0:01

Welcome to Follow Him, a weekly

0:03

podcast dedicated to helping individuals

0:06

and families with their Come Follow Me study. I'm

0:08

Hank Smith. And I'm John, by the way. We

0:11

love to learn. We love to laugh. We

0:13

want to learn and laugh with you. As

0:15

together, we follow him.

0:19

Hello, my friends. Welcome to another

0:21

episode of Follow Him. It's a beautiful

0:24

day here in the studio.

0:26

I am here with my

0:28

rock of a co-host, John,

0:31

by the way. Welcome, John, by

0:33

the way. John, you're a rock. I'm

0:36

more like cream spinach, but I'll

0:38

take it. I bring that

0:40

up because Peter is going to be called

0:42

the rock today, our

0:44

Peter. So, John,

0:47

we are going to be in

0:49

the Gospel of Matthew today and the Gospel

0:51

of Mark today. Who is joining

0:53

us to help us understand all this?

0:56

Well, I've been looking forward to this day because

0:58

we've had Dr. Kerry Muehlstein with

1:00

us before in the Old Testament and I'm so

1:02

glad that he's back today. So

1:04

let me reacquaint everyone with Kerry.

1:07

He earned two degrees at BYU in psychology

1:10

and Hebrew and ancient Near Eastern studies.

1:13

He received his PhD from UCLA

1:15

in Egyptology with a second emphasis

1:18

in Hebrew language and literature. He

1:20

spent significant time in Jerusalem, including

1:23

as a student and a teacher at the BYU Jerusalem

1:25

Center. He directs an excavation

1:28

in Egypt. He's a historical and

1:30

biblical geographer, leads tours

1:32

and study groups in Egypt, Israel, and Jordan.

1:34

He is a best-selling author who has published

1:37

nine books and he hosts his own

1:39

podcast called The Scriptures Are Real.

1:41

He and his wife Julianne has six children

1:44

and one grandson. I just

1:47

wanted to mention his books Finding

1:49

Promised Blessings on the covenant path. Another

1:52

one called God Will Prevail and

1:55

one that a lot of people in our podcast

1:57

of appreciated called Learning to Love Isaiah.

2:00

So we're really glad to have you back, Kerry.

2:02

Thanks for joining us again. Yeah. I'm

2:04

so happy to be back. I always had a good time with

2:06

you guys, and I always learned something. This podcast

2:09

has enhanced my study of the

2:11

scriptures tremendously over the last few years.

2:14

Oh, we're grateful you'd say that, Kerry. Thank you.

2:16

We love doing it. Kerry,

2:18

we've got a bunch to cover today,

2:20

so let's jump right in. The name

2:22

of the lesson is Thou Art the Christ,

2:25

and we're going to be in two Gospels, Matthew

2:27

and Mark. Where do you do you want to start?

2:29

I think we'll bounce back and forth between

2:31

the two. Really in this particular

2:34

reading they cover pretty much the same material

2:36

but you'll see like for example let's start

2:38

in Mark you'll get a little bit more of the story with

2:40

the Pharisees in Mark you get a little bit more when

2:43

we get to the Man of Transfiguration in Matthew and

2:45

we might just bounce back and forth and we'll

2:48

try and highlight some of the unique

2:50

things about each gospel and some of

2:52

those literary devices that each gospel writer

2:54

is prone to use. You get advantages

2:57

from a harmony account and advantages from a non-harmony

2:59

account. And we've heard a lot about the

3:01

advantages of looking

3:02

at each gospel writer. But I think there's also

3:04

something about putting them together and trying to come to

3:07

a more well-rounded picture of the Savior and highlighting

3:09

the Savior in that way. So we'll try and do

3:11

both if it's all right. Yeah,

3:12

that sounds fantastic. I'm going to put a

3:15

marker in each one.

3:17

Yeah, no kidding. I

3:19

brought two Bibles with me today so that I can just

3:21

jump back and forth. Have them both open. Yeah.

3:24

Yeah. The

3:25

Come Follow Me manual starts out by

3:27

saying, isn't it strange that the Pharisees

3:29

and Sadducees would demand that Jesus show

3:31

them a sign from heaven? Weren't

3:34

as many well-known miracles enough? What

3:36

about His powerful teachings or the multiple ways

3:38

He had fulfilled ancient prophecies? Their

3:40

demand was prompted not by a lack of signs,

3:43

but by an unwillingness to discern the

3:45

signs and accept them. That comes out of Matthew

3:47

chapter 16. Where

3:48

do you want to go from here, Kerry? Well,

3:51

let's start in Mark 7, and it does

3:53

start immediately with the Pharisees. And maybe

3:55

we We should just pause and say something

3:57

about the Pharisees to begin with because Most

4:00

people in Galilee and Judea at

4:03

the time, most of the Jews in that area, are

4:05

really following the Pharisaic tradition. They're

4:07

the ones who are setting the ideas of this is proper

4:09

practice, Orthodox practice, for

4:12

how you live as a Jew. Jesus

4:14

is very Jewish, he keeps the law of Moses,

4:17

he really is a good Jewish boy. So

4:19

people are gonna follow the Pharisees, but we talk about the Pharisees

4:21

as if they're this monolithic, everyone is

4:24

the same, everyone practices the same, wherever

4:26

they're from, they're the same. And that's not true at all. They

4:29

have schools within Pharisaism

4:32

and different masters, different people follow

4:34

that have different interpretations and different ways of doing

4:36

things and

4:37

even in the areas. So it

4:39

would seem, and I don't know that we have enough

4:41

data to really

4:43

be hard on this, but it would seem that Jesus

4:45

has a little bit of a different relationship with the

4:47

Pharisees in the Galilee area than

4:49

he does with the Pharisees in Jerusalem.

4:52

And note that this is really specific in both accounts.

4:55

So we'll read Mark chapter seven, verse one. then

4:58

came together unto him the Pharisees

5:00

and certain of the scribes which came from Jerusalem.

5:02

So he's in the Galilee area, but these people are coming

5:05

from Jerusalem up

5:07

to meet with him. And typically

5:09

the Jerusalem group, especially the Sadducees,

5:12

that's who he's gonna have the greatest conflict with

5:14

at the end of his life. That Jerusalem group

5:16

seems to be a little more hostile. I would argue,

5:18

and I've had discussions with some of our colleagues, even

5:20

a little bit of a debate on my own podcast about this, but I

5:22

would argue that

5:24

some of the Pharisees, especially

5:26

those from Jerusalem, there's a little bit of a power struggle.

5:29

They see Jesus as

5:31

someone who is gaining in popularity

5:34

and power,

5:36

and he hasn't gone through the same system

5:38

that they've gone through, and that seems to just

5:40

cause a little bit of friction. It's under their skin.

5:42

Yeah, we're reading a lot of things into it, and I wanna

5:45

make sure we're careful, and it's tempting for

5:47

Christians in general to just say Pharisees are

5:49

bad, and I don't think we can accurately

5:52

say that. Most of them I think are fantastic

5:54

and great and have good intent and so on, But

5:56

of course in any group, we could say the same about

5:59

our own faith.

6:00

In any group, you have people who are struggling

6:02

with doing things the wrong way or for the wrong reason

6:04

and so on, right? Okay. A little bit

6:06

of a power struggle from those in Jerusalem.

6:09

You can see that. He lives in Galilee. He doesn't

6:11

live in Jerusalem. Sometimes I would ask my students,

6:13

where does Jesus live? And they'd say, oh,

6:16

Jerusalem. No, he never lives in Jerusalem.

6:18

He lives in Galilee, the northern part of Israel.

