NT - Paul, Peter, Mark and Rome

Cool connection between the four I learned this week...

Paul was in Rome under house arrest for two years. Mark stood by his side as a scribe while many others who were with him apostatized). Then, after Paul is executed, Mark becomes a scribe for Peter who is also in Rome (although he may have come after Paul's execution).

NT - Printing Museum

This week our class visited the Crandall Printing Museum (on Center Street between 2nd and 3rd East in Provo). This was the second time I have been, and it was amazing to see what the Lord does in preparation for events that need to come about.

The Printing Press was invented by Johannes Gutenberg around the 1430s as a way to print the Bible faster than having monks hand write it. For 400 years the press stayed about the same, then a few alterations were made to it, and finally technology improved and improvements were made until we reached the typewriter and then the modern keyboard.

It's just fascinating to me how the Lord prepared the way for Joseph Smith to receive his First Vision. Joseph got the idea from reading the Bible, which was printed from a press. Furthermore, the printing press played a major role in the first editions of the Book of Mormon (5,000 copies).

I believe the Lord planned it all, and inspired the inventors with the ideas and the methods to making a printing press that works.

Makes me wonder, and look for, what the Lord has prepared for me and what He is preparing for others through me.

NT - Paul's Last Visit to Jerusalem

Luke's historical account of the events that occurred following the death of Christ comprise the book of Acts. This account primarily follows the travels and teachings of Paul, right up to his last visit to Jerusalem.

As Paul prepares to leave for Jerusalem, those around him pleaded with him not to go. They feared for his life for they knew many Jews in Jerusalem were angry with him and sought to take away his life. Fully aware that traveling to Jerusalem would lead to his death, Paul is determined to go anyways.

Just as expected, when Paul arrives in Jerusalem, he is sent to the temple where he is found by those who hate him most. In the hussle, however, the Roman guards who are watching over the temple mount save Paul and lead him away from the angry crowd. On his way out, Paul turns and recounts the story of his conversion to the crowd before being taken by the guards to Phillip.

Paul spends the next few years in captivity appearing before Jews, Gentiles, kings, and rulers and spreading the gospel to them. Eventually, he does die for the gospel he so entirely believes in, but the fearless and unselfish dedication he gave to the spreading of the Good News is what makes his life great.

NT - The Apostacy

From the time the Early Christian Church began, and even the time prior to that, prophets spoke of the apostasy. If you look up the list in the topical guide, you will see that the prophecies are quite large in number. Isaiah and Amos in the Old Testament foretell of this falling away. Then, from the very start of the New Testament, the apostles wrote of the apostasy and warn the members. Matthew and John write about it in the Four Gospels. Luke mentions it in his writings in Acts. Paul's accounts are more direct warnings in his epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians, Thessalonians, Timothy, and Titus. Following Paul are James, Peter, John, Jude, and St John the Divine in Revelation. So many warnings to the people of the church.

Paul states in Acts 20:29-31, "For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears."

Paul knows he's going to his death in Jerusalem, and yet, he takes a moment of his valuable time left on the earth to remind the saints what he had warned them about "every one night and day" for three years. He knew the apostasy was coming, and it was coming soon. He would not live to see it, that much is clear, but he knew the members of the church living during his time, would live to see it. The apostasy was on its way, growing from a rebellion within the church itself, not by external attack of any other church, that would burn the church to the ground, so to speak, and leave future generations the task of picking up the ashes so that Christianity could survive. So Paul warned the saints, he told them to watch out and to not be led away.

Nevertheless, the Early Christian Church died in the first century A.D. and the apostasy began. Christianity survived, however, and religious peoples picked up the pieces from the shattered glass to form other Christian churches.

NT - Museum of Art

This week we went to the MOA on campus for a part of class. We walked through the "Types and Shadows: Intimations of Divinity" exhibit. I think my favorite piece was this one entitled "Exchange No. 8" by Ron Richmond. The colors are what's most intriguing to me, how the red cloth is draped over the fallen chair while the white cloth is placed over the upright chair. The red color, however, is still reflected off of the white cloth. When I first saw this piece, I immediately thought of myself as the fallen chair covered in the red scarlet of sin bowing down to my Savior, the perfect upright one in white who Atoned for my sins. As we looked at this piece as a class, however, the MOA assistant stated that she thought of it as both chairs being herself. The overthrown chair was symbolic of putting off the natural man, and the standing chair was her repentant self, with the red reflection being the memory of her past sins staying with her to remind her never to go back. Interesting. I can see it both ways.

