Spiritual Advice and Guidance Blog: Urantia Book

While TUB has quite a few references for the Golden Rule, there is no new description of it - it remains "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you," but the teachings of the Urantia Book, and more especially, the teachings of Jesus elevate the Golden Rule and add a new dimension to it. Jesus referred to the Golden Rule as the Rule of Living.

Here are a few more passages which speak of this age-old "rule of living:"

From the Sermon on the Mount to the discourse of the Last Supper, Jesus taught his followers to manifest fatherly love rather than brotherly love. Brotherly love would love your neighbor as you love yourself, and that would be adequate fulfillment of the "golden rule." But fatherly affection would require that you should love your fellow mortals as Jesus loves you. p1573:3(140:5.1)

... Jesus' morality was always positive. The golden rule as restated by Jesus demands active social contact; the older negative rule could be obeyed in isolation. Jesus stripped morality of all rules and ceremonies and elevated it to majestic levels of spiritual thinking and truly righteous living. p1585:3(140:10.5)

In the kingdom of the believing brotherhood of God-knowing truth lovers, this golden rule takes on living qualities of spiritual realization on those higher levels of interpretation which cause the mortal sons of God to view this injunction of the Master as requiring them so to relate themselves to their fellows that they will receive the highest possible good as a result of the believer's contact with them. This is the essence of true religion: that you love your neighbor as yourself.
p1950:2(180:5.7)

This Truthbook page reveals the Golden Rule as taught by many earth religions, including Christianity.

Labels: brotherhhod of man, golden rule, Jesus, neighbor, religion, rule of living, The Urantia Book

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Sunday, December 07, 2008

I am so small, how can I ever be accepted in God's world?

Q: I am so small, how can I ever be accepted in God's world?

A: Thank you for this important question.

It is a good thing to have a sense of your own smallness in the larger scheme of things. In The Urantia Book, we learn that "The soil essential for religious growth presupposes ...a normal consciousness of smallness, humility." (read more about humility here">)

But humility is in no way self-abasement, and should not produce feelings of insignificance. Your smallness doesn't mean that you are not needed, or not valued in God's creation. Do you know that you are a completely unique personality? God knows you and loves you dearly, personally, and eternally.

From The Urantia Book: "The love of the Father absolutely individualizes each personality as a unique child of the Universal Father, a child without duplicate in infinity, a will creature irreplaceable in all eternity. ...The love of God ... unmistakably reveals the high value which the Universal Father has placed upon each and every one of his children from the highest creator personality of Paradise status to the lowest personality of will dignity ..." p138:4 (12:7.9)">

You are no smaller than any of God's other mortal children. In God's creation, you stand on an equal footing with everyone else, and you possess the same potentials for eternal life that all God's children enjoy. Knowing this should help you to gain a new self-respect, and to use your unique life to make a difference.

Again, from The Urantia Book: "The door of eternal life is wide open to all; "whosoever will may come"; there are no restrictions or qualifications save the faith of the one who comes. '

Your job is to make the best of whatever life has handed you - to become the best person that you can be - where you are and as you are. Faith in God, faith in your status as a beloved child of God, and service in the brotherhood of man will help you understand that you are a valuable part of God's world, which is also YOUR world, made for you, and for all of us. We all need God, and we all need each other. You are part of a grand family, and you belong, no matter how small you may sometimes feel. Accept your smallness, but also know that you are accepted by God, and needed in his creation; otherwise, you would not be here!

Jesus can offer you some great advice on the business of living HERE. His advice is always practical. Jesus was a truly humble man, and yet he is still the most influential religious person to ever have walked the earth.

Finally, I offer this wonderful quote for your consideration:

Do not allow the magnitude of the infinity, the immensity of the eternity, and the grandeur and glory of the matchless character of God to overawe, stagger, or discourage you; for the Father is not very far from any one of you; he dwells within you, and in him do we all literally move, actually live, and veritably have our being.
p139:1(12:7.12)">

Labels: brotherhhod of man, God, humility, Jesus, service, smallness, The Urantia Book

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Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man in the Bible?