6:21

Yeah,

6:21

very small percentage of his time is actually

6:23

in Jerusalem, but it's significant when he goes

6:25

there, so we hear a lot about it. And it's worth

6:27

noting that the Galilee area

6:30

is known for being a hotbed,

6:32

and this will become a much bigger deal as we get towards the end

6:34

of the Gospels. But it's a hotbed of dissent

6:36

against Rome and wanting

6:38

to have a rebellion and looking for a Messiah

6:40

that will help them to rebel against

6:43

Rome. The people from Jerusalem are automatically

6:45

going to be just a little suspicious of any big movements

6:48

in the Galilee area. They see this as possibly

6:50

blowing up, and that's exactly

6:51

when things come to a head at the

6:53

end of the Gospels. It is largely

6:55

over this issue. Is this man becoming

6:57

so popular that it's going to bring the breath of the Romans

7:00

upon us? That's a real part of what's going

7:02

on. So let's read. They've come as we

7:04

read in verse one and in verse two. And when they

7:06

saw some of his disciples eat bread with

7:08

defiled, that is to say with unwashing

7:11

hands,

7:11

they found fault. Let's pause and talk

7:14

about that as well. Traditions about

7:16

how much you need to wash and when you need to wash

7:18

were in flux and they were changing. And

7:21

we try and look at records we have from

7:23

various time periods to see when they've decided

7:25

what. And the problem is that most of the records we

7:27

have are from the Mishnah, which is quite a bit later

7:29

than this. And based on

7:32

the records that we have, it seems like they're

7:34

in the middle of a transition period right now. And

7:36

that it's becoming increasingly common to say

7:38

that you need to wash your hands

7:41

anytime you're gonna eat or anytime you're gonna do a

7:44

number of other things that might be connected with

7:46

rituals and so on. But they're probably

7:48

in a transition. So probably not everyone agrees with

7:50

that, but it's starting to become the norm. So

7:53

they seem to be questioning him on

7:55

this practice, and they don't say that you're

7:57

not washing your hands, So I don't know if we can know whether.

8:00

the Savior is or not, but his disciples aren't

8:02

washing their hands.

8:04

And let's take another step back and notice

8:06

something that is happening here, and

8:08

you're going to see it a bunch of times in the

8:10

Gospels. And that's a tradition

8:13

among the Jews, and especially among the Pharisees,

8:15

of debating points of law and understanding

8:17

of Scripture. We might cut a Holocaust to this tradition

8:20

over oral law, or how do

8:22

you interpret and act out the law of Moses.

8:25

And it's normal to have a debate. Why

8:27

do you do it this way? Why do you say it this way? because

8:30

of this and this and this and this and so we

8:32

say we do it this and this and usually you appeal

8:35

to People who have already had

8:37

arguments a little bit like we do in court

8:39

cases today You say well such

8:42

and such decision and such and such a decision

8:44

make us think we should interpret it this way That's

8:46

the typical way of doing things sometimes

8:49

what we see is huge confrontations. They would have

8:51

seen as kind of normal discussion This

8:53

is what we do we debate these things, right? And

8:55

that's just a cultural thing that is even

8:58

some families are more used to, let's debate this.

9:00

Whereas other families, well, contention, I don't know,

9:02

I'm not comfortable with this.

9:04

So we need to understand that this is typical

9:07

for

9:08

Pharisees to ask people questions. And

9:10

it may not be as confrontational as sometimes

9:12

we think it is, although in this case, we will

9:15

see that by the end, the Pharisees are offended.

9:17

So it got somewhat beyond the

9:19

norm, probably because he calls them hypocrites.

9:22

That might be part

9:23

of it. But in any case, it starts out as a

9:25

fairly normal thing. I

9:27

think they're saying that the norm now is that

9:30

this is how we've interpreted the law. You should be washing your

9:32

hands and your disciples aren't doing it. And

9:35

look in verse 4, it

9:36

even tells us about when they

9:38

come from the market, except they wash, they

9:41

eat not. So the idea is that you've been to the market

9:43

and there are Gentiles or there are people there who may have

9:45

things that are not kosher or haven't been kept

9:47

ritually clean, just because you may

9:49

have come into contact with originally unclean

9:52

things, you should wash before

9:55

you eat. Now this is about ritual cleanliness. It's

9:57

not about hygiene, We think you should wash your hands before

9:59

you get.

10:00

of germs. They're talking about ritual

10:02

cleanliness, right? They wash their cups and

10:04

their vessels and their tables and all of these things.

10:07

And then it gets back in verse 5. So

10:09

Mark has that nice little

10:11

explanation of the current Jewish,

10:13

or at least largely Jewish and Pharisaical custom.

10:16

Then the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, Why walk

10:19

not thy disciples according to the traditions of the

10:21

elders, but eat bread with unwashing hands? So there they're

10:23

going back to say, look, our group is established, this

10:25

is the tradition, you're not doing it.

10:27

Why? And

10:29

this is an interesting thing because as I said, Jesus

10:32

is a good Jew,

10:34

but he's also not afraid

10:36

to challenge the kind of normal

10:38

thing that is being established by hierarchy and leadership. He's

10:42

not afraid to go against the grain, and that's what he's going

10:44

to do here is he quotes Isaiah to them, and this is where they may take offense. And he

10:46

says it and then, well, have this ISR

10:48

Isaiah prophesied of you. I

10:52

mean, I would feel bad if someone said this of me, by

10:54

the way, of you hypocrites. of you

10:56

hypocrites as it is written, this people

10:58

honorth me with their lips, but their heart is

11:01

far from me. How

11:02

be it in vain do they worship me, teaching

11:04

for doctrines the commandments of men. To

11:07

take Isaiah, whom they revere, and

11:09

say when he was saying bad stuff, he was talking about

11:12

you. That's

11:14

pretty sharp criticism. I know we don't want

11:16

to paint the Savior as someone who can

11:19

come out harshly, but I think this is-

11:21

It's pretty harsh. Yeah. And

11:24

then he gets into a specific of

11:26

how they do this.

11:28

He says that laying aside the commandment of God, you

11:30

hold the tradition of man as the Washington pots and cups

11:32

and many other such things as you do. So he's

11:34

saying, look, you're forgetting about what God commands

11:36

us to do, and you're focusing on all these little

11:39

things,

11:40

right? So for us, this might be, you're focusing

11:42

on, hey, did you fold that sacrament cloth the

11:44

right way? That's not the way we

11:46

arrange the cups in the tray,

11:48

as opposed to what the ordinance

11:50

is really about. So verse nine, and he said unto

11:53

them, full well you reject the commandment of God

11:55

that you may keep your own traditions. For Moses

11:57

said, now he's going to get this as real

11:59

law.

12:00

commandments. When you would get to Moses said in 10 commandments,

12:02

this is as fundamental as it gets for them. For

12:04

Moses said, Honor thy father and thy mother, and

12:07

whoso accursed the father and mother, let him die the

12:09

death. Read that this morning with my son.

12:11

He didn't like that part. I'm

12:15

going to read that to my kids. I'm going to put that in vinyl in

12:17

the kitchen. So

12:20

what does die the death mean? That's punishable

12:22

by death. Yeah, they could be stoned for not honoring

12:25

father and mother. Now, of course, of course, up

12:27

to interpretation at what level

12:29

of dishonoring rises to capital

12:32

punishment. But the clear thing is you should

12:34

be honoring your father and mother and taking care of them. But

12:37

verse 11, he's highlighting their kind of lawyerish

12:40

way around this. But

12:42

you say, if a man shall say to his father

12:44

or mother, it is Corbin, we'll come back to

12:46

that, that is to say a gift by whatsoever

12:49

thou mightest be profited by me, he shall

12:51

be free.

12:52

And you suffer him no more to do ought for his father

12:54

or his mother, making the word of God of none

12:57

effect through your tradition, which you've delivered.

12:59

And many such like things do you." So let's look

13:02

at the example and then we'll say, here,

13:04

they do a lot of other things and then maybe we can ask how

13:06

in the world, we probably do this in some

13:08

way, some of the, I think every member of the church probably

13:10

has some way they do this. So, Corbin

13:13

comes from the Hebrew word

13:15

karab, which means to approach

13:17

or bring near. And in Leviticus,

13:19

you get this as the description of when

13:21

you bring an offering to God, you approach

13:24

God and you bring this offering near. So it's

13:26

the word that designates an offering.

