Come Follow Me with Sam

 Welcome The ministry of John the Baptist Couple points struck me. First, Christ always sends messengers before the message to prepare the way, and help the hearts of the people. Second, John had a pretty diverse audience attending. Look at the people he was talking to. Third, and this is going to come up many times, there was so much impact of this happening. Finally, when a movement happens, there is a dividing point and a time of choosing. More on this later. Epic Baptism in a funny coincidence, Audiomachine created a song, sol invuctus, or sun god, that is both near-perfectly choreographed with the Church of Jesus Christ's baptism clip, and also contains the same main musical phrase as the 'baptism' song in the children songbook. you can listen to the links here or play a fan-made version from the first link This is probably what the angels were listening to when it happened :P fan link Sol Invictus LDS New Testament videos baptism LDS Songbook children's song

 Welcome! John 1 is a masterpiece worthy to be part of the gospels. John is thought to be talking mainly with the believers of the new church. So imagine you have a bunch of people full of faith, across many backgrounds, that were doing every which weird rites yesterday and now they are looking to you to know what they should do today to worship God. You have got to teach something in depth enough that the spirit can plant it deep in their hearts, yet simple enough that they don't get confused and fall back on false traditions. Welcome to John 1 The Word The beginning of John is much discussed because of its mysterious nature. We could try to figure this out for a long time. Unfortunately I don't have any amazing resources to point you to on this one. Here are the basics to ponder  - the ancients wanted to breathe as the Gods, or to speak as the Gods - The unique characteristic was that what the Gods spoke was justified of itself (needed no other justification, also justified ...

Welcome! The Christmas story There are many stories of Christmas. There are many lessons to learn from the birth of the savior. Here is what I think is the most important part of the Christmas story in a couple verses. Think about this as you read these chapters 27  And because he said unto them that Christ was the  a God , the Father of all things, and said that he should take upon him the  b image  of man, and it should be the  c image  after which man was created in the beginning; or in other words, he said that man was created after the image of  d God , and that God should come down among the children of men, and take upon him flesh and blood, and go forth upon the face of the earth 1  And now Abinadi said unto them: I would that ye should understand that  a God  himself shall  b come  down among the children of men, and shall  c redeem  his people. 2  And because he   a dwelleth   in   b...

 Welcome! Beginnings Its hard to picture how humbly the New Testament really began I highly recommend seeing Savior of the World in Salt Lake City to explore these events They should have known I haven't done a lot of research into this but I was thinking this week about how badly prepared the Jewish nation and especially the Sanhedrin was for the Savior. Zacharias should have tipped them off; they should have known. In this situation you have 1. a priest that must have been administering the temple in jerusalem, with recognition in the religious order 2. have an experience at that very temple 3. In front of a massive crowd that knew that he was stuck in there forever 4. After which he came out completely unable to speak, and witnessed he had seen an angel. 5. after which, when Elizabeth bore a son which was a miraculous event of itself 6. He prophesied by the spirit and testified of Christ The jewish nation, all the priests, and all those familiar with the experience, should have...

 Welcome!  We get to study the New Testament this year! The New Testament is unique because it chronicles the life of the Savior during His Mortal Ministry as He walked His own creation. For the first time ever we have a perfect example teaching us, and showing a higher way. We also get to read about the effect this had on his disciples and we have a few of their teachings. We finally have the recorded event of the Atonement.  Sometimes people get the impression that simply reading about the physical act of the Atonement can get them greater understanding of what it means for them. But mostly what is recorded is the physical process, whereas the Atonement is primarily a spiritual process to change us to be like God, and secondarily a physical process to raise our flesh to a godlike attainment. I have found that to get the most out of the reading of the Atonement, I need to be living and wrestling with the atonement in my own life, and then the understanding comes when I r...