Last week I began a series of posts that will examine Handbook 2, the policy handbook that the Church put online last Fall. Since so many local leaders are urged to read and study the handbook as part of their callings, I hoped to provide an interesting forum to do that. Chapter 1 of the Handbook is an overview that tries (I believe) to put the Handbook’s policies in procedures in the context of the plan of salvation. I encourage you to read the chapter before commenting, since you may have more topics to discuss:
Category: Features
Sunday School lessons – Book Reviews – Interviews
A Mormon Image: Surrender Dorothy
I grew up in the Washington DC area, and fondly remember driving on the capitol beltway from the east toward the Temple and seeing the “Surrender Dorothy” graffiti on a railroad bridge, soon after the Temple had appeared to rise from the ground in front of me. I’ve regularly laughed at the sly commentary on the Temple’s architectural similarity to the Emerald City of the Wizard of Oz. Yesterday, the Washington Post’s answerman ran the above photo and asked for information about who the graffiti artist was and why he risked life and limb to repeatedly make this statement. I would find it quite amusing if the perpetrator were LDS! Kent
NT Sunday School Lesson 24: John 16-17
Remember: though these may be useful in helping a person to prepare a Sunday School lesson, they are intended primarily to help one study and prepare for taking part in Sunday School. That’s why you’ll find questions with no answers; they are study questions. John 16 Verses 1-3: In verse 1 Jesus tells the disciples that he taught them what he did in chapter 15 so that they would not be “offended.” A more literal translation might be “caused to stumble,”“scandalized.” In Matthew 26:31 Jesus tells the disciples that they will be offended or scandalized by him that night. What particular things were the disciples facing that might make them stumble? What things in our lives are like those things? How would the particular teachings of the previous chapter, chapter 15, strengthen them against those difficulties? How long was it before some people began to think that persecuting Christians was a service to God (verse 2)? Are we ever guilty of that kind of thinking? For example, do we ever justify our mistreatment of another person because we believe him to be a sinner? Are there ways in which we do so subtly? Do we have ways of doing so as a society, even if not as individuals? What does verse 3 tell us about those who persecute us in some way? What does that suggest about us when we act that way? Early Christianity experienced persecution. Mormons experienced persecution…
Times & Seasons Welcomes Brad Strum
Times & Seasons is excited to introduce Brad Strum as a guest blogger. Brad lives and works in the DC area as an economist, where he has been since earning a Ph.D. in economics at Princeton University. Before grad school, he served in the Russia, Rostov-na-Donu mission and attended Brigham Young University, earning undergraduate degrees in economics and mathematics. Going back even further, Brad grew up in a military family, living in a number of places around the U.S. When he isn’t working, Brad enjoys many activities, including tennis, biking, dancing, reading, discussion groups, and spending time with family and friends.
NT Sunday School Lesson 23: Luke 22:1-38; John 13-15
Getting caught up (as you can see). With this lesson we begin to read about the part of Christ’s life that is traditionally called “the Passion,” the time between the Last Supper and his death on the cross. The word “passion” and the word “passive” are related terms. Why is this part of Jesus’ life called the Passion? The longest part of each of the New Testament gospels is the part describing the Passion. As Latter-day Saints, our tendency is to focus on the resurrection rather than the Passion. Why do you think the gospels give so much attention to the Passion? Does 1 Corinthians 1:17-2:16 explain that attention? Why might the Book of Mormon focus its attention, instead, on the resurrection—or does it? What should our focus be today? The Jerome Bible Commentary, a Catholic commentary, says that in the Passion stories of Matthew and John we are invited to worship Jesus as we see him completing his mission as the Son of God, that Mark’s way of telling the story invites us to sorrow at the events that conclude his earthly ministry, and that Luke’s gospel asks us to accompany Jesus as he suffers and to see ourselves in people like Simon of Cyrene, Peter, and the “good thief.” Do you think that characterization of these accounts is accurate? How might each way of reading the story be important to us? Are there other ways of reading it?…
