followHIM - 2 Corinthians 8-13 Part 1 • Dr. Joseph Spencer • Sept 18 - Sept 24

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

How are we like the Corinthians in our offerings? Dr. Joseph Spencer examines Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians and remembering the poor, giving with love, and the purpose of offerings.Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/new-testament-episodes-31-40/YouTube: https://youtu.be/bPVIRxODOrMFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/15G9TTz8yLp0dQyEcBQ8BYPlease rate and review the podcast!00:00 Part 1–Dr. Joseph Spencer02:09 Introduction of Dr. Joseph Spencer03:22 Background to the letter05:24 Reconciliation after 1 Corinthians06:15 Possible third letter06:57 Paul fulfills Isaiah07:44 Paul asks for donations11:05 Becoming a cheerful giver14:07 N.T. Wright’s translation 16:28 Jesus’s example of generosity19:17 The practicality of giving22:13 Paul’s strategy for offerings24:27 Doing what we can27:23 Inspiration vs competition29:43 Parallels to King Benjamin31:31 Hanks shares a personal story about fast offerings34:10 Needs of the body and the heart35:37 God’s unspeakable gift36:35 Paul’s parodic boasting40:21 Revelation and trial44:39 Parallels to Moroni47:44 Ether 12 connections49:43 Faith, love, and a capacity for pain54:26 End of Part I–Dr. Joseph SpencerThanks to the followHIM team:Shannon Sorensen: Cofounder, Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignAnnabelle Sorensen: Creative Project ManagerWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of the backstory of what that place on the Isthmus that had so much commerce and travel and everything. And you kind of get a sense of this was a real gathering place for a lot of people and for travelers and a lot of worldliness there. And so when you read what Paul's addressing, you're like, yup, yup, yup, when you see that. So I'm excited to see how he finishes in this second letter. I've noticed that Paul has a lot of interaction with these Corinthian saints. He spent 18 months with them, as we learned in the book of Acts. And then the back and forth with these letters, there's a letter that we're told is there,

but we don't have. There's also what Paul calls a painful visit. This back and forth seems to me like a friendship almost. It has ups and downs. It's, I love you. What are you doing? I love you. We've got to address some problems.

John, we have a Bible expert here with us today. He wouldn't call himself a Bible expert, but I think he is. His name is Dr. Joseph Spencer. I like to call him Joe. Joe, what are we looking forward to today with the last lesson here in Corinthians? There's a lot here. We'll be looking at really kind of two blocks of text, a couple of chapters in which Paul is talking about a collection that's being gathered for the saints in Jerusalem. There's some interesting things to dig into there, but then especially the last four chapters here,

kind of Paul's parting words to the Corinthian saints, at least by way of letter and some really beautiful teachings about weakness and grace. So lots, lots we can play around with today. This sounds fantastic. Sounds like we're going to learn a lot. Hey, John, Joe is new to our podcast. He's not new to me. We've been friends for many years, but he's new to our podcast. Why don't you tell everybody about him? Yeah, we're excited to have Dr. Joseph M. Spencer. He's a philosopher, associate professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University. He has degrees from Brigham Young University, San Jose State, and the University of New Mexico, where he got his PhD in philosophy.

He's the author of seven books, co-editor of four collections of essays. He serves as the editor of the Journal of Book Mormon Studies and is the associate director of Latter-day Saint Theology Seminar, a co-editor for the Introductions to Mormon Thought. And he and his wife, Karen, live in Provo with their five children. His latest book is called A Word in Season, and the subtitle is Isaiah's Reception in the Book of Mormon, and that will be published in November. And I'm excited to see that. It's kind of like, why is Isaiah in there, and how is it perceived among early readers of the Book of Mormon? Yeah, I mean, the question I'm trying to sort out in the book is just how unique is the Book

of Mormon's handling of Isaiah if you put it in conversation with the larger history of Christians and Jews and reading Isaiah and making sense of it. Yeah. Well, we may have to have you back next year when we take on the Book of Mormon, right, Hank? Absolutely. Joe is an expert there as well. So Joe, I want to jump right in here, but can we do a little bit of review? I mentioned earlier that Paul spent 18 months, a year and a half, with these Corinthian saints, basically raised up this branch, leaves, and 1 Corinthians is his response to all the problems he's heard about since being away. What has happened since then?

