in fusion with the Father’s Adjuster.

Spirit we cannot see, but we are in the Brotherhood Jesus established if we choose the Father’s will.  It is this choosing that is the ticket to membership.  This choosing must be sincere and honest of heart.  Therefore, entry into the “membership” is sincerity, more sincerity, and still more sincerity.   Marvelous is it all!!!!!!!

[Bradly]

Yes Mark….Jesus taught that by every single choice we either draw nearer or step back from reality or closeness to God.  He also told the story of the prodigal son.  No matter our choices, we remain in the family of God and abide in his love until we come to our senses and gain perspective to priorities.  The love is never withheld even when it is rejected or unknown by the child.

 

[Vern]

Bradly wrote: …the story of the prodigal son.

A good illustration of both the love of the Father and the capacity of an errant child to return home, be forgiven.

I was posting today’s Though Gem and was thinking it is an example of the power of the spiritual brotherhood to cause unbelievers to ponder, whence comes such certainty—the strength of character to be a living example of such profound and unshakable faith?

The certainty of the God-knowing religionist

should not be disturbed by the uncertainty

of the doubting materialist,

rather should the uncertainty of the unbeliever

be mightily challenged by the profound faith

and unshakable certainty of the experiential believer. 

^{[Paper 103:8.5, page 1140.5]}

 

[Mara]

So lovely, my brothers! So well spoken.  Thank you so much.

I’d like to bring you further along with me on this spirit adventure. I am so thrilled each one of you have been inspired to contribute here. I miss Bonita, but even so we make a good study team without her. Perhaps a day will come when she can set aside her irritations and join us again. I hope so, and  I hope I haven’t flubbed up on the reference links I’ve used in this post.
We’re told, “. . .polytheism is monotheism in the making.” Moses taught monotheism. Many African tribes, except through missionary work of Christians and Mohammedans, are not yet beyond the fetish stage of religious evolution. (92:6:1 ) Ikhnaton swung a whole nation from polytheism to monotheism in the guise of the sun-god. ( 95:5:6)  “The Hindus likewise combined their multifarious deities into the ‘one spirituality of the gods’ portrayed in the Rig-Veda, while the Mesopotamians reduced their gods to the more centralized concept of Bel-Marduk. These ideas of monotheism matured all over the world not long after the appearance of Machiventa Melchizedek at Salem in Palestine.  But the Melchizedek concept of Deity was unlike that of the evolutionary philosophy of inclusion, subordination, and exclusion; it was based exclusively on creative power and very soon influenced the highest deity concepts of Mesopotamia, India, and Egypt.” (96:0:1) In the Hebrews monotheism was not an unbroken and continuous conceptual development (96:1:2 ), “. . . they nearly lost their opportunity of becoming the people who would serve as a vital link in the spiritual evolution of Urantia, the group who would conserve the Melchizedek teaching of one God until the times of the incarnation of a bestowal Son of that Father of all.” (96:6:2 ) “And the Greeks would have eventually achieved a true monotheism in the concept of Zeus except for their retention of the overcontrol of Fate. A God of final value must, himself, be the arbiter of fate and the creator of destiny.” (98:1:3 ) “The great monotheists, the Hebrews and Mohammedans, found it difficult to distinguish between worshiping three gods, polytheism, and trinitarianism, the worship of one Deity existing in a triune manifestation of divinity and personality.” (104:1:9 )  “And it should be made plain in this record that all these teachings portraying monotheism were largely derived, directly or indirectly, from the preachments of the missionaries of Machiventa Melchizedek, who went forth from their Salem headquarters to spread the doctrine of one God–the Most High–to the ends of the earth.” (131:0:1 )

 
I keep going back to Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom of God. When Jesus talked about “the living God,” he referred to a personal Deity–the Father in heaven. ( 1:7:1) “The Jews had long conceived of God as a king over all, even as a Father of the nation, but never before had large numbers of mortal men held the idea of God as a loving Father of the individual.” ( 141:4:1 ) And this is the Jesus-revelation. Jesus is this “. . . the gift of God to all men and for all ages–the revelation of the love of the Father in heaven for all his creatures on earth.” (175:1:5 ) “[H]is life of achieving the Father’s will becomes man’s most real and ideal revelation of the personality of God.” “[I]n Jesus’ earth life we are inspired by the perfect demonstration of such a realization and revelation of the personality of God in a truly human experience.” ( 1:6:8)

 

