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Life and Teachings of Jesus
Section 1:
12 pm - 1 pm Pacific time/ 9 am Hawaii/ 1 pm MT/ 2 pm CT/ 3 PM ET
Section 2:
5 pm - 6 pm Pacific time/ 2 pm Hawaii/ 6 pm MT/ 7 pm CT/ 8 pm ET "
Time:
Course Description
The Life and Teachings of Jesus is a sequential reading of Part IV of The Urantia Book. The course will be presented weekly starting with Paper 120 The Bestowal of Michael on Urantia and finishing with Paper 196 The Faith of Jesus a year and a half later. We will discuss both the story of the Master’s life and emphasize those dramatic events and profound spiritual teachings which have so drawn spiritual seekers to desire a greater understanding of Joshua ben Joseph’s gospel of the “good news” of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of all men.
We particularly hope to highlight Christ’s life as the normal and expected evolution of mortal man’s spiritual growth, as Jesus so beautifully demonstrated – Man to God.
Format: Weekly online discussions using Zoom video conferencing.
The weekly Zoom discussions will be “guided”, rather than open discussions. Materials: Students may read or to listen to audio presentations of The Urantia Book. You also have the option to watch The Christ Experiment’s beautiful video audio/text series of Part IV (links will be provided).
Level: No prerequisite
Size: Rolling admission
Language: English
Grading: None
Required Effort: Participants must come to the online session having already read the assigned paper.
Weekly Outline
Each week we will discuss one paper from Part IV of The Urantia Book, from Paper 120 The Bestowal of Michael on Urantia to Paper 196 The Faith of Jesus
Questions and resources will be emailed to participants every week. You must be registered to receive the materials and the Zoom link.
To “follow Jesus” means to personally share his religious faith and to enter into the spirit of the Master’s life of unselfish service for man. One of the most important things in human living is to find out what Jesus believed, to discover his ideals, and to strive for the achievement of his exalted life purpose. Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it. 196:1.3 (2090.4)
Learning Outcomes
We envision a twofold purpose for each discussion:
The acquisition of knowledge (the class material) leading to personal spiritual growth.
The growth of ministry skills (thoughtful, considered presentations of questions and answers, careful listening, respect of all participants and their many and varied levels of understanding.
An active, freely moving discussion amongst all participants is the goal and everyone will be expected to be prepared to participate. We should all approach these discussions as Jesus approached every individual he ever encountered.
180:5.7 (1950.2) 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.
Instructors
Rob Mastroianni
Rob first chanced across The Urantia Book in the late 70's as it lay on a coffee table at a friend’s home. Over the next several years he read it often, treating it mostly as a wonderful spiritual science fiction story. Rob had been a student of religion - really a seeker of truth, since his youth. He became dissatisfied with Christianity when he was only 10 years old and found himself unable to accept the concept of purgatory - he just couldn't believe God would punish his innocent children in that manner. As with many of us, the more he read, the more he became convinced that he'd never run across a religious text with such depths of spiritual truth. Gradually, he began to realize that The Urantia Book could only have been written with divine spiritual guidance and he made that leap. Now, many years later he is happy to be part of the Hawaii Islands Urantia Readers Group and to find himself firmly on the ascension path as a Son of God.
Geri Johnson
Geri found The Urantia Book in 1968 and has an educational and professional background in private and public school education in the United States and international schools in Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and India. She has worked for the FreeSchools World Literacy program and at the American Embassy School in India. She is a mother of two wonderful sons, grandmother of three precious grandsons, and great-grandmother of a long-awaited great-granddaughter. Over the years, Geri has served in many roles in the Urantia community; currently she is an Associate Trustee of the Urantia Foundation. Her greatest joy is getting to know a new brother or sister and sharing God’s love with them.
Rob and Geri reside in Maui, Hawaii. The past few years have been very eventful, including Rob’s retirement from medicine and Geri’s from education after forty-year careers and their marriage in 2020. They are active members in the development of the Urantia Educational Center--striving to create a teacher training school for the Urantia community--and also work with The Christ Experiment. Their life together is focused on sharing God’s love with his children and His teachings as revealed in The Urantia Book.