Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

We have to remember going into chapter 3 that Paul’s main audience with this letter is to a group of Christians who converted out of Judaism and were considering going back to their original religion for various reasons. The IM says, “For the Jews, Moses was the most highly revered prophet, the one who received God’s law at Sinai. The Jewish Christians being addressed in Hebrews were contemplating abandoning their faith in Christ and returning to Judaism in an attempt to remain loyal to the law of Moses. They did not understand (or believe deeply enough) that Christ was preeminent to Moses. Having shown in Hebrews 1-2 that Jesus Christ is greater than the angels, Paul next explained that as ‘the Apostle and High Priest of our profession,” Jesus is greater than Moses.” It’s really easy for us to look at the first Jewish Christian converts and judge their actions from our high horses 2,000 years in the future, but really, if we think about it, it’s a miracle that any of them believed i...

2:1-5 - In establishing Christ’s elevated position over the angels at the end of chapter 1, noting that if the “ministering angels” are respected and listened to, “we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard.” Here he’s indicating that if the angels are respected and followed, then how much more should we follow the commandments of Christ “for unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come.” There’s also an interesting little nugget buried in there that I think is interesting and it seems like it’s Paul’s question that, even if we did obey the angels but “every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; How shall we escape.” To me this is Paul’s way of asking us “you can obey the angels all you want, but can they save you? Can they forgive your sins?” And the answer is that of course they can’t, only Jesus Christ can because he was the only one eligible to perform the atonement, and he did it. The article on this...

Like we discussed yesterday, this epistle is a lot different than what I’m used to from Paul. At the beginning of Hebrews, he just launches right into it, and I can think of a couple of different reasons for that. First, maybe this wasn’t meant as a letter as much as it was a sermon that he wrote that he wanted one of his missionary companions to read out loud to the people. Another reason might be that there was an introductory section and it was somehow lost to time so we don’t have it. Or it’s possible that this is just how Paul wrote it because he thought that it would be the most powerful that way. One of the differences between preaching the gospel to the Jews vs. preaching the gospel to the gentiles is that the gentiles have to be convinced of the incorrectness of their pagan beliefs and the truthfulness of Jesus Christ. This seems like a pretty straight forward task, “you’re wrong and this is what’s right,” sure it seems like it’s just a matter of becoming educated. And I don...

Ok, going back to Onesimus from yesterday, I got a few insights from the book I’m listening to about Paul right now. First was that one of the draws to the gospel that Onesimus might have related to was that the purported Savior of all mankind had died a slave’s death on the cross. Since Onesimus was a slave himself and knew that he was facing the same fate as Jesus if he returned to Philemon, he might have found comfort in a leader who wasn’t “too good” for his status as a slave. The second insight was that apparently Paul’s request had worked out because 50 years after this event, the leader of the church in Ephesus was a man named Onesimus, either the same slave turned bishop or a man named after the original Onesimus. I just thought that those two insights were interesting because it gave some perspective to how the gospel can be viewed from different people in different circumstances and because it helped us kind of see the happy ending to the book of Philemon. As we begin with ...

The letter of Paul to Philemon is an interesting one and is something that I don’t feel like we’ve encountered yet. This letter was apparently written while Paul was on house arrest in Rome the first time. The IM comments, “Philemon is perhaps the most personal of all Paul’s letters, and it clearly illustrates the fact that when people join the Church of Jesus Christ, they become brothers and sisters in the gospel. One principle that Paul taught Philemon was that when a person is offended or hurt by another, it is the injured person’s duty to forgive the wrong-doer.” The first time I heard someone say that being offended is a choice, I had a mind-blowing reaction. I fought it of course because there had been so many people in my life who had hurt me intentionally and it seemed to me that this sentiment excused their behavior and put all the blame for my trauma on me. But instead of being oppressive, it ended up that this concept became liberating. Just because something happened doesn’...

3:1 - As Paul continues teaching about the character traits of Disciples of Christ, he brings up a few interesting points. First is that believers are “to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates.” I’ve always been a fighter and looking back at history when I was younger, I would always think, “why didn’t those people stand up for themselves? Why didn’t they start a revolution?” And it wasn’t until I started studying the scriptures more that I realized “revolution” and “overthrow” and “standing up for yourself” isn’t usually the way to resolve issues. We see many examples of how going to war, being the instigator, usually results in your defeat and significant loss of life. I think about the contrasting examples of Limhi and Alma, both of which were leaders of enslaved peoples and how they both ended up leading their people to freedom, but the differences. There’s a lot that goes into it, but basically the lesson that I got was that we are to be obedient to the la...

I think so much of the letter to Titus has been discussed in other epistles that this phrase from the article on this chapter form gospeldoctrine.com says, “Admittedly, Titus is not the most quoted of Pauline epistles. Titus chapter 2 is not particularly well known for any particular passage.” This makes me feel better for not having tons to say about this book. There are several themes throughout chapter 2 and I think I’ll just focus on them. First is Paul’s commission for Titus to “speak thou the things which become sound doctrine.” I’ve heard the phrase “sound doctrine” numerous times throughout the scriptures so I finally decided to look up what “sound doctrine” is and why it matters. Sound doctrine to me means the good news of the gospel, it’s that Jesus died for our sins and was resurrected and we can all be with him again if we want to. An article about this from gotquestions.org says, “Sound doctrine is important because our faith is based on a specific message… Change that m...

1:3-5 - God, who cannot lie, promised eternal life “before the world began,” and it seems to me like Paul is saying that to fulfill his promise, God “hath in due times manifested his word through preaching.” This makes sense because like we discussed yesterday God promised the opportunity for eternal life for all, and we have our agency to accept or reject that offer and God fulfills part of that promise by putting the gospel on the earth at various times throughout human history. And then of course people kill all the prophets and the gospel is gone from the earth again. Paul says that he is one of those who has been given “commandment of God our Savior,” to preach that gospel. Just like in Timothy, Paul calls Titus, “mine own son after the common faith.” I don’t know how Titus and Timothy’s relationships with their biological dads were, and I wonder how the culture was back then with dads and their kids. But it must have been so rewarding to have someone that you have worked with s...

I’m back baby! It was quicker and much better than I had anticipated and I’m super grateful for that. Tender mercies, fo’ sho’. As we go into the book of Titus, there are some similarities in the situations of Titus and Timothy. Like Timothy in Ephesus, Titus was asked by Paul to preside over the growing church in Crete. And Paul considered both Timothy and Titus to be his “own son after the common faith.” He felt fatherly affection and responsibility for these two boys and he asked them to take on difficult tasks. If I had to do it all over again, I wish I would have gone through the books of the Bible from Romans to Revelation and gone in chronological order while following the book of Acts as a timeline guide. The reason why I think this would have been so much better is exhibited here in the book of Titus. While 1 Timothy and now Titus were written while Paul was still free after his first Roman imprisonment, 2 Timothy was the last epistle that Paul wrote and has a completely diff...