Greek: ἐάν τις θέλῃ τὸ θέλημα αὐτοῦ ποιεῖν, γνώσεται περὶ τῆς διδαχῆς πότερον ἐκ θεοῦ ἐστὶν ἢ ἐγὼ ἀπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ λαλῶ.

My Translation: If anyone would desire his desire to do, he will know concerning the teaching whether it is from God or whether I speak from myself.

KJV: If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.

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 So I'm keeping this exploration of it online, but it is no longer applicable to CES.

Well, it's been a wild previous few posts, so let's calm down a bit with this relatively normal and innocuous one. The context for this chapter is Jesus yet again speaking (seriously, he barely does anything else in John's gospel), this time in the Temple at Jerusalem during the Feast of Sukkōt. Previously his brothers had encouraged him to go down to Jerusalem during this very public feast, but he told them to go instead. Then he went secretly down after them. The authorities were looking for him, but couldn't find him. Then Jesus begins teaching in the Temple, and everyone is amazed at how much Jesus knows (John cares a lot more about portraying Jesus as awesome than he does about creating a logical narrative, so if you're a bit confused as to the context of how Jesus arrives in Jerusalem it's not meant to be historical, but to show that Jesus doesn't ever take advice or suggestions from someone else, but is always firmly in control of himself and his own ministry). The statement given in the Scripture Mastery verse comes at the beginning of Jesus's response about what he is teaching, right after he begins, “My teaching is not from me, but from the one who sent me.”

From a translation point of view, the only interesting thing about the verse is the first part, where Jesus says that if anyone *thélā to do his thélāma,* he will know whether Jesus's doctrine is divine or not. See how the two words are similar? They come from the same root, except that one is a verb, thélā (from *thélō),* and one is a noun, thélāma. The meaning is within the range of will, wish, desire, want, purpose, or even hunger (though usually the English word “will” covers most usages, including in this scripture where it's the best choice and the one the King James Version has). So, the first phrase, in a sense, means that if an individual works to make their desires or their purpose to be the same as God's desires or purpose, then they'll know.

For Mormons, this scripture has more application than just to Jesus's teachings in the Gospel of John. For Mormons, this is a promise applied to the entire restored gospel, and a similar scripture is found near the end of the Book of Mormon where readers are promised an answer to prayers about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.

However, this scripture introduces an important, and personally troubling, aspect to the Mormon formula for finding truth. If this scripture is inverted, then it provides a ready answer to objections about those who do not find truth in Mormonism.

I have a dear friend who was in a position where they wished to become a member of the Church and were taking the missionary discussions. Their family was relatively tolerant and open to other beliefs, and in sum it would have worked out well for them to receive revelation of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon (and, by extension somehow, the LDS Church). And yet the answer didn't come. They read, they prayed, they attended meetings, they studied, they kept the uniquely Mormon dietary rules, and the result was still nothing. At the time I personally found the experience extremely troubling. I was a few years home from my mission, and I'd spent those two years not just telling people they'd get answers to the Book of Mormon, but promising those answers and believing my promises. While on my mission similar experiences had occurred, but I, like most Mormons, had an answer for those previous situations: the individuals had not truly desired the message. They had not, as Jesus here says, been willing to do God's will. And so since they did not provide the needed effort on their part, God did not answer them.

Of course, this experience with my friend rocked me because I knew this individual well enough to know of their sincerity. I knew that there really wouldn't be anything substantial to hold them back from a message, and I knew that they had more to gain and very little to lose. And yet the answer didn't come.

This scripture was used by some friends who knew about the lack of an answer. This individual must have had something in the way, some personal blockage, some personal failing or fear or willful refusal to listen or obey, that had kept the answer from them. Because Jesus had promised in John 7:17 that if anyone “walked the walk” then they'd know.