Throughout the exhibit, I think the themes stood out to me most.
Themes of perseverance,
of hard work,
of grief,
of pain,
and of the magnificent lOvE of the Almighty that comforts them all.

NT - Romans

Your religion is between you, and your God. We can learn from others, and grow together, but I believe that ultimately it's something only God can give you.

I believe God has given me a new view this week; a new way to look at a principle I've been struggling to understand lately. The idea stems from Paul's Epistle to the Romans. How are we saved? By works alone? By faith? I say both. For Christ is who saves us in the end, and we must have at least some form of faith in Him. Remember though, that faith without works is dead. We ALL sin, we ALL make mistakes, and we ALL need to be saved. We need to do all we can in this life; be the best we can possibly be, but in the end that will not save us. Only Christ's intervention in our judgment can do that.

I learned a new analogy the other day for what our judgment might be like. It may not actually be this way, but the principle is there:

The Court

That life is past, the time is here. I always knew this day would appear.
I'm confident I lived my life the best I could; I walked pretty straight.
I'm prepared for what happens next. I'm ready, I did my best.
I sit outside those grand oak doors and let the silence fill the hall.
A quiet sound seeps through the door. It's hard to tell, but it might be a weep.
I start to get nervous; I start to pace.
What happens behind those doors so great? What's the direction of my fate?
I get anxious as I sit and wait.
Yet I ease my soul with a hymn of Him.

When my time comes, the doors give a creak, a young man in white makes a small squeak.
He bids me come, and I follow him in.
Into a small court he leads me, with quick steps he bids me.
To a brown chair he ushers me, smiles softly then leaves.
I'm alone not too long when the prosecutor comes.
He smirks at me bitterly, sets his papers down, and drums.
At the same time, they enter, all twelve not missing one.
The court master enters, cries out, "all arise!"
Everyone present, in highest reverence, stands up and awaits the judge.

He comes in so gracefully, takes His seat and looks towards me.
I see the great love in his magnificent eyes, but also some pain as He voices, "advise."
Like a movie my life plays, flashing brightly before us.
My hurts and my pains, my good moments too; all of my life, through and through.
I cringe at my mistakes, my sins, and my thoughts.
At times I slump down, to hide from the frown.
I realize how weak I had been in life.
I'd tripped and I'd fallen, and at times, didn't get up.
My memory was clearer, I'd messed up all right.

Then Satan, he stopped it, and turned to the court.
"Good sirs," he did croon, "I think that's quite enough.
I think we can all see what this girl deserves.
Let me bring in her mother, her brother, her friend.
And we'll show you all what a mess she has been."
From then on, a line formed, with all the people I've wronged.
They all gave their testimony of how I had hurt them.
I cried when I realized how many I forsook and all the ones I overlooked.
Without end was my weeping as the case kept on leaping.

So many I had harmed with my words or my deeds.
My thoughts and my actions had harmed those in need.
Some had had a hard day, others just lost a friend.
Others were breaking inside or loosing their stride.
And yet I had not helped them, I broke them instead.
My neglect was as bad as a stab through the heart.
So many I had hurt, oh so many I failed to comfort.
My head pleaded, "Stop! What about the pain I was in?!"
But the moment I said it, I knew I was wrong. I had harmed them, not been trampled upon.

I turned to despair as I wept on the chair.
God could not take me to Heaven like this.
I was bad and had sinned and was selfish and wrong.
I'd resolved to go quietly to where Satan had planned.
I knew the judgment was just, and I should hope for no more.
As I readied to go, give up, and move on, a soft hand touched my shoulder and warmth filled my skin.
My Brother the Elder, stood by me just then.
His face was so kind, so gentle, not grim.
He hugged me just briefly, then advanced to the stand.

He spoke shortly with God, put his hand out and then,
I saw Him write something quickly on the stand before God.
He stepped back from the podium and looked keenly toward me.
His outreached hand lifted me from the chair, and lead me away from the stare.
I heard Satan scream behind me, "But how could this be?!"
Then God stated softly, "It is done, she is free."
I looked to my Brother, who smiled without guile.
We walked on, and I thought, "what are those marks in his hands,
and in His feet in his sandles too?"
Then I looked to his finger, on the hand that he wrote with,
and started to cry when I saw the red tip.

NT - Faith, Hope, and Charity

- Ironic that I should write on hope just yesterday, and my blog prompt today is on faith, hope, and charity. -

1 Corinthians 13 is a short chapter on charity specifically. It basically states that without charity, we are nothing, no matter how much knowledge, understanding, faith, prophecy, or eloquent speaking we have. It even states, "and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing" (vs. 3). So what is charity if it is not giving all we have to the poor through welfare (which is actually what the word "poor" is referenced to in the King James Version of the Bible)?

