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Greek: 15 καὶ ὅτι ἀπὸ βρέφους ἱερὰ γράμματα οἶδας, τὰ δυνάμενά σε σοφίσαι εἰς σωτηρίαν διὰ πίστεως τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, 16 πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος καὶ ὠφέλιμος πρὸς διδασκαλίαν, πρὸς ἐλεγμόν, πρὸς ἐπανόρθωσιν, πρὸς παιδείαν τὴν ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ, 17 ἵνα ἄρτιος ᾖ ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ ἄνθρωπος, πρὸς πᾶν ἔργον ἀγαθὸν ἐξηρτισμένος.

My Translation: 15 And because from a baby sacred writings you've known, those which can make you wise through faith in the Christ Jesus, 16 all god-breathed writings, profitable towards instruction, towards evidence, towards improvement, towards chastisement in righteousness, 17 in order that the human of God may be fitted, accomplished towards all good labors.

KJV: 16 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

My translations are purposefully stretched and should not be viewed as more accurate than the KJV translation unless I say so in the post. I'm trying to show the range lying between the original Greek text and the English.

Again, this scripture mastery verse is simple, and thus to me is boring. Not looking forward to this one.

Pseudo-Paul has just finished explaining the many dangerous kind of people who would arise at the last days and warns Timothy against them (somewhat implying that Timothy lives in the last days). In the previous post we read the warning.

Here Pseudo-Paul is explaining how Timothy can be prepared: he can fall back to what he already knows. According to Pseudo-Paul, Timothy is third-generation Christian (another mark against actual Pauline authorship, as three generations of Gentiles within the movement would have been hard to achieve within Paul's lifetime), and he has been raised knowing the scriptures.

That's the context, but there are two things I find interesting about this verse.

First, this is a verse commonly used by individuals who feel that the Christian Bible is without any errors. It doesn't same “some scripture”, or “those scriptures”, but instead says “all scriptures” are inspired of God. Of course, at the time of Pseudo-Paul the writings of the New Testament were only just beginning to be viewed as scripture themselves (and in the time of the historical Paul various Christians may have been writing letters and gospels, but they weren't yet viewed as scripture), so the author might only have the Jewish scriptures in mind when he writes this.

Secondly, and interestingly, the Joseph Smith Translation actually tackles this issue by shuffling a few words around to result in the following:

16 And all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; 17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

Now the scripture is saying that all inspired scripture is useful. Big change from a few word changes. Unfortunately, while this change is very easy to make in English, it's extremely difficult to produce in the Greek and the idea that Joseph Smith's rendering is the actual original is nearly impossible. But it's still an interesting look at how some Mormons respond to the use of this scripture as a statement of biblical inerrancy.

In the official CES manuals on this chapter neither the inerrancy interpretation nor the JST edits are discussed. Instead, the focus appears to be on the last phrase, that the man of God may be perfect, fully accomplished toward all good labors. It seems that someone in the CES department decided that this was another verse about the importance of works in salvation. But, again, that's not what the scripture itself actually says. It just says that the result of using scripture as a tool of various uses is that people are perfected and filled with good works. Nothing about salvation here.

Why Do I Think This Is Part of Scripture Mastery?

I think this verse was chosen because it speaks of how works arise from the use of scriptures, with the unspoken assumption that this is the purpose of the scriptures: to help humans have good works. In the end, though, I think it's a very odd and boring choice of a scripture.

#Mormon #ScriptureMasteryNT #AcademicBiblical

Greek: 1 Τοῦτο δὲ γίνωσκε, ὅτι ἐν ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις ἐνστήσονται καιροὶ χαλεποί· 2 ἔσονται γὰρ οἱἄνθρωποι φίλαυτοι, φιλάργυροι, ἀλαζόνες, ὑπερήφανοι, βλάσφημοι, γονεῦσιν ἀπειθεῖς, ἀχάριστοι, ἀνόσιοι, 3 ἄστοργοι, ἄσπονδοι, διάβολοι, ἀκρατεῖς, ἀνήμεροι, ἀφιλάγαθοι, 4 προδόται, προπετεῖς, τετυφωμένοι, φιλήδονοι μᾶλλον ἢ φιλόθεοι, 5 ἔχοντες μόρφωσιν εὐσεβείαςτὴν δὲ δύναμιν αὐτῆς ἠρνημένοι· καὶ τούτους ἀποτρέπου.

My Translation: 1 But know this, y'all, because in the last days fierce seasons will be present. 2 For humans will be selfish, loving money, empty boasters, haughty, slanderous, not compliant to parents, ungracious, unholy, 3 unsociable,truce breakers, false accusers, without self-control, savage, opposed to goodness, 4 betrayers, reckless, puffed up, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, 5 having holy form but denying the strength of it; and shun these, y'all.

KJV: 1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

My translations are purposefully stretched and should not be viewed as more accurate than the KJV translation unless I say so in the post. I'm trying to show the range lying between the original Greek text and the English.

Update May 2013

This scripture has been removed by the Church Educational System from the Scripture Mastery list. However, it had remained within this list for over two decades and as such is still familiar to many graduates of the LDS Church's Seminary program. So I'm keeping this exploration of it online, but it is no longer applicable to CES.

Without Natural Affection

One quick translation issue: occasionally, I've heard multiple CES teachers (both Seminary and Institute) interpret the phrase “without natural affection” to mean “homosexuality”. This is not a correct interpretation but is based entirely upon the word choices of the English translation. The word under the phrase is ἄστοργος ástorgos, where the initial alpha is a negation like the English prefix “un” and negates the word στοργή storgā, meaning “deep love or affection” and usually used for affection between parents and a child or between good friends. It's not sexual in nature, and the term “without natural affection” might be better translated as “sociopathic”. This idea can still be found in the official LDS Church Institute manual, unfortunately, where they quote Elder Spencer W. Kimball:

There are said to be millions of perverts who have relinquished their natural affection and bypassed courtship and normal marriage relationships.

Spencer W. Kimball, “Voices of the Past, of the Present, of the Future”, April 1971 General Conference

If you hear anyone using this phrase in reference to homosexuality, even if they're an LDS Apostle, you have my permission to interrupt them boldly and declare their usage of it to be highly mistaken. And I don't give permission for that sort of thing lightly! :–)

The Pastoral Epistles

The Letter to Titus and the Letters to Timothy are commonly known as the “Pastoral” Epistles, from the Latin word for “shepherd”, used by the early Church for the office of bishop. In the early Christian movement, after an ecclesiastical structure emerged through years of chaotic ecstatic self- governance, the office of Bishop quickly became the highest office of a local church. Over the course of the 2nd Century, a complicated organization structure began to emerge: deacons (male and female), teachers, bishops (almost always men), evangelists, widows, (widows were women who, after their husbands had died, were set apart in service to the local Church), elders.

The story of the Pastoral Letters is that Paul, on the sunset of his life, is writing to two leaders of Christian communities: Titus, and his old friend and oftimes missionary assistant, Timothy. Paul's perspective here is a calm acceptance of his impending death, but he wants to give a final word to these younger leaders he loves. The letter are rich with emotion, mostly of kindness and grandfatherly advice, though he does state some rather passive aggressive statements against his enemies.

The only problem is that Paul almost certainly didn't write these letters. Their perspectives are extremely different from the genuine letters of Paul that we've already covered. Genuine Paul seems to have given little care to issues of church hierarchy and authority. In the Pastorals, he gives clear instructions on who is (and, by negation, who is not) allowed to serve in specific offices. Genuine Paul seems to have had little to say about women (apart from a few verses in 1 Corinthians that seem to have been interpolated by a later scribe), never mentioning gender as a qualification for belief or of spiritual gifts and going insofar as to be the only New Testament writer to refer to women leaders by name (Phoebe, a deacon, and Junia, an apostle). In the Pastorals, Paul infamously teaches about the lower roles of women in the local congregation. Genuine Paul fully expects to see the Kingdom of God in his lifetime. In the Pastorals, Paul has very vague references to the coming day of the Lord, but gives a strong impression of much longer time scales. And, as with 2 Thessalonians, he indicates a number of signs that need to occur in the “last days”. And there are many other reasons why the vast majority of scholars reject the Pastorals as being authored by Paul.

But while we aren't dealing with Paul, we are dealing with letters written by an early member of the Jesus movement. For simplicity's sake, let's call him Pseudo-Paul. What does the purpose of this letter appear to be? The author was certainly familiar with other letters of Paul, often employing famous pauline phrases, and Pseudo-Paul does an immense amount of name-dropping and story creating to cast the illusion of an early letter from one leader in the movement to another (both Paul and Timothy were probably long dead when this letter was written). He really wants these letters to be read as though Paul wrote them.

The Context of 2 Timothy for this Scripture Mastery

The majority of the letters seem to be focused on the issue of doing things correctly. Turning specifically to 2 Timothy, Pseuo-Paul makes reference to martial training and sports training and compares this to Timothy's efforts to resist the challenges ahead of him. Pseudo-Paul warns Timothy:

• hold to correct words
• protect that good thing entrusted to you
• do not wrangle over words: it will bring ruin
• avoid profane chatter
• do not engage in heated disputes
• avoid evil people
• evil people and charlatans will go from bad to worse
• preach the message whether or not its convenient
• reprove, rebuke, and exhort
• be self-controlled and endure hardship

It appears that the author wants his audience to follow this same advice. Perhaps the community he lived in was experiencing severe internal conflict. Perhaps he wants to do more than just say that his enemies in the Christian movement are wrong: he wants Paul to say that they are wrong. Perhaps he could point to this letter and say, “We're in the last days, and Paul warned us about people like you!”