13:29

What he's saying is if you say this is an offering to

13:31

God,

13:32

then you can't

13:35

use it to take care of your parents. So hang on, I'll

13:37

get back to that. But what they're drawing on is something

13:39

that we get in Numbers, Numbers chapter 30,

13:42

verses one through two, where Moses

13:44

says, you cannot go against

13:47

an oath. If you make an oath, you cannot break that

13:49

oath. And I think we'd all agree with that. The

13:51

problem is that they're making an oath that

13:53

makes it so they can't keep a commandment. because

13:56

what they seem in practice to be doing

13:58

is to say, okay, I know I'm... to take care of my

14:00

father and mother. And this goes kind of to this idea

14:03

that as you get older, you can't really take

14:05

care of yourself. They don't have social security. What they have

14:07

is children that take care of their parents. But you've

14:10

accumulated some wealth and you don't want to spend

14:12

it on taking care of your parents. So you say,

14:14

actually, when I die, I'm going to give all

14:17

of this to the temple or something like that,

14:19

right? So that's Corbin. It's now Corbin. It's a

14:21

vow that I am going to give as an offering

14:23

to the temple. So now I can't use

14:25

it to take care of you. Whatever's left, I

14:27

can spend all I want, however I want on

14:30

me, but when I die, then

14:32

it's gonna be given. And I'm just using this as an example.

14:34

We don't know exactly how the Corbin worked and what

14:36

they would do, but it would be something somewhat like this.

14:39

I don't have to use it to take care of you. And Jesus

14:41

is saying, and this is part of this holocaust, there's

14:44

a debate. When you make an oath,

14:46

you have to keep it, but what if that oath was an oath

14:49

you shouldn't have made because it makes it so you can't keep the commandments?

14:51

And Jesus is coming out on this and he's saying, you

14:53

can't do that. The commandment that given to Moses

14:56

is higher than whatever stupid idea you came up

14:58

with that you made an oath about, so quit making oaths

15:00

that you shouldn't make is really what he's saying.

15:03

They've found a technical way around,

15:07

yeah, that's exactly right, around taking care of their

15:09

parents rather than

15:12

going with what they really, I mean,

15:14

think of covenant and what we talked about,

15:16

they should love God and love each other.

15:18

They should be taking care of their parents because they love their

15:20

parents and they wanna take care of their parents. But

15:23

they found a way out of that and he says you do

15:25

a lot of things like that. I guess one of

15:27

my questions is

15:28

how might we do that?

15:31

Is this why the Savior says later, you strain

15:33

at a gnat that swallow a camel?

15:36

It's this idea of you wash

15:38

your hands, but you don't keep one of the big 10

15:40

commandments.

15:41

Right. So. That's exactly right.

15:44

And again, I don't think he's condemning everyone

15:46

or even every Pharisee, but it's this notion

15:49

and this idea that sometimes

15:51

we find ways around it. And I'll tell you, I mean, I

15:54

know I'm exceptionally good at rationalizing.

15:57

If I feel like, okay, well, I know things should happen

15:59

this way, but

16:00

I'd like it to happen this way. I can usually find

16:02

a reason why it's okay for me to do things the

16:04

way I want to do things. I'm

16:06

a master rationalizer. If you

16:08

know the scriptures well enough, you can find it good enough.

16:11

You can find a loophole. That's

16:14

exactly right. So I would just encourage

16:16

everyone in the audience to stop and

16:18

think,

16:19

is there a way I'm doing this? Is there a way I'm rationalizing?

16:21

I'm not keeping the heart of the covenant

16:25

or the laws. I'm not keeping the core of it.

16:27

I'm going through some actions, but I'm

16:29

not really acting out of love for

16:31

God and each other. I

16:34

think the little verse 6 that he

16:36

kind of introduces this idea

16:38

with, they honor me with their lips. Okay,

16:40

there's these words, there's these commandments that

16:42

you can say, but where's your heart in all of this?

16:45

And you see in those next verses

16:47

commandments versus traditions, commandments versus

16:49

tradition, making the word of God through none

16:52

effect, word of God strong

16:54

through your tradition. And he's putting

16:56

those side by side, and you guys have these out of

16:58

order here. Your traditions have become

17:01

bigger than the commandments of God. Is that

17:03

a fair way to put it?

17:04

Yeah. Yeah, I think the big question is,

17:06

are you trying to find ways to not

17:09

keep commandments? Right?

17:11

You're looking for justification, and if you

17:13

need to use the scriptures to make yourself

17:15

feel justified, then we're

17:18

into troubled territory. Yeah, I would agree.

17:21

And let's make sure love of God and each other

17:23

is at the heart of all that we do. Oh, yeah.

17:25

We can keep moving on. Verse 14,

17:28

he's going to make a bigger point, and this probably

17:30

also is part of what offends them. So we're

17:32

still on Mark 7. Verse 14, and when he called

17:34

all the people unto him, so he's

17:36

not making this a small little conversation just

17:38

between him and the Pharisees. He's going

17:40

public with this. Let's talk about

17:43

this with everyone. I go, oh, man.

17:45

Yeah,

17:46

okay. Now that I've got the megaphone, let's go

17:48

through this. He said, "...harken unto me

17:50

every one of you and understand. There is

17:52

nothing from without a man that entering in

17:55

Him can defile Him. But the things

17:57

which come out of Him, those are they

17:59

that defile the man.

18:00

If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. And then he goes on

18:02

to talk about this a little bit more. And the

18:05

disciples will say, okay, we don't understand.

18:07

And he'll kind of explain it more. We get that

18:09

a little bit more in the Matthew account. But the principle

18:12

really is, he's saying, it's not

18:15

what you eat. It's not unwashing hands or anything

18:17

that defiles you. It's what

18:20

comes out of you. But I think we should take a

18:22

step further and say it's not just what comes

18:24

out of you, right? So he talks about the

18:27

lasciviousness, sin, covetousness, all

18:29

these kinds of things, that's what comes

18:31

out of us. But I think

18:33

it comes out of us because of

18:35

what we are, what we've become. So what

18:37

goes into us does matter in some degree, if we're gonna

18:40

look at the kind of the metaphor, the physical metaphor, you

18:42

are what you eat, right? So you become

18:45

what you've eaten, and then what you have

18:47

become

18:48

influences what comes out of you, what you do, what

18:50

you say, and that kind of a thing.

18:52

What comes out of your mouth, yep. Yeah,

18:55

I think that should be our focus is what

18:57

are we becoming

18:59

and how that's manifest by the things

19:01

we say and do. That's what come out of us is what we say and

19:03

do. But the question is what are we becoming? And

19:06

that focus again, not on the little

19:08

things of what you do, but why you're doing it

19:10

and so on that affect

19:12

what you're becoming. I

19:15

think that a classic talk that President

19:17

Delaney Chokes gave is called the challenge

19:19

to become. And you're just reminding me of that. Yeah,

19:22

I love that talk.

19:24

Yeah, and it seems in here, there's this focus on

19:26

what are we doing? They've got the laws, they've

19:28

got the traditions, but President

19:30

Oaks was like, it's not just what we do,

19:33

it's not just what we know, and it's not even what we do,

19:35

but when we know what to do and we do what

19:37

we know,

19:38

we become something different. And

19:41

that's the outcome of all of this, is

19:43

what kind of person are you becoming? And that's why

19:45

I see that. You honor me with your lips,

19:48

you've got the right words down, but your

19:50

heart, we're the intense. And that was the whole

19:52

sermon on the Mount. It was a higher inner

19:54

law. What are your motives? What are your reasons? and

19:57

what are you becoming? That's harder

19:59

to measure.

20:00

Elder Lynn Robbins, he

20:02

talked about we all have to-do lists, but none

20:04

of us have to-be lists. Do you remember

20:06

that? He said, I can take

20:08

my wife on a date, which is a to-do, but being

20:11

a good husband is a lifetime

20:13

effort. That's on my to-be list, which

20:15

I thought was a really good way to look at it. And

20:18

that's what you're saying, Kerry. What are we becoming?