But let's be honest here: how much is Jesus here referring to things like the Word of Wisdom, to baptism by immersion by LDS authority, or all of the things that Mormons believe must be done? Obviously, few Christians are going to agree with that. Many Christians like this verse as well, and the idea that it relates directly to Mormonism would be ludicrous to them. The common application outside of the LDS faith is that Jesus is speaking about himself and his message in John: the kingdom of God has already come (John is not very apocalyptic), Jesus is the Lamb of God sent by God to die for the sins of the world (John even rewrites history so that Jesus is crucified the day before Passover when the paschal lambs are being slaughtered in the Temple to reinforce this imagery), and belief in Jesus and his message brings salvation in God's spiritual kingdom. If you want to know this, then you need to align yourself with the followers of Jesus and do what they do (what Jesus followers are actually doing when John's Gospel was written is more than a little confusing, however).

But, in the end, if you feel that the good news of Jesus described in John is the same thing as the Restored Church brought about by Joseph Smith, then interpreting this scripture to be about the whole enchilada of the LDS Church makes sense and isn't wrong. While few would argue that it's a promise by Jesus about how one can know the divinity of Jesus's teaching, I think there's still a lot to be said as to whether or not it is also an explanation for why some people can't seem to receive an answer about the divinity. You know, does “If A, then B” also mean “If not B, then not A”? [I don't think so][], and I think it's dangerous and presumptuous to assume so.

Why Do I Think This Is Part of Scripture Mastery?

This scripture is included as a New Testament equivalent to Moroni's Promise in the Book of Mormon. It is also included to give an explanation to LDS youth as to why their peers may not agree with LDS beliefs even after giving them what appears to be an honest go.

#Mormon #ScriptureMasteryNT #AcademicBiblical

Greek: ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς· ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω σοι, ἐὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ πνεύματος, οὐ δύναται εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν.

My Translation: Jesus answered, “Amen Amen I say to you, if a man is not born from water and wind, he cannot enter into the kingdom of the heavens.”

KJV: Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

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.

I love this story from the third chapter of John. The author has done a superb job of making an engaging dialog based upon irony and misunderstanding. It's like a biblical sitcom piece, and it's funny. Not accidentally, either. The author has quite purposefully approached it in a way that would have been both entertaining as well as educational.

I'm guessing most of you reading didn't know this. The problem is that it's difficult to appreciate in any language other than Greek.

Let's start with the context: this verse is from a larger dialog between Jesus and a certain Nicodemus, identified as one of the leaders of the Jews. Nicodemus approaches Jesus at night to meet with Jesus in secret. He comes because the miracles of Jesus have convinced him that there's something to Jesus.

Then Jesus begins “teaching” Nicodemus, except when he tells Nicodemus something he uses words that are ambiguous in meaning, and every time Nicodemus mishears or is confused by Jesus. The irony for a listening Christian audience, who know the insider language being used, would have been immense.

First off, Jesus tell him that unless a man is born ἄνωθεν (ánōthen), he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Ánōthen is a Greek adverb modifying the verb “born”, and it can either mean “again” or “from above”. The Greek is ambiguous (purposefully so in this case), and Nicodemus thinks it means “again”, so he asks Jesus if it's possible to be born a second time. Then Jesus explains what he meant, showing that the meaning Nicodemus should have used was “from above,” which is what the above verse is explaining. A man must have a spiritual rebirth, a birth “from above,” if he wishes to enter God's kingdom.

The rest of the story is like this. Jesus then begins talking about the spirit and wind in the worship of God, utterly confusing poor Nicodemus, because in Greek Jesus is using the same word for both “spirit” and “wind”, flitting back and forth in meaning in a way where you can't quite tell where he might mean “spirit” in this phrase or were he might mean “wind” in this other phrase. And then, in classic style for Jesus in the gospel of John, he begins talking in a long monologue (only in John's gospel does Jesus usually begin talking to people for a few bits of dialog before launching into long-winded sermons that last for multiple verses or even multiple chapters).