I have come to the persuasion that charity, along with both hope and faith, are attitudes not actions or knowledge. For how could any of those three be action-based if the scripture clearly states that no matter what we do or know, it matters not if we have not charity? Therefore, it must be more than action or knowledge.

I believe it to be an attitude.
A desire of the heart.

For Charity is long suffering,
kind,
envieth not,
does not boast in itself,
is not prideful,
behaveth not crudely,
is not selfish and has no hidden agendas,
is not easily angered,
thinketh no evil towards itself or others,
does not rejoice in sin,
rejoiceth in truth,
beareth all things,
believeth all things,
hopeth all things,
endureth all things,
never fails and it never gives up.
(paraphrased from the chapter)

It is the true love of Christ...it is Christ, we could substitute His name for the word "charity" or any pronoun for it, and it would fit...it is perfect as He is. I believe that Christ not only bestowed all his goods upon the poor physically, but also spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. I think the most important part of His gift to us, was that He did so willingly, because He truly loves us. That is what I believe charity is.

Faith is like unto it. It is a belief that things are which are not seen. Like Judy the Elf in The Santa Clause says, "Seeing isn't believing. Believing is seeing." It requires action and not waiting around, but it is not based on the action either. I believe it is an attitude of believing in God the Eternal Father, His Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost and trusting that they will not lead you astray. I already spilled about hope, so I won't reiterate it here, but I also believe that hope is an attitude.

NT - Paul on the Second Coming

December 21, 2012.

The day the world is supposed to end, or, in the language of Christians, the time of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Modern movies, books, discussions, facebook groups, and other parties show the fixation people have on this "end of the world" date. However, this obsession is not limited to just our day and age, if we look back in history, we can see that people got into this mind frequently. When the Iraq war came, people thought it was the end. When 2K was upon us, people thought the world was going to explode. With WWII, and before that, WWI, people thought it was over.

We can trace these heightened expectations for the Second Coming through history to the 1st century A.D. Just a few years after Christ had come the first time, people began to expect Him to come again, end the sufferings of the people, and reign supreme for the Millennium. During Paul's ministry, this obsession became a major problem within the Church at Thessalonia, not because the people believed that the Second Coming would happen, but because they were throwing away their lives in expectation of it. So Paul, Silvanus, and Timotheus wrote an epistle to the Thessalonians in an attempt to help the people keep hope in the Second Coming, but still live and plan for life (read the full epistle here). Chapter 4, specifically addresses the issue, stating, "study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you...for this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep...then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air" (verses 11-17). The problem was, that these people stopped working, planning for the future, and caring about life because they thought, "the Second Coming is upon us, why work and save for a future that will not be?" They sit around, and literally wait for the Second Coming; the exact problem Paul was addressing.

Does not the same idea apply to us today? Some people give up actually living their lives because "the end of the world is near, so why break my back over something that will soon be gone?" "Why spend my life working away at making the world better, when it's only going to get worse until it ends?" The point of life is not to waste it waiting for something better to come along, the point is to make this life the best we possibly can. It's a proactive approach instead of a reactive one. Like Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:2 "for yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." No one but God knows when the Second Coming is. We can speculate about it all we want, but waiting for it leads to a wasted life.

So we need not give up our schooling, jobs, finances, storage areas, retirement funds, or any other areas of planning for a future because we speculate that the world will end. That way, we'll be prepared for the world to end, or continue on.

NT - Special Collections Seminar

Our class attended the Special Collections Seminar this week to learn more about ancient writings and how the Bible was transcribed. What peaked my interest was the evolution of writing materials used. Man first wrote on rock (cave drawings and such), but in order to have a portable form of their writings, they figured out how to make clay tablets. I was expecting these tablets to be something like what Moses brought down from the Mount; the big, almost tombstone-like, clay slabs. What we were shown, however, was much smaller. The tablet was just bigger than the palm of my hand with characters inscribed about one centimeter tall, filling up the tablet on both sides.

Next, the Egyptians figured out a way to use papyrus - a reed-like, water dwelling plant - to write on. The material was thin and could be fairly easily produced, but was not flexible and had to be carefully taken care of. Since the papyrus could not be folded, the Egyptians instead rolled it into scrolls - hence the Papyri Scrolls and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Later, in the Medieval period, animal hides were used. These hides were thin and flexible. They could be written on as well as erased and re-written. Monks often created books, written on animal hides, with wood covers to protect them. Hides were expensive, and difficult to come by at times, and were considered very valuable. The best hides to produce vellum from were the hides of newborn animals, or even better, those animals who were still developing prenatally. Apparently, one baby calf would produce enough hide for two pages. So in order to produce one copy of the Bible, containing somewhere around 1200 pages, 600 calves would have to be killed to provide the vellum. That's just one bible! What happens when they get groups of monks together, all working on transcribing the Bible? No wonder this vellum was such a pricey commodity. So pricey, in fact, that when supply ran out in the middle of a religious transcribing project, monks took books of pagan writings, erased them, and wrote over the old writings.