In particular, the verses of this Scripture Mastery are a complete and utter laundry list of every bad quality you could ascribe to a person. The historical Paul would have felt that these people were already present in the world because this world is by it's nature evil, fallen, and under the control of evil men and angels. Pseudo-Paul warns Timothy to be ready for even worse things. Notably he warns Timothy and Timothy's charges personally, without much mention of how they should be passing this message on to others. Timothy should be ready for this stuff, because it's going to happen to him. (He does mention how this is already affecting other Christians just a few verses later, but that will be its own post.)

Often when modern readers approach the Bible they think it's a book written for us in the 21st Century. The Book of Mormon is really rather strong in supporting this misguided idea, because some of the writers actually are aware of their modern readers, and modern readers are explicitly told by LDS Church leaders that the Book of Mormon was written for them. The Bible is not like this at all. Nobody in it was writing for the future (mostly because they thought there wouldn't be much of a future left), not even the author of the Revelation of John. Whatever Pseudo-Paul wanted to say with his letter, it's not written to warn people in a long-distant time about what conditions in the world would be like after nearly 1800 years. Pseudo-Paul was writing about his own day and age, possibly with specific enemies in mind.

Why Do I Think This Is Part of Scripture Mastery?

I think this scripture was chosen because it helps support the apocalyptic perspective of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That “Latter- day” means the last days, so Mormons believe that Pseudo-Paul is describing their day and age. However, the authorship is almost certainly a later writer than Paul who was willing to use Paul's name and fame to advance their own objectives. There have been Christians thinking that their days are the “last days” since at least the 400s; Mormons are not unique in this respect, and frankly I'd not be surprised if there are pockets of Christian communities 500 years from now that each believe that their day and age is at the end of human history. Mormons are not misusing this scripture, though, and so if they want to keep it in Scripture Mastery I say more power to them.

#Mormon #ScriptureMasteryNT #AcademicBiblical

Luke 2:14 – Goodwill(ed) Men

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

This isn't so much a mistranslation as it is an example of the complicated nature of the history of the New Testament. This phrase is spoken by the hosts of heaven appearing to the shepherds outside of Bethlehem during Luke's version of the birth narrative. The issue is over the word “good will”: εὐδοκία *eudokía. *First, eudokía might be better translated as “good favor”, it's not a quality that someone can have or gain on their own, but one that they obtain from others. So in this case, the favor is coming from God.

The second, and larger issue, is one of grammar. In English, grammar is usually expressed through word order: subject, verb, direct object. In Greek, grammar is usually expressed through changes to the word's pronunciation and spelling. The problem is that the word eudokía appears as εὐδοκίας eudokías in a good deal of the oldest manuscripts – note the little sigma at the end. That little sigma changes it from the nominative case (or roughly the subject of the verb) to the genitive case (or roughly the ownership case represented in English by the word “of”, the book *of John). *That little sigma at the end changes the phrase to read:

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace toward humans of good-favor.

Now there's evidence for both readings in some of our oldest manuscripts, but it's easier for scholars to assume that the work was originally written with a sigma that occasionally got forgotten than to imagine that someone decided that they'd purposefully place a sigma at the end of the world. Thus, the majority of scholars (but by no means all of them) feel that the actual reading of this famous verse should read something akin to:

Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth toward humans of his good favor.

Philippians 2:6 – Robbery

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.

This verse needs a bit of context. Paul is talking about how Christians should follow the example of Christ. Then this verse follows. Take a quick look at Philippians 2 to see the entirely of what seems to be Paul quoting an early Christian hymn or poem.

The problem with this verse is the word “robbery”. In English this verse makes it sound like Jesus felt that it would not be something wrong or undeserved to be equal with God. Some Mormons (though not many, admittedly) feel that this verse is talking about the doctrine of eternal progression whereby even Christ had to progress to become like God.

In actuality, the word underlying “robbery”, ἁρπαγμός harpagmós, has an interesting history in Greek. Over its history it morphed from being used as the act of theft to being about the object of theft itself. In this way it's remarkably similar to the English word “plunder”, which can refer to either the act of plundering or to that which is plundered. (Note: there's no actual relationship between plunder and harpagmós, they just end up working similarly and means similar things).

This is why this verse would be better translated as:

Who, being in the form of God, thought equality with God as something not to be taken.

This changes the meaning substantially; now the entire hymn is about how Jesus, though he is in the form of God, rejects equality with God and instead humbled himself. The rest of the verses talk about this humility, encouraging the Philippians to also be humble in their circumstances before God.

1 Thessalonians 5:22 – All Appearance

Abstain from all appearance of evil.

This one is actually pretty simple. Whereas many Mormon parents use it to say that actions that they think look evil should be avoided, even if they aren't actually evil. But the word εἶδος eídos (“shape, form, appearance”) is referring to evil in the sense that anytime evil appears then it should be avoided. Quite simply, Paul is telling his followers that they should leave all kinds of evil alone. He's not saying that the Thessalonians should care about whether or not their actions seem evil to others.

1 Timothy 4:8 – Bodily Exercise

For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

Again, this one doesn't come up often, but I have heard some people use it to justify Mormons' general sweet teeth (sweet tooths?): “bodily exercise profiteth little”. It sounds like Pseudo-Paul (because remember, Paul didn't write either letters to Timothy) is dumping on the concept of exercise. However, the English phrase should be read literally: he's comparing exercise to being godly. Physical exercise is good for a few things, but godliness is good for all things because of what Pseudo-Paul thinks godliness can accomplish as opposed to what physical exercise can accomplish.

1 Timothy 4:12 – In Conversation

Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.

This scripture is sometimes given to LDS youth, and in general I don't think it's a bad choice, but the word “conversation” here doesn't mean their manner of speaking. That's covered by Pseudo-Paul's encouragement to be an example “in word”. Instead, conversation means their actions.

2 Timothy 3:7 – Ever Learning

Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Mormons often apply this scripture against intellectual critics of the Church, including former members who lost their faith because they were too focused on studying the history of the organization and are now blinded from faith due to their learning. And why not, right? This chapter begins with a description of the many types of horrible people that will be around during the “last days”, so obviously this verse is talking about those people.

It's not. Let's give a little more context for it from the preceding verse, which follows a long list of horrible way people will behave in the last days.

6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, 7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

The people who are ever learning are the people Pseudo-Paul describes as “silly women laden with sins, led away with diverse lusts”. (We should note that Pseudo-Paul really is a rather blatant misogynist; there are other places in the New Testament that aren't good towards women, but Pseudo-Paul is the author of the strongest anti-women passages.) The evil people described in the scripture mastery verses lead people into ever learning, but they themselves are not described as being in this position. Pseudo-Paul never indicates if these “silly women” are Jesus followers or not. I think that to only apply this phrase of “ever learning” to intelligent people outside of the LDS Church is just a way to salve worries that their intelligence might be an indication of real problems.

#Mormon #NewTestament #AcademicBiblical

Greek: 1 Ἐρωτῶμεν δὲ ὑμᾶς, ἀδελφοί, ὑπὲρ τῆς > παρουσίας τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ ἡμῶνἐπισυναγωγῆς ἐπ’ αὐτόν, 2 εἰς τὸ μὴ ταχέως σαλευθῆναι ὑμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ νοὸς μηδὲ θροεῖσθαι μήτεδιὰ πνεύματος μήτε διὰ λόγου μήτε δι’ ἐπιστολῆς ὡς δι’ ἡμῶν, ὡς ὅτι ἐνέστηκεν ἡ ἡμέρα τοῦ κυρίου. 3 μή τις ὑμᾶς ἐξαπατήσῃ κατὰ μηδένα τρόπον· ὅτι ἐὰν μὴ ἔλθῃ ἡ ἀποστασία πρῶτον καὶἀποκαλυφθῇ ὁ ἄνθρωπος τῆς ἀνομίας, ὁ υἱὸς τῆς ἀπωλείας,

My Translation: 1 But we ask you, brothers, for the presence of our lord Jesus Christ and the assembling to him, 2 that you not be suddenly shaken in understanding or troubled, not through inspiration, not through speech, not through letter from us as it were, as that the time of the lord is present. 3 No one should deceive you through any manner, because it must not come except a rebellion first and uncovered is the man of iniquity, the son of destruction,

KJV: 1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of > our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, 2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. 3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

My translations are purposefully stretched and should not be viewed as more accurate than the KJV translation unless I say so in the post. I'm trying to show the range lying between the original Greek text and the English.

Did Paul Write These Scripture Mastery Verses to the Thessalonians?

1 Thessalonians is regarded by most scholars to be the oldest written part of the Christian New Testament. Written by Paul to his followers at Thessalonica, his first letter impressed upon them the immediacy of the end of the world. It appears to have been written in response to events in Thessalonica where old members of the Christian community had died and neither the resurrection nor the arrival of God's kingdom had yet occurred. Paul told them that when God's kingdom arrived, the dead would be raised and that “we will meet them in the air”, including himself in the description. That was how close everything was to being accomplished when Paul was writing 1 Thessalonians.

