Jesus’ Mortal Life Archive
Mormons frequently define charity as the pure love of Christ, quoting the Book of Mormon prophet Mormon. They teach that when they serve others, they are also serving God, and they turn to the example of the Savior in deciding how to serve others.
During His mortal ministry, Jesus Christ was asked which commandment was the greatest or most important. He answered, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
For the Savior, love and charity were identical. All of His acts of charity were done not from a sense of duty, but from a deep feeling of love for all He encountered. He didn’t limit His service to His friends, although He served His friends as well. He didn’t limit it to those who were wealthy or middle class. He... Read the rest of this entry »
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas. Video used with permission of Foundation Arts.
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Luke is the longest Gospel of the four and as much as half of the material in Luke is unique to his Gospel providing additional information about Jesus Christ.
The Gospel of Luke is the first half of a two-part work (Luke-Acts). The Gospel informs the reader what Jesus said and did and the Book of Acts reveal what Jesus did through the Holy Spirit following his ascension—a continuous story that was composed to be read together.
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Now, . . . what do men and women find when they discover the true Messiah? Finding the Messiah is the greatest of all discoveries. If we were to discuss the most important thing about Jesus the Messiah, what would it be? If we were to go home today to our families and say, “We have found the Messiah!” what would we say about Him? What is the most important thing about Him that we could tell another person? Would it be His height or weight, the color of His hair, the style of His clothes, the tone of His voice? Everything about Jesus Christ is important any any true detail or concept would be worth knowing, but what would be the single most important thing to find out about Him? I could answer that with my own opinion, but let us take a cue from what the scriptures say about Christ. Read the rest of this entry »
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The Gospels provide some possible hints why Jesus left the village of his youth as he began his ministry.
Jesus Christ was associated with Nazareth through his entire ministry. Even at the end, Pilate placed above his cross a sign, “Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews” (John 19:19; emphasis added). He is associated with Nazareth at some point. Joseph and Mary (Jesus’ mother) moved to Nazareth, a small village in Galilee a few years after Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem in Judea (Matthew 2:19-23) where he apparently lived until he appeared on the Jordan River to be baptized by John the Baptist. Read the rest of this entry »
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In a previous post, we have shown that the entire human race existed as spirit-beings in the primeval world, and that for the purpose of making possible to them the experiences of mortality this earth was created. They were endowed with the powers of agency or choice while yet but spirits; and the divine plan provided that they be free-born in the flesh, heirs to the inalienable birthright of liberty to choose and to act for themselves in mortality. It is undeniably essential to the eternal progression of God’s children that they be subjected to the influences of both good and evil, that they be tried and tested and proved withal, “to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them” (Job 38:7). Free agency is an indispensable element of such a test. Read the rest of this entry »
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Yes! Jesus Christ had a high respect for women, often including them as positive role models of faith and dedication in his teaching and parables (see, for example, the widow of Zarephath who fed Elijah, Luke 4:25-26; and the woman who gave her two mites into the treasury, Mark 12:42-44). Although the New Testament accounts of the women who followed Jesus are limited in their number and scope, it is still clear that they played a role in Jesus Christ‘s ministry.
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Why is Jesus Christ associated with Nazareth?
Nazareth, a small village in Upper Galilee, was the boyhood home of Jesus. Joseph and Mary, according to the New Testament, returned there sometime after Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, a small town in Judea in the south (Matthew 2:23). From Jesus’ youth until he was thirty years of age, Nazareth was his home.
During this period it was not uncommon for a person to be identified with the town where he or she was born or lived (see for example Luke 8:2 where Mary of Magdala is mentioned). As a result, Jesus Christ is identified with Nazareth some seventeen times in the New Testament as “Jesus of Nazareth.”
Even in his death, though he had left Nazareth nearly three years earlier, Jesus was identified with the small village off the main road in the hills of Galilee: “And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews” (John 19:19).
A few years later, following... Read the rest of this entry »
Among the four canonical Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke are sometimes referred to as the “Synoptic Gospels.” Literally, synoptic means “with the same eye” and refers to the fact that these Gospels share the same material and are closely related to each other.
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The apocryphal letters that purportedly gave a physical description of Jesus Christ have long since been recognized as inauthentic. Post-New Testament authors often let their imaginations roam on issues that were either not clear or totally absent from the New Testament itself, providing for their readers information that the New Testament authors did not provide. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John most likely never imagined that readers in the twenty-first century would be interested in Jesus‘ height, the length of his hair, the color of his eyes, or the color of his beard-if he had one.
Often a subtle tension exists between the idea of Jesus as a model of mental and physical perfection and the idea expressed in Isaiah that “when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). This passage raises some intriguing questions. What does Isaiah mean when he says that the mortal Messiah would have “no beauty”? And should we consider that... Read the rest of this entry »
