Home – Computing – Fitness – How to… Motivation – Product Reviews – Stories – Tips – Disclaimer.
The purpose of the small group that Jesus originally taught was intimacy, close contact, immediate answers, immediate questions, immediate satisfaction when you asked a question of the Prophet and he answered it, and with that swift response you could, should you want to, immediately incorporate the answer in to your life.
It is a distinct advantage knowing who is teaching you personally.
The three years with the small group was not Jesus original start of his ministry, the three years was with the small group, Jesus’ learning went on well before then.
The New Testament like the Book of Proverbs is out of order, like a stack of cards shuffled and then written in the order they were shuffled into, random.
The reason that they may be out of order is that the original authors didn’t have enough information to put them in order since they did not understand Jesus’ ministry and work, the cause and they wanted end results so they just placed it into text as different people told it to them, or it was deliberately written in the order it is in to confuse and lead people away from Jesus’ real mission, the work and the end results.
It is wise to understand that each religion started, as well as atheism and commercialism, they started with someone with a dream, an agenda, and this made them goal-orientated into wanting their particular agenda achieved, and if they had to fiddle with history or some religious books they did so to achieve their goals.
The people who were originally with Jesus were not important people in the Materialistic Society, they were ordinary people, people who didn’t think much of themselves and their lives, people originally sinners who conformed to what their parents and society had taught them.
Like the woman caught in adultery, someone who didn’t expect to be treated fairly and with compassion and love, but still that is how Jesus dealt with her.
Jesus treated sinners as a representative of God. So even if he had reservations at times because after all he was a badly treated human being, he was still representing God, therefore if a whore came to him for help Jesus didn’t treat her for her past or her being a whore, he treated her as God wished her treated, so that her mind could be opened to a new way, called forgiveness, love, change.
The lesson for Jesus, as a man, he saw the results of people’s lives being changed, healed, the results of love, compassion, empathy, reaching out to those who didn’t love themselves who felt bad about themselves, and then telling them that they were worthy, all right, what God wanted on His team.
Jesus welcomed the sinners who wanted to change and who had changed, they were his people, God’s people.
You must remember, the hurt sinner is far more easier to bring to God than the proud, and the wealthy, rich and arrogant, for most of them there is no hope.
Jesus and spent three years in close, basic relationship with the followers, eating together, walking dusty roads, arguing, the followers watching Jesus with the sick and the outcast and learning of the Prophets effect on people, and how being like the Prophet was a good thing, as they got personal experience observing him.
The change in the disciples wasn’t produced by a message alone, it was produced by close proximity to a man who was someone they were interested in, and in becoming like. This is God’s Will being passed on to others through the life and teachings of the Prophet.
Today our culture is a fair bit different, and the non-stop continued soaking in sinful, immoral, indecent living that rewards us by what we produce, what we give society, what we sacrifice, and how we contribute to the business around us. Instead of being rewarded with love, people are rewarded by money. Instead of people helping one another with love, they are helped by people who personally profit from helping them.
What is different today is the scale and saturation of Materialism and Commercialism, a non-stop (via entertainment mostly) marketing/advertising that reaches into the average souls pockets 24/7, a culture that measures worth by output and possessions, and platforms that reward attention over depth – we see people today via the surface vision we have of them, not their deep and often hidden character and personal goals.
God needed the Prophet to recognise that people’s selfishness is modernly dressed up as normal life, selfish ways seen as natural, the way life has always been but the delivery system for that selfishness is far more relentless than it seemed to be in Jesus’ or other Prophets times.
Today sinful living has accelerated into the entire world, pressuring the masses to conforming so that they too can be in the game for money, prosperity and fame.
The streets are paved with gold, prosperity for all, but the reality is that a few are wealthy and the rest of us work our lives away for lies, to make the few wealthy rich.
The few people with the Prophet was part of God’s strategy, it was not a limitation. The few people with Jesus was intentional, because real change tends to happen in relationships small enough for people to be truly known, felt, questioned, and loved. Closeness is a blessing, a way to get to know one another and to share information, pass on wisdom, knowledge, internal change.
We are all said to be Living Bibles to those who don’t read the Bible but see us in a daily way – such as shopping in the same place/market/store. The religious of today can quote verses, point to long distant people of the past in religious books, but the group that walked with Jesus were people who lived different than the rest of the world, and that means that they gave a visual personal example of the teachings of Jesus, and more and more people noticed their different ways, their politeness, willingness to help with no personal rewards, their views of God, their views of life, love, marriage, and so on.
They stood out in contrast to how everyone else was.