We're not talking about Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, however, but about a letter that claims to be a follow-up letter to that first letter. And, as you can tell by my use of the word “claims”, the authorship of 2 Thessalonians is disputed. However, unlike Colossians or especially Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians is viewed by many more scholars as actually being written by Paul, but it is nowhere near beyond dispute.

Part of the issue is how Paul's perspective has changed in this letter from the first one. In his first letter, Paul encourages his followers to comfort themselves with the thought that the end was near and that their loved ones would be soon raised and they would all arrive in the coming Kingdom of God. In this second letter, Paul is responding with a much more cautious approach, now detailing several signs that he feels must first occur before the end. Also, whereas in the first letter, Paul, as a good Jewish Christian should, talks about the coming judgements of God, in this second letter he talks about how Christ will judge the people.

Of course, nobody stays the same throughout their lives. Bruce R. McConkie in his younger days as a regular General Authority felt that D&C 20:1 indicated that Jesus must have been born on April 6, 1 BCE, but near the end of his life he'd softened on this point considerably, indicating that it was an exercise in futility to determine when Jesus had been born. It's entirely possible that as Paul himself aged and saw friends and acquaintances age and die before Jesus returned with his father's kingdom his mental position started to shift towards a more uncertain approach to the end.

Of course, 2 Thessalonians is not written as though much time had passed. It's written as though in response to the first letter causing a great laziness among the Christians at Thessalonica. Paul is encouraging them not to simply quit their jobs and live in expectation of the end.

That's where the scripture in question occurs. After the introductory chapter, Paul launches into his more cautious approach, telling his followers not be concerned by different sources of information they trust that the “day of the lord” has come.

Interestingly, the author mentions that the Christians should not be concerned even if they receive a letter written as though it came from Paul. If this is truly a letter written by Paul, then it appears that people were already forging letters in his name, and in this case someone pretending to be Paul had written a letter to the Thessalonians saying that the end had come. And if 2 Thessalonians is itself a forged letter, well you've gotta admit that the author's got some boldness to assert his “Pauline” authorship by telling his readers to beware of forgeries. Related to this, the end of the letter features Paul signing the letter with his signature (obviously, in the versions we have today there's no such mark, since we depend upon later copies of the letter) and saying that he signs “all of his letters” this way. Again, either the real Paul is very concerned about fake Pauline letters (like Ephesians or Colossians?) flying around the ancient world, or the author himself is attempting to distract attention away from this letter by claiming other letters are forged (perhaps even real letters of Paul that don't line up exactly with this one?).

In many respects, 2 Thessalonians reads very similarly to 1 Thessalonians. In many instances, entire phrases are copied, leading some scholars who doubt that Paul wrote it to assume that it was either written soon after Paul died by someone who knew him, or was written by someone in order to reinforce 1 Thessalonians. Of course, if Paul didn't write it, and it says many of the same things as 1 Thessalonians, then we're at a loss as to why anyone would feel the need to forge it. That's not the same thing as saying that there's no reason, just none that we can know about. Personally, I find the introduction of signs before the end and the subtle changes in doctrine from the first to the second letter enough to convince me that this second letter was not actually written by Paul, but it's a tenuous approach at best, I admit.

The “Great” Forsaking and the Son of Perdition

All right, what's all this about a “falling away” or a “forsaking”? Mormons feel that Paul is here prophesying about what is known by Latter-day Saints as the “Great Apostacy”, where the early Christian Church fell from God's favor and required a restoration, which began in 1820 with the First Vision of the 14-year-old Joseph Smith. This falling away included changing doctrines, loss of authority, and loss of scriptures. A Book of Mormon prophet, Nephi, prophecies of this process occurring where many “plain and precious truths” are lost, and the world must wait for the Book of Mormon to be revealed by Joseph to bring those truths back.

The word underlying “falling away” is ἀποστασία apostasía, literally means “falling away from”, but can mean a forsaking, a rebellion, or a divorce. Paul does not indicate what this apostasía is occurring from or any other details about it, but instead moves onto the second sign he feels must precede the coming of the Kingdom of God: the man of lawlessness must be revealed, the son of destruction.

Mormons are familiar with the term son of “perdition”, but the word itself is ἀπώλεια apōleia, meaning perdition, destruction, perishing, and loss. It's a negative term. Paul doesn't identify who this character is, but the next few verses go into more detail about him (NIV version):

4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God. 5 Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? 6 And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. 7 For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, 10 and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not > believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

Now, I'm not going to go into all of the crazy Christian speculation about this “man of lawlessnes”. He's been identified with hundreds of unpopular figures from various Roman Emperors to various Popes, to various political leaders, religious leaders, and just about everyone else in the world it seems sometimes. The wide variety speaks to the vagueness of this particular character as described by Maybe-Paul. My personal opinion? I believe that the author of this letter, whether Paul or not, was an apocalyptic. While the tone is more cautious than 1 Thessalonians, the end is still near. The coming Kingdom of God is coming to overturn this fallen and unjust world and set up a reversed world where justice occurs and the oppressed of this world become the rulers. In many other apocalyptic religious movements, from Jewish purity movements such as the groups that produced and hid the Dead Sea Scrolls to Zoroastrianism of ancient Persia, the end of the world was accompanied by great battle between the forces of evil in this world and the forces of good in the next, a battle which would be won by good. I think that this man of lawlessness is a character the author feels is to take part in this last battle much as Christ will take part. Does that make him the so-called “Anti-Christ”? I guess so, but as an agnostic non-Christian I don't take stock in this as a real prophecy of the future so I make no statement about what this means for the future of the world. Many scholars feel that the author possibly intended for this figure to be identified with a Roman Emperor like Nero, who killed the Christians of Rome after claiming that they started a fire that burned a good portion of the city (later Roman historians would put the real blame on Nero himself to free up land for building projects he wanted to pursue).

Interestingly, attention to this verse for regular Christians tends to focus on this individual, the man of lawlessness. This is borne out as the author's intended focus by the numerous following verses describing him and his roles before the end.

For Mormons, however, this verse is about the Apostasy and the loss of truth that occurred before Joseph Smith was called to begin the Restoration.

Since we're talking the language of prophecy, I find it difficult to make much of a statement as to which approach is superior or more “right”. In this case, there's not much out of context because the context itself is so vague. The LDS perspective could make sense with the only problem being that it goes directly against the imminent theme of the coming Kingdom of God that permeates Paul's other letters. For the author, if this “falling away” indeed was meant to be a falling away from the truth it was not going to last very long, and was something that the Thessalonians should be on the lookout for to inform them as to when the Kingdom of God was approaching. An apostasy lasting roughly 1700 years seems like a very useless fact to tell a bunch of 1st Century Christians who expect the end to come afterwards. Long time to wait, right?

Why Do I Think This Is Part of Scripture Mastery?

I think these verses were chosen because Mormons only care about finding Biblical justification for their insistence that the Christian movement “fell away” and that thus Joseph Smith and the Church he founded were necessary. Since, apart from this verse, the idea of a universal apostasy is not found in the Christian New Testament (probably because most New Testament writers felt that the end of the world was too close to their own times for any such apostasy to take place) it's not surprising that one of the necessary doctrines for the Restoration is part of scripture mastery. Because of the vagueness of the scripture itself, I'll personally say that I think this scripture, while deeply problematic within context, is appropriate for inclusion among the scriptures that LDS youth should know in studying the unique doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They just shouldn't be surprised when their Christian friends and associates make a bigger deal of the “son of perdition” than they do of the “falling away” since that's also what the author of the letter does, too.

#Mormon #ScriptureMasteryNT #AcademicBiblical

Greek: 11 καὶ αὐτὸς ἔδωκεν τοὺς μὲν ἀποστόλους, τοὺς δὲ προφήτας, τοὺς δὲ εὐαγγελιστάς, τοὺς δὲ ποιμένας καὶ διδασκάλους, 12 πρὸς τὸν καταρτισμὸν τῶν ἁγίων εἰς ἔργον διακονίας, εἰς οἰκοδομὴν τοῦ σώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ, 13 μέχρι καταντήσωμεν οἱ πάντες εἰς τὴν ἑνότητα τῆς πίστεως καὶ τῆς ἐπιγνώσεως τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ, εἰς ἄνδρα τέλειον, εἰς μέτρον ἡλικίας τοῦ πληρώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ, 14 ἵνα μηκέτι ὦμεν νήπιοι, κλυδωνιζόμενοι καὶ περιφερόμενοι παντὶ ἀνέμῳ τῆς διδασκαλίας ἐν τῇ κυβίᾳ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐν πανουργίᾳ πρὸς τὴν μεθοδίαν τῆς πλάνης

My Translation: 11 And he gave, on the one hand, apostles, and on the other hand prophets, and on the other hand bringers of good news, and on the other hand shepherds and teachers 12 towards the perfecting of the saints in labor of service, in the building up of Christ's body, 13 until everyone has attained unity towards faith and knowledge of the son of God, towards the perfect male, and towards the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we are children no longer, tossed and carried about by every wind of doctrine with the cunning sleight of humans in craftiness with methodical deceit;

KJV: 11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; 12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: 13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: 14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

My translations are purposefully stretched and should not be viewed as more accurate than the KJV translation unless I say so in the post. I'm trying to show the range lying between the original Greek text and the English.

