His great topics are life itself, courageous truth, sincere love, true freedom, real happiness; thus, His focus is formation of character. He tells His disciples that, if they are unhappy with the society they live in and want to change it, they must begin by allowing themselves to be transformed. Only in doing so can they convince others, providing them better reasons to live and a higher scale of values. To this effect, He asks them for reflection, discipline of body and mind, eagerness to work, joy in sharing, the desire to carry out responsibilities and respect for others.
He teaches them not to confuse humility with fear, or contentment with laziness.38 That is to say, to recognize their limits; yet, without refusing to use their capabilities, allowing themselves to be guided by God to make them perform to their highest ability.
Being able to be content with few material goods does not mean to not have great plans and noble ambitions, or to accept with excuses what is inexcusable, or to confuse spontaneity with superficiality. God has for each an ideal of progress and excellence. Hence His endeavor to spur the utmost use of the possibilities without falling into an inferiority complex, nor giving in to vanity or arrogance.39
The young Teacher knows how to encourage, excite, tactfully correct, motivate to desire to give their best, and He does so with patience, firmness and affection. By means of constant analogies, stories and images, and above all, through His example, He teaches His disciples to understand the Scriptures, to interpret reality, to listen to nature and to learn from experiences, to not fear death and to take existence seriously; to pray intelligently and to fill their daily activities with spiritual strength; to live in solidarity, to exercise forgiveness; to be willing to suffer before causing others to suffer and to undergo evil before causing it.40 In a word, to live entirely positive lives, which will turn their surroundings into a better world.41
In a short time the common lives of John and Andrew, of Simon, of Philip and Nathanael, by reflecting that of the Teacher,42 will gradually turn exceptional. They need only follow Him and continue moving forward with Him on that steep and narrow but thrilling path, which goes from the lowest lands of their human mediocrity to the highest peaks of the divine realm.
And they will follow Him so closely that the members of His group will be known by their environment as “those of the Way.”43
1 . John 1:43-44.
2 . Augusto Cury, The Master of the Masters, Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2008, p. 75.
3 . “Jesus Christ said great things so simply, that it seems as though he had not thought them great: and yet so clearly that we easily see what he thought of them. This clearness, joined to this simplicity, is wonderful.” (Blaise Pascal, Thoughts, no. 797, Madrid: Valdemar, 2001, p. 309)
4 . Oscar Wilde, De profundis, Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1977, pp. 92-93.
5 . Matthew 23:13; cf. Luke 11:52.
6 . John 1:40-51, Bethsaida means “house of fishing.” There are at least two places that claim that name, both along Lake Genesareth.
7 . John and James, sons of Zebedee, must have been quite young at that time, considering that three years later their mother was still trying to find them work (Matt. 20:20). The fact that John effortlessly leans on Jesus in the last supper, is better understood as a juvenile gesture of trust (John 13:23-26) rather than a calculated stance of an adult, which could have other connotations. The fact that this same disciple, near the year 100 is still serving, is fully understood if he was about ten years younger than Jesus.
8 . John 1:40-51.
9 . Dietrich Bonhoeffer: The Cost of Discipleship. The Following, Salamanca: Sígueme, 2004, p. 235.
10 . Text based on John 1:43-51.
11 . “Philip knew that his friend was searching the prophecies, and while Nathanael was praying under a fig tree, Philip discovered his refuge. They had often prayed together in this secluded spot, hidden by the foliage.” (Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, pp. 83)
12 . “Their uncouth pronunciation of Aramaic, the common language of the time, caused them to be held up to ridicule [. . .]. The Nazarenes were contemptuously called by the old equivalent to our “dung,” am-ha-arets, men of the land, farmworkers.” (R. Aron, The Hidden Years of Jesus, Bilbao: Ediciones EGA, 1991, pp. 43-44)
13 . John 7:52.
14 . The questions having to do with Jesus: ‘why does a believer hold that his salvation is in Jesus Christ?’ as well as other questions of the same nature: ‘and who do you say that I am?’ can only be answered personally [. . .] because the question and the answer are only possible if previously there has been a non-transferable experience: the experience of the encounter.” [Translated quote] (Martín Gelabert, Salvación como humanización, Madrid: Ediciones Paulinas, 1985, p. 13)
15 . Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 83, 84.
16 . Ibíd., p. 116.
17 . The episode of Jacob’s dream is told in Genesis 28:10-22.
18 . Genesis 28:16, NKJV.
19 . Emmanuel Carrère, The Kingdom, Barcelona: Anagrama, 2015, p. 61.
20 . Jean Vanier, cited by Peter Van Breemen in The God Who Won’t Let Go, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, 2001, p. 98.
21 . Idea adapted from Danilo Dolci’s, Everyone Grows Only if Dreamt About.
22 . From the oldest of times to the Guinness era, our world extols champions.
23 . This expression is well known among Latinists, and it comes from the Latin poet Horacio (who lived from 65 to 8 BC. It appears for the first time in his Odes, Book II, (Ode number 10 to Licinio).
24 . In Spain, the term“ni-ni generation,” applies, since the first decade of 2000, to young people who neither study or work, and even more precisely to those who do not want to either study or work.