This use of purposefully ambiguous Greek is one of the reasons that most scholars feel that this section of John's Gospel cannot be historically accurate. The phrasing and ambiguity only work in Greek (that's why in English the chapter feels odd, because a translator must choose a meaning for the words being used), but Jesus and Nicodemus would have been speaking Aramaic. In Aramaic there is no equivalent to ánōthen, and so there is no way that John's Gospel, written in Greek, could be a record of a similar Aramaic discussion. Perhaps there was a similar dialog/sermon spoken by the historical Jesus, but if so then it was not the one we have recorded in John's gospel.

A few things about what is said here in this verse: Greek has a definite article (like the English word “the”: “the apple”), but not an indefinite article (like the English word “a” or “an”: “an apple”). The definite article is often used in places where it wouldn't be in English, such as with proper names or people (so in Greek, the scriptures often refer to God as “The God”). There is no definite article in front of the word “spirit” in this verse, and only a few verses later, Jesus begins a discussion of the spirit and wind. So is Jesus speaking about what Mormons would call “the Gift of the Holy Ghost” here? Possibly, but an equally valid reading would be the translation that I provided: “wind”. Is Jesus saying that entrance to the kingdom of God is predicated upon baptism and confirmation? Possibly, but he could also simply be referring to the elements that come from the air, where the heavens are: wind and water. So he could be saying that we must be born from heaven, or born spiritually, to enter God's kingdom. It's not a cut and dried issue to simply say, “This scripture says that baptism is required.” And to say that the scripture says that “confirmation” or “the gift of the Holy Ghost” is required goes way beyond the verse itself.

Of course, there's been a long tradition in Christianity of baptism and of the need for baptism. The Catholics viewed baptism as so essential that eventually they provided the means and the practice to extend baptism to all humans by infant baptism (though they still accept baptism by immersion for those who wish for it). Many Protestants also have had periods in their history where the importance of baptism by water was paramount.

Of course, nowadays there are very few denominations that view baptism as completely essential to salvation. And it's not like they arrived at this conclusion by ignoring their Bibles. There are perfectly valid ways to interpret ambiguities such as those found in John 3:3-5 that do not create a requirement of water baptism for salvation.

For Mormons, baptism is still of paramount importance. The Book of Mormon has the pre-Christian prophet Nephi writing in the 6th Century BCE that baptism by water is the only way to start on the road towards eternal life. The Doctrine and Covenants repeatedly presses this point, and the doctrinal position that not only is baptism essential, but the proper authority must be present means that Mormons believe only their baptisms can start people on the road to eternal life. This leads to such things as baptism for the dead and the worldwide missionary program. And, of course, scriptures like John 3:5 as found in the English King James Bible seem, at first glance, to support their viewpoint. However, there are many other Biblically-literate Christians who have read and are very familiar with the Gospel of John who recognize that the underlying scripture is based on the ambiguity of certain words and that it would be incorrect to state that only one interpretation can be valid.

Why Do I Think This Is Part of Scripture Mastery?

This scripture was probably chosen to give LDS youth a way to answer the question, “Why do you think that I have to be baptized into your Church to be saved?” Or to explain why baptism is important. Since nearly all youth who would be attending Seminary were probably baptized years before when they turned 8, I doubt that CES would feel the need to impress upon them the importance of baptism without it being from a proselytizing viewpoint.

#Mormon #ScriptureMasteryNT #AcademicBiblical

Greek: 36 Ταῦτα δὲ αὐτῶν λαλούντων αὐτὸς ἔστη ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῶν. 37 πτοηθέντες δὲ καὶ ἔμφοβοι γενόμενοι ἐδόκουν πνεῦμα θεωρεῖν. 38 καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· τί τεταραγμένοι ἐστέ, καὶ διατί διαλογισμοὶ ἀναβαίνουσιν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ ὑμῶν; 39 ἴδετε τὰς χεῖράς μου καὶ τοὺς πόδας μου, ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι αὐτός· ψηλαφήσατέ με καὶ ἴδετε, ὅτι πνεῦμα σάρκας καὶ ὀστέα οὐκ ἔχει καθὼς ἐμὲ θεωρεῖτε ἔχοντα.

