Logion 3
| 3. Jesus said, "If your leaders say unto you, 'Behold, the kingdom is in the heavens,' then the birds of the heaven will go in there before you. If they say unto you, 'It is under the earth,' then the fish of the sea will go before you. But I say unto you that the kingdom is within you, and it is among you. When ye come to know yourselves, then others will know you, and ye will know that ye are all children of the living Father. But if ye will not know yourselves, ye dwell in poverty and ye are yourselves that poverty. | Lk 17:21 (Cf. Th 113) "Neither shall they say, 'Lo here!' or, 'Lo there!' for, behold, the kingdom of God is among you." |
Logia 3 and 50 are ways to respond to the queries and misleading doctrines of the teachers of the people. In logion 39 these teachers are named explicitly as the Pharisees and the scribes.
Logion 3 says that if there are attempts made by scholars and philosophers to confine the goal of our strivings to a place, we must remember that there are beasts whose normal environment is that place; they are much better adapted to such a kingdom than we. There are two senses in which the kingdom may be said to be with us. First, it is within each of us, in the quality of the feelings of our heart. Or, it is in the relationships established between us, bonds based again on the feelings of our hearts. The Delphic oracle admonished each inquirer to “know thyself.” If we know ourselves in the same way as others know us, we have common standards of judgement. The essential fact that we need to know about ourselves is that we are children of a common Father in Heaven. If we are not ready to accept this fact, then everything else we can know about ourselves is tied up in our temporal selves. Our physical self is an imperfect reflection of the richness of our spiritual, eternal aspect (cf. Th 29). If you are not willing to accept the reality of your eternal spirit (cf. Th 87 & 112), your life will be based on judgements of a temporal nature and the quality of your life will be severely impaired.