20:20

So Kerry, as Jesus

20:22

is saying here, look, washing your hands

20:24

is fine. It's a fine law to keep. But But if

20:27

you're not keeping these larger laws

20:30

out of your hardest coming, evil thoughts, adulteries,

20:32

fornications, murders, thefts, covetedness,

20:35

wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness,

20:37

an evil eye, blasphemy, pride and foolishness.

20:40

If you're not worried about those, washing your hand isn't going

20:42

to help you much. Yeah. I

20:45

think that's exactly right. So if we were to translate this into

20:47

our day, we can say, okay, so you don't

20:49

drink coffee and you don't

20:51

smoke or vape, But

20:53

you're mean to your neighbor all

20:55

the time. Yeah. Right.

20:58

That's still a problem, right? You should avoid taking the wrong

21:00

stuff into your body, but you should also

21:03

be careful about what you are so that what

21:05

comes out of you is kind to your neighbor.

21:07

Yeah. Okay. I am a thief,

21:10

but I always wash my hands afterwards. Right.

21:13

Yeah. Yeah, that's good. That

21:15

is good. I steal. That's what we love

21:17

about you, John. Yeah. Yeah. I

21:20

never swear while I'm stealing.

21:23

That's good. I'm proud of you. But

21:26

I wear a white shirt and tie when I steal.

21:29

It's different. Okay, I think we understand

21:31

this part, finally. Dijon and I. If

21:33

we can make jokes about it, we get it. There

21:36

you go.

21:37

So, and that's

21:39

this little confrontation with the Pharisees. And

21:42

again, it's probably less confrontation than we think it is. It's

21:44

debating of law. But at some point, they get offended.

21:47

It must have been at least somewhat

21:49

confrontational. The Savior doesn't mince

21:51

words sometimes.

21:52

I wanted to just share something really quick. In

21:55

chapter 7 verse 2, this all started

21:57

with them finding fault

21:59

in...

22:00

others. This whole conversation started

22:02

because they found fault. And I've always loved

22:04

this Marvin J Ashton quote,

22:06

nothing is easier than fault finding. There's

22:08

no talent, no self-denial, no brains

22:11

are required to set up in the grumbling

22:13

business. It

22:16

doesn't take a lot of brain power to find fault

22:18

in other people. And I think

22:20

Jesus is saying, okay, if you want to find fault, we

22:22

can find some more. Let's

22:25

talk about some of the faults I find in you, since

22:28

we're talking about that. So just be

22:30

careful in fault finding in other

22:32

people. It's probably not going to lead somewhere

22:34

you end up looking like the great guy, right?

22:37

That's good. And maybe we can also look

22:39

at this from a different point of view.

22:41

The Savior always finds

22:44

teaching moments. So they bring this

22:46

debate about law and he turns it into a

22:48

teaching moment for the small group of disciples

22:50

and then a larger group of disciples to talk

22:53

about a principle he really wanted to teach

22:55

and talk about.

22:57

I think the Savior can do things we can't do. I don't

22:59

know that it would be my place to gather a large

23:01

group around if I'm going to tell someone what

23:03

they've done wrong and so on, right?

23:05

That's not my place, but it is the Savior's

23:08

place. So still, a teaching opportunity

23:10

is something I should be looking for.

23:12

He does turn this into quite a lesson.

23:15

Since you brought it up, let's

23:17

turn it into a lesson. Be careful

23:19

bringing things up up around Jesus. He

23:23

might just turn your comet into a bigger lesson,

23:25

yeah. Yeah. So

23:28

after this, the Savior's going to leave. So he's in the

23:30

Galilee area at that point, but now he's going

23:32

to leave up into what is currently

23:34

the Lebanon area, the area of

23:36

the Phoenicians and Tyre and

23:39

Sidon. So this is a long walk. I have

23:41

to say, one of the things that when I first took

23:43

my children to Jerusalem, and as we were driving

23:45

around

23:46

all the different places he went in the Galilee area.

23:49

My oldest son was 13 at the time and

23:52

that was his comment to me. I had no idea

23:54

how much the Savior walked.

23:56

He walked so

23:58

far, many places. just never

24:01

tired of going around trying to spread the

24:03

word. And you have to admire that about him

24:05

and his disciples. So they're going to go a long

24:08

ways north up to Tyre

24:10

and Sidon.

24:12

He enters into a house and he wasn't trying

24:14

to be public, but

24:16

he was too public like everyone

24:18

knew about him now, so he couldn't be hid. We're

24:20

still in Mark 7, and we get to verse 25. For

24:23

a certain woman whose young daughter had an unclean

24:25

spirit heard of him and came and

24:28

fell at his feet. The woman was

24:30

a Greek. Now my guess is she's not actually

24:32

Greek. This is just Mark's term for meaning Gentile

24:35

or something like that because he tells us specifically she's

24:37

a Syrophoenician by nation. So she

24:40

is from Phoenicia and that Syria Phoenician

24:43

area.

24:43

And she besought him that he would cast

24:45

forth the devil out of her daughter.

24:48

But Jesus said unto her,

24:50

Let the children be first filled, for

24:52

it is not meat to take the children's bread

24:54

and cast it unto the dogs. Now

24:56

that's interesting, right? That can also

24:58

be seen as harsh. And it brings up an interesting

25:01

dilemma. And let's go to the Matthew

25:03

account of this, where you get even a little bit more information. We're

25:06

going to be in Matthew chapter 15 verse 22.

25:09

And behold, a woman of Canaan—now they're not

25:11

called Canaanites anymore at this time— but

25:13

a woman of Canaan came out of the same coast and

25:15

cried unto him, saying, Have mercy

25:17

on me, O Lord, thou son

25:20

of David. So she is acknowledging

25:22

both his Jewishness and this kind of royal Jewish

25:24

line. Jewish line. She's not saying Son of God, but

25:27

she's acknowledging who He

25:29

is, including the covenant

25:31

identity, both Abrahamic covenant

25:33

and Davidic covenant with all of this, and

25:36

she's not

25:36

of that line. In the Matthew

25:39

account, He doesn't even answer her. He answered

25:41

her not a word, and His disciples came beside Him

25:43

saying, send her away for Shechreoth after us.

25:46

And He answered and said, I am not sent but

25:48

under the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So first of all,

25:51

that statement doesn't make sense if

25:53

the disciples are saying, just talk toss her out, just get

25:55

rid of her, because he's telling

25:57

them why he's not going to deal with her, which

25:59

would. with why they should toss her on camera. So they

26:02

must be saying, send her away as in, give her

26:04

what she wants, so she'll leave, is

26:06

what I assume here.

26:07

But he says, no, I'm just to the house of

26:09

Israel. And that's an important

26:12

distinction here. And for some of us,

26:14

this seems like it can be rather

26:17

exclusivist or elitist or something along

26:20

those lines like, really, you won't even talk to the

26:22

Gentiles. And we know actually the Savior interacts with

26:24

the Gentiles a lot. Luke will point that

26:26

out a ton, but we get it even here in Matthew. He

26:28

certainly interacts with Gentiles, but

26:31

he seems to be saying, my

26:33

mission is to covenant people.

26:36

And there's a pattern that

26:39

we can see all over in scriptures, including

26:41

happening today, that if we understand that pattern,

26:43

I think we can understand what's going on here. The

26:46

father sends the son. We're too cut off from the

26:48

father's presence to interact with him directly. So

26:51

the father sends the son to interact with

26:53

us. He's the intercessor.

26:54

the son will primarily interact

26:57

with covenant people.

26:58

And I think there's not exclusively,

27:01

right? I don't wanna say that people who aren't in the covenant

27:03

that believe in Christ don't have experiences with Christ and

27:06

often real, powerful and meaningful

27:08

experiences. Of course they do. But

27:10

in this kind of official capacity, he

27:13

is going to

27:14

work with people who have entered into a formal

27:18

and clear relationship with him that has changed

27:20

their nature enough that they can interact

27:22

with him in a different way. And so he will have

27:24

that group that he interacts

27:27

with, and then he sends them out to everyone

27:29

else to get them to join that group, right?

