Gaye Strathearn Wonder of Scripture Lecture

Transcript

Thank you for that warm introduction and welcome. As I've been looking at the people who have been part of this lecture series, I thought to myself ‘they're in an academic stratosphere that I'm not even close to”, but the reason I said yes here to this was because of the title of the lecture series, The Wonder of Scripture, because I have felt that for every fiber of my being, not every day, but I've certainly felt it and so today, really, what I want to talk about is just two examples, personal examples, where that wonder has been so real and influential to me. One of them is really simple. It comes from the simplicity of use, but the other one is a little bit more complicated.

So I wanted to start off with an example from a time when I was 11. And I'm actually not sure how old I am in that one, but it's around about 11, so I figured I'd do it. And I thought this was the best one that kind of shows that maybe I have, at least my mother would think a little bit of angelicness as I'm thinking about the wonder of Scripture. So that was one of them. Then I thought of this one. Obviously, I'm not 11 there, but this is where, and I know that I am not speaking doctrinally or theologically correctly, because this, for me, is a place called Mooloolaba and this is, in my mind, the Garden of Eden, right? I know that's wrong, but for me, it was paradise growing up. But the reality is, when I was 11, this is probably what represents me better in terms of the kind of young teenager I was, and that might make you laugh a little bit in terms of when you hear this story.

So here we go. When I grew up in a very, very small branch of the church, right? You know, 30 people like, and when I was about seven and a half, a family was baptized into our branch, a family that had never happened, ever for us, and part of that family is that their oldest was a son, and he was my age, and we became thick as thieves, right? We just did everything together. We were baptized on the same day as was Eileen, who was my other partner in crime here, and we just did everything together. So this friend's name was John, and he was a couple of months older than me, and he, for his birthday-he was turning 12, his parents gave him a missionary triple combination.

Now this is dating me, I know, but missionary scriptures were different then, right? Normally, scriptures were kind of just had cardboard covers. They had the really thick paper. They certainly didn't have the nice stuff that we now have, and they didn't have thumb, whatever you call those things. See, I can't do it for this either; fun things, where you could find the books and things like that, they didn't have bookmarks or something like this, right? They just didn't have any of that. But he got one of those. And because I did everything with John, I wanted one of those as well. I lusted after it, actually. So I went up to my mother and thought, you know, this is a this is a righteous desire, I mean. So I said, Mum, Mum, can I have a missionary triple combination? And she looked at me and go, no. And I was a bit taken back by that, but she said, look, we've got plenty of scriptures out there which showed that she just didn't understand was what I was experienced. Because I didn't want those ones out there that everybody had. I wanted a missionary one, thumb, tabs, thin pages, et cetera, et cetera. And so I thought, well, maybe she just didn't understand my righteous desire. So I tried it again and again, and she kept going nope, nope. There's a plenty out there. Just use those.

So I was a little devastated by that actually, I wasn't expecting that in any way, shape or form. So every now and then I'd come back and say, you know, you changed your mind, and she'd go, No. So then I thought, hey, so I'm going to have to change my tack. And so I went away and taught what would be Plan B, and my plan B was to go up and I said to her mum, if I save up the money, can I get my missionary triple combination? And then she gave me the answer I wanted, right? Yes, you can do that. I didn't know how I was going to do that, but in my day, it was going to cost me $12.50 to save up to get that. And I don't know how I did it, whether I did lots and lots of chores, or whether I saved up cans or bottles. I had no memory of that, but the day came when I had my $12.50 now I have to say something about my mum here to make sure that you don't misunderstand my mum. At that time, Australia was going through a recession, and many, and particularly in the building sector, and so my father had lost his job, his company with it, and so we were really, really tight, and that's what mum was really thinking about. So I have to give credit where credit is due but I didn't realize that at the time until much later.

