New Testament Notes
We study the scriptures in a four-year cycle as a church and as a family. This means we go in-depth on the New Testament every four years. These are my notes. They are off-the-cuff impressions and insights. I have made no effort to flesh them out, or even to decide if it’s really something that I believe.
From 2023
As a family, we read The Good Novel, my harmonized, simplified language reader of the four gospels. And for the rest, we used a version based on Hart’s translation.
These notes are in reverse order, newest on top.
The angel in the Garden of Gethsemane sent to minister to Jesus.
43 And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. (Luke 22)
Who was it? As LDS we consider angels to be people outside their mortal era. A solid guess, my a priori, would be that it was Adam, the first man. The thought that occurred to me was that there were actual living people who could also do it, and it seems against the economy of heaven that an angel would come to do what a mortal could do. Angel in greek means sent one, such as an amabassador, and although this was the word to mean heavenly being, perhaps the author meant it in its original meaning - someone was sent. We know it wasn’t Peter, James, John or any of the other 12. My thought was it could be Mary. She was there for him on the cross, why not in the Garden also? Symeon prophesied
35 (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also) Luke 2
I had assumed that this was hyperbole to describe Mary’s grief at losing a beloved son, but perhaps it meant something more. Not that she would have helped directly bear the atonement, except in the sense of mourning with those who mourn (suffering with Him who suffered), makes their burdens lighter. In that light, Mary at the cross is meaningful because that is when God the Father momentarily abandons Jesus in order to make the atonement complete:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken (abandoned) me.” Psalm 22
And a related thought as I dwelt on this subject: Marianism has gained no traction within Mormonism despite having additional source material because we already have the loving parent to grieve over their child - Heavenly Father. In Catholicism, God the Father and God in the flesh are the same, so there is nothing there to make the inexplicable God act for unfathomable God reasons relatable. But a parent grieving for their kid is something we can get and helps us understand that God loves us and that Christ’s sacrifice is absolutely necessary. Mary supplies that in Catholicism, God the Father can in Mormonism.
Elijah and John the Baptist - Elijah was known for living in the wilderness, eating grasshoppers and honey (both kosher), and wearing camel hair. Maybe John the Baptist was Elijah - this clears up who was on the Mount of Transfiguration - Elijah/John. Elijah was taken up into the heavens (I presume to the city of Enoch/Salem or a terrestrial world) and there is no reason he could not come down again quietly to do his work of forerunner. Since most of the prophecies about Elijah coming before the Lord are about him coming before the great and dreadful judgment day, John’s answer when asked if he was the Elijah to come, was to what they were really asking - is Judgement Day at hand? The answer was ‘no’. And the account of his birth in Luke would be wrong, or perhaps out of the time we expect, and without Mary visiting his mother. As forerunner it would make sense for Elijah to precede Christ in his first advent here, as well as into the world of the dead, as well as prophesied before his second advent.
<Please see the disclaimer about these notes - these are impressions and ideas, not strongly held and thought-out beliefs.>
The woman taken in adultery. Jesus scrupulously follows the Law of Moses, which requires 2-3 eyewitnesses. The eyewitnesses can’t testify if they are guilty of the same sin - Deuteronomy 19:15-19. The eyewitnesses have to cast the first stones - Deuteronomy 17:7
They sought to punish the woman without the man which is against Deuteronomy 22:22-24.
The Galilean wedding - This is a video about the Galilean wedding and how it ties together wedding imagery from the New Testament. The video is an hour and a half long, but worth it. Here are some notes:
The betrothal covenant happens about a year before the wedding, and the groom and bride drink from the same cup under the canopy. The groom says he won’t drink wine from the cup again until their wedding day (when they share a cup as part of the ceremony). The betrothed bride goes veiled until her wedding day to show she is taken and keeping herself pure for her groom.