27:31

So it's our job to

27:33

go to the world and get them to come

27:36

to Christ through covenant so that Christ can bring

27:38

them to the Father. So that's the order of

27:40

things. We bring people to Christ, he

27:42

brings them to the Father, and I think that's

27:44

what we're seeing here, is that

27:46

he's saying, no, I'm going to interact with you,

27:49

my disciples, covenant disciples

27:52

and then I will and we'll see this when we get

27:54

to Acts and we see it a little bit in

27:56

the Gospels as well. I will send you

27:58

to everyone else.

28:00

And initially he sends them only to the house

28:02

of Israel. The first time he sends a message, just go to the house of

28:04

Israel. Then he's going to send them to

28:07

the Gentiles eventually. You talked about

28:09

this, for example, when you had Matt Gray on and

28:11

you talked about the tabernacle. You have these degrees

28:13

of holiness or degrees of nearness to

28:16

God. Anyone could be near to Christ

28:18

in a way, but as President Nelson

28:20

has been teaching so powerfully, when you're in a covenant

28:22

relationship with him, you have greater access to

28:24

his power, you have a closer relationship with

28:27

him, So he will interact with you and

28:29

get you to get

28:30

others to come to him. Okay.

28:32

Does that make sense? And John, you said you get lots of questions

28:34

about this. Is there some other ways that you look

28:37

at this or you explain this?

28:39

The only thing that comes up sometimes

28:41

is, yeah, but what about the woman at the well? She was a

28:43

Samaritan. Is she considered

28:46

part house of Israel then? And that's why

28:48

it was okay for him to kind of

28:50

go home that way and talk to her.

28:52

Yeah, it's a great question. And

28:54

I would say, first

28:55

of all, yes. Yes, I mean there she's partially

28:57

Israelite intermarried, but partially Israelite,

29:00

but second we also want to be clear the Savior

29:02

doesn't Exclusively interact

29:05

with Jews. We're gonna see him interact with any number of Gentiles

29:08

I would guess that in some way I mean

29:10

I think he knows what's going to happen here I

29:13

may be wrong, but I think he knows I

29:15

think this is a teaching point He

29:17

wants to make sure that he teaches exactly

29:19

what we just talked about He's gonna

29:22

go to the covenant people and the covenant people are gonna go

29:24

to the world

29:26

which is exactly what we're engaged in right now as

29:28

a church gathering of Israel, the greatest cause on earth

29:30

today. Hmm. I

29:32

like that, Kerri. I like also that he

29:35

probably knows how much faith this woman has,

29:37

and he's going to teach his disciples a lesson when

29:40

they're saying, oh, she's a Gentile,

29:42

just give her what she wants, she'll go away. And

29:44

he's like, oh, I'm not here for Gentiles. But

29:47

then kind of thinking to himself, watch

29:50

what this Gentile's about to do. She's going to

29:52

teach you something. She could take

29:54

offense at this. He just called her a dog because

29:56

the parable or the analogy he uses

29:58

to teach this is

30:00

sent to the children. The children are the house

30:02

of Israel and I'm feeding them. Why

30:04

would I give food for the children to the dogs?"

30:06

So he's calling her a Gentile dog, basically.

30:10

And, but look at her humility

30:12

and her faith. Then came

30:14

she and worshiped him saying, "'Truth,

30:16

Lord,

30:17

yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which

30:19

fall from their master's table.'" So she is

30:21

not going to be deterred for one thing. And let's

30:24

highlight, we're going to see in this reading a couple of

30:26

times, parents wanting blessings

30:29

for their children. And my guess would

30:31

be that any parent listening right now has

30:33

felt that way and will feel that way many

30:35

more times. I have experienced no

30:38

pain for myself that has been as great as

30:40

the pain I've experienced when I want my children

30:42

to be relieved from pain and when I want

30:44

to bless my children. And we're gonna see that again and

30:46

again. So she is not going to give up

30:49

and she's humble enough to accept what he said and

30:51

still demonstrate her faith. I believe that

30:54

even just a teeny little bit of what you're doing.

30:56

If you can do just a teeny bit, you can heal

30:58

my daughter.

30:58

That's incredible faith.

31:00

And then that gets us to this incredible

31:03

verse that's in verse 28. Maybe John, could you read

31:05

that and talk about that for us?

31:07

Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O

31:09

woman, great is thy faith, be

31:12

it unto thee, even as thou wilt, and

31:14

her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

31:18

So faith precedes the miracle type of a

31:20

thing. I

31:22

like what you said, that he probably knows what's

31:25

about to happen. And

31:27

so he's like, let's

31:29

insult her

31:31

and watch her reaction and she

31:33

is going to end up teaching the disciples this

31:35

is what faith looks like.

31:37

It's a beautiful lesson. If only we

31:39

had the faith of that woman and the humility

31:41

of that woman

31:42

to say, maybe I'm not worthy of every

31:45

blessing, but

31:47

I believe we need this

31:49

blessing and we believe you can give it to us. So

31:52

I don't care what I'm called. It's

31:54

fine. I'm a Gentile. I know how this I

31:57

just need this blessing.

31:59

And as Kerry said, if you're seeking

32:02

a blessing for your child and you

32:04

can't give the blessing, I mean, you're at

32:07

a point where I'll take crumbs,

32:09

anything you've got, because it's my

32:11

child I'm talking about here. And that

32:14

makes you pretty humble at that point.

32:16

Anything you can do, please do it. Yeah.

32:19

We'll come back to that idea because it

32:22

comes up a number of times in this reading.

32:25

Now if we continue in the Matthew account, we get kind

32:27

of a broad sweeping story and and then we'll get an individual

32:29

story in the Mark account, in the Matthew

32:31

account, verse 29, after that powerful

32:34

verse that John read, we get Jesus

32:36

departed from thence, so from that Phoenician area,

32:39

and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee. So he's

32:41

going back to where he typically is, right,

32:43

home bases in Capernaum.

32:45

He's doing a lot of moving today. He's doing

32:47

a ton of walking. Yeah, in fact, I'll

32:49

tell you, one of the things I do in my classes is at

32:52

the beginning of class every day, I put up a map

32:54

and I say, just for the reading for

32:56

today, Here's where we see the Savior go,

32:58

here, here, here, here. It's just so that they can kind of

33:01

picture, and it's incredible how much He

33:03

travels to try and have everyone be blessed.

33:07

In any case, He comes back to Galilee,

33:10

and He went up into a mountain and sat down there, and

33:13

a great multitude came into Him, having with them those

33:15

that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed,

33:17

and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet, and

33:19

He healed them in so much that the multitude wondered

33:21

when they saw the dumb to speak, and the maimed

33:23

to behold, and the lame to walk, and the blind to see, and they

33:25

glorified the God of Israel. This is just

33:28

continuation of this mass wholesale

33:30

healing and miracle working that he's

33:32

doing everywhere he goes that serve

33:35

as signs of who

33:38

he is. This is what gets

33:40

people to recognize that this is eventually

33:43

they'll go from even a great prophet

33:45

to more than a prophet. And we'll talk about that as we get to

33:47

chapter 16.

33:49

But we get a very specific story in

33:51

the Mark account.

33:53

Okay, so we're going back to Mark. back

33:55

to Mark 7, and when he talks about them

33:57

coming through the midst of the

33:59

coast of

34:00

So that's an interesting thing that touches

34:02

on what we were just talking about. Historically,

34:05

as they kind of carved up

34:07

this area, the Romans carved up the area into

34:09

administrative districts. They got Judea

34:11

as one administrative district, Samaria as

34:14

one, Galilee as another. But

34:16

there was this group of 10 cities that

34:18

were not very Jewish. They're,

34:22

we'll say, Hellenistic. They're not necessarily actual

34:24

Greeks, but they're Hellenistic from all sorts of areas.