NT Sunday School Lesson 22: Matthew 25
Verses 1-13: The Parable of the Ten Virgins How does the parable relate to that given in Matthew 24:45-51? We know little about marriage ceremonies in Palestine during Jesus’ day. Indeed, we can assume that the customs varied from one place to another in Palestine, making it even more difficult to recover them. Most of what we say about such things is really a description of customs 200 years or more later. Perhaps those later customs reflect what happened in Jesus’ day, but we cannot know that they did, and the tremendous social upheaval resulting from the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. may well have interrupted the continuity of traditions. Nevertheless, we can infer some things from this parable itself: Wedding feasts seem to have been held at night, otherwise there would be no reason for the bridal attendants to bring their lamps or torches. (Ulrich Luz makes good case that these were torches rather than oil lamps: Ulrich Luz, Matthew 21-28: A Commentary on Matthew 21-28 228-29). It seems that the bride’s attendants went out to escort the groom to the wedding feast, presumably held at the bride’s house. It may be that the groom did not arrive at a particular time, but the tarrying of the groom in this parable might be for the story rather than because it was a custom. How do the scriptures use the symbols “bride” and “groom” in other places? (See,…
NT Sunday School Lesson 21: Matthew 24 (JST)
It is sometimes helpful to have the Joseph Smith revision (JST) and the King James translation side-by-side, so I have put both versions of chapter 24 together in a PDF file for those who would like to use it. Traditional Christianity finds this chapter ambiguous: in some ways it seems to refer to the destruction of Jerusalem that occurred in 70 A.D.; in some ways it seems to refer to the Second Coming. It seems to me that Joseph Smith makes it more clear which passages refer to the destruction of Jerusalem and which refer to the Second Coming. You may also wish to read Doctrine and Covenants 45:60-75 as background for understanding the Joseph Smith version better. I’ve marked references to the JST with “JST.” Other references are to the KJV. From Matthew 21:3 to Matthew 24:2, Jesus has been in the Temple confronting the Temple hierarchy and other community leaders, a confrontation that seems designed to bring about his death. Why does the discussion of the destruction of the Temple and the end times occur now? Why is the JST version of part of Matthew 23 and all of Matthew 24 included in the Pearl of Great Price? Why is the last part of Matthew 23 included as part of this chapter? JST Verse 2: In the corresponding Greek text, the disciples want to show the temple buildings to Jesus. Apparently they are struck by it majesty or…
Faith, Philosophy, Scripture: Breathing
One last post about Jim Faulconer’s Faith, Philosophy, Scripture (Maxwell Institute, 2010). The final chapter is entitled “Breathing” and is a meditation on Romans 8.
NT Sunday School Lesson 20: Matthew 21-23; John 12:1-8
Matthew 21 Verses 1-7: The end of verse 3 could also be translated “and straightway he will return them.” Verse 5 puts two scriptures together, Isaiah 62:11 and Zechariah 9:9 (as they appear in the Greek rather than the Hebrew version of the Old Testament). What does “daughter of Sion” mean? Why is it important that the Lord enter Jerusalem on the back of a donkey (rather than a horse, for example)? Verses 8-11: Why did the people put their cloaks and branches from the trees on the road in front of Jesus? “Hosanna” means “save, we pray.” Do you think that the people were using it because of its meaning or only as a shout of acclamation (much as we use the word “amen” without usually thinking about its meaning)? In Israelite history, who was first called “son of David” as a title? What did that name signify? What does it have to do with the temple? What does it mean to say “all the city was moved [i.e., shaken]”? In the city why do the crowds describe Jesus as “the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee” rather than with the Messianic title they have been using? Verses 12-16: Why does Jesus go to the temple immediately? Please post responses at Feast upon the Word. To offer sacrifice, people had to be able to buy animals for sacrifice–in particular, the poor had to be able to buy the doves that…
Faith, Philosophy, Scripture: Reading Zion
Zion is the world ajar. Zion is the world set on a double hinge. God gives a push, the door goes swinging, and the world opens wide.