My Translation: 36 Now they themselves talking, he stood in the middle of them [some manuscripts add “and he said, “Peace to y'all'”]. 37 But they were terrified and became afraid, seeming to see a spirit. 38 And he said to them, “Y'all are troubled? And why do thoughts rise up in the heart of y'all? 39 Y'all look at my hands and my feet, for I am myself; y'all handle me and look, for a spirit doesn't have fleshes and bones even as y'all see I have.”

KJV: 36 And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. 37 But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. 38 And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? 39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.

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.

Usually my process on these posts is to step back in time, in my head, to my own days in Seminary about fifteen years ago. Of course, this can't take into account any change in LDS culture or doctrine since then (and some LDS doctrines and cultural assumptions have shifted dramatically in the past twenty years), but it tends to provide a good starting off point for what I want to talk about.

However, in this case I remember distinctly being taught that this set of verses was Important (with a capital “I”) because it taught something that other Christians didn't believe. My hazy memory seemed to pull up a sense that other Christians didn't believe in the resurrection of the body, or that perhaps they felt that Jesus himself wasn't resurrected but was a spirit. However, in the intervening years I've made it my business to learn the general Christian viewpoints (mostly the main Protestant viewpoints) on the Godhead; I've made it my business to try and understand the theological underpinnings of basic Trinitarian doctrine. And I can't think of many Christians who actually deny the resurrection of the body (though most simply view it as an odd side doctrine of Christianity without much importance), and I can't think of any Christians who deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus as described in some of the Gospels. I must have been mistaken.

So I asked my wife, who did not grow up in Utah, what she remembers about this scripture from her Seminary days. “Hmm,” she said, thinking back, “I seem to remember being told that this scripture specifically refutes the idea that Jesus doesn't have a body. But that can't be right, can it? Because I don't think most Christians have any idea whether or not Jesus kept his body after he was resurrected and I think even less care about the idea.”

So, on the basis of a memory of Seminary from both Utah and Colorado during the late 90s, I'm going to assume that this idea was common in CES at the time: Luke's depiction of Christ's physical resurrection was important to Mormons in context of the beliefs of other Christians.

Turning to other sources, it seems that this idea may have its genesis with Elder LeGrand Richard's book A Marvelous Work and a Wonder which was in the missionary library before and while I was on my mission (but has since been dropped from the recommended books for all missionaries). Elder Richards uses this verse to combat an idea he feels is found in traditional Christianity, namely that God is “everywhere and nowhere, without body, parts, or passions.” Of course, this is a conception of God believed by *some, *but nowhere near all, Christians towards God the Father, and not Jesus. I think the only reason that Elder Richards felt that this verse was a correct refutation of this idea of God being without a body is because Elder Richards also seems to think that a Trinitarian viewpoint of God and Jesus has them being the same person, which it does not. Believing that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are merely three expression of a single being is actually a Christian heresy called Modalism or Sabelleanism. The Trinity occupies a mentally difficult place between the heresy of Modalism and the heresy of polytheism, walking the knife's edge between the two. Many Christians feel a deep sense of holy mystery about how the nature of God is both expressed in three persons perfectly united in one Godhood. This sense of holy mystery is not absent from Mormonism; I've found its best example is applied towards the exact mechanics of how Christ's Atonement, localized to a specific few hours in time and a single spot in space, can have an impact that is universal in both time and space. Mormons don't just accept that as a mystery: they feel a deep sense of profundity at how it's incomprehensible to them. There are few things that bother me more than hearing Mormons mocking the mystery of Trinity and mere minutes later expressing their wonder and amazement at how the Atonement surpasses understanding.

So I think it's a fundamental misunderstanding of traditional Christian theology and Trinitarianism that makes Elder Richards feel that this verse is well-suited to be used against such beliefs. After all, if the Father and the Son are the same being, then how can God be without “body, parts, or passions” and yet Christ obviously has a body here in this verse? Q.E.D., right?

