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I am here, Peter.
Yes, I am here, with a considerable number of Celestial spirits who have been listening to your discussions regarding the spiritual truths, and I should like to corroborate what just was said in a previous writing regarding my life; and the fact is that Jesus did not give me the leadership in the Christian movement while he was alive.* I took upon myself the leadership, as it is explained substantially in the Acts of the Apostles, and I spoke boldly at Pentecost and did work some miracles of healing; and it was this and some other acts that I did that gained for me the leadership of the apostles and the movement.
I would like to say a few words about the message which Jesus wrote to you tonight regarding the expectation of the Jews as to the person and personality of their Messiah to come,** and it is true that many of the Jews thought the Messiah must be an immortal being, for who but an immortal being could come directly from God! Thus, when Jesus appeared to Mary after his crucifixion, it dawned upon the apostles and many of the Jews that Jesus must be that Messiah; and so he whom they rejected in the flesh they accepted after his death as an immortal. And it is further true that it was expected after his ascension to Heaven that he would return to earth very quickly and reign on earth as the great immortal King and establish the Kingdom of God on earth.
And I must say that I also partook of this view, and so did the apostles; and we all taught the crucified and resurrected Jesus as the immortal Messiah who would soon come to earth and appear, while many of the converted pagans became disappointed at the seeming delay. And it is true that this concept of the Messiah accounts for the idea in the early church that Jesus would come quickly to establish his earthly reign. It was hard to realize that the Messiah had come to establish his Kingdom in the Celestial Heavens and not on earth.
About my own leadership in the movement, I was the leader of the apostles while Jesus was in the flesh and, with John, was among the few who received his main confidences. We went with him to the Mount of Transfiguration. He used my fishing boat. I went with John to arrange for the hall, or upper room, in which the last supper was held, and there were many other things in which I was the leader. But since Jesus did not expect to die, he did not bestow upon me any formal primacy as it is stated in the New Testament, but after his death it was expected of me to take the lead and I took it and, as I have said, preached with the Pentecost, and healed, and continued the work of the Master, gaining as I did so in Love and conviction as to the truth.
And I was arrested as it is reported in the New Testament, and I was released from prison, not by any miracle of angels coming to take the irons from my wrists and opening the door but because some of my jailors were converted by my teachings and were believers in Jesus and his mission, and they saw me heal, and preferred the things of the spirit to seeing me languish in prison and perhaps suffer the same fate as Jesus.
I continued to preach and heal on the Mediterranean coast in Joppa and elsewhere, and converted some Romans; but I never raised the dead as it is reported in Acts, in the case of Tabitha, for the girl was in a coma and not dead.
And thus my reputation was enhanced and I became involved in questions of interpretation and doctrine, and it was to me rather than to James that the Jews looked, especially when multitudes of pagans accepted Christianity and the movement had to adapt itself to these people. I decided that many innovations had to be accepted if the pagans were to become believers in Jesus as the Messiah and in the Father's Love, and thus it was that the great body of pagans and their beliefs compelled the movement to turn from the Father's Love to the acceptance of Jesus as the motivating force.
My leadership was enhanced when I sent Barnabas to Asia Minor on various missions, and eventually I came to Rome. I did not establish the church there, but I worked consistently to establish the church along orderly lines and to eliminate undesirable traits and make it a firm religious institution. And I became the recognized leader because Rome was the leader of the where-known world at the time and, as the authority of the greatest church in the greatest city of the world, I became the authority over the entire Christian world.
I was not in Rome for twenty-five years, but I was there for nearly fifteen years, and I visited Rome and other cities of the East while preaching in various parts of the Greek world. My leadership, therefore, is really the combination of my position among the apostles and the fact that this leadership was combined with my position in the world-city of Rome.
I think this answers some of the questions you may have had as to my life and primacy, and I should like to come again and write you more about myself, my relationship with Jesus and the other apostles, and the trends of the early church up to the time of my death in Rome.
So with that, I shall close now, and with my love to you and the Doctor, and with my desire that you pray more for the Love of the Father and move toward increasing your spiritual and soul condition to take our messages, I shall stop.
Peter, the Apostle.
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* See Revelation 31, "On This Rock I Shall Build My Church."
** See Revelation 29, "The Kind of Messiah Expected by the Jews."
