LESSON 2: Jesus' Attitude Toward Society

Jesus frequently warned his listeners against covetousness, declaring that ‘a man's happiness
consists not in the abundance of his material possessions.' He constantly reiterated, ‘What shall it
profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' He made no direct attack on the
possession of property, but he did insist that it is eternally essential that spiritual values come
first. In his later teachings he sought to correct many erroneous Urantia views of life by narrating
numerous parables which he presented in the course of his public ministry. Jesus never intended
to formulate economic theories; he well knew that each age must evolve its own remedies for
existing troubles. And if Jesus were on earth today, living his life in the flesh, he would be a
great disappointment to the majority of good men and women for the simple reason that he
would not take sides in present-day political, social, or economic disputes. He would remain
grandly aloof while teaching you how to perfect your inner spiritual life so as to render you
manyfold more competent to attack the solution of your purely human problems. 140:8.17