(145:5:6  ) When Jesus heard this, he answered: “Andrew, have I not taught you and these others that my mission on earth is the revelation of the Father, and my message the proclamation of the kingdom of heaven? How is it, then, that you would have me turn aside from my work for the gratification of the curious and for the satisfaction of those who seek for signs and wonders? Have we not been among these people all these months, and have they flocked in multitudes to hear the good news of the kingdom? Why have they now come to besiege us? Is it not because of the healing of their physical bodies rather than as a result of the reception of spiritual truth for the salvation of their souls? When men are attracted to us because of extraordinary manifestations, many of them come seeking not for truth and salvation but rather in quest of healing for their physical ailments and to secure deliverance from their material difficulties.

 

The sum and substance of the religion of Jesus became the worship of God and the service of man. “[…] Jesus made the care of God for man like the solicitude of a loving father for the welfare of his dependent children and then made this teaching the cornerstone of his religion. And thus did the doctrine of the fatherhood of God make imperative the practice of the brotherhood of man.” (159:5:7 ) To me he means that each and every one of us is in the brotherhood of man. Those people who by virtue of belief and faith in one God are in fact folded into the spiritual brotherhood. The fact of spiritual brotherhood is a new revelation to us, and the way I see it the spiritual brotherhood includes any people who have even a tiny spark of belief and faith in one God. Those who do not yet have even a tiny spark can yet discover it within themselves. The spark is now a combined spark of the Father and the Son.

(162:6:3 ) “But now has come to this generation [the generation of Jesus and ours too] the revelation of the Father of spirits through the bestowal of his Son, and all of this will certainly be followed by the bestowal of the spirit of the Father and the Son upon the children of men. To every one who has faith shall this bestowal of the spirit become the true teacher of the way which leads to the life everlasting, to the true waters of life in the kingdom of heaven on earth and in the Father’s Paradise over there.”

 

( 16:9:14)  And Fatherhood becomes, or may become, a universe reality to all moral creatures because the Father has himself bestowed personality upon all such beings and has encircuited them within the grasp of the universal personality circuit. We worship God, first, because he is, then, because he is in us, and last, because we are in him.

 

[Vern]

Mara wrote: …each and every one of us is in the brotherhood of man. Those people who by virtue of belief and faith in one God are in fact folded into the spiritual brotherhood. The fact of spiritual brotherhood is a new revelation to us, and the way I see it the spiritual brotherhood includes any people who have even a tiny spark of belief and faith in one God. Those who do not yet have even a tiny spark can yet discover it within themselves. The spark is now a combined spark of the Father and the Son.

Mara, I can appreciate from this quote, you see very clearly what spiritual brotherhood is and I’m sure you are a living example day-by-day.

The Urantia Book tells us that revelation is key to our understanding of spiritual brotherhood in that it clears up confusion of evolutionary history and saves time, by providing answers vital to spiritual progress, that we would not otherwise know. Jesus has shown the way to immediate attainment of spiritual brotherhood, however, social brotherhood requires a series of defined personal transformations and associated planetary adjustments.

Even on normal evolutionary worlds the realization of the world-wide brotherhood of man is not an easy accomplishment. On a confused and disordered planet like Urantia such an achievement requires a much longer time and necessitates far greater effort. Unaided social evolution can hardly achieve such happy results on a spiritually isolated sphere. Religious revelation is essential to the realization of brotherhood on Urantia. While Jesus has shown the way to the immediate attainment of spiritual brotherhood, the realization of social brotherhood on your world depends much on the achievement of the following personal transformations and planetary adjustments:

1. Social fraternity. Multiplication of international and interracial social contacts and fraternal associations through travel, commerce, and competitive play. Development of a common language and the multiplication of multilinguists. The racial and national interchange of students, teachers, industrialists, and religious philosophers. ^{[Paper52:6.3, 597.4]}

2. Intellectual cross-fertilization. Brotherhood is impossible on a world whose inhabitants are so primitive that they fail to recognize the folly of unmitigated selfishness. There must occur an exchange of national and racial literature. Each race must become familiar with the thought of all races; each nation must know the feelings of all nations. Ignorance breeds suspicion, and suspicion is incompatible with the essential attitude of sympathy and love. ^{[Paper52:6.4, 597.5]}

