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SearchBrotherhood of Jesus Grows Rapidly
In these days they celebrated the Lord‘s Supper after the manner of its establishment; that is,
they assembled for a social meal of good fellowship and partook of the sacrament at the end of
the meal.
At first they baptized in the name of Jesus; it was almost twenty years before they began to
baptize in ―the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.‖ Baptism was all that was
required for admission into the fellowship of believers. They had no organization as yet; it was
simply the Jesus brotherhood.
This Jesus sect was growing rapidly, and once more the Sadducees took notice of them. The
Pharisees were little bothered about the situation, seeing that none of the teachings in any way
interfered with the observance of the Jewish laws. But the Sadducees began to put the leaders of
the Jesus sect in jail until they were prevailed upon to accept the counsel of one of the leading
rabbis, Gamaliel, who advised them: ―Refrain from these men and let them alone, for if this
counsel or this work is of men, it will be overthrown; but if it is of God, you will not be able to
overthrow them, lest haply you be found even to be fighting against God.‖ They decided to
follow Gamaliel‘s counsel, and there ensued a time of peace and quiet in Jerusalem, during
which the new gospel about Jesus spread rapidly