Why do we get a second letter? And more than just a second letter, right? There are letters that he wrote that we know of, or at least one that we know of that we don't have. Of course, he may have had other correspondence. He's one of the first missionaries there, it seems, and helps to, yeah, found this branch, as you put it. Though he baptizes only one person, I think, there, right? He sort of leaves to others that work. He does a lot of preaching, it seems. But then he keeps a kind of close eye on the Corinthian saints. So he has a further visit at some later point, what he calls his painful visit, his tearful visit, that seems to have been very, very difficult. It's not clear exactly what happened. But from 1 Corinthians,

it's clear that things are rocky in Corinth with the saints. There's a lot of factional spirit about it, right? A kind of tribalism, which isn't at all relevant in the 21st century, I'm sure. And a great deal of sort of trying to figure out novel ways to think about the Christian revelation, right? And in ways that then lead to all these kinds of problems, as well as just some straightforward sinfulness that Paul has to address. I remember going up to some of those Greek temples where they have the prostitution and saying, well, we're free in Christ, right? So we can do what we want. And then didn't he talk quite a bit about food, if I remember right? Yeah, there's all this battle about, well, if we have what he calls Christian license,

we have the freedom in Christ to do basically anything, then we can eat whatever we want. And he's like, well, it's a little more complicated than that. Got to figure out how to get along together. And sometimes your freedom is leading other people into trouble. But let's reconcile. I still love you. Does that sound right for the beginning? Yeah. And ties it to a kind of doctrine of reconciliation with us and God. So he can sort of take his own experience and make it a reflection of the gospel itself. One of my favorite parts of reading was, where is your letters of recommendation and pulse responses? I started this branch. You are my letters of recommendation. Are you kidding me? So with that background, Joe, lead us into chapter eight. Where do you want to go? How do

you want to start this? Yeah, so chapters eight and nine form a unit. And in fact, many scholars have played with the possibility that chapters eight and nine were from an independent letter and kind of got sandwiched in here or something like that. There's a kind of an abrupt shift at the beginning of chapter eight and an abrupt shift again at the beginning of chapter 10. So what we have going on here, Paul is talking to the Corinthian saints about something that shows up in bits and pieces across his letters. So scholars have had to reconstruct the situation here. But with some reconstruction, it's really, really helpful to know. So Paul, after he began his ministry generally, going around missionizing, preaching in all these places, he clearly saw what he was doing and what was happening, that is his mission

to the Gentiles, as a fulfillment of very specific prophecies in the Old Testament. Here, especially, you might think of Isaiah 60 and 61. You get these prophecies, not only of Gentiles coming and recognizing that Israel's God is God, but there's talk of the Gentiles laying their gold and their silver at the feet of Israel. Paul believed he was living through the fulfillment of the gospel coming to the Gentiles. I mean, he was, right? And so when he read these passages, he thought this is the reconstruction. He seems to have thought one thing that might help other Jews who have not yet seen in Jesus Christ, the Messiah, who haven't

recognized that Jesus is the Messiah, if they can see that those prophecies are being fulfilled, this might provoke them to go, oh, something's happening here. Romans 9-11 talks a lot about that theme. So one thing Paul then does is as he goes around to the various Gentile congregations, he asks them to gather up whatever extra monies they have, and then he will have them all delivered to the Jewish saints in Jerusalem. And this will be this kind of glorious fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecies. And so you get traces of that at the end of Romans, at the end of 1 Corinthians, as referred to very directly in Galatians. And then, of course, in Acts 24, when Paul goes to Jerusalem, it's reported that he brings with him all this wealth. Joe, do we know what's going on in Jerusalem? What's happening that the saints there need so much assistance? I don't know that we have a ton of detail, except that the Jewish saints are very poor,

that they just seem to be very impoverished. Gathering all of this up at the very least would just be a question of alleviating poverty. But on top of that, it seems Paul wants to make this symbolic gesture to signal the fulfillment of prophecy. So here in chapters eight and nine, this is what Paul is talking to the Corinthian saints about. He had apparently a year before they'd made a bunch of pledges about how much they were going to contribute. And then he's gone up to Macedonia, the saints up north.