The groom’s family add onto the family compound, rooms for the couple-to-be. Imagine a mediterranean style household, courtyards surround by 2-3 stories of rooms. “In my father’s house there are many chambers…”
The grooms father prepares the wedding. He sends out fine white linen robes for the guests to wear. (unless too poor)
The wedding is a surprise, the father wakes up the groom at night and tells him it is the day. The groom blows a rams horn trumpet (shofar). The groomsmen start making a lot of noise, blowing trumpets and such, and they wind their way through the streets to wake up and collect all the guests on their way to the bride. They are carrying a decked-out litter for the bride. (The surprise is particular to the Galilean wedding and not a general Judean custom unlike some of the other things here)
The bride sleeps with her bridesmaids around the expected time of the wedding. Upon hearing the commotion, they wake up and get the bride ready. She has makeup even on her palms so she can do nothing herself. They all go out to await the groom with lamps.
The grooms party go and grab the bride and hoist her into the litter and take her back to the family compound, followed by bridesmaids and guests. They shut the compound doors and keep them closed for the seven days of the wedding festival.
The families share salt, mixing it into the same dish and break bread to eat with it. Symbol is that they can’t separate themselves after that, no more than they could take back the specific grains of salt that were from them. Covenant of salt. Covenant means the establishing of lasting familial relationships as opposed to a contract, which has an end.
Ananias and Sapphira. I had always read this as divine punishment for their actions. While that is not incorrect, it missed the larger point. Many wealthy people in Jerusalem donated much less to the apostle and were not struck down. That point is that God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of tolerance, and that there can be no unclean thing in the presence of God. We read in those early chapters of Acts that the Holy Ghost was poured out upon them. The Holy Ghost is a full member of the Godhead, and so there could be no unclean thing in its presence. Ananias and Sapphira died for the same reason people died in Exodus - they were not sufficiently prepared to be in the Presence. He cannot tolerate even a little bit of lying or unwillingness to share.
Christ too is God, but during his earthly life people could come into his presence. This was a big reason for him being mortal, he needed to leave behind the glory of God for a time. Thus:
I have honored thee on the Earth by finishing the work thou gavest me. Now, O Father, glorify me with thine own glory which I had at thy side before the world was.
He was able to live among men, go to where they where, and tell them to follow him to where he was going. And he sent the Spirit after he ascended to show them the Way (the trail that is himself that he blazed.)
The church is not now like the early acts church. We do not have all things in common. People aren’t struck dead by the spirit. We have the spirit in only a limited fashion, with perhaps the occasional exception. This is what we now need, because we are far from being able to live in the required holy fashion, to have the spirit poured out upon us. How do we get from here to there? What does one do who has a taste for heaven, wants it above all else, but also knows he is a sinful man?
The cause of LGBTQ+ (According to St. Paul)
Romans 6
21 Because they know God but don’t honor him as God and give thanks, but instead grew foolish in their thoughts, and their useless hearts were darkened. 22Thinking to be wise, they became fools, 23giving up the glory of the incorruptible God for a likeness of corruptible man, or birds, or four footed beasts, or of reptiles.
24 So God gave them up to the impure desire of their hearts, to disgrace their bodies amongst themselves…
26 Yes, God gave them up to ungodly passions; for even their women gave up natural acts for what is against their nature, 27And the men also, in the same way, abandoned natural acts with women and burned in their longing for one another, men acting shamefully with men, and receiving, in turn, the due reward within themselves for their degeneracy.
So teh geh is not caused by genes or choice but ultimately by God. A sort of tenth plague upon the world for not acknowledging and honoring God, but attributing creation to chance. Instead of every household having their oldest son die, every extended family has some gay uncle, son, or daughter. That is … ironic.
I’ve thought it was one of the brokeness of natural man, as a creature separated from its creator. I’ve heard it suggested it is an eventual consequence of pursuing sexual hedonism or pride. That God deliberately causes it is something I never considered. I should also note that St. Paul also ascribes a lot of other vices to cursing by God in the verses not posted here.
The reason for the cause is because they refused to acknowledge God and credit him with the creation of the world. This reads as very modern, with evolution and material scientific explanations crowding out faith, even co-opting believing science such as the ‘big bang’. (Big Bang was originally a derisive term coined to mock a Catholic Priests theory of the universe exploding from nothing.) In many ways, classical antiquity was a lot like our modern day.