A Translation Issue With This Scripture Mastery

A translation of this verse is problematic as it is a list of groups God gave to keep the “church” unified. Because of the construction of the lists, these are meant to be read as discrete groups of people. The final group, the “shepherds and teachers” could be read as being the same group or a continuance of the listing. So we either have four groups named or we have five. The grammar, however, seems to indicate four groups. The author uses the same conjunction, δἐ de, which is much like saying “and on the other hand”. Think of Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” where is his internal discussions with himself he keeps jumping from one thought to another by saying, “but on the other hand”. That's what the author is using to jump from one group to the next, except for the last two groups named. Unlike in English where we get weary from having too many conjunctions (such as only saying “and” before the last item in a long list), Greek has no problems with endlessly using the same conjunction. So the grammar seems to indicate that the last two groups are to be seen as a single unit: the shepherds and teachers. So the list seems to be a list of four groups. But it could simply be an artistic flourish to end a list differently than how it was begun and perhaps the author meant to list five separate groups. The grammar thus leans more towards four groups, but it would not be impossible for five different groups to be intended.

Anyways enough about the actual translation. We're in a different letter now, Ephesians. What's going on here?

Did Paul Actually Write Ephesians?

First off, we need to talk a bit about pseudepigrapha. There are generally three groups of letters that are claimed to be by Paul: the pastorals, the disputed letters, and the genuine letters. Nearly all scholars recognize that the pastoral epistles (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) are not actually by the historical Paul but were written many years later by someone else. This writer was writing as though they were the now-dead Paul, possibly because they felt their ideas would be easier to accept if the readers thought it was by Paul, possibly because they believed that the letters contained teachings that Paul himself would have given had he actually written the letter, or both. The second group, the disputed letters, are letters where scholars are still divided on whether the historical Paul wrote them. Some of these letters are more uncertain than others, and if one was actually written by Paul it does not mean that all of them were. The disputed letters are Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians. The genuine letters are the ones that the majority of scholars feel were actually written by the historical Paul. They are Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. And while he was traditionally viewed as the author of the anonymously written Hebrews, the evidence against Paul's authorship has been known for so long that today there is no debate that Paul is not the author of Hebrews.

So the letter this verse comes from is still disputed between scholars as to whether or not Paul really wrote it. Part of the problem is its similarity to many parts of Colossians. Though there is still debate about both letters, many scholars who believe that Paul might be the author of one posit that the other was almost certainly constructed from it and is not by Paul. In other words, if Paul wrote Ephesians, most scholars believe that someone else used it to construct Colossians, and vice versa. And many scholars feel that Colossians is the more likely of the two to be the original work, and that Ephesians copied much of its contents from Colossians.

Did Paul Change His Perspective?

One of the main reasons is that the Paul of Ephesians and Colossians has a very different view of himself and of the Christian movement than the Paul we've been reading in Romans and 1 Corinthians. In the genuine letters, Paul celebrates what Jesus's death and resurrection means for him and all believers. Genuine Paul feels that the Jewish Torah has been superseded by the new covenant of Christ. For genuine Paul, sin can only occur when a Christian is attempting to live within the old covenants, or in other words is attempted to keep the Law of Moses. With the author of Ephesians andColossians, sin occurs always when a Christian depends upon “good works” for salvation as opposed to trusting in the “grace” of God. There is little mention of the Law meaning the Jewish Torah. And the apocalyptic perspective of the genuine letters is gone. While genuine Paul is concerned about being saved from the violence of the rapidly approaching Kingdom of God and believes the resurrection will occur before the end, the author of Ephesians believes that he has already been saved and even seems to indicate that the resurrection has occurred! These may seem like very small distinctions, but even small distinctions matter. If I were to give you a General Conference talk written by either Jeffrey R. Holland or Thomas S. Monson, chances are that a Mormon familiar with their particular styles would easily be able to tell which one had written the talk. They're both Mormons who believe very similar things, but they have very different styles.

Also, when genuine Paul is writing to churches he uses the word to mean “congregations”: the Church in Rome, the Church in Corinth, the Church in Galatia, etc. But the author of Ephesians and Colossians uses the word ekklesia “Church” much the same way that the author of Matthew uses it: as a general word meaning all believers in Jesus. Whether they live in Rome or Corinth the author of Ephesians is referring to everyone when he uses the word “church”. This is very different than how we've been reading Paul before now. For these reasons and more we should be extremely cautious about approaching this letter assuming that the historical Paul wrote it.

Do Mormons Have Evangelists?

Chapter 4 of Ephesians has the author employing that the Church be unified. He states that there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism”, and implies that the various offices within the Church were given for the purpose of helping Christians remain unified through life. That is the context for the verses as given: unity.

One of the “articles of faith” formulated by Joseph Smith in 1844 reads:

We believe in the same organization that existed in the primitive church: namely, prophets, apostles, pastors, teachers, evangelists, etc.

So most Mormons look at this verse as a description of a well-ordered Church with many different roles. Part of the problem, of course, is that some of these positions do not exist within the LDS under the same names. The solution is usually to claim equivalence between a term listed by Paul and a role within the LDS Church. Pastors are usually interpreted by be bishops, and there is a very definite linguistic connection between these two words. However, “evangelists” are said to be Patriarchs. In the LDS Church, a Patriarch is an actual position whose calling is to provide a ritualized blessing upon members o the ward. This blessing is usually prophetic and mean to provide guidance for the member's life. However, the term Paul uses, εὐαγγελιστάς euangelistás, is a complex word meaning “speakers of the good news”. It is the word behind “evangelist” (change the u to a v and you'll see it) or “evangelism”. For Paul and other early Christians, the word is usually related to missionary work. While Paul could be referring to a position were someone delivers “good news” in the same way that a Patriarch is usually expected to offer a divine guide for the future, it is an odd choice of words to use a term that is already used almost exclusively in another way elsewhere.

Also, when Joseph Smith made the statement that the LDS Church “believed in the same organization that existed in the primitive church” (which is different than saying that they have the same organization) the hierarchical structure of the 1844 LDS Church was extremely complex beyond this listing given by Paul. Also, the structure of the LDS Church has always been in flux among the Latter-day Saints. Joseph's first official calling within his Church was not as Prophet or President, but was rather as it's “First Elder”. High Priests and the office of President appeared after Sidney Rigdon joined; some of the Book of Mormon witnesses felt that the introduction of these positions only occurred because the sophisticated Rigdon argued that Joseph's simple church should have more positions. Apostles were introduced in Kirtland soon after, first designed to be a group of missionaries that only fully developed into purely leadership roles after the movement of Brigham Young's followers to the Great Basin. Joseph Smith also had many other groups that did not last beyond the 19th Century, such as the Council of Fifty and the Annointed Quorum. Under Brigham Young the Priesthood callings were organized as a youth program (before this, deacons, teachers, priests, and elders were all adult men and advancement in the LDS Priesthood did not necessarily move from deacon to teacher to priest to elder). In the 1970s the office of Seventy was removed at the local level, reserved only to a collection of Church-wide Quorums of Seventy that assist the LDS Apostles. Who knows what changes the future will bring to the structure?

Throughout all of these changes, members have continued to recite this article of faith, usually believing that all early Christians had the same organization they enjoyed. However, finding this organization in the New Testament requires a lot of assumption. And everything we currently understand about the early Christian movement reveals a collection of very different groups with very different approaches, beliefs, practices, and organization.

When Paul is writing his angry letter to Galatia or to the unvisited Christians in Rome, or is answering questions and responding to internal problems in Corinth why doesn't he write to the local leaders? In most letters outside of Ephesians/Colossians and the Pastorals (which nearly all scholars feel were not actually by Paul), Paul doesn't refer to a Church structure or to Church offices apart from servants (deacons, both men and women), apostles (again, both men and women), and widows (which soon after the time of Paul when the Christian communities began to be more organized, were an actual office for women in the Church that were set apart to serve as widows).

So while this is a good list showing groups that some early Christians felt belonged to the Jesus movement, it would be very difficult to say that either 1) this verse lists offices that must be found in the Christian Church, or 2) this verse matches up very well against the current 21st Century structure of the LDS Church. It's not misused or misinterpreted (well, apart from claiming that “evangelists” are Patriarchs), but it isn't a very good selection to define what the LDS Church should look like.

Why Do I Think This Is Part of Scripture Mastery?

I think this scripture was chosen because it is quoted by Joseph's Articles of Faith. It's reference to “Prophets” and “Apostles” is seen as evidence that the original Christian movement still have prophets within it. However, even if there were prophets, this verse doesn't actually mean that they were in charge or even that the Church continued to have them. The author could be referring to the Prophets from the history of Israel. Besides, there is good reason to be cautious about assuming the authenticity of these verses as having been written by the historical Paul. The most they show is that some early Christians believed in various offices within the Christian movement that mostly seem to line up with similarly named offices in the LDS Church, but the relationship between both churches is much more problematic than it may originally appear.