But that's all in the past: part of my childhood. Perhaps we've moved on from this sort of thinking, right? Let's see what the current manuals have to say on this subject.

The “current” Institute manual (which is woefully out of date in its biblical scholarship, its quotations of old LDS general authorities, and its social applications) is actually, somewhat surprisingly, rather silent on this particular section, preferring instead to focus on issues of the authority and priesthood of the apostles through what are apparently “meaningful silences” in the text by the authors in this story of Jesus appearing to them after his resurrection.

The Seminary materials, on the other hand, focus much more on how students should learn about the doctrine of resurrection in general from this passage and its context (yay for context! Student are actually encouraged to read further after this scripture to see that Luke's resurrected Jesus eats and drinks food). Of course, other scriptures on this subject are also brought up which might muddy the waters and imply more about this verse than what it says on its own. But I am glad to report that the official manuals only use these scriptures to further discussion of resurrection and what resurrected bodies “are like”.

Now, from my post-Mormon perspective, I'm glad that it appears that the scripture is no longer seen as useful in defending Mormon beliefs. Frankly, this scripture is actually rather useless in upholding any of the rather distinct doctrines of Mormonism, either those doctrines about resurrection or about an embodied God. Mormon believe that resurrection is *forever, *and that it is impossible for a resurrected person to “put off” their body. Except when some of them make exceptions against this permanence in the 19th Century and beyond in trying to account for Brigham Young's bizarre conception of Adam as the re-embodiment of God the Father. These ideas of physical bodies being “taken up” and “put aside” continue to pop up in hushed conversation and private gatherings as part of the “meat” of the Gospel and some of the “deep doctrines” that “everyone” knows about (I speak from experience, having heard some of this from multiple individuals as various times). Frankly, I think most Christians feel that Jesus, being God, cannot and should not be viewed as limited in any of his power and actions and that if Jesus wishes to have a body, then he can have a body, and if he wishes to put that body aside for a while, then he can do so. Because HE'S GOD, right?

And it's even more bizarre that this scripture, about the resurrected Jesus, would have anything to do with the nature of God the Father. Mormons believe that the Father is embodied just as the Son is embodied (though they have just as much confusion and lack of interest in the Holy Ghost as many Christians do), and while this doctrine provides much religious angst between some Mormons and some Christians, the nature of the Father is not illuminated in any way, shape, or form by this verse. Luke's Jesus never says, “Oh, and by the way, my body looks like my father's. Just FYI.” John's Jesus may make such statements, but John's Gospel is, as they say, a horse of an entirely different color.

Moving on to another issue, Jesus's statement that “a spirit” doesn't have flesh and bone should be analyzed. From a Mormon point of view, this statement has sometimes gained a particular importance in light of things said by Brigham Young and other 19th Century leaders. Supposedly, it's noteworthy that Luke doesn't have Jesus say that he doesn't have “flesh and blood”, because resurrected bodies don't have blood. Well, let me here and now state: I sincerely doubt that Luke would have made such a nuanced theological statement in the middle of his passion narrative, and that's assuming that the historical Luke is even the actual author of the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles (which has numerous reasons to be unlikely; the same author wrote both books, but it's doubtful that his name, or even possibly her name, was “Luke”). Also, the words in question are literally “fleshes” and “bones”. Flesh in this context means the squishy, meaty, bloody stuff that a body is made of. Blood is very much included in the sense of the word. Basically, the verse is stating quite clearly just how very physical the body of Jesus is: it has bones and squishy stuff. It doesn't just look physical, it is physical. The lack of mentioning blood isn't an oversight, but rather just a perfectly valid way of saying that Jesus's body is make of flesh and bone (and, by negation, a spirit is not made of such things).