Paper wasn't discovered until about 100 years AD, now it's something we take for granted often. It is so easy for us to write now, to print books. What took dozens of years to produce in ancient times, we can now print in a few minutes. Makes me wonder though, is what we write or print what's important? In the ancient times, people had to know that what they were inscribing was important and worth the effort. Do we even think about what we write sometimes? Do we write the unimportant, meaningless wanderings of our lives and "forget" to write down what's truly important?

I know I don't even try to remember to do that sometimes. Maybe our writings should have more thought put into them.

NT - Galatians (try two)

So the first time I posted this it messed up my blog for some reason, so I'm going to try again.

Paul and Barnabas, at the point when the epistle to the Galatians was written, had already been to Galatia preaching the gospel unto all the people in the land (Gentiles). After they left, however, troublemakers came into the land preaching that the people needed to be circumcised of they could not be saved. they stuck to Jewish custom, teaching that a man must first be circumcised before he can come unto Christ. This angered Paul greatly.

The main problem was not in the actual act of circumcision, however, it was in the "pervert[ing] of the gospel of Christ" (1:7). Which gospel of Christ is the "good news" that Jesus Christ atoned for each and every one of us and that He has the power to save us, even with all our insufficiencies. What angered Paul most about these troublemakers was the fact that they preached that the gospel alone was insufficient, that the Gentiles had to become Jews first, through circumcision, before they could become followers of Christ. In essence, they taught that Christ, alone, was not sufficient to save them.
They perverted the gospel and the good news of it. They basically said, "Christ is not enough to save you. Only with the addition of circumcision can you be saved." WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?! That's not the gospel at all! That is why Paul was angry with them.

The equivalent today might be something like: "You cannot e Christ's if you do not pay your pastor," "I can never be forgiven of this sin," "I can never forgive you for what you did to me," or some other statement that has the underlying perversion that says, "Christ cannot save you."

"Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of hte law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified" (2:16).
"For if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain" (2:21).

I testify, as Paul does, that Christ is sufficient to save us!

NT - Acts Chapter 2

Alright all you avid readers (I know there are so many of you :) ) This semester I have an assignment in my Honors New Testament class to post a blog each week on a given prompt. I will start all these blogs with "NT - ..." so just keep in mind these blogs are for a class assignment. Here we go!

Since the scriptures are given us for our benefit and learning as a gift from God, we ought to try to learn something from them right? But what ought we to learn? The most important and significant things of course! Since we have recently read the first few chapters of Acts for class, I want to try to find the two points that are most important to me which are imbedded in Acts Chapter 2 (that's a book in the New Testament, specifically in the second half of the King James Version of the Bible for those of you who are not familiar with it).

1. Verses 23 and 24 state, "[Christ], being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain; Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of  it."
          I think the strongest point here is that God's will always comes to pass, and no manner of wickedness of man can thwart that. I did not know this before, but apparently the Jews believed that if a person was crucified he was cursed of God. So, the idea that Christ was the Messiah would have been absurd to them. However, God "hath raised up" Christ and brought His will to pass despite the will of the wicked. God has the power to reverse death if He so desires. I have never thought about it like that until now. Somebody wicked could come up and slaughter me tomorrow, but if God's will was to keep me on the earth for His own purpose, He could bring me back to life (I don't really think He would, but if He wanted to He could).

2. Verse 38 is especially meaningful to me, it states, "Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost."
            Right off the bat, this didn't really mean anything to me, however, after continuing on to the verses that follow, a new idea began to form in my mind. Peter was telling the people that they cannot be saved simply by calling upon God, or saying they believe in God. They have to know who it is they are calling upon and believing in. To know that person, you must first know the name, which is Jesus Christ. After that come the mighty miracles that arise from the power of the NAME of JESUS CHRIST. After the people understand this, they receive His word and are baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, they continue stedfastly in the doctrine in the name of Jesus Christ, they "continued daily with one accord (vs. 46)" and did many great things because they had been changed by the name of Jesus Christ. Now I know why we, as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, use the name of Jesus Christ in our title. His name has power. That is why we pray in his name, give blessings in his name, take upon us his name, and are changed by his name.