Pairs that find each other

25. Greatness lies not so much in possessing strength as in making a wise and divine use of such strength.

But let our strength be a law of righteousness; for that which is weak is proven useless.

And when the mortal end shall finally come upon us,

You will groan at your latter end, when your flesh and your body are consumed,

The human sacrifice, throughout the course of the evolution of Urantian rituals, has advanced from the bloody business of man-eating to higher and more symbolic levels. The early rituals of sacrifice bred the later ceremonies of sacrament. In more recent times the priest alone would partake of a bit of the cannibalistic sacrifice or a drop of human blood, and then all would partake of the animal substitute. These early ideas of ransom, redemption, and covenants have evolved into the later-day sacramental services. And all this ceremonial evolution has exerted a mighty socializing influence.

merciless slaughters of children and sacrificial banquets of men’s flesh and of blood—

In the Book of Hebrew Proverbs, chapters fifteen, seventeen, twenty, and chapter twenty-two, verse seventeen, to chapter twenty-four, verse twenty-two, are taken almost verbatim from Amenemope’s Book of Wisdom. The first psalm of the Hebrew Book of Psalms was written by Amenemope and is the heart of the teachings of Ikhnaton.

These also are proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied out.

In the affairs of men’s hearts the Universal Father may not always have his way; but in the conduct and destiny of a planet the divine plan prevails; the eternal purpose of wisdom and love triumphs.

There are many plans in a man’s heart, but Yahweh’s counsel will prevail.

The essentials of the temporal life, as I see them, are:

The essentials of life are water, bread, a garment, and a house for privacy.

The partially evolved mental mechanism of mortal man is not overendowed with consistency and wisdom. Man’s conceit often outruns his reason and eludes his logic.

For the thoughts of mortals are unstable, and our plans are prone to fail.

7. The interpretation of dreams is largely a superstitious and groundless system of ignorant and fantastic speculation. The gospel of the kingdom must have nothing in common with the soothsayer priests of primitive religion.

Divinations, and soothsayings, and dreams, are vain. The heart has fantasies like a woman in labor.

This woman, once comely, was the wife of an inferior citizen of Nazareth, a man who had been a troublemaker for Jesus throughout his youthful days. The man, having married this woman, did most shamefully force her to earn their living by making commerce of her body. He had come up to the feast at Jerusalem that his wife might thus prostitute her physical charms for financial gain. He had entered into a bargain with the hirelings of the Jewish rulers thus to betray his own wife in her commercialized vice. And so they came with the woman and her companion in transgression for the purpose of ensnaring Jesus into making some statement which could be used against him in case of his arrest.

Behold, there a woman met him with the attire of a prostitute, and with crafty intent.

1. Physical labor. Cultivation of the soil, associated with home building and embellishment.

Prepare your work outside, and get your fields ready. Afterwards, build your house.

The mortals of the realms will arise in the morning of the resurrection with the same type of transition or morontia body that Jesus had when he arose from the tomb on this Sunday morning. These bodies do not have circulating blood, and such beings do not partake of ordinary material food; nevertheless, these morontia forms are real. When the various believers saw Jesus after his resurrection, they really saw him; they were not the self-deceived victims of visions or hallucinations.

So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body.

2. The suckling child.

The tongue of the nursing child clings to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask for bread, and no one breaks it for them.

These highland Badonites occupied an extensive plateau surrounded by forests, traversed by streams, and abounding in game. Like some of their cousins in Tibet, they lived in crude stone huts, hillside grottoes, and semiunderground passages.

The high mountains are for the wild goats. The rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers.

Always keep in mind: True religion is to know God as your Father and man as your brother. Religion is not a slavish belief in threats of punishment or magical promises of future mystical rewards.

If anyone among you thinks himself to be religious while he doesn’t bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this man’s religion is worthless. Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

“Guest friendship” was a relation of temporary hospitality. When visiting guests departed, a dish would be broken in half, one piece being given the departing friend so that it would serve as a suitable introduction for a third party who might arrive on a later visit. It was customary for guests to pay their way by telling tales of their travels and adventures. The storytellers of olden times became so popular that the mores eventually forbade their functioning during either the hunting or harvest seasons.

of reckoning with a partner and with travellers, of a gift from the inheritance of friends,

7. Provision for the future. Temporal fathers like to leave an inheritance for their sons. The family continues from one generation to another. Death only ends one generation to mark the beginning of another. Death terminates an individual life but not necessarily the family.

Like the leaves flourishing on a thick tree, some it sheds, and some grow, so also are the generations of flesh and blood: one comes to an end and another is born.

The custom of sacrifice eventually became associated, as a result of advancing teachings, with the idea of the covenant. At last, the gods were conceived of as entering into real agreements with man; and this was a major step in the stabilization of religion. Law, a covenant, takes the place of luck, fear, and superstition.

For holy children of good men offered sacrifice in secret, and with one consent they agreed to the covenant of the divine law, that they would partake alike in the same good things and the same perils, the fathers already leading the sacred songs of praise.

7. The public builders — the artisans who plan and construct the designated places of assembly other than those of worship. Great and magnificent are the places of common assembly.

with kings and counselors of the earth, who built up waste places for themselves;

3. I promise to obey the seven commandments of Melchizedek and to tell the good news of this covenant with the Most High to all men.

I have sworn, and have confirmed it, that I will obey your righteous ordinances.

2. Wives of affection and permission.

Wives, be in subjection to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.