It’s hard to believe God gets hung up over a petty determination to get proper credit for things, but the scriptures are clear that he is offended when we don’t recognize the things that he has done for us. Knowing what I know about gratitude, it may be what is happening here is that ingratefulness leads to the master sin of pride, which is the sin, much more so than any others, that may permanently and irrevocably estrange us from God, or at the least retard the progress of his work in us the most. Most sins seem like they can be overcome in the right moment with the right grace, indeed they may be weaknesses given us by God, to aid us to come unto him.
Homosexuality and other degenerate sexualities would then be not a rebellion against God in and of themselves, but a curse that came from rebellion. They are self-enslaved by twisted passions and engorged appetites, which make them dance like puppets on a string. This is all part of God’s plan to redeem everybody. As Jesus said, “this is the will of him that sent me, that I shall lose none…” John 6:39. If he has to leave people to roll around in their own filth for multiple generations before they will consider looking to him, well, he’s going to do what it takes, apart from using force and compulsion.
Christ says that John the Forerunner was the greatest prophet born of woman. Perhaps the curious phrase, “born of woman” is referring to the fact that John had to do his ministry without the aid of the spirit (born of the spirit). I imagine no other major prophet had this constraint, under which the forerunner operated. This is also something interesting for Christ to say to the Apostles, since they were in that same situation at the time. They had to believe and follow Christ, with only Christ before him, and no witness of the spirit. As Jesus said, as long as he was in the world, he was the light of the world.
John’s prophetic calling could not include, “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips” and having his uncleanness burnt off as with a live coal. This purification, this baptism by fire is accomplished by the spirit, which was constrained while Christ walked on the Earth. Christ has power to forgive and purify in person, but perhaps only after he was baptized. So John had to keep himself spotless.
The scriptures say John was full of the Holy Ghost from birth, and in the womb if I’m reading aright what happened when Mary visited Elizabeth. Maybe the Holy Ghost had to leave him when Christ was born, or came of age, and that was why it was important that he be full of the Holy Ghost so young. Maybe the Forerunner was something like Alia of Dune the pre-born. (Or perhaps a similar thought train inspired Alia)
From 2019
First off, this has strengthened my testimony in the Book of Mormon’s claim to be written for our time and for our day. The New Testament most definitely was not. There is much of great value, especially in the gospels, but it’s oriented to the people of its own time first. That said, the first century AD was in many ways a lot more like today than the intervening centuries.
I’ve read arguments about the resurrection based on their being baptisms for the dead. I’ve read long arguments about why Jesus was a lot more than an angel. We do not share a lot of assumptions and preconceived notions in common with these people. What is still the same is the Lord.
What particularly struck me is the reassurance over and over that the Lord will bring all things in order under himself.
I was also struck by the persistent theme that powers, principalities, princes etc. would be subjected to him - eventually. To them, these may have meant something specific, but that is lost. Governments, society, spiritual powers, even guardian angels who are perhaps not in outright rebellion but adding to their tasks by their own lights? In any case I will refer to them as the Powers that Be. There is the strong implication that the world is screwed up because the Powers the Be, are not strictly following Gods plans - either in open rebellion or because they think they know best how to do something. It clearly says that these powers do not know God’s mind (for example, Jesus says that no one, not even himself knows the day of his coming, the father alone, and it appears that what Jesus did was also a closely held secret from the foundation of the world. The demons resisting Christ did not know the end game and unwittingly played into his plans re his death. There are re-assurances, such as the pointed reference in Peter to what happened to the watchers and Nephilim at the time of the flood that God has this all under control, though it may take a while to play out.
This is a strikingly different idea than what I’ve had. In particular, could the demons not be aware of what Christ was to be? Surely that would not have escaped them? The scriptures are not that obtuse, especially seeing as they would have access to all of them. Then again if they can transfer information from person to person they would be a powerful force. That must simply not happen. Perhaps they can only speak to us on a level other than that of information. Thus all the references to light and darkness.