34:27

And they were worried because there had been some

34:29

earlier under the Maccabees, there had been some

34:31

forced conversions. They were being forced to

34:33

convert to Judaism when they didn't really want to be Jewish.

34:36

The Romans set aside this area

34:39

that's on both sides of the River Jordan that

34:41

they call Decapolis, meaning 10 cities. There are 10

34:43

cities that they form a geographic

34:45

area, and those are very, very Gentile

34:48

cities. They are not Jewish.

34:50

They're probably Jews in them, but

34:52

they're largely Gentile. So

34:54

the Savior is going through some

34:57

gentile areas. Maybe he's only preaching to

34:59

the Jews in there. I don't know. It doesn't tell us. But

35:02

he certainly is going through some gentile

35:04

areas. For example, if people

35:06

are familiar with it, Beit Sheon is one of the Decapolis

35:09

cities that's somewhat close to the Galilee area.

35:12

Hippos is right next to the Sea of Galilee.

35:14

It's a Decapolis city. So you've got a

35:16

couple of those that are likely candidates for where

35:18

the Savior is going as he does this. This

35:21

Tiberius, one of these cities?

35:24

No, it's solidly in... It's

35:26

in Galilee. Yeah, it's in his realm,

35:28

right? It's becoming his capital. So it's

35:31

here in Antipas' city, but

35:33

he is going to make

35:35

it more Hellenistic than most of the cities around

35:37

there. So that's a good point. Anyway,

35:40

and they bring unto him one that was deaf and

35:42

had an impediment in his speech, and they beseech

35:45

him to put his hand upon him. And he took aside

35:48

from the multitude... He took So Kim aside from the multitude

35:50

and put his fingers into his ears

35:52

and he spit and touched his tongue. That's

35:54

maybe not good hygiene, but

35:56

there's some great symbolism here, right?

35:59

had a number of times

36:00

where we've had touch being

36:02

associated with healing or with

36:04

miracles. And then we get this, and

36:06

he looking up into heaven side and said unto him, ephatha,

36:10

that is be opened. So it comes from the Hebrew word patach,

36:13

he's probably speaking Aramaic, but it's a cognate language.

36:15

So patach means to open. And so he's saying be opened

36:19

and straight where his ears were open and the string of

36:21

his tongue was loose and he spoke again. And

36:24

then interestingly, he, meaning Jesus charged them

36:26

that they should tell no man, but the more they charge

36:28

them, the more they charge them. Yeah.

36:32

Which is sometimes how it goes. Anytime you tell someone

36:34

to keep a secret, that's the best way to make sure everybody

36:36

knows. Yeah. But the

36:39

savior

36:39

is certainly getting to become well-known

36:42

as a miracle worker.

36:45

I like what you said there about touch. The

36:48

guy can't hear him, so

36:50

he's gotta do something else to give him

36:53

something to know what's happening. That's

36:55

a good point. I hadn't even thought of that. He can

36:57

say be open, and other people

37:00

will hear that, but he's interacting with him in a way that

37:02

works for him, and it's a symbolic action which is important

37:04

for this culture as well. Yeah. Yeah.

37:07

Give him something to have faith in, yeah.

37:09

Now, I don't know how much you'd like to talk

37:12

about the feeding of the 4,000. This is

37:14

after he's fed the 5,000, and we have a very

37:16

similar story where he has to kind of teach

37:19

the disciples again and get them to bolster

37:21

their faith again, but it's similar

37:23

enough, and you've talked about that with the feeding

37:25

of the 5,000. Yeah, I think we're okay to move

37:27

on, because we've got so much other good stuff here.

37:30

Yeah, we really, really do. Well, let's

37:32

go back to the Matthew account.

37:34

And chapter 16, verse one, the

37:38

beginning again is really interesting to me. The

37:40

Pharisees also with the Sadducees

37:43

came. Now,

37:45

they're usually, I mean, they work on the

37:47

council of the Sanhedrin together, but they're often

37:49

somewhat at odds. So when they're

37:52

working together, this is significant. What's

37:54

more, Sadducees are largely from Jerusalem.

37:57

their power bases the temple and

37:59

these through

38:00

the descendants of Zadokite priests. That's where the word

38:02

Sadducee comes from, Zadokite. So they're

38:05

not exclusively from Jerusalem,

38:07

but that's where their power base is. So again, it suggests

38:09

that we've got a group of Pharisees and a group of Sadducees

38:12

from Jerusalem coming up. And they

38:14

are specifically, it says tempting, it's like to test

38:16

him or to try him, right? They're trying to find a way to

38:18

have a problem with him.

38:19

And typically, the more the Sadducees are involved,

38:22

the more this is the case. And

38:24

so they ask him to show a sign, and

38:26

I say just personally, I love

38:28

the sign he talks to them about. He takes them to

38:30

task, and in verse two, he answered and said unto them, when

38:33

it is evening, you say it

38:35

will be fair weather for the sky is red, and

38:37

in the morning, it will be foul

38:39

weather today,

38:41

for the sky is red and lowering. So

38:43

now I just have to say, before I

38:45

even recognize this in the scriptures, I knew this

38:47

saying that it's basically the same saying, my

38:50

family loves to water ski. When I was

38:52

really young, my dad built a boat because we couldn't afford

38:54

to buy one. He built a boat, we'd go water skiing, He got

38:56

what he learned to water ski on a canal in Provo,

38:58

on a canal behind a car. And then he built

39:00

a boat. Nice. And we went water

39:03

skiing and we just skied all the time and

39:05

we'd go to Lake Powell and everything. So from the time

39:07

I was young, my mom and dad taught me

39:09

this saying, pink at night,

39:11

sailor's delight, red in the morning, sailor's warning.

39:13

We'd always wanna know, cause best skiing

39:15

is in the morning when it's calm and you don't have other people

39:17

out on the lake or whatever. Every night

39:20

if we wanted to go skiing, we'd go and look to see if it

39:22

was peak. Every morning if we were gonna go, we'd see if

39:24

it was red. I never ever found a time that

39:26

that was wrong.

39:27

Now sometimes it's not either pink or red, right? So

39:30

then you don't know. But often it's pink at night and

39:32

then you know, okay, we can go skiing tomorrow morning. If

39:34

it's red in the morning, you're like, ah, not gonna be a good day. That

39:37

sign was completely accurate

39:40

in my experience growing up as a water skiing fan.

39:43

And that's exactly what the Savior's telling him here. He says,

39:45

look, you know this little thing. You can read

39:47

those signs, but

39:48

you've already had plenty

39:50

of signs from me that

39:52

you are refusing to read.

39:54

So why should I play this game with you?

39:57

I've already given you what you've asked for. I

40:00

know you know how to deal with signs. You've shown me you're

40:02

just not gonna believe. So I'm not getting involved

40:04

in your game.

40:05

And he uses it then as a teaching

40:07

moment.

40:08

Verse four, a wicked and adulterous generation

40:10

seeketh after a sign. Now, I

40:12

think we wanna be careful with that as well. Sometimes

40:14

because of that, and Joseph Smith says, anytime

40:17

someone asks for a sign, you can be sure they're an adulterer. We

40:20

start to think any kind of signs are bad. But

40:22

the scriptures are actually full of all sorts of signs that

40:24

aren't bad. So I would say it's the show

40:27

me a sign or I won't believe. If we combine

40:29

what we've got here with some Book of Mormon stories, I think that's

40:31

the kind of sign. I'm not going to believe until you show me

40:33

a sign. That kind of a sign is a problem.

40:36

But

40:37

we find examples in the scriptures of people

40:39

like Gideon and others who say, okay, I'm

40:41

already doing what you asked me to do. I just

40:43

want to know, are you still with me? Am I still

40:45

doing this the right way? Is this the way you want me to do it

40:48

or is this the way you want me to do it? They believe

40:50

and they're acting

40:51

and they just want some direction or some interaction

40:54

or something like that from God. And

40:56

I think that's a different kind of sign that God seems

40:58

to be willing to work with. It's like the do

41:00

on the fleece. That's the Gideon sign, right?

