Gadiah 

When Jesus and his Indian traveling companions, Gonod and Ganid, left Jerusalem in April 22 CE, they embarked on a nearly two-year tour of the Mediterranean regions. Jesus acted as interpreter for Gonod and tutor for Gonod’s son, Ganid. Their first stop was the city of Joppa.

It was in Joppa that Jesus met Gadiah, a truth-seeking young man. Gadiah was a Philistine interpreter who worked for a leather tanner named Simon, a merchant well-known to Gonod because they had had many long-distance business dealings. When Gonod and his son Ganid decided to visit Simon, Jesus and Gadiah struck up a friendship. The meeting of a truth seeker and a truth giver is a great experience, especially for the truth seeker. Jesus embodied the truth for that generation, and these two men became close friends during their time together in Joppa.

On an evening stroll by the sea, Gadiah pointed out to Jesus the ship landing where it was thought Jonah had set sail on his voyage to Tarshish, where he encountered the "big fish." At this time, Gadaih didn’t know that Jesus was so knowledgeable in Hebrew lore and related the story to Jesus. He finally asked Jesus, "But do you suppose the big fish really did swallow Jonah?"

Jesus could see that Gadiah's life had been deeply influenced by this particular story and that reflecting on it had taught him the futility of avoiding responsibility. Therefore, Jesus honored the scriptural foundation that was so important to him and that supplied the young man’s current motivation for living sensibly and responsibly. In response to his question, Jesus said, in essence:

"My friend, we are all Jonahs with lives to live in accordance with the will of God, and at all times, when we seek to escape the present duty of living by running away to far-off enticements, we thereby put ourselves in the immediate control of those influences which are not directed by the powers of truth and the forces of righteousness. The flight from duty is the sacrifice of truth. The escape from the service of light and life can only result in those distressing conflicts with the difficult whales of selfishness, which lead eventually to darkness and death unless such God-forsaking Jonahs shall turn their hearts, even when in the very depths of despair, to seek after God and his goodness. And when such disheartened souls sincerely seek for God – hunger for truth and thirst for righteousness – there is nothing that can hold them in further captivity."

Jesus continued: "No matter into what great depths they may have fallen, when they seek the light with a whole heart, the spirit of the Lord God of heaven will deliver them from their captivity; the evil circumstances of life will spew them out upon the dry land of fresh opportunities for renewed service and wiser living."

This conversation and the things Jesus said to Gadiah touched his heart; the two stayed there by the seaside, talking long into the night. And before they parted, they prayed together and for each other.

The last time they met, Gadiah expressed to Jesus that he was very troubled by the issue of good and evil; he keenly sensed a feeling of injustice when seeing so much evil in the world alongside the good. Gadiah asked Jesus: "How can God, if he is infinitely good, permit us to suffer the sorrows of evil; after all, who creates evil?" He was asking an important question; most people – then, and even today – believe that it is God who creates both good and evil. But Jesus never taught this error in thinking.

Jesus explained to Gadiah that God does not create evil; God is only love, and his goodness is so pure that it cannot include evil. Evil arises from immature choices, ignorance, resistance to beauty, and disloyalty to truth. Evil is the darkness that follows the rejection of light. And when evil is knowingly embraced, it becomes sin.

Jesus went on to say: "Your Father in heaven, by endowing you with the power to choose between truth and error, created the potential negative of the positive way of light and life; but such errors of evil are really nonexistent until such a time as an intelligent creature wills their existence by mischoosing the way of life. And then, are such evils later exalted into sin by the knowing and deliberate choice of such a willful and rebellious creature. This is why our Father in heaven permits the good and the evil to go along together until the end of life, just as nature allows the wheat and the tares to grow side by side until the harvest."

Gadiah and Jesus discussed this issue thoroughly, and when Jesus had further clarified this profound truth, the young man was satisfied.

Gadiah later became a wholehearted believer in Jesus of Nazareth. And this young man had very much to do with the final decision of Simon, a wealthy leather merchant, to embrace Christianity.