#Mormon #ScriptureMasteryNT #AcademicBiblical

Greek: 40 καὶ σώματα ἐπουράνια, καὶ σώματα ἐπίγεια· ἀλλὰ ἑτέρα μὲν ἡ τῶν ἐπουρανίων δόξα, ἑτέρα δὲ ἡ τῶν ἐπιγείων. 41 ἄλλη δόξα ἡλίου, καὶ ἄλλη δόξα σελήνης, καὶ ἄλλη δόξα ἀστέρων· ἀστὴρ γὰρ ἀστέρος διαφέρει ἐν δόξῃ. 42 οὕτως καὶ ἡ ἀνάστασις τῶν νεκρῶν. σπείρεται ἐν φθορᾷ, ἐγείρεται ἐν ἀφθαρσίᾳ·

My Translation: 40 And bodies heavenly, and bodies earthly; therefore is one the honor of heavens, and the other of earths. 41 Another is solar honor, and another is lunar honor, and another honor of stars; for star from star differs in honor. 42 And thus the resurrection of the dead. It is sown with ruin, it is raised with perfection.

KJV: 40 There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. 42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption.

My translations are purposefully stretched and should not be viewed as more accurate than the KJV translation unless I say so in the post. I'm trying to show the range lying between the original Greek text and the English.

Yet Again In the Same Chapter

We've been looking at chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians for the past two posts. Today we hit the last of these three scripture mastery verses from 1 Corinthians.

It shouldn't surprise you after the past posts that we're still talking about the resurrection. In keeping with the context of the chapter, Paul began by asserting that because Jesus rose from the dead, so too all would rise before the Kingdom of God arrived. Paul explained why this would happen and why it was necessary. Then he began a short series of rhetorical questions to illustrate to his friends in Corinth that their beliefs and practices displayed an assumption that such a resurrection would occur.

What is a Resurrected Body Like?

In the context for these verses, Paul is responding to a question that seems to have been posed against his belief in a physical resurrection. “If there is a resurrection of the body,” someone seems to have challenged, “how does that happen, and what would it look like?”

Paul responds by comparing the body to a seed. The only way to get food from a seed is to bury it in the earth. To Paul, this is the same as “killing” the seed, but without doing this the seed will not grow and live. And the grain doesn't come out of the ground as grain, but in a different and more grand form than what it was before. To illustrate how it can be that the grain before and after sprouting are different, Paul explains how God has already made many different kinds of bodies: bodies of men, bodies of animals, bodies of fish, bodies of birds. Then Paul moves on from animal life to the other creations of God, which is where the scripture mastery verse begins.

In verses 40-41, Paul says that God has also created bodies in the heavens, and bodies on the earth, and each of these bodies are different in glory or reputation from each other. And even the sun, moon, and stars themselves differ in glory.

After Paul has finished describing the different types of creations and bodies that God has made (ranging all the way from humans, to fish, to the sun, moon, and stars), Paul returns back to what he was saying about the seed. In verses 42-44, Paul likens this process of a seed become a plant to the resurrection of the body:

42 And thus the resurrection of the dead. It is sown with ruin, it is raised with perfection. 43 It is sown with dishonor, it is raised with reputation; it is sown with weakness, it is raised with power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body...

For Paul, the resurrected body is a “spiritual” body, which is as different from the “natural” body as a plant is from a seed. But he's already argued that God knows how to make many different kinds of bodies; a spiritual body is just another type of body that God can create. For the rest of the chapter, Paul relates how this resurrected body, this “spiritual” body, is far different from the natural body. The natural body was created in Eden of earthly dust, but the spiritual body is from heaven. The regular body of flesh and blood will not enter the kingdom of heaven but it will changed to a purer body that belongs in the kingdom. Finally at the end of the chapter, Paul praises God who has caused all of this to happen through raising Jesus.

What About The Three Heavens of Mormonism?

I'm sorry this post is so long, but it has to be because these scriptures, when removed from their context within the chapter, are very important to one of the most unique aspect of Mormon doctrine: the Three Degrees of Glory. (Yes, the idea that there are three heavens was around before Mormonism, such as in the writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, with which Joseph Smith was familiar, but it is, as far as I am aware, the only Christian tradition that has this variated view of heaven into only three different areas).

Whereas Paul has been talking about the many different kinds of bodies that God has created, listing humans among other creations such as fish and the sun, Mormons generally view verses 40-41 out of their context to be talking about the various type of resurrected bodies that God has in store for humans. When Joseph was editing the Bible, verse 40 received the following changes:

There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial, and bodies telestial; but the glory of the celestial is, one; and the glory of the terrestrial is, another; and the telestial, another.

In Mormon thought, God has three different conditions or heavens awaiting humans after the final judgement: the Celestial Kingdom for God's people who merit it, the Terrestrial Kingdom for normal people, and the Telestial Kingdom for the bad people (there is an “outer darkness” as well for the absolute lowest of the low, but nobody knows for sure who goes there). Mormons believe that each kingdom actually requires a body prepared for these kingdoms, so that people with celestial bodies are those who go to the celestial kingdom, and so on with the other two types of kingdoms each with their associated body.

Is this a valid way of reading this verse? No, it's not.

Joseph's Linguistic Problems

The English word celestial is based on the Latin “caelestis”, meaning “heavenly”. The Greek from verse 40 is ἐπουράνια epouránia, which also means “heavenly”. If you take the epo off of the front (which is what makes it a word “concerning” something) you get the root uránia, which should be recognizable as the same root for the planet Uranus. And the English word terrestrial is based on the Latin “terrestris”, meaning “earthly” or “ground”. The Greek from verse 40 is ἐπίγεια epígeia, also meaning “of ground, of earth”. Taking off the epi prefix, hopefully you can recognize the word geia which usually in English gets turned into Gaea.

The word telestial, on the other hand, is a word that is unique to the scriptures of Joseph Smith. It has no known root, though some Mormons have speculated that it might be based off of the Greek word telos, meaning “end, finish, purpose” (it's a popular word for Plato/Socrates). Why two of the kingdoms would have English names based off of Latin roots, but the other would have a name based off of a Greek root is never explained. (Besides, to me the word “telestial” simply looks like a poor attempt at a word spelled halfway between “terrestrial” and “celestial”.)

Also never explained is why Joseph made these changes to these verses. In context, Paul has been listing the various types of bodies that God has created. He describes heavenly bodies as part of this list. He then continues to talk about how the new spiritual body is different from the old natural body. In the Greek he is not referring to different methods of resurrection. He is referring to how things in the heavens are so very different from things on the earth. This difference of kind is reflected in the difference of resurrected and mortal bodies. Bodies “telestial” doesn't make any sense within the Greek context of this verse.

Now of course Mormons believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet. The majority of their beliefs about the Three Degrees of Glory can be found in Section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants. Just because Joseph twisted 1 Corinthians 15:40 in such a way as to introduce “telestial” to the list of bodies in an attempt to describe the levels of Mormon salvation doesn't mean that Mormons have nowhere from which to obtain the teaching. Recovering the correct context and interpretation of these verses doesn't destroy the doctrine of the Degrees of Glory, but it does return a correct understanding to the writings of Paul for Latter-day Saints.

Why Do I Think This Is Part of Scripture Mastery?

This scripture was chosen so that LDS youth would have a biblical source to claim when discussing a very unique Mormon belief: that there are three heavens for humans to end up in. Unfortunately, this viewpoint is arrived at by removing these verses from their surrounding content as well as adding another word, telestial, to the verse that cannot be traced to any ancient language definitively that would also make sense in the Greek context. A Mormon trying to present these verses as support for their beliefs of the afterlife would make no progress in convincing anyone who is familiar with the chapter that it is describing three forms of resurrection and salvation. It is not a correct interpretation, it adds nothing to the argument that Paul is making (in fact, if the Mormon reading is allowed to stand it makes Paul's argument significantly more confusing at this point), and it should be dropped as one of multiple sources for the doctrine. Mormons can depend upon the other sources they already have for this belief beyond a misapplication of Paul's teachings on the resurrection in 1 Corinthians.

#Mormon #ScriptureMasteryNT #AcademicBiblical

Greek: Ἐπεὶ τί ποιήσουσιν οἱ βαπτιζόμενοι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν; εἰ ὅλως νεκροὶ οὐκ ἐγείρονται, τί καὶ βαπτίζονται ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν;

My Translation: Otherwise what will they do, those who are baptized above the dead? If the dead are not raised up why do they baptize above them [some manuscripts “of the dead”]?

KJV: Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?

Again, remember that the translations I provide are not meant to be more accurate, but are purposefully stretched nearly to their breaking point in meaning. Usually the KJV translation is fine and I'll tell you when it isn't. I provide these extreme, and admittedly somewhat incorrect, translations in order to give a sense of the range of meaning of the underlying words so that you can get a feel for the “flavor” of the words underlying the English text. So for instance, while I say “above the dead” here and that is technically valid, it is almost certainly not correct and the KJV “for” is the most likely intention.

Update May 2013

This scripture has been removed by the Church Educational System from the Scripture Mastery list. However, it had remained within this list for over two decades and as such is still familiar to many graduates of the LDS Church's Seminary program. So I'm keeping this exploration of it online, but it is no longer applicable to CES.