3. Ethical awakening. Only ethical consciousness can unmask the immorality of human intolerance and the sinfulness of fratricidal strife. Only a moral conscience can condemn the evils of national envy and racial jealousy. Only moral beings will ever seek for that spiritual insight which is essential to living the golden rule. ^{[Paper52:6.5, 597.6]}

4. Political wisdom. Emotional maturity is essential to self-control. Only emotional maturity will insure the substitution of international techniques of civilized adjudication for the barbarous arbitrament of war. Wise statesmen will sometime work for the welfare of humanity even while they strive to promote the interest of their national or racial groups. Selfish political sagacity is ultimately suicidal — destructive of all those enduring qualities which insure planetary group survival. ^{[Paper52:6.6, 598.1]}

5. Spiritual insight. The brotherhood of man is, after all, predicated on the recognition of the fatherhood of God. The quickest way to realize the brotherhood of man on Urantia is to effect the spiritual transformation of present-day humanity. The only technique for accelerating the natural trend of social evolution is that of applying spiritual pressure from above, thus augmenting moral insight while enhancing the soul capacity of every mortal to understand and love every other mortal. Mutual understanding and fraternal love are transcendent civilizers and mighty factors in the world-wide realization of the brotherhood of man. ^{[Paper52:6.7, 598.2]}

Five essential steps of brotherly love that need to be achieved:

1. Social fraternity—education and cross cultural exchange—fraternal associations through travel, commerce, and competitive play.
2. Intellectual cross-fertilization—knowledge is possessed only by sharing—Ignorance breeds suspicion, and suspicion is incompatible with the essential attitude of sympathy and love.
3. Ethical awakening—do unto others as you would have done to you—seek for that spiritual insight which is essential to living the golden rule. The appearance of genuine brotherhood signifies that a social order has arrived in which all men delight in bearing one another’s burdens; they actually desire to practice the golden rule.
4. Political wisdom—blessed are the peacemakers—substitution of international techniques of civilized adjudication for the barbarous arbitrament of war.
5. Spiritual insight—recognition of the fatherhood of God.

Jesus spoke to Nathaniel of the fallibility of previous written records and the need to guard against the tendency to venerate sacred books. Just as we Urantia Book Readers need to focus on the living faith which lights us from within and only resort to word symbols to fan the inner flame of truth which leads us to comprehend all truth relative to innate capacity for reception—personal religious experience.

“The thing most deplorable is not merely this erroneous idea of the absolute perfection of the Scripture record and the infallibility of its teachings, but rather the confusing misinterpretation of these sacred writings by the tradition-enslaved scribes and Pharisees at Jerusalem. And now will they employ both the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures and their misinterpretations thereof in their determined effort to withstand these newer teachings of the gospel of the kingdom. Nathaniel, never forget, the Father does not limit the revelation of truth to any one generation or to any one people. Many earnest seekers after the truth have been, and will continue to be, confused and disheartened by these doctrines of the perfection of the Scriptures.” ^{[Paper 159:4.6, page 1768.2]}

“The authority of truth is the very spirit that indwells its living manifestations, and not the dead words of the less illuminated and supposedly inspired men of another generation. And even if these holy men of old lived inspired and spirit-filled lives, that does not mean that their words were similarly spiritually inspired. Today we make no record of the teachings of this gospel of the kingdom lest, when I have gone, you speedily become divided up into sundry groups of truth contenders as a result of the diversity of your interpretation of my teachings. For this generation it is best that we live these truths while we shun the making of records.” ^{[Paper 159:4.7, page 1768:3]}

“Mark you well my words, Nathaniel, nothing which human nature has touched can be regarded as infallible. Through the mind of man divine truth may indeed shine forth, but always of relative purity and partial divinity. The creature may crave infallibility, but only the Creators possess it.” ^{[Paper 159:4.8, page 1768.4]}

 

 

[Mara]

Vern wrote:  Jesus has shown the way to immediate attainment of spiritual brotherhood, however, social brotherhood requires a series of defined personal transformations and associated planetary adjustments.

You and I are tracking along the same line of thinking, Vern, and I am so grateful for your participation here!  I do want to discuss social brotherhood.  My aim in discussing spiritual brotherhood is to follow with a discussion of social brotherhood which already Bradly has commented upon ( #15528 ). The two are indissolubly linked in my opinion, as the expression “my cup runneth over” conveys to me.  The spiritual brotherhood within is out-flowing to your neighbor, to the neighborhood, to the world and beyond.