NT Sunday School Lesson 19 (JF): Luke 18:1-8, 35-43; 19:1-10; John 11
Luke 18 Verses 1-8: The chapter division here (an artificial division not in the original text) makes us not see the connection between the end of Luke 17 and the beginning of 18. Might Luke have any particular prayers in mind in verse 1? How about the desire mentioned in Luke 17:22? In verse 1, Luke tells us the teaching of the parable before he gives the parable. Why? After reading the parable ask yourself whether there are other ways to read it, perhaps ways that Luke wants to forestall. We will later see that Paul particularly likes the language that Luke uses here, “pray always” (see, for example, 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Romans 12:12, and Ephesians 6:18) and “do not faint” (the word translated “faint” means “to become weary or exhausted” and can mean “lose heart”—for places where Paul uses the term, see for example 2 Thessalonians 3:13, 2 Corinthians 4:1 and 16, and Galatians 6:9). What kind of fainting or exhaustion do you think Luke has in mind? What does constant prayer have to do with being a Christian? Does it have anything to do with seeing the world with Christ as the light that makes sight possible (John 9)? What does not getting exhausted have to do with being a Christian? In verse 2, we find that the judge neither fears God nor regards man. What does the second mean? Are the two phrases parallel, and if they…
NT Sunday School Lesson 16: John 9-10
Chapter 9 Verse 1: Chapter 8 ends with the phrase “passed by” and chapter 9 begins with those words. Did the events of chapters 9-10 happen as Jesus was leaving the temple precincts, or did they occur later? (See verse 14 for a clue.) Why is it important that the man has been blind since birth? As you read the story, ask yourself, How we are like the blind man: in what ways are we or have we been blind from birth? How do we come to see? What do we see when we have been healed? Verses 2-5: How could the disciples believe that the man’s sins could be responsible for his blindness since he was born blind? What do you make of the fact that over and over again we see Jesus ignoring general, hypothetical, and legal questions such as the question that the disciples ask? (See also, e.g., Luke 10:25ff. and John 8:3ff.) What does he deal with instead? How does Jesus explain the man’s blindness? Does he say that is a complete explanation? As you read the rest of this story, ask yourself what works of God are made manifest through this healing. What might might Jesus be speaking of in verse 4? Light is that by which we see things and which makes it possible for us to do our work. Is Jesus the light by which we see the world? What would it mean…
Sunday Afternoon Session
President Eyring conducted the last session of this April 2011 General Conference. Speakers included Elder Scott, Elder Christofferson, Carl B. Pratt, Lynn G. Robbins, Benjamin De Hoyos, C. Scott Grow, and Elder Holland. Readers are invited to leave a comment with their overall reaction to Conference and their sense of the general themes stressed by the speakers.
Reflections on the Priesthood Session
President Eyring conducted the Saturday evening Priesthood session, which offered talks by Elder Andersen, Steven E. Snow, Larry M. Gibson, President Uchtdorf, President Eyring, and President Monson. My notes below are basically summaries of the talks, but include rather loose paraphrases and a bit of commentary, so I have titled the post “Reflections on the Priesthood Session.” It was definitely one of the best priesthood sessions of recent years, and is notable for the rare absence of a major league anti-porn lecture. I would speculate that this reflects a desire to not push any more men away from church activity (I’m sure GAs know the gender gap statistics better than you do) rather than any belief that the problem has gone away.
Saturday Morning Session
President Uchtdorf conducted the Saturday morning session, featuring talks by Elder Perry, Sister Jean A. Stevens, Walter F. Gonzalez, Kent. F. Richards, Elder Cook, and President Eyring, with brief remarks by President Monson. Direct quotations (based on my notes) are given in quotes; all other text represents my summary of the remarks given. Parenthetical comments and discussion notes at the end of the post in italics are my own editorial comments.
