Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

5:18-19 - The “new creature” that we become as we repent and grow spiritually is made because of the atonement of Jesus Christ. It is this atonement “that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” One thought that I had about the “new” vs. “old” concept has to do with these “trespasses” that we incur. I was listening to The Infinite Atonement this morning on the way to work and Tad R. Callister was talking about the transformative abilities of the atonement and how as we repent, we are no longer judged for what we did and who we were, but who we are at the time. Thinking about the body becoming “new” like we talked about yesterday, maybe it’s not just about regressing from decaying to healthy, but perhaps it’s about removing the parts of ourselves that makes us decay.   People get old and sick because of the natural elements wear on their bodies, the oxidation, the environmental chemicals, gravity, and usage over time are...

5:16- - I’m not exactly sure what Paul is trying to say in verse 16 with the “known Christ after the flesh,” but don’t know him anymore. I honestly don’t know what this means, but Paul continues, “therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” We’ve discussed repeatedly about changing who we are to become more spiritually minded, in fact, it doesn’t matter what we’ve done, repentance is possible and with that repentance comes a turning away of our old self and desires and turning towards God. The article on this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com quotes Elder Glenn Pace as noting, “we should all be striving for a disposition to do no evil, but to do good continually. This isn’t a resolve or a discipline; it is a disposition. We do things because we want to, not just because we know we should.” He later acknowledges that this change comes “through grace and by the Spirit of God,” and is not a quick process.  ...

5:8-11 - Here again we see the word “confident” used to describe our feelings of trust in the Lord’s plan. Unlike yesterday where Paul said that he was “always confident” in God’s plan even though he was separated from God in this mortality, today Paul remains “confident” in the idea of being separated from his body “to be present with the Lord.” After just spending several verses talking about how glorious the resurrection will be, Paul expresses his faith that whether he has his body at any given point or even if he doesn’t, all things will be for his good. Spending so much time discussing adversity, persecution, death, and resurrection lets us see that Paul had a substantial understanding of the plan of salvation. Part of the proof that he gave his detractors for the validity of his ministry, and something we discussed in depth, was the fact that the missionary work he was engaged in didn’t benefit him at all, in the physical sense. He didn’t gain power or wealth or prestige for t...

Talking about the body/spirit connection that we experience in this life, Paul uses an interesting word to describe how our attitudes should be. He says “therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.” The footnote for the word “confident” says, “of good courage, of good cheer,” meaning that even though we are separated from God at this point of our journey, we should still have the courage to be obedient and to be happy despite less than ideal circumstances. Interestingly though, a friend of mine once sent me an article entitled “Doer of Our Deeds and the Speaker of Our Words,” where the author M. Catherine Thomas discussed the myth of self-esteem. When he first said that self-esteem was a myth, I was a little irritated because I myself have struggled so long and hard against feelings of worthlessness. But after reading the article, I became convinced of the correctness of that principle. The concept that she taught h...

5:1-5 - Chapter 4 ended with Paul talking about affliction turning out for our good and there was a lot of discussion about our physical bodies doing the work of the Lord, or carrying the “treasure” of the gospel to the people all around. Paul had discussed briefly his own experience with persecution for the sake of the gospel complete with beatings, whippings, mobs chasing him, etc. I had a thought while driving to work this morning that made Paul’s physical persecutions were seen by him or others as his penance for imprisoning and physically persecuting the early Christians before his conversion. Anyway, we know that Paul ends up being executed for his beliefs, and possibly Paul knows it’s coming at this point too. In this life, looking at it from the perspective of the mortal world, death is the ultimate endgame, there is no coming back from that.   In verse 1 when Paul teaches that if “our earth house of this tabernacle were dissolved,” meaning when death comes, those who...

4:10-12 - This is another place where Paul just becomes so abstract that I really struggle to follow him. From yesterday, he was saying that he and his companions were flawed, unimpressive mortal bearers of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. Because they carried such a heavy and glorious “treasure,” Satan works hard to bring them, and really anyone who accepts their message too, trouble. But God rewards them for enduring that suffering with support and inner peace. Paul makes an interesting statement that I’m going to paraphrase the way that I understand it. Remembering that they are carrying the gospel of Christ, he says that they always carry the message in their bodies that Christ died so that their bodies might also experience the benefits of Christ’s life. This is a very abstract way of saying, “we teach of Jesus’ death so that we can experience his resurrection.”   Paul further points out that even when these persecutions lead to their deaths, they give their live...