One final thought on the powers that be. Even though they are not perfectly aligned with God’s will, and sometimes are actively opposing it, we are to be subject to them. God will bring them in line in his own time and way. That does not mean we are to love them over God. Not at all. We are still to pray for that more perfect world, for his kingdom to come, for everything to follow the order he set for them.
Now, for a phrase that occurs over and over. To him be the power, the might, the glory and praise forever and ever. Amen.
I didn’t notice all of the hymns to Christ in the New Testament in prior readings. (Doxologies I believe they call ’em.) I laid them out in line format, as befits poetry, and they are awesome.
Think like Christ who:
Living in God’s form, Did not demand equality with God Grasping at the prize, Instead he poured himself out, Into a slave’s shape, Coming to be as man--almost; In human shape He humbled himself, Became obedient to the death, Even to death by a cross. For which God exalted him on high And freely gave him the name The most high name, Thus at the name of Jesus Every knee should bend In heaven, on earth and below— And every tongue gladly confess That Jesus Christ is Lord, To the glory of God the Father.
Pour out is an image used several times by Paul as well as in this hymn, referring, I think, to libations.
As it’s said:
“Arise, sleeper, stand up
From among the dead,
The light of Christ,
will shine upon you.”
Sleep(er) is how the early Saints referred to the dead.
I was forcefully struck by how the epistle of James ties into the events in Acts.
Loose tongues are a fire: The church became disunited over arguments about widow’s meals, and so God withdrew his protection. Dissidents (the freemen synagogue) got them in trouble, Stephen really let the council have it (loose tongue), unlike Peter and John earlier who were much more conciliatory, explaining that they had to follow their consciences. In reading Stephens's speech, trying to think like a Pharisee, and keeping in mind this is a murderous bunch who already had blood on their hands, I am amazed that they didn’t kill him earlier. This intemperate approach caused a lot of trouble and caused the church to be scattered. Under these circumstances, James wrote his letter. I think specifically, this was in the works when Paul came to Jerusalem, and his intemperate approach consolidated it, and made James (and probably Peter) realize the need to communicate to the branches. I don’t think Paul ever read the Epistle, but he spoke of some of the things in it with James. I see a lot of echoes of it in his epistles.
All things in common no longer. One of the objectives of the epistle was to deal with the post “all-things-in-common” state of the church. James talks about how rich men should not get preferential treatment in the church, expanding the meaning of the phrase God is no respecter of persons. In the OT, it meant that rich people would not get preferential treatment in court, or at judgement day. I think Peter had read this letter, and this phrase was on his mind, when he was led to Cornelius. He expanded the meaning of that phrase even further, and it is peppered throughout the following epistles.
Decentralization of the church. Telling people they need to ask god for guidance, and do good works on their own initiative. They didn’t have the apostles directly running things anymore.
Paul is a very complex character. Passionate, with a burning desire to excel. Not always very perceptive or considerate of other people. The episode in Acts where he is healing right and left in Ephesus strikes me as false. I don’t doubt he had the gifts of prophecy, and of knowledge, and (less perfectly) pure love, but I don’t believe him a healer. The youth falling out the window incident, yes, but that was prophecy, not healing.
The Gospels. I was very struck by the part in John where Jesus says, “I am the vine and my father is the master husbandmen. He prunes me severely so I may bear fruit and cuts off any branch in me that is unfruitful.” and later in the epistles it describes Christ as being made righteous so he could make his followers righteous. (John also possibly says the same things, but I’m skeptical I’ve fully penetrated his meanings clearly.)
This is a revelation to me. I had always assumed that Christ was naturally perfect and just grew along in the paths of perfection as blissful as a young calf frolicking in the field. No. It was a painful arduous process, of self-negation. Deny yourselves, take up your cross, and follow me. Should we be surprised if our process of being made perfect sometimes wrenches us to our core. Or, as it says, ‘Have you resisted sin til it bleeds?’.