For some Christians who feel that the Bible must be viewed as an inerrant whole (including Mormons, who tend to be inerrantists except where the Bible is either obviously wrong or where it conflicts with LDS theology), the use by Luke of “flesh and bone” instead of “flesh and blood” helps resolve a number of issues found outside of Luke's gospel. In Matthew 16:17, a previous scripture mastery scripture for instance, Jesus says that Simon was told that Jesus is the Christ by Jesus's Father and not by flesh and blood. And Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:50 says that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of god.” All of which would imply that God, and all in the kingdom of God, are without flesh and blood. But Christians in general believe in the resurrection of the body, and Mormons particularly believe that physical resurrection is permanent and that even God the Father has a resurrected body (except when they don't, as we've said). So the resolution is that resurrected bodies do not have blood. This is an explanation found outside of Mormonism, too (though it is relatively uncommon).

My solution? Paul is not the author of Luke-Acts, and the author of Luke-Acts is not the author of Matthew, and it took centuries for a coherent and consistent theology to develop among the followers of Jesus. I think using Luke's account to imply some sort of scientific theory of the bloodless state of resurrected bodies is more than a little bizarre, and makes about as much sense as explaining how Leia told Luke she remembered her mother's face being sad in Return of the Jedi, when her mother died during childbirth in Revenge of the Sith, though an appeal to the Star Wars trilogy of books written by Timothy Zahn. Are they all about Star Wars? Yes, but you're just going to have problems if you view all of them as being consistent with themselves and each other, even though they're all “official” Lucasfilm stories because while the authors might have been aware of each other they weren't working together. The biblical Luke's statement here simply has a particular dramatic flair that isn't found in other similar works, but to assume that his statement must be read in concert with other, separate writers is unfair to both Luke and those other writers.

Why Do I Think This Is Part of Scripture Mastery?

I think this verse's presence in the Scripture Mastery list is a relic of history that has been left behind officially (although I have no idea if it's been left behind in practice by most Seminary and Institute teachers and wouldn't be surprised to see if it's still very much alive in a continuing oral tradition). I think that from the perspective of the 2010's seminary program, this particular verse has lost its purpose. I would not be surprised in the least to see it dropped from any future re-assembling of “Scripture Mastery” lists that might be proposed. When the current Scripture Mastery list was first created, somebody felt, based on ideas popular at the time among Church leaders such as LeGrand Richards, that this was a great scripture to use against the general strawman conception of Trinitarianism and against the idea of God the Father being a spirit. In the intervening years, this usage has become increasingly obvious as a mistaken interpretation of both the scripture itself and of general Christian views, and so focus has instead focused on the physicality of Jesus's resurrection to try and impress upon LDS youth how the doctrine of resurrection is a physical one (though I doubt most LDS youth would know that physical resurrection is believed in by Christians but is usually just viewed as a curiosity and not of much attention).

#Mormon #ScriptureMasteryNT #AcademicBiblical

Greek: καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ βασιλεὺς ἐρεῖ αὐτοῖς· ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐφ’ ὅσον ἐποιήσατε ἑνὶ τούτων τῶν ἀδελφῶν μου τῶν ἐλαχίστων, ἐμοὶ ἐποιήσατε

My Translation: And the king, answering, will speak to them, Amen I say to you, whatever things y'all have done to one of the littlest of my brothers, to me y'all have done it.

KJV: And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my > brethren, ye have done it unto me.

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.

Matthew 25 has Jesus giving his final address to his disciples before entering Jerusalem. The setting is everyone sitting on the Mount of Olives overlooking the city. Jesus discusses the coming kingdom of God through parable and through prophecy. In this chapter we have Matthew's versions of some famous parables, such as the Ten Virgins and the Stewards. The particular “parable” that this scripture comes from is the Sheep and the Goats (cue the mental playback of Cake's “Sheep go to heaven, Goats go to hell”), which is less of a full narrative parable and more of a simple allegory. Jesus says that when he comes in his glory (remember we're dealing with an apocalyptic worldview in Matthew's gospel; the Kingdom of God is about to break forth over the world with glory) the “son of man” will assemble all nations before him and divide them just like a shepherd might divide a mixed flock of sheep and goats.

