Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

Jesus has called his disciples “friends” and in perhaps an attempt to increase their self-confidence he says, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you.” This is one of those statements that I have a difficult time understanding because they way I read it makes it seem like He’s saying that their personal righteousness or decisions had no impact on their call to the apostleship, and we know that’s not true. When Jesus called these men to follow him, they were spiritually prepared, meaning that they had spent considerable time in prayer and in the scriptures, they were aware enough to be looking for the Messiah and worthy enough to feel the Spirit when Jesus approached them. But what if they were righteous but not willing to give up their lives and families to follow this strange guy around, would Jesus have insisted that they come with him? Of course not, that’s kidnapping. And what if they had chosen to follow Jesus, but...

I’m reading this last discourse that Jesus gives to His disciples as he’s walking toward destiny, and I can’t help but think of what I would want my last words to be if I knew I was walking to my death. One time I was the nursery leader and I had about 5 kids in there, and then I had to suddenly move and on my last Sunday there I gave my “last words” to the kids, even though I’m sure they had no idea what I was talking about. I said basically to always stay in the Church, always keep the commandments, always read the scriptures and to love Jesus. I feel like this is kind of a similar thing that Jesus is doing here, giving his last bits of wisdom to people he loved and to whom he knew horror and hardship was coming. Keeping with the concept of “abiding” that we talked about yesterday, Jesus says, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.” ...

Jesus has concluded the upper room portion of the evening and begins walking to the Mount of Olives with his remaining disciples. On the way there, he continues teaching them, and begins with an analogy saying, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman… I am the vine, ye are the  branches: He that adibeth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” The seven verses that talked about the vines and branches were pretty repetitive I feel, but the vineyard analogy is very prominent throughout all scripture and probably made a lot of sense, especially to the people of ancient time. But the idea is pretty straight forward and can be easily understood even my city folk in our day. The IM says, “Elder James E Talmage of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles explained h...

Jesus continues, "if ye love me, keep my commandments." This has always been a difficult concept for me because for the vast majority of my life, I didn't love God so I needed another form of motivation for being obedient, and honestly, because I didn't have any other reason, I didn't keep the commandments. Having some distance from that belief, I can now see how this statement could appeal to both sides of people. If you genuinely have an innate love of God, which many people do, regardless of their native religion, then you want to follow the rules that your God has set forth because you believe that it is in your best interest. On the other side though, for those who do not automatically love their God, we could use the inverse. Instead of "if you love me, keep my commandments," it's also true, "if you keep my commandments, you will love me." This is a horse/carriage situation because do you keep the commandments because you love God or ...

Jesus makes a very interesting statement that I had never caught before, saying, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” It sounds like Jesus is saying that those who believe on Him will have power to perform miracles that are even greater than the miracles that Jesus performed Himself. That statement has a lot of implications. First, it demonstrates Jesus’ modesty. He doesn’t need to have everyone know that He’s the biggest and the best and the most important, he wants other people to feel just as empowered. He knows that people are strengthened when they are able to access God’s power and he wants others to have that spiritually building experience. Imagine you’re a student or lower level employee, and your teacher/boss comes to you and says, “one day you’ll be able to do everything that I can do.”...

There are several verses that Jesus talks about His relationship with the Father. I had an interesting learning experience yesterday. I went to a temple dedication for a while before I got called in to work, and before I went I watched on the Mormon channel some Church discussions about temples and one of the major themes that kept coming up was vicarious works, even during the temple dedication. They said that Jesus performed the ultimate vicarious act during the atonement, he did for us what we can’t do for ourselves. One of the points someone made was that Jesus’ mortal ministry was a vicarious work for Heavenly Father. They said that the Savior came down as a representative for Heavenly Father and did everything so that we could know the Father through the Son. I thought that that was an interesting analogy.   Philip asks the Lord “shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.” Heavenly Father didn’t appear, but Jesus taught His disciples that ...

Maybe to comfort Peter who had just been told that he would thrice deny Jesus in the next few hours, Jesus tells his disciples, “Let not your  heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in my. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” This does give the disciples the advantage of the eternal perspective. A tough time is ahead of them, and remembering that rewards and rest are coming to them will be helpful. It is a little bit discomfiting to imagine us down here suffering and Jesus playing architect in heaven, but I don’t think that that’s what he meant. The concept of Jesus dying within the next 24 hours is still not sinking in for them and Thomas asks how they can know the way if they don’t know where He is going. Jesus answers, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” This is a pretty abstract statement, so ...