We're In the Same Chapter As Before

The context of this chapter has already been covered in the previous post. But in sum, Paul has been refreshing his Corinthian congregation on his ideas about Jesus's resurrection. The entirety of chapter 15 is about the resurrection. Previously, Paul indicated how Christ's resurrection leads to the resurrection of all those who belong to Christ before the Kingdom of God arrives at the end of the world.

After explaining this, Paul then moves onto why the resurrection of Jesus was necessary. In advance of the coming Kingdom, Jesus had been sent to begin the rule of the Kingdom upon the earth. Only when Jesus was the ruler of all things could the Kingdom arrive. The last obstacle of the present, evil world to be overcome was death, and when Jesus became the master of death, then the dead would rise and the kingdom would arrive.

At this point, Paul turns to asking his Corinthian friends a series of rhetorical questions. If this was not the case, then why are they baptized for the dead? What is the point of anything, if death remains in the world and the dead do not rise? We'll follow this line of questions with the next post, where Paul attempts to respond to the question of what this resurrection will be like (it seems that part of his attention here in chapter 15 was in response to some doubt by some Corinthians about whether the resurrection would occur).

Baptisms In Place of the Dead?

This verse in question is thus one of the rhetorical questions Paul asks in support of his position that a resurrection of the dead was about to take place. This verse has puzzled Christians for centuries. Martin Luther, for instance, believed that Paul was referring to a practice of the Christians to hold their baptisms over tombs as a reminder that Christ's sacrifice overcomes death. Other interpreters felt that Paul was referring to a practice of Christians being baptized before their death, and that Paul was saying that such a baptism, so close to the end of life, would have little effect upon a person unless their life would continue onwards long past that baptism after a resurrection of their body. Many note that Paul in Romans likens baptism to a symbolic representation of the death and resurrection of the Christian and of Christ, and as such he may be referring to baptism “for the dead” as a way of likening regular Christian baptism to death (and thus reinforcing why it would be meaningless to do so if there was no resurrection to follow, which for Paul is represented in baptism when the initiate arises out of the water). And still others feel that Paul was making reference to a practice of baptisms in proxy for deceased persons.

Joseph Smith revealed that God was allowing Mormons to practice proxy baptisms in 1840. In doing so, Smith referenced this verse as part of his explanation for the practice. Some Latter-day Saints will point to the presence of the practice in both the LDS Church and 1 Corinthians 15:29 without making mention of how Smith was aware of the scripture. When this connection is not mentioned, it can often appear that the biblical verse is acting as an independent witness to the validity of the modern Mormon practice. However, the LDS practice almost certainly grew out of Joseph's pondering of the scripture in question, and thus it is not independent from the 1840 revelation.

Distinctive, But Not Mormon

Also, it is important to note what is not said by Paul about the practice. There is no mention of Temples. There is no mention of who these dead are, whether they are the recently deceased members of the community or ancestors. There is no mention of the need for baptism for all humans (one of the driving factors for Mormons to baptize their ancestors is to provide them with an opportunity for baptism that was not available to them during their lives). Paul doesn't even mention who is participating in this practice. He is talking to the Corinthians, but he very purposefully uses the third-person plural “they” in discussing who is participating in the practice. We have no idea who he was referring to: the Corinthians or some other group? Why not say “why are you baptized for the dead” unless the Corinthians were not doing it? Some scholars through history have even speculated that Paul's vagueness about who is involved in this practice might be evidence of his personal disfavor of it, though this is certainly not a widespread idea among most scholars. The only thing that can be determined for sure is that Paul is only using this verse as an example for why Christians believe the resurrection will occur.

The word that matters in this verse is the word ὑπὲρ *hupér, *a preposition that carries a range of meanings beginning with “over/above” and extending to “standing in defense of, standing in place of, standing for, for” or even “concerning”. It is the source for the English prefix “hyper”, which usually means “above”. So while Mormons are correct that the meaning can be expressed as a proxy baptism (standing in place of), Luther's speculation also makes grammatical sense (baptized over the dead). The meaning, however, at the time of Paul most likely would be best translated as “for” or “in place of”.

Why Do I Think This Is Part of Scripture Mastery?

This scripture is given so that LDS youth have an example of a uniquely LDS practice that can be shown to have its origin in the Bible. Their interpretation of Paul referring to a practice of “baptism in behalf of the dead” is a valid and correct interpretation, though within the context of the chapter Paul is not making any statement about the validity or necessity of the practice. Instead, Paul is merely stating the existence of it as proof that Christians believe in a resurrection of the dead. Also, there are a number of other viewpoint on this scripture that are also grammatically valid that do not infer the existence of a historical practice of baptizing for the dead the way that modern Mormons do for their ancestors. But it does stand as an example of something uniquely Mormon that can be found within the Bible (because it seems that this scripture is the ultimate origin of the LDS practice, so it shouldn't be too surprising). In the next post we'll see another attempt at finding unique Mormon doctrine within the same chapter that fails completely once viewed within its context, but today this verse is accurate, useful, and a good choice of a verse for a Mormon to know about.

#Mormon #ScriptureMasteryNT #AcademicBiblical

Greek: 20 Νυνὶ δὲ Χριστὸς ἐγήγερται ἐκ νεκρῶν, ἀπαρχὴ τῶν κεκοιμημένων. 21 ἐπειδὴ γὰρ δι’ ἀνθρώπου θάνατος, καὶ δι’ ἀνθρώπου ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν· 22 ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐν τῷ Ἀδὰμ πάντες ἀποθνῄσκουσιν, οὕτως καὶ ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ πάντες ζῳοποιηθήσονται.

My Translation: 20 But now Christ rises out from the deads, [some manuscripts “he became”] the primal offering of the sleepers. 21 For because through a human death, likewise through a human resurrection of the dead. 22 For even as in Adam all perish, even so in Christ all will become alive.

KJV: 20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. 21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

My translations are purposefully stretched and should not be viewed as more accurate than the KJV translation unless I say so in the post. I'm trying to show the range lying between the original Greek text and the English.

Let's Spend Some Time In A Single Chapter

1 Corithians 15 is a rather meaty chapter. In it Paul attempts to re-summarize his main theological ideas to a group he had already taught once. So on the one hand, it's an interesting look into Paul's thought, but on the other hand it is not a complete view of his ideas. Paul relates how the root of his beliefs is centered in the resurrection of Jesus.

Paul the Apocalyptic

Paul was an apocalyptic Jew. We've talked about this theology before. Before becoming a Christian, Paul was a Pharisee, some of whom were also apparently apocalyptic in their viewpoint as well. For Paul, he says in chapter 15 that Jesus appeared to him, as well as a long list of other witnesses (this list doesn't exactly line up with the Gospels, it should be noted). For Paul, it seems that Jesus's resurrection was one of the main points of Paul's new theology. We can assume that as a Pharisee, Paul's main contention against the new Jewish sect of Christians was that they felt that Jesus was the Messiah. To regular Jews, this claim was bizarre: Jesus was executed as a criminal, according to Torah he was cursed because he was hung upon a tree, and nowhere in the Hebrew scriptures was there any indication that the Messiah would suffer and die (most of the areas usually viewed as prophecies of Jesus, such as Isaiah 53, were never viewed as prophecies of the Messiah before Jesus's death). To imply that Jesus was the Messiah, sent by God to Israel, was therefore an extreme mistake that some Jews, like Paul, felt needed to be actively corrected.

However, once Paul came to the conclusion that Jesus had risen from the dead, everything shifted. If Jesus had been raised from the dead, then he must have been the Messiah, and the Christians were right. But what was the purpose of Jesus's death in that case? From this point, Paul developed an extensive theology of Jesus's death and resurrection that was formed around Paul's apocalyptic beliefs. Part of those apocalyptic beliefs was that the coming Kingdom of God would also bring about the reversal of death. Jesus's rising from the tomb was the “first fruits” of this resurrection.

The term “first fruits” (or “primal offering” as I've rendered it) refers to the practice of sacrificing in the ancient world. The first fruits were the first produce sacrificed to the gods at the beginning of the harvest. The term implies a the first of many such offerings. For Paul, Jesus's rising is evidence of the Kingdom of God nearly arriving and that further resurrections should be expected. It's a little hard to view Paul's statement as referring to Jesus rising and then everyone else rising over two thousand years later. This term refers to a harvest and Jesus is simply the first to rise of everyone. The time is short.

One of Paul's biggest innovations for Christianity was his establishment of Adam and the expulsion from Eden as one of the reasons for Jesus's death. Remember that as an apocalyptic, Paul felt that the current world was ruled by the powers of darkness and sin. But how did the world that God created arrive at such a position where it was under the sway of evil? For Paul, the blame lay at the first disobedience of humans in the Hebrew creation myth. Ever since then, the world has been corrupted, but now that Jesus was risen from the dead the coming Kingdom is arriving to resolve the problems. For Paul, Christ is resurrected first, then all who are Christ's and then the end of the world occurs.

I hope I don't need to do any more summarizing to show what this verse means within its context. Paul is re-explaining his views to those who have heard them before. He explains the significance of Jesus's resurrection in terms of his apocalyptic view of the fallen world, which he blames upon Adam. The rest of the chapter (which leads to the next scripture mastery verse and the next post) is Paul waxing on about how this rapidly approaching resurrection will occur.