Anyway, I remember the day that I had my $12.50 in hand, and we got in the car, it was an hour and a half drive to the church bookstore, and I gave them my money, and I got my first missionary triple combination. I came home and I spent the night just sitting in the couch, opening up so carefully, you know how you got to unstick all of the pages, and I went through and unstuck all of those pages. And I don't know how many hours that took, but it was important. But then I had this missionary triple combination. I thought, well, what on earth am I going to do with it? Right? And so I was at my sister's place. She'd recently been married, and I was just hanging around there, and I found my brother in law's missionary scriptures. And I thought, oh, so I opened them up, and I had a look, right? And he had color coded all of His scriptures, right? Purple was apostasy, red was resurrection, green was baptism, whatever it was. And I thought, oh, if this is what a missionary does, then I've got missionary scriptures. Maybe that's what I should do as an 11 year old.

And so I sat down and I went through every page of that triple combination, and I colored in the things. And he had little like tabs there too. So all of the green were here, all of the red, all of the colors, so you could find them easily. And I don't know how long I took doing that, and he had, he had comments that he had made in the margin, and so I decided to do them. And as an 11 year old, I had pretty good handwriting. University life has killed that now, but I did then, and I could do it small, and I wrote everything in. And I don't know how long it took me, but something happened inside of me doing this because I started reading what I was coloring and going, Oh, that's kind of interesting. Oh, I like that. And it went over and over and over again as I was going through this triple combination.

Well, for Christmas that year, I was really, really excited that I opened one of my presents for my parents, and it was a Bible, a missionary Bible, right? I don't think it's something that I specifically asked for, but it's certainly something that I wanted. And so I began this journey again because I was up in Mooloolaba, and this time I was going through my the Bible and doing the same kinds of things and the wonder of Scripture hit me in powerful ways of an 11 year old, actually, I was 12 by then, by Christmas, and it affected me throughout my teenage years in ways that I had never imagined or expected. I've often wondered if I would have had the same reaction if Mum had said, Oh yeah, here big go get a triple. But the fact that I had to work for it made it all the more precious for me, as I was going through.

So that was my first example of the wonder of Scripture, and its effect was palpable for me. The second one that I want to share is a little bit more complicated, and so it's going to take a little bit more effort to do it. But this came as I decided to come to BYU. Well, no, it started when I went to Israel as a study abroad there and started learning from teachers. I had read everything I could get hold of by myself, but there was something that happened with a teacher, right? And especially a teacher who knew the text really, really well and could help me navigate what I call the prickly passages in Scripture. And so they kind of started me down a very, very different journey in life.

So, I wanted to think about editors and scriptural editors. When I grew up, I heard all the time about the editors of the Book of Mormon, right? Mormon and Moroni, we have things like, how many times do we read that? Not even 1/100 part of all of the things were these editors able to keep in our current record of the Book of Mormon? We see Mormon using the writings of Alma to create a new record that we have for us today, but I never heard much about talking about biblical editors and for me, as I started in my journey, this became a really, really important thing to me. We know that Mormon and Moroni say, “and thus we see” so they give us side, little flags to help us as readers say, "Oh, the editor is saying something here”, and in the biblical text, we also see those kinds of things. But it's not “thus we see”. And I see real value in this that has helped me in my wonder of scriptures as well.

So, as we think about biblical editors, there's a couple of things that in academic discourse scholars are generally agreed on, and one is that Mark and something called Markan Priority, meaning that Mark was probably the person who invented the genre of a gospel, that he probably wrote the first of the Gospels, and that Matthew and Luke would use his writings for the basic setup of their of their own gospels. And since Mark's gospel was mostly about what Jesus did rather than what he said, then Luke and Matthew kind of get the story line, basically, and the basic chronology from Mark's gospel. And then they're going to get the sayings of Jesus from other sources, and then they have stuff that's unique to them. Scholars have often noticed, and they say this maybe with a little bit of tongue in cheek, but not really. They say Matthew, as an editor, is really, really active in the first half of his gospel. But then they say he kind of goes to sleep in the second half, right? So he's not as visibly seen as much in terms of these editing activities. So I want to set the scene and kind of talk about some stuff in Matthew's gospels that'll lead me to where I really want to spend the rest of my time today.