41:03

He's a believer. I've heard S. Michael

41:05

Wilcox talk about this. I just need a fleece.

41:07

I need something to help me to keep going.

41:10

And Gideon's already there with an army. It's not

41:12

like he's not already acting.

41:14

I've certainly had this in my life where I'm just

41:17

seeking and seeking and seeking for an answer

41:19

to prayer and nothing's coming. And so I try and follow

41:21

like what Elder Scott and some others have said,

41:24

keep moving forward and the Lord will let

41:26

you know if it's the wrong way. And sometimes I just say,

41:28

you know, if this seems like it's what you want

41:30

me to do, I'm going to move forward. You

41:32

need to send something to tell

41:34

me it's wrong

41:36

if this isn't what I should do. And sometimes

41:38

I've had something that

41:40

was a pretty strong sign. Yep, that's not the right way. And

41:43

sometimes pretty good sign. Okay, this is

41:45

the right way. Often only after

41:47

a long time of not knowing what was the right

41:49

way. Yeah.

41:50

And keep working. Keep moving forward.

41:53

our friend and colleague, Dr. Robert Millett.

41:55

I remember him saying once, What

41:58

do adultery and sign seeking have?

42:00

in common, and he said a sign

42:02

seeker says, I want the evidence. I don't

42:04

want to do any of the work or exercise

42:06

any of the faith. An adulterer says,

42:08

I want

42:09

the pleasure of another person, but I don't want

42:11

any commitment. But that was a, oh, okay,

42:14

it's kind of a something-for-nothing mentality

42:16

that both of those

42:18

kind of imply. That helped me to see why those

42:20

are so often grouped together by the Savior. I

42:22

want something for nothing.

42:24

Yeah, no effort, just payoff.

42:27

Yeah. Which goes back to what we we

42:29

were talking about earlier, you don't

42:31

become what you need to become with

42:33

that kind of a scenario. Part of the reason

42:35

that effort is required for all good spiritual

42:38

things is because we're a gospel of becoming, to use

42:40

President Oakes's phrase, it's about

42:42

what we become as we do, think,

42:44

pray, and so on.

42:46

And that really takes us into the theme

42:48

of the next part,

42:50

which is when Jesus is going to, again,

42:52

create a teaching moment. We got verse

42:55

five, we're still in Matthew 16, verse five, and

42:57

when his disciples come to the other side, they had forgotten

42:59

to take bread.

43:00

So he's gonna use this as

43:02

another opportunity to teach. And he said into them,

43:05

take heed

43:06

and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees

43:08

and of the Sadducees.

43:10

And they reason among themselves saying, is it because

43:12

we've taken no bread? What's he talking about,

43:14

right? So they're a little off course, off

43:16

track there. They're like, huh,

43:19

is he telling us to go in and buy bread, but make sure you don't buy

43:21

from Pharisees? Pharisees, yeah. Yes, sir.

43:24

Don't buy the Pharisees bread, it's bad bread. They

43:26

have poisonous yeast or something. And

43:28

so let's talk just because I like

43:31

people to be able to picture what's happening and how life

43:33

works for them and make the scriptures real. They

43:35

didn't use leaven the way we use yeast.

43:38

Typically, most of the time when they raise

43:40

bread, what they do is it's a little bit like we do sourdough.

43:43

You have to have a bit of dough that

43:45

was left over from the last one that

43:47

is fermenting, right? That's what causes

43:49

it to rise. And then you mix that dough in

43:52

with your new dough you've just made and

43:54

then it takes a long time. It's not fast like what

43:56

we do now. It takes a long time. like some of the reports

43:58

are that the women would have. to go to the temple

44:00

and come back and now their dough has risen,

44:03

right? So it takes a while for that natural fermentation

44:05

to happen. So basically what

44:07

you do if you are going to make

44:09

bread and you don't have any

44:12

starter dough with you, you've got to go

44:14

get someone else's starter dough. So that's kind

44:16

of the symbol you say, don't go get starter dough

44:18

from the Pharisees and then let that ferment.

44:21

And that's why most of the time, not

44:24

all the time, but almost all the time, 11 becomes

44:28

a sign of decay or spiritual

44:30

decay or spiritual corruption because

44:32

what makes the bread rise really is fermenting

44:35

and that's good if you let it go to a

44:37

point but it always becomes

44:39

a problem if you let it go too

44:41

long. So it becomes the symbol

44:44

for something that can become corrupting. That's

44:46

what he's talking about and I think it's a great metaphor

44:48

for the Pharisees or for some of the things we were talking

44:50

about earlier and again I don't want to say every Pharisee

44:53

or anything along those lines, but at least that group

44:55

that was just there

44:56

questioning the Savior, trying to cause

44:58

a problem for Him. Because He says

45:00

the Pharisees and the Sadducees, right? And that's the

45:02

group that had just been with Him. And I think

45:05

He's saying, look, they're both built

45:07

on a good base. They

45:08

both got a good starting point. But

45:11

if you go too far with what they're doing,

45:14

this will corrupt you. And that's

45:16

what at least that particular group that was just

45:18

with Him, they had become at least

45:20

corrupt to the degree where they are trying

45:22

to cause a problem for the Savior. So

45:25

again, we have to ask ourselves what

45:27

from the world around us

45:30

is good

45:32

taken in little measure, but we just

45:34

keep letting it ferment in our lives and

45:36

it becomes corrupting. And my guess

45:38

would be that the answer is just about everything.

45:41

Whatever you're taking in from the world, If

45:44

you do too much of it,

45:46

it's a problem. I think that's probably part

45:48

of why President Nelson said, and I'm just paraphrasing,

45:50

but why he said, if you get

45:53

all of your information from social or other media,

45:55

you will be deceived. So you need to make less time

45:57

for that and more time for Christ

46:00

because if you're getting more from

46:02

the world than you are from Christ,

46:03

you're going to go moldy, as it were, spiritually

46:06

moldy. That's what we don't want.

46:08

It's great when they figure it out in verse 12. Yeah.

46:11

Then understood they how he bade them not beware

46:13

of the leaven of the bread, but of the doctrine

46:16

of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Ah,

46:19

okay, that's what you meant. I love

46:21

those moments.

46:22

And I do love that we see that how

46:24

patient the Savior is. I wonder how

46:26

many times he's sitting up there going, Why

46:29

don't you get this? I've taught this to you so clearly

46:32

and you're doing your own thing, but I'll just keep

46:34

working on explaining it to you. And

46:36

I will be honest that sometimes that

46:39

explanation has come through listening to this podcast

46:41

or general conference or other sources like

46:43

that where you suddenly go, oh, oh,

46:45

I get it. Thinking of that wrong this whole time. Oh,

46:47

that's really helpful. So

46:51

it's

46:52

nice that the Lord can just keep patiently working

46:54

with us. Yeah, and we have to be aware of any

46:56

doctrine doesn't

46:58

come from Christ, it can be a corrupting

47:01

influence. Any teaching that doesn't

47:03

come from the Savior, you've got to watch out and be

47:05

careful around that. And

47:07

there are certainly good things that come from the world around us,

47:09

but as you said, you've got to be careful. Even a good

47:11

thing, if we go with it too much,

47:14

becomes a bad thing, if it's anything

47:16

but coming from God. That's

47:18

why we need more general conference and less

47:21

of some of

47:22

the other stuff I listen to. Yeah,

47:24

I think it's a powerful lesson. Just beware of the

47:26

corrupting influence. Yeah. How

47:29

much of the world's dough are you mixing in with

47:31

your new dough is a question for all of us

47:33

to ask. And this sounds

47:35

to me just like a repeat of what we've already

47:37

talked about. How much traditions of men

47:39

have taken over from the commandment of

47:42

God or from the Word of God? And

47:44

it's just another way of saying it.