NT Sunday School Lesson 14: Matthew 18; Luke 10
Matthew 18 Verses 1-4: Why do the disciples ask the question that they pose in verse 1? What does it suggest about their understanding of Jesus’ message? What do you make of the fact that they are arguing about who shall be first so shortly after Jesus has talked about his coming death (Matthew 17:22)? In verse 3, the verb “be converted” translates a Greek verb that means “turn.” To be converted, to repent, is to turn back, to return. In what sense is repentance a return? Christ says that no one can even enter the kingdom (or reign) of heaven without becoming like a child. Then in verse 4 he says that if a person humbles himself and becomes as a child, then he or she is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. A logical conclusion from the two claims (though rhetoric may trump logic here) is that everyone who enters the kingdom of heaven is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. How do you make sense of that conclusion? In Israel and Rome at this time, the child was not a legal person. Children were the property of their parents. Is that relevant to understanding what Jesus meant when he said that we must become as children to take part in the reign of heaven? How is what Jesus says an answer to the disciples’ question? Verses 5-6: Having answered the disciples’ question very briefly, Jesus…
Faith, Philosophy, Scripture: True Believer
It’s unlikely that I believe the right things about God, Jesus, the gospel, or the Church. It’s even less likely that I could express my beliefs in a coherent and justifiable way. I used to think that, because my ideas were clever, I was at least closer to being right than most. This I took as a consolation. But cleverness isn’t much to live on. God, I think, has been working to pry this cleverness from my cold, dead hands. I have felt God more than once pushing me to echo Meister Eckhart’s deeply orthodox prayer: “I pray to God to rid me of God.” In the midst of such a prayer, the wind stops howling and God bestows a terrifying calm. In this stillness, God gives a precise revelation that bypasses belief and instructs practice. Here, the gospel is given as a certain way of sitting in a chair, a certain way of meeting a child’s eyes, a certain way of kissing a woman’s cheek, a certain way of biting into an apple, a certain way of sheltering a breath, a certain way of reading a book, a certain way of folding a sheet, a certain way of greeting desire or holding, in open hands, a flush of anger. Perhaps it is no suprise, then, that so many Mormon beliefs are so unsettled. As Jim Faulconer notes in Faith, Philosophy, Scripture (Maxwell Institute, 2010), relatively few of what are often described as the…
NT Sunday School Lesson 13: Matthew 15:21-17:13
There are a number of stories in this reading, and they appear not to be given to us in a haphazard way. There is a natural progression from one to the other: (1) Jesus heals the Canaanite woman’s daughter (Matthew 15:21-28). (2) He heals many and multitudes come to him (Matthew 15: 29-31). (3) He not only heals them, he feeds 4,000 (Matthew 15:32-39). (4) Having just given a miraculous sign, he warns the Pharisees and Saducees against sign seeking (Matthew 16:1-4); (5) He tells the disciples to beware the leaven, the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 16:5-12). (6) He asks the disciples who he is and Peter testifies that Jesus is the Christ (Matthew 16:13-20). (7) However, when Jesus tells the disciples that he will be killed and resurrected, Peter denies that teaching and is rebuked (Matthew 16:21-23). (8) Following that rebuke, Jesus teaches the disciples what it means to be a disciple (Matthew 16:24-28). (9) Taking Peter, James, and John as witnesses, Jesus is transfigured, speaks with Moses and Elijah, and the Father testifies of him (Matthew 17:1-9). (10) The disciples ask whether this vision of Elijah was a fulfillment of the prophecy that Elijah will come before the judgment day (Matthew 17:10; cf. Malachi 3:1; 4:25), and Jesus answers that he has already come in the person of John the Baptist (Matthew 17:12), distinguishing between the prophet Elijah and the priesthood calling that has that…
NT Sunday School Lesson 12: John 5-6; Mark 6:30-44; Matthew:14:22-33
As is almost always the case, there is far more here than we can cover in one lesson. These materials will focus on John 5, but I will also include some questions on John 6. John 5 Some have suggested that the gospel of John is partially constructed around seven wondrous works or miracles. (I believe I got this from Art Bassett, but I’m not sure.) With each, Jesus gives a sermon that illustrates the significance of what he has done. The seven are: Turning water into wine at the wedding feast and the discourse on being born again (John 2:1-12; 3:1-21) Raising the nobleman’s son to life and a discourse on Jesus as the living water (John 4:43-51; 4:1-42) Healing the man by the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath and explaining that Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath (John 5:1-14; 5:19-47) Feeding the five thousand and teaching that Jesus is the bread of life (John 6:1-15; 6:22-66) Walking on the sea of Galilee, Jesus comes to Capernaum mysteriously and the discourse on the inability of the Pharisees to understand him (John 6:16-21; 7:14-39) Healing the man born blind and the teaching that Christ is the light of the world (John 9; 8:12-59) Raising Lazarus from the dead and the teaching of the resurrection (John 11; 10:1-18). (Three of the seven are included in the readings for this lesson, one in this chapter and two in the next.) Assuming…