This is places like Thessalonica and Philippi and said, hey, guess what those guys down in Corinth are doing? They're really leading the way on this. And the saints in Macedonia have given a ton. And then he finds out that the Corinthian saints are backing out. So these two chapters, right? So they're not making good on their pledge. And so he writes this strongly worded recommendation that they get back on their program.

So the other saints, the saints in Galatia, the Macedonians, they're really giving. What are you guys doing? Exactly. And he even says, I mean, this is really early in the text, but he says that the saints in Macedonia have given more than they have. They're actually relatively impoverished, and yet they've just given and given and given. And you Corinthians, who have all this wealth, are sitting on it. This may be a side point, but I think it might help make some of this matter for Latter-day Saints because you can kind of feel like, okay, there was this historical thing Paul was working on. But this issue of the collection is actually directly talked about in the Doctrine and Covenants. So in section 42, when the Lord introduces the law of consecration to the

saints, the Lord opens it by saying, so this is section 42, verse 29 and 30. If thou lovest me, thou shalt serve me and keep all my commandments. And behold, thou wilt remember the poor and consecrate thy properties, et cetera, et cetera. That phrase, remember the poor shows up in exactly two places in all of scripture. And it's right there in that verse in Doctrine and Covenants 42. And it's in Galatians 2.10 when Paul explains the commandment to gather this collection to take to Jerusalem. And then after the law of consecration gets described in Doctrine and Covenants 42, then this is how the Lord explains its purpose. So this is verse 39, for it shall come to pass that which I spake by the mouths of my prophets shall be

fulfilled. For I will consecrate of the riches of those who embrace my gospel among the Gentiles unto the poor of my people who are of the house of Israel. It's exactly what Paul was doing. So sometimes it may feel like these details, kind of weird, old historical things, don't necessarily matter much now, but this is like the Lord himself draws all of this back to our attention, what Paul was doing and says, this is what the law of consecration looks like. I'm going to read a section from the manual here, the opening section from the manual. It seems to go right aligned with what you're talking about. It says, What would you do if you heard that a congregation of saints in another area was struggling in poverty? This was the situation that Paul described to the Corinthian saints in 2 Corinthians.

He hoped to persuade the Corinthian saints to donate some of their abundance to saints in need. But beyond a request for donations, Paul's words also contain profound truths about giving. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver. In our day, there are still saints throughout the world who are in need of help. Sometimes the most we can do for them is to fast and donate fast offerings. In other cases, our giving can be more direct and personal. Whatever forms our sacrifices take, it's worth examining our motivations for giving. Are our sacrifices expressions of love? After all, it's love that makes a cheerful giver. I think we're right in line now to learn about giving to those in need. Maybe there's some listeners who are about to turn it off going,

I don't want to give anything. So don't turn off the podcast. Stay with us here. I think we're really going to dive into what this really means as a Christian. Yeah. I'm old enough to remember when President Spencer W. Kimball used to emphasize, he called it the threefold mission of the church, proclaim the gospel, perfect the saints, and redeem the dead. And I believe it was during President Thomas S. Monson's time that he added forth was to care for the poor and needy. And the most recent way it's been articulated in the handbook, I just love it. It's like four verbs, live, care, invite, unite, live the gospel of Jesus Christ, care for those in need. And Hank, what you just read from the manual, it didn't say the poor and needy. I like how it says care for those in need, because any of us might be in need.