People who followed God shared possessions, helped each other out, cared for the sick during plagues when others fled, treated all people and sinful women, tax collectors, and the poor as fully human in a world that didn’t show any love, compassion or respect for them at all.
The Classes judged people by their homes, clothing, financial worth, titles, education, while Jesus and his people considered us all equal in the eyes of God who were willing to follow Jesus’ teachings.
Jesus’ teachings were from God. This did not mean that Jesus was divine, or special or better than others, because as time went others became like Jesus, equal in knowledge and the wisdom Jesus had.
In a materialistic age, the credible witness might not be better arguments but people who visibly don’t orient their lives around accumulation, status, titles and academic education, those who show what they teach and preach. they live with honour and honesty because they are honourable and honest, the salt of the Earth. Those who improve the flavour of the planet with their genuine characters.
Depth of Character is not common in conformity, as the conformists already do and act as Society has taught them, thus they see no reason to change from endless entertainment, working most of their lives away, voting that does no good, paying higher fees each year for goods and services, they don’t question the utter failure all around them, they just sit in the conformists armchair and watch TV, they don’t believe that to life there is anything more. These people are Shallow in information, shallow in wisdom, and character, ask them a hard question and they can either not answer it or the give an immature soulless answer like, “It is this way because it has always been this way.”
People with a Deep Character question everything, and they ask why and why not, and how about and what about we try this and that. They are never settled in life, rather they are forever curious, forever learning, trying to learn find new exciting ways, and this is seen by others. The conformers ignore the Deep Thinkers, and the interested see the Deep thinkers as exciting and hope.
When the prophets asked to the people, those who hear if they will hear and such questions, they were searching, seeking, wanting to freely teach the people who were excited about a new life, a life that did not consist of commercial slavery or working ones life away pointlessly, and people who didn’t judge people cruelly or see themselves as a higher class of people than other people.
The Prophets seek people, not for themselves, but so that those who want to change can change of their own free will and desire a new Blessed life or personal growth and health.
Jesus knew that those who were interested in change probably went to regular church services, thus they were taught religious doctrines, and what the Prophet teaches and makes the learning Souls aware of is the very clear differences to going to a church, paying money, and being mostly lost from God for the rest of the week, and endlessly repeating the same unfruitful behaviour patterns.
The Prophet is to show the people the Actual Healthy Benefits from following God outside of a religious setting, as people in the streets, the Prophet teaches a way to live, and then as he goes he compares the State of Social life and the Established religious Beliefs and lives to what he is teaching. Once it becomes clear to the people with the Prophet what the difference is they become aware of what they once believed and what they now believe and they can then reassure themselves that the change was worth it, and that it is also worth it to share the change with other people who want to change as well.
The size of the original group was deliberate, probably not 12, because the number 12 is supposed to show a connection with the Old Testament and old Religious beliefs. There were very likely much more.
Please be aware always that the new Testament was written with a goal in mind, and the agreed Canon Bible was also the same, thus those who put all the religion and religious books together had an agenda, and a goal, and that is why this does not work because it is not completely from god and it has also been twisted in favour of evil.
Advantages of one to one or small group teaching and new teaching is that there is no one to catch up with, thus if someone moves ahead the group can, as one, help that one person who slipped behind to understand what is being taught and will quickly and easily understand with the help of the others.
A group that has empathy with the others is a group that is concerned for all and wants to be a help to someone who needs help, this process of teaching also teaches, by practice, the group to all become teachers themselves.
People say things one-on-one they’d never say in a crowd, and that honesty is often where real change starts.
The pace of learning is the same for everyone, and if one falls behind the others will bring that person up to pace – learning a new ways of life is not a competitive sport or of one being better than the other, but that all should be equally with their own abilities and talents useful as new teachers of the faith.
Immediate correction is another facet of small group teaching.
Mistakes get noticed quickly and the correct method or answer is taught on the spot the moment they happen.
What is taught, is shown, recognised for its importance, rather than being reinforced through repetition or lost in group feedback that’s too general to help any one person.
We want the people to learn so that they don’t have to come back with questions, but are so well taught that they walk away from the teacher as if they were the original teacher, full of wisdom, new living, knowledge and gentle faith.
Small group and one on one teaching can build topics, questions and answers around what actually matters to the learner. Remember, Jesus taught Jews, Samaritans, people of all colours, both genders, and had to deal with various questions that one culture held high while the others may have completely ignored, so when someone of one culture asks the questions the other also learn that to this culture this issue is important and needs an answer.
Note how Jesus walked and talked to different people, seeing something in them, like the woman at the well, and letting the people he met that there was more to life, to living, to health, mental stability, and love. Jesus dealt with Peter, Nathanael (He called him “a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit”), the woman at the well, and Nicodemus completely differently — not a one-size-fits-all sermon, but a response tailored to each person’s specific blindness, doubt, or need.
