Come Follow Me with Sam

 Welcome! There is so much in Matthew 6 and 7. I will not do these chapters even close to justice with what I put down. Feel free to send comments on your thoughts. Matthew 6 The whole direction of this chapter is to get you to look to heaven and God rather than the earth. See these key verses; this is where the other verses are driving 19  ¶  Lay not up for yourselves  a treasures  upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves  b break through  and steal: 20  But lay up for yourselves  a treasures  in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor  b steal : 21  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. and later 33  a But   b seek  ye first the  c kingdom  of God, and his  d righteousness ; and all these  e things  shall be  f added  unto you. Check out The Lord's Prayer. Where is He going with th...

 Welcome! Hot takes on these chapters Matthew 5 the beatitudes - We have trouble taking these for more than simple moralistic sayings. To overcome this, the first is to remember that all of these sayings have the implicit 'who come unto me' in them - these are promises to those who understand the gospel. The second part is to realize that Christ is truly talking about the Kingdom of Heaven here, whether that be on earth or in heaven proper - what we value today in babylon is of no value in this world Christ is describing. Third, we need to understand that these words were uttered by the master of earth and sky, of death and life, of ultimate suffering and ineffable joy. When we have born our burden and suffered in like manner as appropriate for us, we get these sayings. But that is the price. persecution - Christ helps us understand how we become stronger from persecution 11  Blessed are ye, when  men  shall  a revile  you, and persecute  you,  ...

 Welcome! Hot takes on miracles and stories Wine in Cana - the elements obey Christ not only in substance, but also in what we would call time - the wine was aged. overthrowing the tables of the money changers - As Tolkien would describe it, an elf-lord was revealed in his  wrath. Both the reaction of Christ and the despoiling of the sacred things by the money changers have significant lessons Destroy this temple, and I will raise it in 3 days - Christ was teaching the disciples things they weren't ready for, but could key in later due to later events. Nicodemus - look at these verses to learn the lesson 11  a Verily , verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and  b testify  that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. 12  If I have told you earthly things, and ye  a believe not , how shall ye believe, if I tell you  of  heavenly things? This verse 17  For God  a sent  not his Son into the world to  b con...

 Welcome! short thoughts for this one Jesus' temptations note with all of Jesus' temptations, Satan is constantly trying to get Jesus off focus from heaven, and toward anything earthly. Christ responds every time by bringing the focus back to heaven, particularly, to God the Father's will. 1. Turn these stones to bread -> bread is not the important thing, the important thing is the Word of God.\ 2. Angels will do whatever you want, so do it -> I do the will of God, not tempt Him 3. Take all the riches of the earth -> I will only worship God

 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...

 Welcome! Its the last week of the old testament! We survived! If you have read my past posts on the old testament, you know there is still lots of great learning to gain, so feel free to post comments as they come, whether this year or in the future Malachi Malachi is very fitting to end the Old Testament with; he gives almost a summary of events past present and future Ch 1 and ch 2 he talks of the broken covenant of the house of Israel, the ministry going to the gentiles, and some of the consequences of this Ch 3 he talks of of the coming of Christ, the steps that will be required to regain the covenant, and the promise due those to successfully obtain it Ch 4 he talks of the final redeeming day of the millenium, the coming of elijah, and the final redeeming work of the dead before the redemption of the earth. So end the last words of the last prophet among the Jewish nation, sealing the work of the old testament as the Jewish people fall into a 400 year period of prophetic dark...

 Welcome! Temple time! Haggai and Zechariah are about temples. There are very few christian denominations that have temple-like spaces and rituals, and only 1 that I know of, the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which also have formalized temple rituals as part of that temple. The argument that many christians have against a temple is something along the lines of 'since Christ came in the flesh, we have no more need of temples, which is a great theory and seems plausible at first but material evidence and divine revelation both contradict this notion. Here in these chapters, God describes a specific temple to be built in the last days, including rooms and dimensions. So obviously He cares about temples post-risen-Messiah. Adding to that, multiple scholars have identified the forty days of Christ's ministry on the earth as the teaching of the 'mysteries of the kingdom' which in greek refer to the passing of certain knowledge through symbols etc. There is also...

 Welcome! Nahum Nineveh being destroyed is a type of the last days Habakkuk Habakkuk's discussion is on why bad people are allowed to prosper against the enemies. The short of it is God says its a bad deal all around. The long of it is actually quite profound. Zephaniah Zephaniah is a mind preparation for the second coming

 Welcome! Jonah The normal story of jonah goes something like this - Jonah was commanded by God to do something, but he didn't so he got swallowed by a whale so he repented and did what God wanted, the end. If we are lucky, we get that bit at the end where Jonah is angry that God delivered the people and God basically showed him that he was under God's mercy just like the others. Jonah is a story with many layers. I like to start by looking at its chiasm form, the apex of which is reached at the end of Jonah 3 8  They that observe  a lying  vanities forsake their own mercy. 9  But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay  that  that I have  a vowed .  b Salvation   is  of the  Lord . Jonah is speaking for himself as much as he for the people. He mentions the temple multiple times. For the second portion, Jonah's experience with the gourd leaf and the worm, I like to flip it around. Not focus on Jona...

 Welcome! Amos and Obadiah, like many of the other old testament prophets, have significant parallels to the new testament epistles in the sense that they both knew that the party was going to come to an end and that apostasy was coming. many prophets before the fall, like Hosea, Amos, and Isaiah spelled out the captivity of Judea. Likewise, Paul and others warned that the primitive Christian church would suffer apostasy and fall. The redeeming message of both times was that in the last days, Christ's church would be restored, and God would work again His work to fulfill the promises given.

 Welcome! As we keep going through these prophets in exile, this is the conversation that keeps going through my head. Prophets: Look what happened to Ephraim. It could happen to you Judah: We don't care Prophets: You need to change your path if you don't want this to happen Judah: We don't care Prophets: No seriously, if you don't change this now, it is going to happen. Judah: We don't care Prophets: Well its imminent at this point, it is about to happen Judah: We don't care Babylonians: Hello there Judah: why did this happen? Prophets: Glad you are finally ready to listen Also Prophets: at this point, think less of deliverance now and more about deliverance in the meridian of time and in the last days. (Judah: we don't care??) Hosea Hosea prophesied before the fall of Judah, but we can see in his writings that he knew exactly what was going to happen and he walked them through it. The overall narrative of Hosea is walking through the covenant relationship,...