I wasn’t raised a Christian as such, because my parents were not believers, though they did allow me when I was a child to attend various churches with friends or with my grandmother.  I realize now how very much Christianized I really am, even though as an adult I never joined a church.  I did absorb all the Christian lingo and it does affect me and infect me.  I do call myself “a Christian” as one who deeply believes.  I call myself a “believer” unabashedly.  I do say of myself “I have been saved.” I know I have been saved.

But institutional Christianity failed to comprehend the spiritual brotherhood and does not teach it as far as I can tell.  The spiritual brotherhood, the kingdom of heaven, was a completely new idea given to us by Jesus.  His religion is the greatest religion the world has ever known.

160:5:7   The religion of Jesus transcends all our former concepts of the idea of worship in that he not only portrays his Father as the ideal of infinite reality but positively declares that this divine source of values and the eternal center of the universe is truly and personally attainable by every mortal creature who chooses to enter the kingdom of heaven on earth, thereby acknowledging the acceptance of sonship with God and brotherhood with man. That, I submit, is the highest concept of religion the world has ever known, and I pronounce that there can never be a higher since this gospel embraces the infinity of realities, the divinity of values, and the eternity of universal attainments. Such a concept constitutes the achievement of the experience of the idealism of the supreme and the ultimate.

Because the religion of Jesus is the greatest religion the world has ever known, we who are believers must study, in-depth, what is the original gospel of Jesus in its entirely – the whole cloth of it – even though the parts and pieces of His cloth have evolved to where His believers have taken it at this point in time.

[Mara]

196:0:13   Jesus does not require his disciples to believe in him but rather to believe with him, believe in the reality of the love of God and in full confidence accept the security of the assurance of sonship with the heavenly Father. The Master desires that all his followers should fully share his transcendent faith. Jesus most touchingly challenged his followers, not only to believe what he believed, but also to believe as he believed. This is the full significance of his one supreme requirement, “Follow me.”

“Follow me.” Each of us takes up a unique cross in life – unique, because personality is unique and because as individual persons we are contributing to the evolution of the Supreme Being.

196:1:5   Jesus never argued about either the fatherhood of God or the brotherhood of men; he was a living illustration of the one and a profound demonstration of the other.

The Son of Man and the Son of God.  On earth no one can exceed his teachings.

[Mara]

Mara wrote:  196:0:13 Jesus does not require his disciples to believe in him but rather to believe with him, believe in the reality of the love of God and in out the fathfull confidence accept the security of the assurance of sonship with the heavenly Father.

Some people may know deep within about the fatherhood of God.  Some people may know something of the brotherhood of man.  But I do not think believers know they are sons of God.

[Vern]

Mara wrote: …religion of Jesus is the greatest religion the world has ever known, we who are believers must study, in-depth, what is the original gospel of Jesus…

Of course the religion of Jesus is the answer to spiritual and social progress for our world and its people, this is Micael’s last bestowl world before he gained full sovereignty over his own creation. Michael is now in charge of Urantia’s planetary destiny and what the Creator undertakes, the Creator achieves.

Mara, I’m pleased we are tracking along with this topic in harmony. I did a search in The Urantia Book yesterday for the instances of the term “spiritual brotherhood” there were 22 of them, and yesterday I shared the first, which appears on page 597.

You are already familiar with the one I used in the topic I started; “What is unforgivable?”……..lack of spiritual brotherhood amongst believers, is unforgivable.

I will add the next one below and it may give another conceptual approach to this very important topic.

This comes from Paper 71 “Development of the State” on the subject of “The Evolution of Competition” with the intention of moving our thinking from current competitive selfish motivation to future ethically based co-operative service motivated patterns of behaviour.

 Throughout the earlier ages of any world, competition is essential to progressive civilization. As the evolution of man progresses, co-operation becomes increasingly effective. In advanced civilizations co-operation is more efficient than competition. Early man is stimulated by competition. Early evolution is characterized by the survival of the biologically fit, but later civilizations are the better promoted by intelligent co-operation, understanding fraternity, and spiritual brotherhood. ^{[Paper 71:5.3, page 805.3]}

Mara, you can see that this is beginning to take the subject into the area of social brotherhood.

Mara wrote: My aim in discussing spiritual brotherhood is to follow with a discussion of social brotherhood…

Yes, spiritual brotherhood is practically manifest in fruits-of-the-spirit where co-operation becomes increasingly effective, in which all men delight in bearing one another’s burdens.

[Author]

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