I want to talk about something called an inclusio. It's a scriptural term that's used in scriptures all over the place, although I'm just going to look at one of these here. So I call an inclusio a bookend. And a bookend is if you look at a text that you have a verse or a passage of scripture that says something, and then you have some chapters in between, or some verses in between, and then you get another passage of scripture that says pretty much the same thing. We see this in Third Nephi when Jesus is defining the word gospel for us. He says, “This is my gospel”, and then He talks, and then, “and this is my gospel”. That's an inclusio. And what that means is, if He starts with gospel and ends with gospel, everything in between is probably talking about gospel, right? And this happens with Matthew as well.

So, here it is. If you have your scriptures, please turn to it. But I've put it up here just for quickness of time. But if we go to Matthew chapter four, verse 23 we have the beginning of one of these inclusios, and it says, and you're probably familiar with it, verse 23 “and Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing, all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.” So as Jesus embarks upon His ministry, what's He doing? He's going about teaching and preaching and healing, right? The two things. Now, if you go to Matthew chapter nine and look at verse 20, it's not 23, what is it? Matthew 9:35, look what it says here, “And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.” And so I've tried to put here what the stuff is that these two verses have in common, right? So both of them are talking about [how] Jesus went about teaching, preaching and healing, right?

So if Matthew four says that, and Matthew nine says that, what does that suggest to us as readers about what's happening in between these verses? What are they going to be about? Teaching and preaching! And if you have your scriptures, I hope that you kind of just kind of go through so what is in between these two verses? In chapter five, we have the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, which is the example of Jesus doing what, teaching and preaching, right? And that goes to chapter seven. So that's the example of Him preaching. But then look at verses eight and nine there. What would you expect to be in those two verses, those two chapters? Jesus’ healings, right? So look through those verses, those chapters. And what do you find? Matthew, and this is one of the things that Matthew does as an editor, he has gone and collected all of these miracles that Jesus has done, and he's put them into chapters eight and nine, right? Mark has those miracles spread throughout Jesus' ministry, but Matthew's putting them here for a reason, right? Because he wants to show that Jesus is the Messiah of word and deed. Does that make sense?

Right, now, let's come now to the next one, and let's go to Matthew chapter 11, because I think that Matthew is intentionally doing this to prepare us for a story that's going to happen in chapter 11. Okay? So, chapter 11 is the story; John the Baptist is in prison, and he sends his disciples to Jesus. And so if we read in verse, with some questions, in verse three of chapter 11, he asked the disciples to see Jesus, and asked this question, “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?” Now the Greek for “he that should come” is a Greek phrase. It's called ho erchomenos. You don't have, there's no test on this, right? But it's ho erchomenos. That's kind of an interesting passage. And there's only found one other time prior to Matthew there's only one other time where we find that ho erchomenos. And I'm going to read it to you because you're familiar with it. I'm sure.

This is in Matthew chapter three, verse 11, and this is where John the Baptist is baptizing, right? And he talks about that, that someone is going to come and he's going to be in judgment. And then verse 11, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but ho erchomenos, but the Coming One who is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you with Holy Ghost and with fire,” right? So the question is, Who is this ho erchomenos? Matthew doesn't tell us right here, although we assume it, because what's the story that comes immediately after this passage? It's the baptism of Jesus, right? And so it's assumed, but it's not stated.

