Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

The Jews that set Jesus up hoping that He would confess himself the Christ and be eligible for death see through His round about answers, and they are not pleased. They “took up stones again to stone him” I think it’s important to note here that these people are playing for keeps, they want Jesus dead and it’s just interesting to me that there are people out there who think “he might be more popular than me, let’s kill him” and want to physically see the blood coming out of his body. I’m not going to sit here and say that I’m perfect, I was in the army and went to Iraq after all, so I’m not a pacifist by any means, but holy crap! At what point do you think it’s ok to actually take someone’s life, take them away from their family because they irritate you, honestly, this has to be to the point of ridiculousness. The concept of being stoned to death was really brought home to me in a scene from the newest Ben Hur, I ...

After teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath and healing a woman, Jesus and his disciples go to Jerusalem for the Feast of Dedication. The IM gives us some background on what the Feast of Dedication is saying, “The Feast of Dedication is also known as Hanukkah or the Festival of Lights. Hanukkah means ‘dedication’ in Hebrew. This commemoration celebrates the rededication of the Jerusalem temple and its new altar in about 165 B.C. Syrian warriors led by Antichus Epiphanes had desecrated the temple in 168 B.C. and tried to wipe out the Jewish religion. But freedom fighters led by a family of priests- Judah Maccabee being the most famous- repulsed the Syrians in a war of liberation for the Jewish people. A story in the Talmud recounts that the Maccabees found on a small amount of oil when the captured the temple and witnessed the oil miraculously burn for eight days. Based on this account, the Feast of Dedication lasts eight days beginning on the 25th of the month ...

In verse 10 Luke says that Jesus “was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.” I’m not sure if that means that the lessons on repentance we just talked about were done on the Sabbath or if this was another day in which he was teaching. Whatever the situation was, on a Sabbath day, while Jesus was teaching he saw a woman who had “a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.” We don’t really have a lot of detail on what she might have had, but it sounds really severe and not only severely limited her quality of life but was probably also incredibly painful. Jesus, as always, had compassion on her and “called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.” She was immediately healed, and glorified God.” What a joyous occasion! What cause for celebration and thanksgiving she had and all those around her! But what was the response? “The rul...

It’s been a while since I’ve written and honestly, I don’t feel bad about it, I’ve let the whole guilt thing go about this blog. I love to do it, but sometimes it just doesn’t work out and I’m happy to be back. When we left off, some Jews were telling Jesus about a few Galileans who had been massacred by the Roman, indicating that it was because they were wicked. From Jesus’ response we learn that bad things happen to everyone and that the it is important to always been repenting and changing for the better so that we can be assured of good things in the next life. Jesus continues this lesson with a parable about a certain land owner had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. One of the articles that I read said that fig trees weren’t usually planted in a vineyard because their root systems are so extensive that you wouldn’t be able to plant very many of them and it would take up the space for the grape vines. This might be an explanati...

Some parts of the scriptures are very difficult for me to understand, and this next part of Luke is another example of that, thankfully with help from the IM and other sources, some of the misunderstanding is cleared up. Luke 13:1 begins with some of the people around Jesus telling him about “the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.” An article posted on www.workingpreacher.orgsays, “The grisly mention of Pilate’s mingling the blood of the Galileans with their sacrifices appears to refer to a massacre of a group of Galilean pilgrims in Jerusalem. The narrative does not reveal why Pilate slaughtered these people, but the deed nevertheless corresponds with what other historical writings tell about Pilate’s penchant for brutality. The verse offers an ominous characterization of the Roman governor in advance of his appearance in Jesus’ trial.” The IM suggests that the Galileans were killed while the Roman’s ...

J esus continues his teachings of eternal priorities by counseling his disciples to “take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment… Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Jesus is trying to teach them that their needs will be provided for, so they shouldn’t be so caught up in the physical that they lose out on the spiritual. It’s interesting though because we have so many examples of people’s needs not being provided for, such as starvation and freezing to death, so how do we reconcile what Jesus is teaching with the horrors that people experience in this life? How is not intervening when people are starving to death God providing for his people? This has always been a difficult concept for me to understand because I know that Go...

I got some more information about the situation of the man we discussed yesterday, the one who asked Jesus to interfere with the distribution of his father’s estate. One of the websites that I read commented that because the man had to ask someone else for help, that indicated that this man was probably not the first born son. Culturally, the first born son inherits everything when his father dies and the rest simply fend for themselves. If that is the case, then the man who approached Jesus wanted what wasn’t rightfully his. It’s one thing to tell someone to not be greedy when they are being wrongfully stripped of what is owed to them, but it’s another matter completely when you aren’t legally supposed to have something, but want it anyway. That puts more context on this situation, I feel like it would be similar to feeling like a sibling that is successful in business owes you money from it as well. Neither brother earned their inheritance, the only reaso...

I’ve really struggled with connecting with the scriptures recently, and I’m not sure why. The rest of Luke chapter 11 and the first 12 verses of chapter 12 is made up of topics that we’ve already covered so I’m going to skip past those parts again and update the previous entries with the new references. Starting with Luke chapter 12 verse 13, the Savior is confronted by a man who implores him, “speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me.” This issue with inheritance has plagued mankind since probably before Adam and Eve died, I know at least 2 families that have experienced shattered relationships because someone convinced senile grandma to sign some papers giving them everything before she was declared mentally incompetent. It’s been years and there are still people who won’t speak to each other because of hurt feelings over the dividing of an inheritance, so that this man is seeking the Savior’s help is nothing out...

It’s interesting because I used to have a rule when I was going through the Book of Mormon that any down time I had must be devoted to a blog post for that day before I did anything else. It went really well because I was working the night shift and kind of had a routine, but as I transitioned into the day shift and then to a new job, I’ve been slacking quite a bit. Actually, I’ve noticed that my spirituality has been slacking a lot since I moved. I used to give up the chance to sleep in for the chance to go to the temple, granted it was guaranteed that I would sleep through the session, now with temples literally 15 minutes away from me, I don’t give it the priority that it deserves. Now that I have more down time, I spend less time on my scripture study, and now that I am home at night with my kids, I haven’t established the routine and relationship that I thought that I would. I have definitely noticed a lack of spiritual influence in my life, and I...