Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

It seems that Paul is anxious for the Corinthians to understand that they are important to him and that he didn’t come by his rebuke to them easily. Let’s remember Paul’s timeline. I found a Wikipedia article that was very helpful: 1.        “Paul visits Corinth for the first time, spending about 18 months there. He then leaves Corinth and spends about 3 years in Ephesus. 2.        “Paul writes the ‘warning letter’ in his first year from Ephesus (1 Corinthians 5:9).” 3.        “Paul writes 1 Corinthians from his second year at Ephesus.” 4.        “Paul visits the Corinthian church a second time, as he indicated he would in 1 Corinthians 16:6. Probably during his last year in Ephesus. 2 Corinthians 2:1 calls this a ‘painful visit’.” 5.        “Paul writes the ‘letter of tears.’” – The 3 rd letter that was “harsh” and re...

The whole point of forgiving those who have experienced church discipline is because if we don’t “Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.” How does Satan use non-forgiveness to take advantage of us? I think that first, Satan makes us forget that we are just as much in need of the Savior’s atonement as everyone else. When we harbor bitterness and resentment towards others, regardless of whether or not they affected us, we allow that negativity to control us. Even passive negativity drives away the Spirit and drags us deeper down the rabbit hole. I know it’s easy to say that and more difficult to do, but I have had to do some pretty intense forgiveness in my time and I know that it’s really hard to do. I don’t have all the answers, but for me, I feel like forgiveness is one of those things that God has to help take out of our hearts. And He’s only able to do that when we try to keep the commandments and repent of our own sins. There hav...

If I was to give an overview of chapter 2, it would probably seem scattered, because yet again, I have no idea what Paul is talking about. He clearly was distraught when he had to send 1 Corinthians to them and the harsh, rebuking letter in between. He details his inner turmoil of sending correspondence that he knew would upset people, but being morally obligated to do so. Paul says, “for out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears.” The IM quotes Brigham Young as teaching, “At times I may to many of the brethren appear to be severe. I sometimes chasten them; but it is because I wish them to live so that the power of God, like a flame of fire, will dwell within them and be around about them.” This is consistent with the counsel given in D&C 121:43 which says, “reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost, and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him who thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to ...

One thing that I find interesting about the Corinthians is that when Paul says that he wants to visit them but then has to change his travel plans because there’s been, I don’t know, a riot, they say that he’s fickle and not taking the seriously. But when he drops everything at least twice to come to Corinth to counsel the wayward saints there and help get the church back on track, crickets. I feel like at this point, it’s one of those things where some people are just looking for a reason to leave the church and if it wasn’t the change in Paul’s travel plans, then it would have been something else. Even the IM recognizes the difficulty in understanding verse 15-20, when Paul explains to them that he did not take the rescheduling of the trip lightly. There is a whole bit of “yea yea, and nay nay? But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay.” The IM comments, “The difficult passage in 2 Corinthians 1:15-20 appears to be Paul’s response to an accusation that he...

I have to go into this remembering that the tone of this letter is much softer than it was in 1 Corinthians. But even without all the hard-hitting doctrine, this is still really hard for me to get through. Maybe it’s because I’m kind of out of it today, but Paul has a very unique and difficult to understand writing style. Paul starts out introducing himself and Timothy and wishes grace and peace to the people “from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ… the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort.” The article about this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com quotes Marion D. Hanks as teaching, “He waits to be gracious! He loves to be merciful!” The first time I read something like this it was perspective changing for me because at the time I thought that God was like every other man I’d ever known, uninterested, “my way or the highway” types. But hearing that he had good things that he wanted to give me, and that he was excited for me to have them, showed that he was in fac...

Although we have two letters from Paul to the Corinthians, an introduction to 2 Corinthians from biblica.com says, “It seems that Paul wrote as many as four letters to the church at Corinth: (1) the letter referred to in 1 Co 5:9; (2) 1 Corinthians; (3) the ‘severe’ letter (see 2 co. 2:3-4); (4) 2 Corinthians.” This might explain why 1 Corinthians might have been so difficult for me to follow, because it was referencing letters between Paul and the Corinthians that we don’t have. We know that 1 Corinthians was dictated by Paul to a scribe, addressing a lot of issues that the saints in Corinth were dealing with specifically. The article gives further timeline, and while I’ve read something similar in a different article, I’m going to take this with a grain of salt. The article says, “After writing 1 Corinthians Paul continued his ministry in Ephesus until he heard that his letter had not completely accomplished its purpose. A group of men had come to Corinth who presented the...

Well, I’m finally on the last chapter of 1 st Corinthians. I’ve been working on this for almost 7 months, though it hasn’t always been consistent. Paul starts off his farewell by asking that a “collection for the saints” but taken up, and that “upon the first day of the week let everyone of you lay by him in store.” Basically, he’s asking that every Sunday that there be a collection taken up for the saints in Jerusalem. I’ve talked about it before, but I was pretty surprised when I initially read that the saints in Jerusalem where considered the most desperate. I always thought that because they lived where Christianity started then they would have been the most well off. But then again, if we think about it, the Christians in Jerusalem were Jews who had converted and were shunned by the Jewish community and chased out of their homes and away from their businesses. They most likely would have lost their livelihood, and been destitute for the gospel’s sake. Paul hit up many ...

One thing that has always been interesting and very frustrating for me is that when Jesus ascended into heaven, the angels told the bystanders that he would return, so they thought naturally that Jesus would be back again soon. That has been the general consensus for the vast majority of Christianity since the angels said those words 2,000 years ago. But here we are 2,000 years later and we are still convinced that Jesus will be back in glory at any moment now. I think it might be because I was so indoctrinated with “end of the world” stuff when I was a kid and completely traumatized by it that I’m so sensitive to the topic. So if we have already waited 2,000 years for Jesus to return, then logically for me, it would make sense that it would be another 2,000 years until he comes back again. But we don’t believe that that is the case because modern day prophets have told us that Jesus is coming back really soon. My mom thought that it would be in her lifetime, and she’s not dead yet ...

I thought more about the concept of a resurrected body being powered by our spirit and not blood. A couple of thoughts that I had was first, how extensive the vascular system is. If you prick your finger, even just a little bit, you get blood coming out, that’s how integrated blood is into our bodies. Blood or blood components fill every one of our cells. If we think about it in the context of our spirit taking the place of blood, our spirit would be fused with our body to the point that they could not be separated anymore. I’m not exactly sure how it works now with our spirit being in our body, but it seems like when we are resurrected, the physical body and the spiritual body will become completely united. It will be interesting to see how that feels. The second thought that I had was about how this concept also highlights the importance of our spiritual progression as that is all that will matter after this life. For me, who already has spirituality as an important aspect...

I can’t believe that it’s been almost a month since I have posted. It’s interesting because with this whole corona virus thing going on, and me working in healthcare, work was pretty crazy for a while, and then there was an earthquake and everyone lost their minds. And then I got hand, foot, and mouth disease in which I suffered enormously for two weeks with fevers, sores in my mouth, etc. It was terrible, I lost 10 pounds from not being able to eat for 2 weeks, I was off work, I went to the ER twice, it was an absolute disaster. I just got back to work yesterday and I still didn’t feel that great, especially since I am just starting to eat again so I’m having stomach issues. It’s been terrible. I have definitely developed some appreciation for the atonement and for those who are ill. But once I got back and started studying again, I was reminded why this can be such a difficult task to do every single day. It is overwhelming. The information is vast and just to work through a ...