But in chapter 11, John the Baptist is saying to his disciples, you go to Jesus and ask Him, Are you ho erchomenos? Are you the one that was talked about back in chapter three? And Jesus' answer is really quite interesting, because He doesn't say yes or no. Notice how He responds: “And Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and show John again those things which you do hear and see.” And one of the things that He's asking, that Jesus teaches and does, verse five, “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” So the question is, what's Jesus' answer to the question, are you ho erchomenos? Is He saying yes, or is He saying no by the answer that He gives? What do you think? Yes, and what's your evidence for that? Right? It's a 50/50, and something, right? Yes 50, or heads it is and tails it's not. But Matthew has prepared us as readers, right, to know that what Jesus is saying here is that I am the Coming One, which is a messianic title that is used here.

So where has he done this? How do we find out what the poor have the gospel preached to them, what part of this story is giving evidence that that is true. Jesus does that. What's the preaching part, the Sermon on the Mount, which begins the name, the title, Sermon on the Mount isn’t until Augustine. It was never called that in Jesus’ day. In antiquity, it was often the first line that is the name of the document. So, how does the Sermon on the Mount begin? Jesus takes them up into a mountain, and what's the first thing He teaches? Blessed are the poor. The same word used here in 11:5. It's the only other place up until this point that that word, ptōchoi, is used. This is a connection that Matthew expects us to see. So where are the examples? How do we know that Jesus is the ho erchomenos? Because of the miracles that He does. How do we know that He did give the blind their sight? It's because back in chapters eight and nine, where He's collected miracle stories that He has an example of that. How do we know that the lame walk? Because He's collected that back in chapters eight and nine. How do we know that He healed lepers? Back in that chapter, right, the death here. Now this is a more difficult one, because it's not easy to see, but the word for death here is kóphos. And so if you go back to chapter nine, verse 32, “and they went out and they brought unto him a dumb man.” Any ideas what that word for dumb is in Greek? It's kóphos, right? That's the example of that happening. And then He says, the dead are raised up. And we've got an example of that in verses eight and nine.

So, what's the evidence that Jesus is the Coming One? It's because Matthew, as an editor, has created the story for you and I to prepare us so that we understand the answer to that question. I know that that's complicated, right? I told you this would be the complex part, right? But does that make sense? Right? Matthew is being Moroni, and he's putting in place things that readers should get out, he expects readers to see. Okay, so that's just the background stuff.

So what I'd like you to do is to come with me now to Matthew chapter eight, and I just want to talk about one of those miracles, and the miracles I'm interested in is the miracle of the stilling of the storm. Again, I'm assuming that you're fairly familiar with this, and it makes sense that this story in Matthew's Gospel is in a chapter of miracles, right? But there's something else going on here that I think is really interesting. Can you go with me, too, or the verses that immediately precede the stilling of the storm miracle? And I've had them up here so that you can see them as you don't want to go. But this is what they say. “And now Jesus saw great multitudes about him, and he gave commandment to depart unto the other side. And a certain scribe came and said unto him, ‘Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.’” Now that's a technical phrase here. Jesus said often to come or to follow me, and in Matthew's Gospel in particular, that is an invitation to discipleship, right?

So here's a scribe saying, “Master, I want to be your disciple. Wherever you go, I'll follow.” And this is Jesus' answer, and you say, do you understand the cost of what you're saying that you're going to do? “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath nowhere to lay his head.” Do you understand what it's going to mean if you follow me? Do you understand what you're going to have to give up to be a disciple? I don't have a home. Are you willing to forego that as well as part of being a disciple? And then verse 21 and another of His disciples said unto him, “Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my dead [before I come and follow you is implied], And Jesus said unto him, follow me now and let the dead bury the dead.”

So here's my question for us, what did we say? These two chapters are about? Matthew has collected what? Miracles? No, in these ones, it's miracles, right? But these verses aren't about miracles. What are these verses about? Discipleship! So I'm asking myself the question, why do we have these discipleship verses in a chapter where Matthew has intentionally, intentionally gathered together the miracles of Jesus from all over his ministry to put them here? And why is it that these verses are placed here? He could have put them at the beginning of the chapter. He could have put them at the end of the chapter, but he chose to put them here, to follow, to precede, the miracle of the stilling of the storm. I would suggest to you again that this is a conscious effort on Matthew's part, because he's giving us as readers, a lens through which we can understand the miracle of the stilling of the storm, and this is going to be very different than what Mark and Luke are going to do. They probably, like most of us, when we think of the miracle of the stilling of the storm, are thinking about this is a miracle about God's power over the elements, right? But in Matthew, he's setting it up differently. Here he's setting it up as we should look at it in terms of, what does this teach us about discipleship?