NT Sunday School Lesson 11: Matthew 13
A reminder that I post regularly for those who are new to these notes: These are study notes for the lesson material, not notes for creating lessons. I assume that a person would use these over several days, perhaps a week, of study. Of course someone studying the lessons will also be able to create a lesson, but the purpose of these notes is primarily for the students in Gospel Doctrine class and only secondarily for teachers of the class. This is a chapter of parables. We get the word parable from a Greek word (parabol?) meaning “to set by the side” or “to compare.” It is a translation of a Hebrew word (mashal) that we usually translate “proverb,” but we might better translate that word as “wise saying.” The Hebrew word covers a wide range of things, from what we call proverbs to what we call parables, to what we might call a sermon. Jesus’ hearers probably wouldn’t have made a sharp distinction between those things. During Jesus’ time parables appear to have been used by many teachers. Usually they were given in answer to a question, often a question asked by a follower, and they not only answered the question asked, they did so by showing that there is more to the answer than the follower thought. Used that way, parables are a way of making the questioner think about his question. Do we use parables that way,…
Faith, Philosophy, Scripture: Secular Mormons
The irony of religious fundamentalism is that it is a profoundly modern and profoundly secular phenomenon. This is perhaps especially true of the scriptural literalism that often accompanies it. The result is that many of the most conservative Mormons are, in point of fact, also the most secular. Few Mormons are more secular than Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie. Why is fundamentalism so profoundly secular? Because it cedes the field of truth wholly and without contestation to secular models of truth – and then tries to combat, contest, and outdo the secularists at their own game. Is there a better example of this acquiescence to the secular paradigm than Joseph Fielding Smith’s Man, His Origin and Destiny? Jim Faulconer levels a similar (but subtler) charge against the Protestant theologian Langdon Gilkey in the fourth chapter of Faith, Philosophy, Scripture (Maxwell Institute, 2010): Ironically, when people argue for creation science or for what is usually called a literal reading of the Bible, they are agreeing with the secular understanding of things. They use conceptual structures taken from secularism, such as the necessity that explanations have a scientific form, to try to understand the Bible. Some give up or metaphorize the Bible when faced with the project of making the Bible and science answer the same questions, but some keep the Bible and insist that its account can be brought within the secular myth, though of course they would not…
Peace
Sometimes unintentional mistakes lead to interesting lines of thought. A few weeks ago I misheard a speaker in an LDS meeting. The speaker was quoting John 14:27, and either because of the speaker’s mispronunciation or my imperfect hearing, I heard the word “live” instead of the word “leave.” This lead me to think about what it means to live in peace.
NT Sunday School Lesson 10 (JF) : Matthew 11:28-30; 12:1-13; Luke 7:36-50; 13:10-17
Matthew 11 Verse 28: What does it mean to come to Christ? Has he already told us how we can do that in readings from some of the previous lessons? The word translated “labor” means “wearying labor.” The phrase “heavy laden” translates a Greek word that means “weighed down.” What wearying, taxing work does Christ have in mind here? From what does he offer relief? Why is that described as something that wears us out? As something that burdens us? Can we understand sin as a kind of difficult work? The word translated “rest” literally means “cessation.” It is used to mean “refreshment,” “ease,” or “rest.” How does the Savior offer cessation from taxing labor? Verse 29: The word translated “take” means literally “lift up.” The Greek word translated “yoke” could also have been translated “scales” (the kind of scales one sees in statues representing justice). Do you agree with the King James version’s decision to translate the term as “yoke,” or do you think “scales” would have been more meaningful? Why? In the Old Testament the yoke was often used as a symbol of tyranny. (See, for example, 2 Chronicles 10:4.) Why do you think Jesus uses an image that is usually associated with being subjugated by a tyrant? How do we learn of Christ? In other words, when he commands us, “Learn of me,” what is he commanding? The root of the Greek word translated “learn” means “to…
