What I learned at Church today

Did you watch the Book of Mormon videos as you read through the scriptures over the last two weeks? I thought they were excellent, but we have to be a bit careful to remember what is actually in the scriptures, and what is assumed from the video. So for example, the video shows Lehi instructing Laman and Lemuel to remove all the gold goblets and trinkets from the camel's saddlebag, whereas the scripture only says "he left his house, and the land of his inheritance, and his gold, and his silver, and his precious things". It doesn't say that Laman and Lemuel wanted to take them. Getting the Records I love that the opening chapters of the Book of Mormon, which are doubtless the most read chapters of all, given how many people start reading it but don't get beyond the Isaiah sections, tell us immediately how important the scriptures are. When Lehi departs into the wilderness he takes only the essentials, but he soon has to send his sons back to get something vital the

With only about 23 Sunday School lessons across the year, you might be forgiven for wondering why a whole lesson has been given over to studying the title page, contents, testimonies and introduction which precede the actual Book of Mormon text. Well, I think of it as the pre-title sequence: it sets us up for what is to come. There is important information here. We also talked about the book's provenance. Provenance means the history of something which serves to authenticate it. In art, for example, it might include past owners and valuations. The Bible has a rich and full provenance - we know it is a collection of historical documents and there is no doubt of its authenticity. The Book of Mormon, on the other hand, has little to no provenance. Essentially, these introductory pages are its entire provenance. They tell us where it came from, and how, but really its authenticity has to be taken entirely on faith. Personally I find that to be one of its strengths. The reader is the o

Do you know what this is? For those, like me, with a background in the Church of England it has meaning and symbolism, and it evokes memories and understanding. But for anyone else, it looks like an orange with things stuck into it. (It's a Christingle.) Revelation is a bit like the Christingle. To those it was addressed to it may well have meant something very significant and important, but to us, now, it's confusing and we don't understand the allegories. Why is it so symbolic? When I became a Christina at the age of 14 in 1982 my first Bible study class was on Revelation, and they said the symbolism was because Christians were persecuted so the author had to write in a way no one intercepting the letters would understand – that the lurid imagery would be understood by those the message was intended for, but not by anyone else. Apparently this is no longer believed to be the case because theologians and historians have established that there is little evidence that

James There are six Jameses in the New Testament, but the James who wrote this book was James the brother of Jesus. Imagine growing up with Jesus as your big brother! Did they squabble? I suspect not. We can read more about James's transformation in John 7:2-7 in which Jesus's brothers tease him about his ministry, Galatians 1:19 in which James is now and apostle, and Galatians 2:9 where he's described as a pillar of the church.. The epistle was written to Jewish Christians who were dispersed outside Palestine. It was accepted late into the canon of the New Testament, and there is no real agreement about when it was written but probably after Paul’s epistles. It is unusual in that it only mentions Jesus twice, almost in passing, and doesn’t talk about his nature as the son of God, his death, or his resurrection.  James is a BIG DEAL for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for several reasons:  James 1:5 is the verse that started it all. Jos

The very first thing written on the page at the beginning of the book of Hebrews in the LDS edition of the King James version of the Bible is: "The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews" But in fact it's not  an epistle, it wasn't written by Paul, and it's not the to Hebrews. So what is it? Although it would have been sent to Jerusalem like a letter (and signs off in the traditional way) this is actually a treatise, or a sermon, or an essay, written with a particular intention - more on that later. In this modern day it would probably be a blog post or an article. Who wrote it ? I'm surprised it took so long for people to realise it wasn't written by Paul. The writing is more polished, sophisticated, composed, literary, intricate and eloquent than Paul's dogmatic, impassioned and often erratic style. The name of the author is not included - another reason to think it isn't Paul, as he was generally not shy about identi

How many letters are there to the Corinthians? We're reading 2 Corinthians, and next lesson we're on to Galatians, so you'd be forgiven for saying "2" but it's actually widely believed there were four in total, and maybe even more. In 1 Corinthians 5:9 Paul references an earlier letter he wrote, and in 2 Corinthians 2:3-9 he talks about yet another letter, sometimes called the severe letter, or letter of tears, in which he harshly scolded the church at Corinth. Neither letter survives today. What with the letter from Chloe about divisions in the church, and what appears in the severe letter to be the behaviour of one particular individual, plus the "super-apostles" mentioned in 2 Corinthians 11:5, there were big problems in the church in Corinth. Paul's harsh "letter of tears" has damaged his relationship with this group of saints, and he writes 2 Corinthians in order to restore his good relationship with them, reassure them of his lo