Okay, I'm just going to dim the lights a little bit, if that's okay, because I want us to see some things. All right, so what I've gone through and done here, and this is not original work to me, but this was wonder of Scripture to me. This is from a great German scholar named Günther Bornkamm, and this changed everything for me about studying the scriptures. All right, so can you see what I've done here? I've put the three stories, the three versions of the stilling of the storm, into columns. So, I want us to see how Matthew is editing Mark's story. Okay, so you can see that there's some stuff here that Mark has that Matthew doesn't feel is important for his story, right? Luke is going to cover him pretty well, but then notice the story here, “behold,” Mark says “there arose a great storm of wind.” Luke is going to follow Mark in talking about what is happening here. But look what Matthew does. He does something different. He doesn't have a storm of wind. What does he have? A tempest, right? And the Greek word here, I'm going to tell you it, but you're going to hear it in English. And no, the word that he uses here is seismos. What does that sound like to you in English? Huh? Earthquake, and the word in English is what? Seismic, right? So here we have storms of wind. But Matthew is saying something else is happening here. This is a different type of storm. Does that make sense, right? And why is this important? Well, I'll come back to that.

All right. Next thing, so there's this storm. They're on the waves. They're in a ship. Jesus is asleep in there, and people are afraid, and so they come and wake him up right? Now, notice how Mark and Luke do this and Matthew is different. So the disciples come to Jesus, and in Mark and Luke, they say, “Master, carest thou not that we perish? We're afraid here come and help us.” And he arose, and then he rebuked the wind and said unto the sea, “Peace, be still.” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm, right? And then He asks the disciples, “Why are ye so fearful? How is it that you have no faith,” or in Luke's notion, “Where is your faith?” Now look what Matthew has done, he's changed this a little bit. Number one, he doesn't call Jesus Master or Great Teacher or something like that. Instead, he uses the word Lord–kurios. Which can be translated as master. But in the New Testament as well, it takes on a technical term. It's the name of the Jehovah of the Old Testament who came to Moses. This is God, right? And what does he say? “God, save us.” So they're all interested, they think they're going to die, but save us. But notice what Matthew does before he is going to settle the storm and the winds and the waves. He asked the question, “Why are you fearful? Oh, ye of little faith.” You see what Matthew has done. He switched the order, right? He asked the question first, and then he's going to heal or settle the storm and the winds and the waves. So where is Matthew putting his emphasis? The fact that he's changed it, he's edited Mark’s to put the question about faith first. He's putting that an emphasis. This story is about faith and faithfulness as much as it is about stilling winds and the waves, right?

So I can imagine that you're all thinking about this. Why should I care about this? Why should I take some time to think about this? But I think that this is a really, very important thing, and I'm going to go back to the one before, and let me tell you why. This story opens with Jesus and His disciples, those who are willing to pay the cost of being disciples, entering into a ship. Now, in early Christianity, a ship becomes even in the New Testament, the ship becomes a metaphor for the church. So Jesus is inviting people to be His disciples, to come and follow Him, which means getting into the ship. Now I don't know what the disciples thought about when they were getting into the ship with Jesus. Did they think, and this is going to date me. Did they think it was going to be like Gilligan's Island, and they're going to go for a three hour cruise, three hour cruise before- Yeah, I can see who's old, right? -as opposed to the winds and the waves and the storms coming up, right? So here we are. The disciples have chosen to get into the ship, to join the church, to be with Jesus, but then all of the seismic activity happens, and this word seismus, in the New Testament in other places, is often a reference for the cataclysmic events that will take place associated with the Second Coming. Right? This is more than just winds and waves. This is about disciples entering into the church, and are they willing to stay in the boat, even when everything around them is a threat to them, and you'll notice that they'll go and wake up, Jesus, right? And say, why are you asleep? We need you, wake up! Do something about this! And in Matthew it is, why are you so? Why are you afraid? I'm here. Why do you have so little faith in me? I'm here. I may be asleep, but I'm here. And so the quote Matthew here is trying to help us say disciples, when things get rough, they don't turn away, they don't jump out of the boat that isn't going to bring them the safety that they need and they desire, the safety in the midst of all of these winds and these waves and these events is in the boat, because that is where Jesus is, right. That's where the safety is.