NT Sunday School Lesson 9: Matthew 6-7
As is usually the case, there is a lot of material to cover in this lesson, but the material in these chapters is so important that it would be a shame to focus on only part of it. So I will focus on the Lord’s prayer (Matthew 6:5-15), but I will also provide notes for the rest of both chapters. Notice that in 2007 Robert C and Cheryl M provided excellent materials on these chapters, and Karl D will almost certainly provide current notes on the lesson materials. Chapter 6 Jesus continues to teach about true righteousness, a righteousness that goes beyond mere obedience. He first discusses three basic acts of piety in first-century Judaism: almsgiving, prayer, and fasting (verses 1-18). Then he teaches us where we will find our treasure (verses 19-23), and he teaches that we ought to serve God without taking thought for ourselves (verses 24-34). Verses 1-4: In verse 1, the Greek word translated “to be seen” is a word related to the theater. We might loosely translate it “to be a spectacle.” In verse 2, the word translated “hypocrites” could also be translated “actor” in other circumstances. (See Robert C’s already mentioned post on “hypocrite” and the comments that follow for more discussion.) What is Matthew emphasizing by using these words to tell us Jesus’ teaching? What does he mean when he says that those who give in public “have their reward”? It is easy…
Faith, Philosophy, Scripture: The Call
It is a commonplace in Zen that three things are necessary for liberation. If you want to wake up from the slumber of self-absorption, if you want to live your life outside the suffocating confines of that mason jar that is your own head, you need (1) great faith, (2) great doubt, and (3) great effort. As Mormons, we’re famous for valorizing the third. We’re also often good at promoting the first. But when was the last time you heard a talk extolling the need to cultivate great doubt? The Zen masters were likely right to see all three as essential. It is not enough to trust and build. Ground must also be cleared. In Faith, Philosophy, Scripture (Maxwell Institute, 2010), Jim Faulconer makes a similar point in relation to reading scripture: We often speak of and use scripture as if it were a set of propositions that are poorly expressed or, at best, “merely” poetic. We then try to discover the propositional content (doctrine) that we assume is lurking behind or implicit in those poorly expressed or poetic expressions and to disentangle the relations of those propositions. (63) In short, we try to cheat and take the scriptures simply as an object of faith or a guide to effort. But that approach misunderstands scripture. Instead of a poetic expression of implicit propositional truths, it is an inspired resource that allows us to question ourselves and our world through reading…
NT Sunday School Lesson 8: Matthew 5
The lesson this week picks out the first part of a longer sermon. Matthew 5-7 give us Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Even if preparing for only the Sunday School lesson, it is probably best to read the entire sermon to see the context of this part. At the time of Jesus there seems to have been considerable controversy over who was “in” and who was “out” when it came to being the children of God. This controversy had been on-going for some time, at least since the time of the return from exile. The Samaritan community was one of the earliest to be excluded, but they were not the only ones. We know of other groups, such as the Essenes who lived in Qumran and who left us the Dead Sea Scrolls. They thought of themselves as “in,” in other words as true to Israel’s covenant, and of everyone else as “out.” The controversy centered on a number of things, but perhaps most prominent among them were who had the right to be the temple high priest, whether the temple ritual had been corrupted, and what lineage had to do with being one of God’s people. Besides the Essenes, this controversy had resulted in a several overlapping, more dominant groups (those supporting the temple priests, the Sadducees; the scribes, those who taught the Law; and the Pharisees, those who sought to reform Judaism by strict obedience to the Law…
NT Sunday School Lesson 7: Mark 1-2; 4:35-41; 5; Luke 7:1-17
