Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

After reminding the Christians in Rome that there will be a day “when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ to my gospel,” Paul starts to give reminders of ways in which hypocrisy can creep into their lives. For instance, going beyond the mark, meaning that they might be seeking “the things that are more excellent,” perhaps meaning more complicated doctrine. And like the Pharisees and other believers throughout history, when we go looking for more complicated or intriguing gospel doctrine, we end up “being instructed out of the law.” He warns them about preaching against stealing, yet being dishonest themselves, or against committing adultery, but doing it themselves. He also brings up idolatry, sacrilege, and blasphemy. Then we get to the topic of circumcision. From what I can understand about what Paul is saying, is that circumcision is an outward symbol, but that doesn’t make anyone more or less righteous by itself. He says tha...

I’m really struggling to follow what Paul is talking about. The IM describes chapter 2 as “these verses are an example of a ‘diatribe,’ an ancient rhetorical style in which authors would state their readers’ possible objections and then respond to them. Some of the diatribes in Paul’s epistle may reflect real conversations Paul had experienced during his years of teaching the gospel.” This makes sense as a writing style, even though I don’t understand the structure. The IM continues explaining that Paul had just taught “about humanity’s sins, now turns to an imaginary listener and declares the man to be guilty of judging others of sins the man has committed himself.” Sounds like our political system in the US right now. After being accused of judging others, in verse 2 “the man protests that it is only just that God would condemn people who had committed such sins. Verse 3- Paul replies that if it is right for God...

Like we talked about yesterday, I believe that the “wrath” of God if just when he allows us to feel the full weight and consequences of our decision. The word “wrath” has a violent and decisive connotation and I think that God uses that word on purpose. I’ve read different theories on human motivation and while some people can be properly motivated by the concept of reward, the vast majority of people are mainly motivated by fear of punishment. I feel like there is also a division between motivation to keep the commandments that is based on the same principle. In the beginning, most people, myself included, keep the commandments because they don’t want to be punished for not keeping them. In other words, they view the commandments as restrictive rules that leaves them missing out on fun. Everyone has to start here because, usually, it’s obedience through sacrifice that leads to the spiritual growth needed to understand the higher level. The s...

Again, for me, I struggle with what Paul is trying to say and honestly, why he’s even saying it in the first place. I guess I just look at his epistle to the Romans and wonder why he dove in so quickly to God’s judgment, sexual sin, etc. I just can’t seem to follow the concepts in logical progression, which makes it just like a bunch of unrelated issues. So I struggle with that, and we’ll see how this goes. Continuing on from verse 17, “the just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” I feel like this escalated quickly between “God gives salvation if you believe on him,” to “God gives wrath if you believe on him, but don’t obey him.” Well I guess that makes sense, that is a logical progression, and I didn’t realize that until I wrote it out. The “wrath of God” has always been a difficu...

It’s interesting because I had a really terrible time all of last week and when it got to Friday, I was so upset about different things that I was like “no I can’t even think about the scriptures today,” so I didn’t. Now that I’m on the other side of it, I really feel that I could have saved myself a lot of pain and panic if I had just studied the scriptures like I was supposed to and wok out all my mess with Jesus. But lesson learned and here I am. Paul introduces himself to the reader and gives a lot of information about himself and his mission. He declared himself “an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.” This apparently means that he has been set apart for the purpose of being an apostle. Paul further declares that his mission is “concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh.” He declares that this Jesus has “power” and that he was resurrected from ...

Reading the first part of the first chapter of Romans was pretty difficult for me, and I’m thinking that it’s because of Paul’s writing style. It did make me feel better, however, that the IM notes that “even among early Christians, Paul’s writings were regarded as ‘hard to be understood,’ and his teachings were sometimes distorted and misrepresented.” So now that we are off on that note, let’s get into some background on the book of Romans. Who wrote it: The book of Romans is a written correspondence from Paul the apostle to the Christian believers in Rome. This was confusing for me because I thought that just yesterday I had read that Paul was the first person to ever preach the gospel in Rome. The IM explains, “The origins of the Church in Rome are unknown but probably date to seen after the day of Pentecost, when Jews visiting from Rome heard Peter preach.” On the day of Pentecost, there were hundreds of thousands o...

I feel like I’ve been in the book of Acts for a really long time and when I went to look back, I realized that I’ve been studying it almost 8 months. To be fair, I have really slacked at it recently, but it has still been a really long time and I feel like I’ve learned a lot about ancient church history after the death of Christ, and I’m really grateful for it. I get all sentimental about it now because today we finish the book of Acts and then go into the epistles of the prophets, so that will be exciting. While in Rome, Paul isn’t imprisoned like the rest of the prisoners on his ship, he’s allowed to live in “his own hired house,” which I think means he rented a house and was under house arrest. Within the first “three days” Paul called for the “chief of the Jews” and even though it sounds like it is only one person, it seems like this included many people. Maybe the “chief of the Jews” is the ...

Paul being bitten by a snake has sent the natives around him on a pendulum of perception. At first they thought that Paul was a murderer because the sea tried to kill him and then because snake tried to kill him. Then after the snake bit him, they fully expected him to bloat and die suddenly, but when that didn’t happen and Paul remained alive and healthy, they “said that he was a god.” Luke tells us more about the locals, in that there was a “chief man of the island” named Publius who’s father “lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux,” which is cross referenced to mean dysentery. Publius invited the little group to stay in his home “and lodged us three days courteously.” I doubt that Publius invited Paul to stay with him because he believed that he had power from God, but regardless of his intentions, Paul still “entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him.” I’ve read about Jesus hea...

Now that all the ship’s occupants are safely on the beach, they start to make arrangements for food, shelter, heat, etc. Luke tells us that there is a native “barbarous people” who “shewed us no little kindness.” When I first read this, I thought that the “no little kindness” meant that they didn’t help the stranded at all, but in fact Luke meant that not only did they show them kindness, but the amount was “no little” meaning, it was a lot. Luke gives examples of their hospitality “for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold.” Paul does what he can to help and “gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand.” I wonder if at this point, Paul was just rolling his eyes, thinking, “really? A frickin snake?” The natives also had a thought when they saw that a snake ...

Despite the fact that Paul had not given him any certain, concrete reason to trust that God was on Paul’s side, the centurion and apparently the ship captain listened to Paul when he said that in order to survive, everyone had to remain on the ship. It’s really an interesting concept because we read this account with 2,000 years of hindsight and an established belief in Paul as a prophet of God, but if we consider that this wasn’t the perspective of the people around him at the time, it really makes us consider other aspects of the gospel. For instance, Paul had warned them to stay in Crete because the weather was dangerous, but honestly, there were probably several people who had suggested that they stay there for the winter because it was already known that there was a very good chance that they would hit inclement weather. So Paul’s “I told you so” several days into the storm wouldn’t have suddenly reminded them that he had foretold this co...

The centurion and the ship captain decide against listening to Paul and head out to sea “by Crete.” It didn’t take long for a storm to hit the ship with “tempestuous wind.” Let’s just keep in mind that storms of this magnitude are notorious during this time of year and in this area, so a storm hitting the ship isn’t some crazy phenomenon or something that is clearly “punishment from God.” We learn a little bit about Roman sailing from Luke who tells us the different measures that they took to ensure their own safety such as letting “her drive” which I assume means letting the wind take the ship where ever it goes, using “helps, undergirding the ship… the next day they lightened the ship; and the third day we cast out with our own hands the tackling of the ship.” I don’t really know what any of this means but I’m going to guess and say that they threw everything absolutely not necessary off ...