Matthew, again completely in line with his focus on Torah observance and the Jewish/Christian concerns for the poor and destitute of society, quotes Jesus as saying that the basis for this division will be the things the people have done to others: feeding the hungry and thirsty, housing the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and the imprisoned. Jesus says that the King (a character certainly associated with the “son of man” in verse 31, but not explicitly linked as the same character) treats the actions as though they had been done to himself. Conversely, in the next verses after the scripture mastery verse, the King says that all of the negative actions have also been done to him (not feeding the hungry and thirsty, not taking in the homeless, not clothing the naked, not visiting the sick and imprisoned) and as a result they are sent into “everlasting punishment”. For Matthew's Jesus, what matters is what you do, and how well do you adhere to those aspects of the Torah that encourage beneficent activities towards the marginalized of society. The call of many Jewish prophets in the Hebrew Bible was against those of wealth who oppress the poor, the widows, and the elderly. Also, the Torah explicitly mentions that during harvest-time, allowances must be made for the poor to glean from the fields. Matthew, as a Jewish Christian, portrays a Jesus who not only says that such things matter, but that such things matter eternally and that they will have a direct effect on each individual's long-term status after the arrival of the Kingdom of God.

All of which is in rather direct opposition to earlier Pauline thought, implying again that one of the purposes of Matthew's particular viewpoint might be to promote a more Judean and pro-Torah Christian theology against existing groups of Jesus followers who had rejected the Torah as a necessary code of conduct for believers in Jesus.

Unfortunately, we will not be able to get into a full discussion of Pauline views on faith and works until near the end of the series when we hit James 2:17. At that point, we'll have a lot to say about Paul (and all of the Pauline theology that the scripture mastery list skips over) and the relationship of his writings to those of other Christians.

Finally, this verse, and the idea that actions done to others are done to Jesus, almost certainly is the inspiration for the famous scripture in the Book of Mormon given by King Benjamin in Mosiah 2:17 (also a scripture mastery scripture which we'll come to soon enough). Also, some Christian thinkers have expressed the possibility that these good and bad actions are actions done within the Christian community towards other Christians. Many Christians who do get concerned about what this verse means for salvation by faith have adopted this viewpoint to reconcile things. Also, while Matthew as a Jew would have believed that all humanity was descended from Noah and was thus family, it is much more likely that in recording Jesus as saying “the least of these my brothers” he was talking about people who were already members of the coming Kingdom of God. A similar viewpoint seems to be expressed earlier by his Jesus when instructing the Twelve in Matthew 10:40-42,

40 Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. 41 Whoever receives a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward. Whoever receives a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. 42 And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple, I tell you the truth, he will never lose his reward.

In his reference to “one of these little ones” many scholars think the reference intended by Matthew is to the disciples Jesus is sending out as missionaries. So this scripture might be more about salvation being based on truly belonging to the community of Jesus followers than a statement that salvation is based on works.

Why Do I Think This Is Part of Scripture Mastery?

On the surface, this scripture is a wonderful call for people to act with good actions towards others as an expression of their love for God. But is also supports the idea that actions matter: in the parable, those who did bad actions are sent into “everlasting punishment”. No mention of believing on the name of Jesus to be saved, no mention of grace. I think the reasons for having this scripture in the list is two reasons of equal importance: I think that the Church Education System truly wants to inspire LDS youth to be giving and kind when interacting with the rest of the world, but I also think that they want LDS youth to be equipped to use this scripture to push back when confronted by the idea of salvation by faith. The problem is that they've probably been given the false impression that salvation by faith is unbiblical and they've probably also been presented with a false straw man argument of what other Christians believe who adhere to Grace theology. But we'll cover this much more when we hit James 2:17, where this conflict and poisoning of the well before the fact is most potent.

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