Why Do I Think This Is Part of Scripture Mastery?

I think this verse was chosen because the Latter-day Saints make a big deal among themselves that all humans will be resurrected. While some other Christian faiths feel that only the righteous will be resurrected, a physical resurrection of the body is part of Christian orthodoxy. It is viewed as a curiosity of Christian doctrine, however. The Mormon focus on this scripture, while oddly emphasized within the theology, is completely in line with the scripture's context and their interpretation of it is an interpretation shared by the majority of Christian orthodoxy.

#Mormon #ScriptureMasteryNT #AcademicBiblical

Greek: πειρασμὸς ὑμᾶς οὐκ εἴληφεν εἰ μὴ ἀνθρώπινος· πιστὸς δὲ ὁ θεός, ὃς οὐκ ἐάσει ὑμᾶς πειρασθῆναι ὑπὲρ ὃ δύνασθε, ἀλλὰ ποιήσει σὺν τῷ πειρασμῷ καὶ τὴν ἔκβασιν τοῦ δύνασθαι ὑπενεγκεῖν.

My Translation: No temptation has claimed you that wasn't of humanity, but God is faithful, who will not let y'all be tempted beyond what y'all are capable, yet he will make, with the temptation, an exit that you may be capable to endurance.

KJV: There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

My translations are purposefully stretched and should not be viewed as more accurate than the KJV translation unless I say so in the post. I'm trying to show the range lying between the original Greek text and the English.

Update May 2013

This scripture has been removed by the Church Educational System from the Scripture Mastery list. However, it had remained within this list for over two decades and as such is still familiar to many graduates of the LDS Church's Seminary program. So I'm keeping this exploration of it online, but it is no longer applicable to CES.

The Letters to Corinth

Mormons really like the letters to the Corinthians. These are letters written in answers to questions that Paul's congregation in Corinth had. The second letter shows some evidence of possibly having been originally two different letters that were inexpertly edited together long after they were written.

Because the letters are in answer to unknown questions from the Christians at Corinth, the letters sometimes seem to skip from one subject to another. For the scripture mastery verse in question, Paul is discussing evil behavior and what the correct behavior of a Christian should be.

At the end of Chapter 9, Paul has been talking about how his followers should retain humility even in the face of how they have already achieved victory through Christ. Beginning Chapter 10, Paul warns of how Israel, who were also God's chosen people just as the Corinthians are now God's chosen people by joining the new covenantal people of Christ, still incurred God's wrath through their evil actions. Paul warns that even though Israel was God's chosen, through their disobedience many of them were killed.

So too, says Paul, should Christians living at the end of the world stand firm and not fall into evil ways. Then comes the verse in question.

With this previous context as given, perhaps we can see that Paul is not talking about temptation in some little sense. He's just finished talking about the history of Israel in the wilderness under Moses. When Paul says that no temptation has taken you except what is common to humanity, he means that we're all subject to the same things that afflicted ancient Israel. And so we're all still subject to God's judgement even after becoming his people.

After the verse in question, Paul says that because of what he's been talking about (Israel's disobedience) that the Christians at Corinth should live their lives carefully. Paul's theology says that joining the covenant community of Christ destroys the ability of sin and death to capture the believer in Christ. For this reason, sin and death no longer have a hold on the believers. But Paul, while acknowledging that his followers are free from the effects of sin, they should be careful in their actions all the same.

Let's go back to the verse and look a bit more closely at it. Paul feels that the temptations his followers have to deal with are common to humanity, but that God will provide a way for them to endure it. Note that this verse is not talking about “giving in to sin” or about salvation and the effect of works upon it. It just says that the Corinthians will experience human temptations and that God will give them a way out by providing them with the strength to endure the temptations.

For Mormons, salvation is not fully dependent upon belonging to the covenantal people (the Church). Salvation must still be received through living a virtuous life and through avoiding sin, an idea very difficult to pull out of Paul's writings. Mormons usually approach this verse with the assumption that since God wants us to achieve salvation and exaltation, and since this is predicated on our faithfulness, then God will never allow us to be tempted in a way that we can't handle. In other words, God has made it so that it is possible to live a life without sin (the result of not enduring temptation), which should give us hope to someday be able to do so.

A Common, But Horrible, LDS Reading

An odd interpretation of this verse that is extremely common among Latter-day Saints, however, is one that replaces the word “temptation” with “challenge”. You'll often hear Mormons approaching challenging situations of grief or pain with the statement that God will “not give us more than we can handle”. That idea comes from this verse, and yet it is not at all what this verse is saying. And history shows that of course people can experience challenges in their lives that are many times greater than what they can handle. People's bodies, emotions, and sanity can all break under the weight of what this world can throw at them. In a world of war, bloodshed, and holocausts, people break. Assuming that God somehow provides a way for humans to not break when this happens can lead to some very wrong-headed and uncharitable opinions on how people deal, or don't deal, with grief and pain. What should we think of someone who is reacting badly to the death of a family member if we think they God is supposed to help them through it? Should we think they are rejecting God's help?

In fact, there's a troubling cultural aspect of Mormon funerals that often revolves around this interpretation of this scripture. Mormons are fond of mentioning that because they believe that their families will be reunited after death and that families are eternal (a belief commonly found among many faiths) their funerals are merely bittersweet, temporary farewells. Whereas others may wail and bemoan their loss, Latter-day Saints know better and while they are sad, they are hopeful as well! Unfortunately, this has developed to such an extent that most Mormons do not know how to deal with the psychological need of grief, worried that by expressing too much of their sorrow they'll be letting down their community. And sometimes those communities can be too strong in enforcing this sense of hopeful sadness and will let those who are expressing too much sadness that they need to rely on God more. If you're too affected by pain and grief, the problem is yourself! Your testimony is not strong enough to carry you through these challenges. God has promise we won't be given more than we can handle!

Thankfully, as more and more Mormons become open to the benefits of psychological counseling, this idea that Mormons cannot admit defeat in the face of overwhelming pain and grief is slowly starting to show cracks. Time will hopefully tear down this mistaken assumption that God will always help people through the challenges of life. This scripture merely promises that God will help his people through their common temptations, which is not at all the same thing.

Why Do I Think This Is Part of Scripture Mastery?

I think this scripture was chosen in order to provide youth with a hopeful approach to the LDS conception of sin and repentance. I think it was chosen to give LDS youth the impression that even when they are tempted by sin, God is aware of them and is trying to help them. However, this scripture, as used by the Mormons, also tends to set up a bad situation when temptations are yielded to. Since such sins could have been avoided, then the individual is only to blame for giving in. In the face of addictions, of war, of accidents, and the myriad of other pains of life, this viewpoint can be tragically self-flagellatory for some people. There are better scriptures to give the impression that God is aware of us and wants the best for us. This scripture, if misapplied (and there's precious little given against such a misapplication) can result in individuals constantly beating themselves and their self-image up for being human and making mistakes.

#Mormon #ScriptureMasteryNT #AcademicBiblical

Greek: οὐ γὰρ ἐπαισχύνομαι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, δύναμις γὰρ θεοῦ ἐστιν εἰς σωτηρίαν παντὶ τῷ πιστεύοντι, Ἰουδαίῳ τε πρῶτον καὶ Ἕλληνι.

My Translation: For I am not ashamed of the good news [some manuscripts “of Christ”], for it is the power of God toward deliverance to all those trusting, first to the Jew and to the Greek.

KJV: For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

My translations are purposefully stretched and should not be viewed as more accurate than the KJV translation unless I say so in the post. I'm trying to show the range lying between the original Greek text and the English.

Update May 2013

This scripture has been removed by the Church Educational System from the Scripture Mastery list. However, it had remained within this list for over two decades and as such is still familiar to many graduates of the LDS Church's Seminary program. So I'm keeping this exploration of it online, but it is no longer applicable to CES.

Paul! We've reached the letters of Paul! I'm so happy!

Paul was a 1st Century convert to the Jesus movement. He relates in his own letters, and it is later recorded in what might be two fictionalized retellings in Acts, how he began his association with the movement by persecuting them. Paul appears to be from the city of Tarsus, and was a unique convert to the movement who left as much of an imprint upon it, if not more, than the historical Jesus around whom the movement began. Paul was possibly a Roman citizen (which, if true, would be where his Latin name, Paulus, comes from), was well-educated, and was a Pharisee before something caused him to believe that Jesus of Nazareth has risen from the dead and was indeed the promised Messiah for Israel. Through Paul's theological explorations of the meaning of Jesus's death and resurrection, Christianity was transformed and universalized into a new system of belief and worship that quickly spread across the Roman world.

Of course, the transition from Paul's unique theology to the eventual development of orthodox Christianity was not direct or instantaneous. We've been looking at scriptures from the four gospels, all of which were written after the complicated letters of Paul were composed, and from the first Gospel, Mark, to Matthew and Luke, and ultimately to John, the writings and viewpoints of Paul are largely absent from the writers' perspectives, though some of Luke's account of Paul's life in Acts seems to line up slightly with Paul's theological focus (though Luke's history of Paul's life does not line up very much at all with Paul's own summarization of his conversion as given in Galatians and seems to have been fictionalized).

