Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

The focus that some of the people have on remaining loyal to the person that baptized them is a hindrance that Paul is addressing, and he points out that “Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.” While this phrase might be a little misunderstood, because Christ did call Paul to baptize, the point might be that Paul’s primary mission was share the gospel with everyone so that they could know the truth, not to get them to be baptized. This means that the end goal wasn’t just baptism but acceptance of the gospel message. If the end goal was baptism, then it wouldn’t matter what Paul told the people, as long as they ended up in the water. This purpose would not benefit God in any way, nor would it benefit the people who were duped into it, the only beneficiary would be Paul who would gain power. Paul’s purpose was not to gain power, but to empower people with the gospel of Christ. Paul continues that he is supposed to preach the gospel...

A woman named Chloe is called out for letting Paul know “that there are contentions among you.” Disputations are very common among human run organizations, even when in God’s church. While sometimes doctrine or culture is disputed, Paul addresses the kind of negativity effecting the early church and this makes sense considering the relatively new structure. This type of disputation also arose during the early history of our church today, and that was the loyalty felt by certain individuals to the person who taught them the gospel. I mean, we really even have this today, I have known about many times when people were baptized but became inactive once a certain missionary left their area. This makes sense, we ask these missionaries to be leaders, and when someone gives up or changes a significant portion of their life for the message that is being preached, then definitely the messenger can be a strong influence in that person’s life and ability to stay with the ...

In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, but the first one that we have record of, we are introduced to him and Sosthenes “our brother.” I assume that Paul means his brother in Christ, and the IM says that he “was perhaps the onetime ruler of the synagogue at Corinth. Sosthenes was the successor of Crispus, who was converted and baptized by Paul.” I had to look up who Crispus was to remember, but we learn about him in Acts 18:8 when Paul in tired of preaching to the hard hearted Jews in Corinth and leaves the synagogue to preach in a righteous man’s house. It reads, “And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized.” So if Crispus left his office as the ruler of the synagogue to join Jesus’ church and Sosthenes replaced him, does that make Sosthenes a devout Jew then, as opposed to a Christian? Paul gives warm greetings “...

In an interesting turn of events, we go from Romans to 1 Corinthians, which was written “sometime between A.D. 54 and 57.” I struggle with this because it would be so much easier if all this was put in chronological order and then interspersed between the book of Acts when they would be written as well. But here we are. There is some background on 1 Corinthians that is good to know as we go into this book. The IM reminds us that “early in his third missionary journey, Paul went to Ephesus, where he preached for approximately three years.” The IM also says that the book that we have and know as 1 Corinthians is actually the second letter sent to the Corinthians as a response to a second letter written to Paul about the state of the Church in that city. The first letter to Paul and his response have been lost to the annuls of time. Also interesting to note is that “this epistle was likely written earlier than any of the other New Testament books, including...

This is the last chapter in the book of Romans and it’s very different from the other books. This one kind of serves as a specific reference for those who were receiving the letter, not as generalize principles for the whole. Paul starts “I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea: That ye receive her in the Lord, as becometh saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of you: for she hath been a succourer of many, and of myself also.” This is an interesting concept because I thought “if Phebe came to rob these people or something, wouldn’t she just write her own recommendation herself?” But apparently there were probably ways to verify that this was indeed written or endorsed by Paul himself, so it was copacetic. The IM says, “At the close of his epistle, Paul highly commended a Church member named Phebe, who was evidently the messenger who carried Paul’s epistle to...

Not only are those who are strong in the gospel be kind to those who are “weak” but “we then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.” This is a pretty straight forward concept, but one that is critically important to someone’s positive feelings towards the gospel. The IM quotes President Gordon B. Hinckley as teaching about a missionary who was struggling that wanted to go home. “He was one of 180 missionaries in that mission. I told him that if he were to go home he would break faith with his 179 companions. Every one of them was his friend. Every one of them would pray for him, fast for him, and do almost anything else to help him. They would work with him. They would teach him. They would get on their knees with him. They would help him learn the language and be successful because they loved him. I am happy to report that he accepted my assurance that all of the other missionaries were his friends. ...

Having warned about “doubtful disputations,” Paul goes on to give examples of ways that members can use to create problems with others. Paul mainly focuses on disputes that arise from differences in people’s diets. This is interesting because we are having a pretty large mix up in my family about this. My daughter is vegetarian and working on becoming vegan, and many of my family members are working on becoming vegan, and it’s causing quite a stir among some other members of my family. Ultimately, we are all doing what we’re doing for our own reasons, but actually, my brother used to make fun of my daughter for being vegan and when the Come, Follow Me lesson on this chapter was discussed in Sunday School, my brother realized that he wasn’t being helpful and decided to stop making fun of my daughter because of her diet. So, Paul’s teachings in action. Paul contrasts the experiences of two people, one who “believeth that he may eat all thi...