Q: If Jesus preached so consistently about the universal fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man why is there so little record of it in the NT. What references are there?

A: Thank you for writing to us at Truthbook.com

I am including a reference which you might find interesting here. In this article, entitled "Theism: The Fatherhood of God," the author, Robert L. Waggoner, cites many instances of the Fatherhood of God contained in the New Testament. I found this article with a Google search, and there may be others.

I also did a search for "brotherhood of man," but I was not able to find specific Biblical references using those particular words; however, the concept of the brotherhood of man is well-illuminated in these important references which definitely carry the essence of the Master's teachings regarding the brotherhood of man:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt. 22:36-39)

"He said to him, 'What is written in the law? How do you read?' The lawyer answered, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."' Then Jesus told him, "You have answered right; do this, and you will live" (Luke 10:26-28).

Finally, the story of The Good Samaritan is an excellent reference to this topic and it is found in Luke 10:29-37

Another resource that you might find useful is The Paramony, which is a comparison of specific books of the Bible with corresponding information in The Urantia Book.

As you may know from reading The Urantia Book and the Life and Teachings of Jesus, the religion OF Jesus was quickly transformed into the religion ABOUT Jesus after his death and resurrection. Following the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth at Pentecost, a whole new direction was taken.

Here is a passage from The Urantia Book which details this:

p2066:4 (194:4.4) What has happened to these men whom Jesus had ordained to go forth preaching the gospel of the kingdom, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man? They have a new gospel; they are on fire with a new experience; they are filled with a new spiritual energy. Their message has suddenly shifted to the proclamation of the risen Christ: "Jesus of Nazareth, a man God approved by mighty works and wonders; him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you did crucify and slay. The things which God foreshadowed by the mouth of all the prophets, he thus fulfilled. This Jesus did God raise up. God has made him both Lord and Christ. Being by the right hand of God, exalted, and having received from the Father the promise of the spirit, he has poured forth this which you see and hear. Repent, that your sins may be blotted out; that the Father may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you, even Jesus, whom the heaven must receive until the times of the restoration of all things."

The gospel of the kingdom, the message of Jesus, had been suddenly changed into the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. They now proclaimed the facts of his life, death, and resurrection and preached the hope of his speedy return to this world to finish the work he began. Thus the message of the early believers had to do with preaching about the facts of his first coming and with teaching the hope of his second coming, an event which they deemed to be very near at hand.

Christ was about to become the creed of the rapidly forming church. Jesus lives; he died for men; he gave the spirit; he is coming again. Jesus filled all their thoughts and determined all their new concept of God and everything else. They were too much enthused over the new doctrine that "God is the Father of the Lord Jesus" to be concerned with the old message that "God is the loving Father of all men," even of every single individual. True, a marvelous manifestation of brotherly love and unexampled good will did spring up in these early communities of believers. But it was a fellowship of believers in Jesus, not a fellowship of brothers in the family kingdom of the Father in heaven. Their good will arose from the love born of the concept of Jesus' bestowal and not from the recognition of the brotherhood of mortal man. Nevertheless, they were filled with joy, and they lived such new and unique lives that all men were attracted to their teachings about Jesus. They made the great mistake of using the living and illustrative commentary on the gospel of the kingdom for that gospel, but even that represented the greatest religion mankind had ever known.

Earlier in the Jesus Papers, we find this description of the written records of the four evangelists -Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - and this is an interesting commentary on these most quoted sources of Biblical information regarding Jesus and his teachings, and maybe a further explanation why Jesus' orginal teachings are conspicuously absent.

Thank you for this most interesting question.

Labels: Bible, brotherhhod of man, Fatherhood of God, Good Samaritan, Jesus, New testament, Pentecost, The Urantia Book