47:47

I think that this probably is the

47:49

greatest challenge

47:51

that we face today, and I'd say certainly

47:54

the generation of like young adults and and

47:56

youth, but I think really everyone, is

47:58

how much were influenced by

48:00

the world and how

48:02

that corrupts the way we perceive

48:05

or receive the things of God. I

48:07

think if you go and look at President Nelson's

48:09

talks

48:10

the entire time he's been president of the

48:12

church, you'll find that theme in just about every

48:15

talk. You can see ways he set this

48:17

up, where there'd be him asking, how

48:19

do you hear him?

48:20

And then after that saying, okay,

48:23

are you letting God prevail in your life more

48:27

than anything else? You have

48:29

to let God prevail more than the world in your

48:31

life. And then saying, okay, like I said

48:33

just a minute ago, make more time for

48:35

Christ. Let's take you to the next step. You're letting

48:38

God prevail. You need to do it even more. Listen to the

48:40

world less. Listen to God and Christ more,

48:42

even to where we get to this last one where he says, if you're

48:45

accepting the world's values of power,

48:47

popularity, possessions, or pleasures

48:50

of the flesh, you will find they cannot satisfy

48:52

you and give you peace and rest. You will have to

48:54

go to God and Christ through

48:57

the covenant if you really want peace and rest.

48:59

He just keeps teaching us this

49:01

in a thousand different ways. And actually, President

49:04

Oaks has given that similar themes

49:06

a lot of times, the influence of the world, beware of the influence

49:08

of the world. And yet we listen to the world so

49:10

much, we have these little ear pods in

49:13

and we're listening to all

49:15

sorts of stuff all the time. And I think we don't

49:17

realize how much we are influenced

49:20

by the way the world thinks and what

49:22

the world tells us is important and how we should get

49:24

things, this incredible individualism

49:26

of the world and

49:27

so on, the you-do-you idea.

49:30

And then when

49:31

the prophets tell us something, we start to filter it

49:33

through what the world has told us. And

49:36

we either twist it or we

49:38

reject it or we live with some dissonance

49:40

and friction in our lives like, well, okay, I believe

49:42

the prophets, but I don't believe it on this because the world told

49:45

me this and so on. But we don't quite see it that

49:47

way. And it inevitably causes

49:49

us problems where really what we should be doing

49:52

is filtering everything that the world

49:54

tells us through what the prophet is telling us

49:57

and what the Scriptures what Christ is telling us through

50:00

ancient and modern prophets. Let's put it that way.

50:02

Too often we don't do that because the lion's

50:04

share of our time is given to listening to the world,

50:07

not to God.

50:08

Excellent. And I see that struggle

50:11

so much with the youth and the young adults in the church

50:13

today. I see it with me too, so with everyone,

50:15

but especially with that group that has

50:17

grown up with so much access to listening to

50:19

the world

50:20

all the time. Yeah, so today

50:22

the Savior would say, maybe don't beware the leaven

50:25

of the Pharisees and Thagoces. He would say, beware

50:27

the leaven of the world. beware

50:30

of what the world teaches you, because

50:33

it can spread.

50:35

Yeah, and it does spread. Just think of your mind

50:37

as the dough, and you put that fermented

50:39

dough from the world in, and it's just gonna infiltrate

50:42

your entire mind. So that's what we

50:44

have to be careful of. It influences the way we

50:46

think more than we realize, and we have to every

50:48

now and then stop and ask ourselves, how

50:52

am I thinking about this issue, and how much

50:54

of that is influenced by the world, as opposed to the

50:56

way God would have me think of it?

50:58

Mmm, excellent. Thanks

51:00

Carrie

51:02

We're not spending a lot of time on the feeding of the 4000 or

51:05

so on but right after that in the mark account

51:07

you get a really remarkable story that I think is

51:09

worth thinking about and My guess

51:12

is that a lot of our audience

51:13

will resonate with this So Hank

51:16

do you want to read Mark? We're in Mark chapter 8. Do

51:18

you want to read verses 22 through 26 for us? Absolutely

51:23

I love this story. And he cometh to Bethsaida,

51:25

and they bring a blind man unto him,

51:27

and besought him to touch him. And he took

51:30

the blind man by the hand, led him out of

51:32

the town. And when he had spit upon his eyes

51:34

and put his hands upon him, he asked if

51:36

he saw ought. And he

51:38

looked up and said, I see men as trees

51:41

walking.

51:42

And that he put his hands again upon

51:44

his eyes and made him look up, and he was restored

51:47

and sought every man clearly. And

51:49

he sent him away to his house saying, Don't tell

51:51

anybody, right? Neither go into town nor tell anybody

51:54

in the town. I'm sure he did anyway. Yeah,

51:56

and lots of others probably did as well. Now

51:59

that's a

52:00

really unique and unusual story

52:02

because typically, I mean, the savior

52:05

heals other blind men and you just touch them and they can

52:07

see fine. This one is interesting

52:10

that takes a minute. It heals them in

52:12

stages. I don't know why we

52:14

can theorize all sorts of things, but I'll tell you

52:16

at least one lesson that I've taken from that, that

52:18

I'd taught a number of times, but it's become more real

52:20

to me recently. It seems

52:23

to me that often in life,

52:25

the savior doesn't

52:27

answer our prayers all at once. everything

52:30

made fine and whole all at once.

52:34

It can be a process, and that

52:36

process is still miraculous, but it's harder

52:38

to see the miracles when it's a process, right, and

52:40

I've thought and believed that for a long time. We

52:43

have for a while gone through some

52:45

trials as a family. I have a child who's

52:47

had some really difficult health

52:50

challenges that, of course, are difficult enough,

52:52

and you're a parent in your body and your mind interact, that they can become

52:54

mental health challenges and so on. I

52:57

cannot tell you how much over the

52:59

last, it's almost exactly a year

53:01

now that some of these got more acute and it started

53:03

a really tough year. And I

53:05

cannot tell you how often I have prayed

53:08

and pled and begged for

53:11

miracles. And really it's kind of taken over our whole life.

53:13

And we've just pled for miracles. And President Nelson

53:16

about a year ago said, pray

53:18

for and expect miracles. And I have taken

53:21

that so seriously. And I keep praying.

53:23

And I say, I know you can do miracles. We're

53:25

praying for all sorts of healing, please,

53:28

please, please. And there have been times

53:30

where I've thought, why isn't this happening? But

53:33

there have also been times where

53:35

we've been able to look and say, you know, we've actually

53:37

seen a number of little miracles. And

53:40

we're not where we want this to be yet,

53:43

but I believe it's going to get there. And I don't know

53:45

how long it is. And honestly, I wish the road

53:47

were shorter, and I wish it were less painful.

53:49

And I'm not talking about for myself. I'd like

53:52

it to be less painful for my child.

53:55

and I'd like it to be quicker for my child.

53:58

But when I think about it, we

54:00

have seen miracles. We have seen

54:02

things that would be like, oh, I

54:04

can see men walking

54:07

his trees. I'm not where I want

54:09

to be yet, but I'm not where it was.

54:11

It's gotten a little bit better. And that's true

54:14

both the physical healing and emotional

54:16

healing, not just in our family. I

54:18

think that's probably true for a lot of people where sometimes

54:21

you just have to stop and see the miracles

54:23

that are there while you're waiting

54:25

for the full miracle like this

54:27

man who was at Bethsaida. and take

54:30

joy in

54:32

the process, even though there's still pain, or

54:34

as President Nelson described in his last talk, we

54:37

can have this in the midst of our most vexing problems,

54:39

there's still joy from the little bits

54:42

of miracles that we see as we're

54:44

healed and made whole in stages.

54:47

I would guess that a number of people are feeling

54:49

that in their lives right now.

54:51

I have, in my margin right there,

54:54

I have BRM, which is my code

54:56

for Bruce Armaconkey, who said

54:58

men also are often healed of

55:00

their spiritual maladies by degrees.

55:03

Yeah, and it doesn't lessen the miracle.

55:05

It's still a miracle. And I'm

55:07

grateful for this story to help us recognize

55:10

that that's sometimes

55:12

the Savior works that way.

55:16

Please join us for part two of

55:18

this podcast.