New Testament

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Spiritual Gifts

February 1, 2009 in Holy Ghost by Greg | No comments

Last week Carrie had an opportunity to invite one of our close friends and neighbors to the Draper Utah Temple Open House and during their visit they discussed spiritual gifts, or the gifts of the spirit. As I reflected on the topic of their conversation that day, I remember my own desire to better understand these gifts.

I suppose in many respects a temple is the natural place for such a conversation. As preface to the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, the Savior appeared to the apostles. Luke recorded the following:

And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen. (Luke 24:49-53).

Listings of Spiritual Gifts

The spiritual gifts are mentioned by Paul in the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 12. They are also discussed in the Book of Mormon in Moroni 10 as well as in Doctrine and Covenants 46. In fact, Moroni 10 is a particularly important chapter since it conveys Moroni’s last recorded words in the Book of Mormon (see If You Only Had a Few Words to Share, What Would You Share?). Some of these gifts include:

Faith
Testimony
Belief
Prophecy
Healing and being healed
Wisdom and knowledge
Tongues and the interpretation of tongues
Revelation and visions
Beholding angels and discerning spirits
Miracles
Administration and discernment

Years ago a friend pointed out that there are important differences between the three scriptural references to the gifts of the spirit. When I actually compared the three accounts, I realized the importance of comparing and contrasting the scriptures, something a Hebrew teacher also once taught me. He called it an ancient method of teaching and learning. I learned something important that day and decided to spend more time studying this topic.

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Partakers of the Divine Nature

January 4, 2009 in Religion by Greg | 5 comments

Partakers of the divine nature is a phrase from the second epistle of Peter in the New Testament in which is recorded:

Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. (2 Peter 1:1-4; emphasis added).

A number of years ago, while studying this apparent state of being, I came across this story in the Improvement Era:

On May 5, 1961, Mr. John Cook, a newspaper feature writer, was granted an interview with President McKay. Toward the close of the interview he said that he hoped the President wouldn’t mind if he asked a question, and said that the President wouldn’t need to answer the question if he felt that he shouldn’t but for his own information, not for publication, he would like to know if President McKay had ever seen the Savior.

President McKay answered that he had not, but that he had heard his voice, many times, and that he had felt his presence and his influence. He then told about Peter (saying that he was his favorite among the apostles, even more so than Paul with all his education and learning – that Peter was a rough simple man, but sincere) and he told how Peter had spoken of being partakers of the divine spirit, of a divine nature, and explained what he felt that to mean.

Then he told how some evidences were stronger even than that of sight, and recalled the occasion when the Savior appeared to his disciples and told Thomas who had doubted, “Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless but believing.” And then President McKay said that he liked to believe Thomas did not actually look up, but knelt at the Savior’s feet and said unto him, “My Lord and my God.” And then President McKay repeated the words of the Master, “Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” President McKay then smiled and said, “That is quite a testimony I have given you. I do not know when I have given this before.”

Mr. Cook was visibly moved, and after leaving the office said it had been the greatest experience of his life, that President McKay was like no other man he had ever seen or heard. He was so greatly moved that tears were in his eyes as he left President McKay.¹

I was deeply humbled to have come across this experience.

Sources:

McKay, David O. Improvement Era. (September 1963): 785-786.↩

Hebrews – To Ascend the Holy Mount

December 30, 2008 in Temple by Greg | 3 comments

Hebrews – To Ascend the Holy Mount is an extract of a chapter from Temples of the Ancient World: Ritual and Symbolism.¹ This past weekend, Carrie and I had the opportunity to meet with a small group of people to renew friendships and remind us of the ties that bind people together. As I reflected upon that experience, I was reminded of this testimony:

Hebrews is, to use Paul’s² words, “strong meat” (Hebrews 5:14). Paul wants to preach strong meat, but he addresses members who will not digest it (see Hebrews 5:12). Nevertheless, he broaches doctrines that deal with the upper reaches of spiritual experience and Melchizedek Priesthood temple ordinances. My purpose will be to identify several passages that have relevance to temple ordinances. Paul’s letter might be divided into two main ideas: the promise of the temple and the price exacted to obtain the promise. At several points I will add the Prophet Joseph Smith’s commentary, without which much of the temple significance of the apostle’s remarks in Hebrews would elude us.

The Promise

Paul urges the Hebrews, “Let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance…and of faith” (Hebrews 6:1–2; italics added). They had tarried too long in the foothills of spiritual experience. Having “tasted of the heavenly gift, …the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come” (Hebrews 6:4–6), they could no longer delay resuming the climb lest they lose the promise. Paul warns, “Be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit [or, are inheriting] the promises” (Hebrews 6:12).