The teacher from God knows what you need and serves the teachings as a medicine to restore ones Soul back to good clean health.
The idea was not to make people weak so that they conformed, but to make them stronger so that they stood alone, on God’s side, reaping the rewards as God’s child.
Elijah and Elisha (1 Kings 19:19–21; 2 Kings 2) — Elijah found Elisha ploughing, threw his mantle over him, and Elisha left everything to follow and serve him. Their relationship lasted years before Elisha ever took up the prophetic mantle himself. It was a pass-over itself, a passing of the baton to the other, and God’s work continues.
As they say, Your Eyes Are opened with the right Teacher/Guide, source of knowledge and wisdom, and the greatest of all learning comes from those who work with God Himself.
If everyone in a small group all have the same goal then no one is pressured to learn, obey and such, instead all are taught equally with the same fairness, compassion and desire that they all walk away as new Born Again Souls. And because the group is away from family, social groups, their own culture, there is no pressure to go back to ones old ways of the past and obey old family, social and culture rules.
There is no fear of embarrassment in front of peers. This is important, since anxiety about sounding foolish or looking a fool can tug one here and there, confuse issues, and make the learning much harder. People often speak more freely and take more risks one-on-one, or in small groups.
Elisha didn’t learn from Elijah’s writings, he watched him, walked with him, asked him questions, and was corrected in real time, learning as they lived, side by side, achieving the goals within them by God. Even Elijah learned from Elisha, as you and I can learn from one another.
The goal is to change, learn, become closer to God, not of any form of control, and anyone is free to leave if they want to do so.
In a small group or one on one there’s nowhere to hide, in a good way, because everyone is together – note how Jesus taught the milky stuff to the general public but took his small group aside and taught them separately. The learner can’t coast, and the teacher gets to know their specific weak points, learning style, and progress over time rather than treating everyone the same.
Some people who were in the crowd when Jesus taught with sermons to the many, realised that they wanted more, they were dissatisfied with life, and they didn’t like the direction that the people around them had been pushing them in to, so they went to Jesus to get a closer look at what Jesus had been teaching to the larger crowds, but now they could join the academy and learn much more.
No one was ever pressured by Jesus it was each ones own choice to get a better Life Education from Jesus and a closer relationship with God. They also had many questions about a more spiritual life, how to control emotions, live without forms of medications, deal with life in a more natural way and be able to cope as God intended us to cope.
The purpose of the work in the small group was a new look at life, a change of thought patterns, a new desire to live a different way that they can understand, be honoured to be a part of and to enjoy that is not part of the toxic world, but instead of God’s world.
The prophet knows that the people who come to learn from him are in fact replacing a lifetime of learning within them, for a new way to live, and this is not an easy task, and so one by one each person is shown, taught, secrets revealed, and it can be a while until a person grasps an idea as possible, probable, and then finally that the idea can and will happen if the faith is strong.
People may think that they are incapable of learning a new way and how long it has taken them to learn so little, but each person learns at his or her own pace, and time if used to improvement and learning is well spent compared with people wasting time learning nothing. Be gentle with yourself, a new ways is not an easy task, and the emptying of old habits to gain new habits takes time and struggle, but life is a struggle without change, so it is far better to struggle to change for the better than to struggle and remain empty and shallow.
A small start can become many: Luke Chapter 10, verse 1: After this the Lord chose another seventy-two and sent them out two by two, to go ahead of him to every town and place where he himself was about to go.
The goal is to grow, and those who knew the Prophet first are the ones first to grow within and be useful to God and themselves.
– Home –
Character. Children. Computing. Crosswords. Driving. Education. Electronics. Garden/Yard. Good Man Images. Fitness/Health. French. Homeschooling. House Ideas. How To. Interesting & Helpful Videos. iPad. Jokes. Kitchen/Cooking. Love, Courting and Marriage. Mechanics/Machines. Motivation/Advice. Movies. Music. NZ. OOS/RSI. Parenting Idea’s, Tips, Thoughts etc. People. Personal Care. Parenting & Children – Notes. Photography. Plumbing. Poetry. Politics. Product Reviews. Projects. Proverbs. Religion. Reviews.
Sewing. Skills/Hobbies. Slang. Stories & Books. Tips.
Tools. Toxic Parenting. Whats It Mean? Welding. Women. Words. Woodwork. Woodwork Basic Lessons.
===
From Boys to Men.
===
===
© 2021-2026 – James Martin Sandbrook. All Rights Reserved.