4:7 - Because the same power that created the universe, gave us the gospel, then surely that makes the gospel the most important aspect of human existence, even though it’s hard to focus on it as that sometimes. Paul rightfully calls it a “treasure” and gives kind of a bizarre image that “we have this treasure in earthen vessels.” The IM comments, “Paul compared himself and his fellow ministers of the gospel to ordinary-looking clay jars that contain the ‘treasure’ of ‘the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.’ Paul stated that the contrast between humble, unimpressive missionaries and the light they bear- the gospel of Jesus Christ- reveals a divine purpose: ‘That the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.’”   There are a couple of reasons why this comparison between regular people and the glory of the gospel is important. First, by having the missionaries be relatively unlearned, insignificant, and diminutive, the focus of potential converts is forced t...

4:1-3 - One part of verse 18 that I failed to discuss last week leads us right into the topic discussed in chapter 4 this week. Again, it’s hard because our version of this epistle is broken up and segmented into easily digestible portions, but Paul wrote it as a block of text, so one chapter might feed into another because that’s how it was written. The end of chapter 3, in verse 18, Paul again talks about “beholding as in a glass.” Paul also wrote about looking “through a glass, darkly,” in 1 Corinthians 13:12 and at that time we learned that this was referring to an ancient mirror type of thing. Paul was talking about changing our image into that of the Lord, and from what I understand, he’s saying that when we grow spiritually, what we see in a mirror will gradually become more and more a reflection of the Savior.   The reason that this ties into chapter 4 is because recognizing the power of Christ within our own lives and within ourselves, if very empowering. This change...

Paul makes the connection between the Lord and the spirit that is able to take away the “veil” from the heart. Interestingly, he notes “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Liberty or freedom is a really complicated and complex concept because universal laws are still in place and take effect, regardless of our acceptance of the. If we had true liberty, we could choose both our actions and the consequences, but that’s not the case, we can only choose our actions, and the consequences are what follows regardless. So if we can only choose our own actions, then how would liberty be defined? How would we know that we were experiencing liberty?   We all live in this imperfect, mortal world where we experience pain and suffering and difficulties, some to a horrific extent. We didn’t choose these circumstances, but we have to deal with them, and really the only aspect of our lives that we can control are our thoughts and behaviors. So if we aren’t talking about litera...

There is a need for both the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, with the spirit building on the foundation established by the letter. But this begs the question, if both are necessary, then why is Paul having to teach the people at Corinth the importance of having the spirit of the law? Honestly, if you can only grow spiritually with both aspects of the gospel, then shouldn’t the people have been doing that this whole time? What had the people been doing instead and what were the consequences?   We’ve been told in numerous instances, from Jesus Christ to now Paul, that the Israelite people were obsessing over obedience to the law of Moses which dealt with their physical behaviors. What the people failed to recognize is that obedience to the physical laws was just preparing them to obey the spiritual laws that Christ would teach when he came to them. Why did they fail to recognize this? I think it’s like anything else, human nature is such that people want money and ...

3: 6 - When people’s lives are improved by the gospel and they are better people, that allows the Spirit to further teach them. Paul’s telling the people that they can know that he’s an Apostle of God because of the message that he brings, also works in his own life. Working in the gospel makes him a better person because he is purified by the Holy Ghost, and this process “hath made us able ministers of the new testament.” He is able to effectively teach the gospel because he has the Spirit with him and that allows the people to feel the power of his message.   The use of the phrase “new testament” here probably seems a little odd to us because isn’t Paul writing the New Testament right now? How could he be aware of this book of scripture as he’s writing? The article based on this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com says, “’Testament’ here is a Greek legal term (diatheke) for the binding promise of a will… Thus, Paul’s ‘new testament’ is the Lord’s new covenant with the Saints wh...

Man, Paul is just so hard to understand so much of the time. It’s really frustrating. I’ve been especially tired and busy at work the last couple of weeks, so my time and attention has been limited. There are just so many topics covered and it seems like there is a disconnect, plus when I’m tired, nothing makes sense. Still addressing those critical of him, Paul asks “do we begin again to commend ourselves?” The IM summarizes his statement, “Do I really need letters of commendation proving that I am a legitimate Apostle?” The article written about this chapter on gospeldoctrine.com quotes Bruce R. McConkie as noting that anciently, church members traveling to visit each other would carry with them “epistles of commendation or letters of commendation. That is, the saints were commended, introduced, or recommended to various local churches by these written certifications. These would correspond to ‘recommends’ in modern times.”   There are a couple of factors in play here, firs...