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 ...