However, while Paul was obviously not influential among the various groups of Christians where and when the Gospels were being written, the influence of his writings continued to grow through the decades, influencing later writers to quote him and still other writers to imitate him and pretend to be him in later letter-writing endeavors (which we'll talk about when we get to the scripture mastery verses from 2 Thessalonians, which ironically warn Christians against letters that seem to come from Paul or other authorities and yet 2 Thessalonians itself seems to be one of these false-Paul letters).

Paul's Letter to the Romans

Moving on from Paul as an author, let's zero in a bit more onto the epistle in question: Romans. Of the letters we're confident that Paul actually wrote, Romans is the most organized, complicated, and well-thought out. The context of the letter is that Paul is preparing a trip to Rome, where he has never been before, and he is writing a letter outlining his theological view of Jesus to send to friends of his there in advance of his arrival (this letter was sent with one of those friends, Phoebe, an early female deacon from one of Paul's congregations). We have no historical indication of how the letter or Phoebe were received, though traditions preserved in Acts seem to indicate that Paul spent considerable time in Rome after arriving, possibly under house arrest by Roman authorities.

Why would Paul send a letter like this? It seems that Paul had considerable trouble with other Christians not agreeing with his particular viewpoint on the Jewish Law and the relationship of Jesus and other Christians to it. Paul also had to deal with issues of authority. While he called himself at times an Apostle he was a convert to the movement long after the death of the historical Jesus and there is no record anywhere in the New Testament of any official election or ordination for Paul as Apostle (such as was given to Matthias in Acts 1 when he was elected by lottery to replace Judas Iscariot in the Twelve; the author of Luke-Acts says that they sought out a person who had been a disciple from the beginning and who was a witness to the resurrected Jesus with the rest of the disciples at the end of Luke, both qualifications that Paul would fail against). In other letters, Paul makes reference to some of his theological opponents claiming more authority than himself, even going so far as to refer to his opponents mockingly as “super-Apostles”. Much of Paul's personal history, given in Galatians, is given to express how Paul's ideas and teachings did not come from things he learned through other Christians (implying that Paul instead got them through revelation).

While Galatians is also a dense theological work detailing Paul's beliefs about the Law of Moses and God's covenant people of Israel and God establishing a new covenant through Jesus, that letter seems to have been written in the heat of a furious passion after Paul learned that a previous congregation of his had been partially turned against him and his teachings by later Christian missionaries. Romans, on the other hand, seems to be Paul testing the waters ahead of his arrival, in a way saying “Here's who I am, here's what I teach, and here's why I think it's right. And by the way, I'm planning on coming through, will that be okay?” So in Romans, Paul sets about illustrating his theology carefully.

I think that the biggest shame of all about this scripture mastery verse is that it's the only scripture mastery verse from the entirety of Romans. As you can tell by everything I've already said, I think that even if you don't believe in Christianity, you should read Romans slowly and carefully (along with Galatians and the other genuine Pauline epistles) because 1) Paul was a very complex and complicated writer, and 2) Paul's writings matter when it comes to understanding what Christianity eventually developed into. Far more than the Gospels. Christianity was a movement started by Jesus, but through Paul it became a religion about Jesus.

The Context for the Verse

So how does this verse measure up against this call to understand Paul's theology? While it's not a total miss, it's pretty weak sauce indeed.

This verse is part of Paul's introduction to the letter, where Paul is transitioning from saying “Hi” to the beginning of his argument about how the death of Jesus the Messiah brings about a new covenants with God that brings salvation.

He starts off by saying he's not “ashamed” of the good news of Jesus. What is there to be ashamed of? At this period of time, quite a bit. Remember that when Paul is writing there are no gospels or any other writings we're currently aware of. There were many oral traditions floating throughout the Greek-speaking world in a giant game of telephone, but apart from a hypothetical collection of the sayings of Jesus that may have been assembled at this time (called “Q”), nobody had yet attempted to sit down and write down a history of Jesus making use of all of the stories Christians were telling each other about Jesus through word of mouth. And aspects of the stories were influenced by the more difficult aspects of the historical Jesus: things Christians almost certainly wished they could avoid:

• Just like many other failed messiahs Jesus had been executed by the Roman authorities, probably for the crime of sedition and setting himself up as “King of the Jews”.
• Jesus had begun his ministry by being baptized under the authority of John the Baptist, the leader of a different group of Jews that only partially decided to follow Jesus after their leader was killed.
• Jesus was obviously from Nazareth but most Jews expected the promised messiah to be born in Bethlehem.
• Christians were still confused and fractious amongst themselves as to how Jewish or non-Jewish they were supposed to be.
• Jesus preached an apocalyptic message of the coming Kingdom of God, but that Kingdom had failed to show up after his death.
• Some of Jesus's prophecies simply had not occurred. Some converts who had been promised that they would not “taste of death” before the Kingdom of God arrived had started to die. Jesus's prophecy that the Jewish Temple would be destroyed had not occurred (but it actually would happen a few years after Paul's probable death when the Temple was burned during the Roman occupation of Jerusalem in 70 CE).
• There were other figures of the ancient Mediterranean, both Jewish and Gentile, where parts of their life stories seemed to match up uncomfortably well with the various stories commonly shared among early Christians about the life and miracles of Jesus. One of these figures, the pagan philosopher Apollonius of Tyre, who admittedly lived after Paul died, had a life story that so closely matched up with that of Jesus that followers of Jesus and followers of Apollonius each accused the others of having ripped off their leader's true history. However, apart from Apollonius, during the time of Paul there were other stories of gods and heroes, though none of them match up quite as neatly in all their details, but it's possible that these similarities were similar enough to cause confusion and doubt as to their truth in Jesus's life.

In short, there was a lot for early Christians to be ashamed about. Christianity did not begin as a clearly-defined movement distinct from anything else, but as a messy conglomeration of Jews who believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah sent to Israel even though he'd been executed and had never achieved any greatness as the Jewish prophecies foretold of the Messiah.

Mormons can easily identify with this statement of “not being ashamed of the Gospel of Christ”. They also have a similar list of embarrassments about their faith, a list which is actually longer than most average Mormons might consider. Just do a Google search for “Joseph Smith Polyandry”, “Book of Abraham Facsimiles”, “Council of Fifty”, “Seer Stones and the Book of Mormon”, “Horses in the Book of Mormon”, or many other similar issues and you'll see much that LDS youth have which they might choose to “not be ashamed of”. I'm not saying that they should be ashamed of those things, any more than early Christians should have been ashamed that their Lord had been executed as a criminal; I am simply saying that it should not be surprising if some of them are ashamed of these things. Paul's declaration that he is not ashamed is an apologetic declaration of strength, because he knows there are many things that he could be ashamed of, but he chooses not to be. Why? Let's read further.

“For it is the power of God unto the delivering of all who believe, first to the Jew and to the Greek.” Paul's shamelessness comes because he believes that the good news of Christ is what God uses to deliver everyone who believes, both Jew and Gentile. Now, if most Seminary students are taught this verse the way I was taught it, the emphasis would be on the not ashamed part. I was told that I should be proud of my Mormon faith and heritage, and stand boldly in the face of ridicule and mockery. I was not told to do so because my religion brought about salvation, but rather to do so because my Church was the Only True and Living Church Upon the Whole Earth. I suppose from a certain point of view it could be argued that this is essentially the same thing: ie, if I belong to the One True Church, then I also belong to the only Church through which salvation is possible. But for Paul, the power of God to salvation is the good news of Christ to those who believe. Belief is a very important concept to Paul, no matter how much it gets trivialized by some LDS youth teachers (I know that the idea that Paul's central message was about the saving power of faith in Christ was trivialized for myself when growing up). This verse is a small example of that, but there are many more direct verses within Romans and other epistles to support this viewpoint. The entire letter, when read as a whole, is about how Jesus's death provides a real path to salvation for all people as opposed to the previous covenant God established with his chosen people of Israel through the Torah.

As for the specifics of Paul's teachings about how faith in Jesus is of primal important in his role as God's Messiah and in God's plan for his creation will be better explored when we look at James 2:17-18, so we'll wait until then.

Why Do I Think This Is Part of Scripture Mastery?

I think the main purpose of this scripture is to encourage LDS youth to not be ashamed of the mockery and ridicule they might experience for membership in the LDS Church. I think the rest of Paul's message about the efficacy of salvation to those who believe, first Jew and then Greek (basically saying all humans), tends to get lost when taught to most LDS youth. I would love to be proven wrong about this, of course. Frankly, though, I think it's a shame that from the entire Epistle to the Romans, this is the only verse that ends up in the Scripture Mastery list. Paul's writings are very influential throughout the rest of Christianity, and Romans is where he expresses his ideas about salvation by faith in Christ clearest. Because LDS soteriology (a fancy way of saying their ideas about salvation) is so focused on what an individual must do instead of what an individual must believe (though beliefs are important for Mormons as long as those beliefs impel certain actions) I shouldn't be so surprised that Romans gets such a short shrift in the Scripture Mastery list. In a possible future list I'd hope that Romans is better represented.

#Mormon #ScriptureMasteryNT #AcademicBiblical