Speaking to such a diverse population, Paul continues teaching the people who they should behave, not just towards non-Christians, but also towards each other. He counsels to receive “him that is weak in the faith,” in order to strengthen his belief and testimony in Christ. But they are not to receive him “to doubtful disputations.” This is where that humility comes in, the ability to see someone in a different stage of life than you and not feel the need to shame them into progressing, because that just doesn’t work. When someone comes to church in a state that we consider weaker than our own, we often assume the role of mentor to them, and sometimes that is appreciated and sometimes it’s not. One of the programs that I see this often is in Ministering. So many of us, myself included sometimes, take the role of “I’m the minister, I’m going to help you,” and instead of growing a fruitful, mutual beneficial relationship, we fa...

Another Christ-like attribute that Paul encourages is to “owe no man anything.” This is cross referenced in the scriptures with “debt,” and that’s very important, but I think it goes a little bit beyond that as well. Owing a debt is crippling, I’ve been debt free a couple of times in my life and I currently am almost there again, and it’s liberating, and empowering and the counsel that we are given on avoiding debt is both timely and accurate. Paul said this back when lending was done on a more personal level, whereas today debts and large money movements are facilitated by banks and corporations. So when I hear the phrase “owe no man,” I think of smaller debts like, “hey can I borrow your drill” or “can I borrow $5” or even as abstract as dealing with favors, etc. There are many healthy relationships where someone is short money for lunch one time and then pays for all of lunch the next time, but there are ...

Paul ends chapter 12 with the counsel to have compassion on our enemies and more specifically enemy combatants. Chapter 13 begins by describing our civic duties to the society and government in which we live. Of course, Paul didn’t write this letter broken up into chapters so sometimes I have to go back and reread the end of the last chapter to understand how it flows into the next one, because that’s how he wrote it. There is a lot going on in these verses and even though I don’t really understand it as it is written, the IM has some helpful info. First, Paul requests that “every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power in the church but of God.” This is a JST edit that seems to specify that he’s talking about priesthood authority within the church. But the word “power” is cross-referenced with John 19:11 which is when Pilate tells Jesus to defend himself against the accusations by the Jews because only he has the p...

The need for all people to work together to strengthen each other is because we all have the same purpose. Paul says, “for as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, being man, are one body in Christ.” We can’t and don’t all have the same callings or gifts, and that’s what builds one complete whole, instead of us splintering the group with criticism and judgment. Paul goes on to list many admonitions about teaching and ministering and exhorting, but one thing that I found really interesting is in verse 9 when he says, “Let love be without dissimulation.” The cross reference definition of “dissimulation” is “sincere, unfeigned, real.” At first glance, I think “of course love is real,” but then I have to stop and think about it for a second. I think about this concept a lot, especially in the context of the church because so much of the time we are told to “love...

Even though Romans is incredibly difficult for me to understand, I really feel like there are a couple of really powerful and clear portions that really speak to me. Chapter 8 is one of my favorites now, but I also really like chapter 12 as we move into it. Paul pleads with his fellow saints “that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God.” Paul has focused a lot of these chapters on overcoming physical temptations and so it makes sense that he would use the physical body as an example of something that can be sacrificed to God. But unlike the Old Testament sacrifices, we aren’t being asked to necessarily die to the cause, but to live for it. Both ways are sacrifices, but one just lasts a lot longer. I guess this begs the question, how do we present our bodies as a sacrifice to God, in a not dead kind of way? Well, I think that it would mean, first by keeping ourselves as healthy as we can. This is a tough one because not eating bad food is...

If the wild olive tree branches are grafted into the tame olive tree trunk after the natural branches have died off, does that make the wild branches more important or more special than the original branches? I mean, they are trees and therefore have no thoughts or feelings, but if we equate this to what we discussed yesterday with the tame tree trunk being the gospel, the natural dead cut off branches being Israel, and the wild branches grafted in being gentiles, then we can see how it would easily relate to the human condition. An adopted person or someone who is now included in a group might feel like they are more “worthy” of the appointment than the previous person and might treat the rejected person poorly because of their feelings of superiority. This is completely false however. Paul can see the issues of conflict and persecution arising between the converted gentile Christians and the Jews, and warns them. He says, “boast not against the branches… thou...

I’ve been thinking a little bit about Elias feeling completely alone in his belief and desire for righteousness, and how God had “reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.” I honestly feel like there are no good men left, and I know that just by saying that or feeding in to that belief, I’m wrong, but really, I don’t think that my standards are that high, I’m just looking for a temple worthy man with a job, I don’t think my standards are that high. I don’t care what job he has or how old he is, or anything like that, but apparently it is slim pickings around here. He doesn’t even have to be temple worthy, just want to be temple worthy, I’ve done my time in the dirt, I don’t expect perfection, I know what it’s like to do the walk of shame into the bishop’s office. Anyway, I clearly have some baggage, like assuming that every man cheats of his wife and abandons hi...