For purposes of this lesson, I take Luke 7:1-17 to be a supplement to the miracle stories we read in the material from Mark. So I will make my notes and questions on Mark, assuming that reading and thinking about Luke will be appropriate to them. As usual, I offer the reminder that these are study notes for the reading, not notes for preparing a lesson. Presumably study notes could help a person prepare a lesson, but these go beyond what one might expect in notes for a lesson. Mark’s Gospel This is the first lesson this year to use the book of Mark, so some review may be in order. Most non-LDS scholars believe that Mark was the gospel written first and that the other two synoptic writers used his gospel as a kind of first draft. In contrast, most LDS scholars believe that Matthew was written first because Matthew’s version of things is what we find in Christ’s teaching to the Nephites. Because the early Church saw the gospel of Mark as a kind of “‘reader’s digest’ version” (Bob Utley, The Gospel According to Peter: Mark and I & II Peter [Marshall, TX: Bible Lessons International, 2000] 3), the book was not quoted much in the early Church. Indeed, it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that Mark began to be important to biblical study (Robert A Guelich, Word Biblical Commentary, volume 34A: Mark 1–8:26 [Dallas, TX: Word Books,…
Faith, Philosophy, Scripture: Pagan Faith
Mormons are metaphysical heretics, backward pagans, country bumpkins, who claim that the world, rather than being one, is fundamentally many. We’re metaphysical pluralists and so break with the creeds. Unity is a product, not a starting point. God the Son is not God the Father and (moreover!) all intelligences are uncreated and co-eternal with God. As a result, rather than being reassuringly antedated by the simplicity of a Divine Will or the uniformity of a Providential Reason, we’re preceded by the mystery of a material plurality that is always already given. In this scenario, faith is a different kind of thing. Unlike many versions of creedal faith, pagan faith is no temporary, stop-gap measure. Pagan faith is eternal and, in a pagan universe, even the Gods must have and keep faith. Faith is not the foil of a (lost or future) knowledge, but the ageless bedrock of any trusting, active, and moral engagement with an uncreated world. Pagan faith originates in response to the plurality of calls that precede it. The world calls out and faith responds. It trusts and answers the world’s calls to be responsible for itself. Pagan faith attempts to faith-fully respond to the people, worlds, and Gods that call it to account for its existence and actions. Out of this attempt to give a faithful account, reason is itself born. Responding to these calls, offering an intelligible account of its reasons before the bar of a shared and plural…
NT Sunday School Lesson 6: Luke 4:14-32; 5; 6:12-16; Matthew 10
Before we look at some individual verses from this lesson, consider the overall structure of Luke’s narrative and think about how Luke’s story of the calling of the Twelve compares to Matthew’s. I have put in bold the parts that the lesson focuses on, but I have outlined all four chapters so that you can think about how Luke tells the story as a whole. Because of the length of the materials, I have created study questions only for the first part of the lesson, Luke 4:14-32. Luke’s story: • John’s preaching and message (Luke 3:1-20) • Jesus’s baptism (Luke 3:21-22) • His genealogy (Luke 3:23-38) • The forty-day sojourn in the desert and the temptation of Christ (Luke 4:1-13) • Jesus’s first recorded sermon, on Isaiah 61:1-2, and its reception in Nazareth (Luke 4:14-32) • Jesus casts a devil out of a man in the synagogue (Luke 4:33-37) • He cures Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever (Luke 4:38-39) • He cures many others of various diseases, and the evil spirits witness that he is the Christ (Luke 4:40-41) • The people beg him to stay with them, but he says he must preach in other places as well (Luke 4:42-44) • Jesus calls Peter, James, and John (Luke 5:1-11) • He heals a leper (Luke 5:12-15) • He heals a man of palsy by saying “Thy sins are forgiven thee” (Luke 5:16-26) • He calls Levi (usually assumed to be…
NT Sunday School Lesson 5: John 3-4
There is a tremendous amount of material in this lesson, more than I can deal with in a few pages. So I have shortened my study questions by focusing on John 3:1-10. Verse 1: The name “Nicodemus” means “conqueror,” and it was a common name. We know little about Nicodemus. We know that he was a Pharisee because this verse tells that he was. We know that he was some kind of ruler, though we don’t know what kind, because this verse tell us that he was. Many have speculated that Nicodemus was a member of the Sanhedrin, but we have little evidence for that speculation and we know little about the Sanhedrin. If he was a member of the Sanhedrin, then he was a member of the ruling body of Jerusalem, a Pharisee, and a teacher (scribe). He was the height of what most people would have taken to be a good Jew, and he probably would be one of those referred to in John 12:42. How these facts relevant to what we are taught by this story? Verse 2: Why might Nicodemus have come to Jesus by night? Is Jesus doing something during the day that might have made it easier for Nicodemus to come at night? Is Nicodemus doing something during the day that might have made it easier for him to come at night? Might he have been trying to protect himself? Might he have been…