The promise that Paul refers to repeatedly is that same promise explained in Doctrine and Covenants 88:68–69: “Therefore, sanctify yourselves that your minds become single to God, and the days will come that you shall see him; for he will unveil his face unto you, and it shall be in his own time, and in his own way, and according to his own will. Remember the great and last promise which I have made unto you” (italics added). Paul uses several different terms in Hebrews for the experiences associated with this promise: for example, obtaining a good report (11:39), entering into the Lord’s rest (4:3, 10), going on to perfection (6:1), entering into the holiest (10:19), being made a high priest forever (7:17), knowing the Lord (8:11; D&C 84:98), pleasing God (Hebrews 11:5), obtaining a witness of being righteous (11:4), and having the law written in the heart (8:10; 10:16; Jeremiah 31:31–34). He speaks of boldly pursuing the fulfillment of the promise: Grasp, he says, the hope that is set before you, which enters behind the veil, where Jesus, as a forerunner, has already entered (see Hebrews 6:18–20, NIV).

Paul compares these Israelites to their ancestors of twelve hundred years earlier. He refers to the early Israelites’ rejection of God’s invitation to enter into his rest as the “provocation”; that is, Israel provoked God by refusing to enter his presence. Paul quotes from Psalm 95:8–11: “Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said…they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest” (Hebrews 3:8–11; italics added).

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Thomas, M. Catherine. Temples of the Ancient World: Ritual and Symbolism. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1994. Please be aware I have omitted one or two footnotes and have inserted links where appropriate – Ed.↩
The basic premise in this paper is that the apostle Paul is the author of Hebrews, a fact that the Prophet Joseph Smith acknowledged on several occasions.↩

Boanerges

December 23, 2008 in Cosmology by Greg | 6 comments

A few years ago, I came across an intriguing reference to Boanerges. Mark’s gospel records that the Savior called twelve disciples:

And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder (Mark 3:17).

Here is the reference that captured my attention:

In the Gospel of Mark III.17, the “twins” James and John, the sons of Zebedee, are given by Jesus the name of Boanerges, which the Evangelist explains as meaning “Sons of Thunder.” This was long overlooked but eventually became the title of a work by a distinguished scholar, too soon forgotten, Rendel Harris. Here the Thunder Twins were shown to exist in cultures as different as Greece, Scandinavia and Peru. They call to mind the roles of Magni and Modi, not actually called twins, but successors of Thor, in Ragnarök. But to quote from Harris:

We have shown that it does not necessarily follow that when the parenthood of the Thunder is recognised, it necessarily extends to both of the twins. The Dioscuri may be called unitedly, Sons of Zeus; but a closer investigation shows conclusively that there was a tendency in the early Greek cults to regard one twin as of divine parentage, and the other of human. Thus Castor is credited to Tyndareus, Pollux to Zeus . . . The extra child made the trouble, and was credited to an outside source. Only later will the difficulty of discrimination lead to the recognition of both as Sky-boys or Thunder-boys. An instance from a remote civilization will show that this is the right view to take.

For example, Arriaga, in his Extirpation of Idolatry in Peru tells us that “when two children are produced at one birth, which they call Chuchos or Curi, and in el Cuzco Taqui Hua-hua, they hold it for an impious and abominable occurrence, and they say, that one of them is the child of the Lightning, and require a severe penance, as if they had committed a great sin.”

Boanerges »»

Review of Temple Themes in Christian Worship

September 14, 2008 in Temple by Greg | No comments

Earlier this year, John W. Welch¹ reviewed Margaret Barker’s Temple Themes in Christian Worship. According to the description, “In this new major book, Margaret Barker traces the roots of Christian worship back to the Jewish temple. By proposing a temple setting, a great deal more can be explained, and the existing rather limited resources can be more fruitfully used. By working with a great variety of sources (canonical, extra-canonical and Fathers, all presented here in translation), it is possible to reconstruct something of the early Christian world view, which shows the Church as the conscious continuation of the temple worship.”

Dr. Welch wrote in part:

After Margaret’s work, everything in the New Testament needs to be reconsidered in terms of temple themes. For example, Margaret rightly points to several temple connections in the Sermon on the Mount, mainly in the beatitude of seeing God (18, 146) and in the Lord’s prayer (20), “seeing the kingdom [come]” and the daily bread as the bread of the Presence (208). But as my own current work strives to show, pervasive temple connections can be drawn (as Margaret is well aware) throughout the entire Sermon on the Mount. For example, her intriguing discussion of how all Christians (as priests) bear (or forgive) [nasa’] the sins of others by consuming the inward parts of the sacrifice (193, 198-99), stands ready and waiting to be connected with “forgive us our debts as we forgive (or bear!) the transgressions of others.” I’m also drawn to the idea that all Christians are not only priests, but high priests. Margaret’s insight explains the puzzling fact that the word “firstborn”—normally there can only be one firstborn—in Hebrews 12:23, is a plural, for all shall be called not just “sons of God” but “firstborn sons of God,” it being a mystery how there can be more than one “firstborn.”

Notes:

John W. Welch is the Robert K. Thomas Professor of Law at Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School, editor in chief of BYU Studies, and director of publications for the university’s Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for LDS History. He serves on the executive committee of the Biblical Law Section of the Society of Biblical Literature.↩