And so if we're going to be disciples of Jesus Christ, and not just, I make a distinction between disciples and followers. A follower is a person who follows Jesus, as long as he's giving them something they want: free food or healing the sick or something like that. But as soon as things get tough, they say, Well, I'm out of here. Let me give you an example of this, not in Matthew but in John's Gospel. John chapter six, full of pathos here. They've come to Him, day two because Jesus fed the 5000 the day before, and they came back the second day because they thought, oh, free food, right? But Jesus said, I'm not here to give you food whenever you want it. And he gave one of the most magnificent sermons. That he gives the bread of life story, and then notice how it shows up. Verse 22. No, I lie. Verse 66 “from that time, many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him.” Why? Because they weren't getting free food. You note the pathos in Jesus' response here. “Then Jesus turns to the 12 and said, Are you also going to abandon me?” And then Peter, bless his heart. This is the first real time that we start seeing him step up to the plate, and he said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of life, of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” This is what it means to be a disciple. In good times, but especially in difficult times. You stay following him, you stay in the church, because that's where the safety is, because that's where the Savior is.

So what do I mean about this and why is this important to me? If I go back to chapter 11, and I think about all of these miracles, the blind receive their sight. I have no knowledge of that. I have no experience with that. I believe it was true, but I've never seen that. The lame walk. I've been the recipient of that miracle that's for another day. Lepers are cleansed. I've never seen that. The deaf hear. I've never seen that. The dead raised. I've never seen that, although I wanted that so desperately. When my sister passed away, way too young, I prayed and prayed for a miracle for her, but it wasn't God's will, and we lost her. Then two years later, to the day, her 30 something year old daughter, mother of three young children, passed away as well. We prayed and prayed for that, but it wasn't God's will. So I don't have any experience with that miracle. But what is Matthew telling me? These miracles happen. God has the power to make these happen according to His will and His timing. But not all of us are going to experience those kind of miracles.

But the miracle that Matthew wants to have us see is the miracle of salvation that is available to each and every one of us, without exception, if we're willing to stay in the boat with him, and that is a miracle that I can hang on to, that is a miracle that I can trust in. That is a miracle that I see working daily in my life. I love this story, and I love what Matthew does with it. This is the wonder of Scripture for me, not in the simplified version of what I had at an 11 year old, but it's in a powerful way that doesn't come from a quick read, but it comes from thinking carefully and deeply and asking questions of the text.

So let me finish with this. This is President Ballard, and he said in 2015 “President Brigham Young said, we are on the Old Ship Zion, God is at the helm and will stay there. He dictates, guides and directs, if the people will have implicit confidence in their God, never forsake their covenants nor their God, He will guide us right, hold tight, brothers and sisters and sail on within the glorious ship, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and we will reach our eternal destination.” President Ballard is teaching us the same thing that Matthew is trying to teach us, but he's coming at it from a slightly different direction.

I love this stuff. I love the wonder of Scripture that has come into my life, and I thank God for the blessings of the Scriptures and how they bring me to Christ and better understand the depths of His love and His opportunities for me. Of these things I testify in the name of Jesus, Christ, Amen.