There might be a temporary setback or something, or maybe it is more chronic. I don't know. But live the gospel of Jesus Christ, care for those in need, invite all to receive the gospel, and unite families for eternity. I love that President Monson introduced that and that now it's part of what we are all about and what we're talking about here. What you mentioned in section 42 and in Galatians, yeah, exactly. That should be constantly on the minds of a Christian community is how do we care for each other? Part of the difficulty with reading 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 is that the King James Version can feel really hard to read here. Paul in general can feel hard in the King James Version, right? Yeah, we've experienced that.

Yeah, yes. These letters are actually quite forceful in the Greek. So I was wondering if we might actually just read a couple of these passages in a modern translation. Sure. Kind of get the feel of it. So I'll read, this is the first seven verses of chapter eight. And this is from N.T. Wright's translation of the New Testament. N.T. Wright is an Anglican scholar and clergyman and just an amazing person. He's been quoted on our podcast before. Yeah. He wrote a biography of Paul that we've had lots of people quote from, I think. It's just called Paul, a biography. So if readers want to go deeper, that's a great source.

Yeah. So this is how he translates the first seven verses of chapter eight. And you can kind of feel the force of Paul's prose here. Let me tell you, my dear family, about the grace which God has given to the Macedonian churches. They have been sorely tested by suffering, but the abundance of grace which was given to them and the depths of poverty they have endured have overflowed in a wealth of sincere generosity on their part. I bear them witness that of their own accord, up to their ability and even beyond their ability, they begged us eagerly to let them have the privilege of sharing in the

work of service for God's people. They didn't just do what we had hoped. They gave themselves, first to the Lord and then to us as God willed it. This put us in a position where we could encourage Titus that he should complete this work of grace that had begun among you. You have plenty of everything after all, plenty of faith and speech and knowledge and all kinds of eagerness and plenty of love coming from us to you. So why not have plenty of this grace too? It's kind of nice to just feel the flow, like Paul is writing with force and conviction and very practical concerns as he's talking. But what might be maybe most useful to reflect on together here would be a verse that comes just a little bit later than that, just a verse or two on, where Paul, trying to get the saints in Corinth to be a bit more generous,

compares their task to Christ's atonement. This is verse nine. Now I'm reading from the King James. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. That's a beautiful description and a really nice way of connecting our task of consecration and of taking care of the poor to the very act of Christ's atonement. He is God. He has all these resources spiritually, and yet he becomes poor so that we become rich. That isn't a good motivation to take seriously our task. Yeah, thank you for bringing in verse 9. I love that Paul would do this.

It's kind of like, listen, the heart of the whole gospel is generosity, maybe, of Christ. As he introduced, we must be generous with each other. Look what the Savior did for us. And I'm thinking of Isaiah. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement that brought us peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed, and he descended below all things. I mean, the heart of that is such generosity and selflessness. And then Paul's asking the saints to do the same for each other. I like that connection you made. I mean, it reminds me of King Benjamin a bit too, right? Benjamin says, look, you're begging. And then here's the beggar. You were begging and God

gave you something you completely did not deserve. He's redeemed you and poured out his spirit and so on. And he could have looked on you and said, you brought this on yourself, but he didn't. And now you're going to look at the beggar and say, similar kind of gesture. He weaves together Christ's overabundant grace toward us and then says, now can't you get right your relationship to those who need a bit of help. I think Paul, if I had to sum it up, he's saying to be a Christian is to become generosity. It's not even enough to be generous. It's you because this becomes an integral part of your nature because you're trying to be like the savior. Sometimes I, you might think of, let's give of our substance, like let's pry it out of your, out of your grip, right? Come on, just let go and give it away. Where I think Paul wants a change of heart, right? Not just giving money. He wants them to become like Christ, who is just so openly generous. I just can't see the Savior going, I don't want to, I don't want to give, I don't want to bless, but if they'll pry it out of my hands, I guess I have to give it to them. I mean, that's King Benjamin again. In Mosiah 4, after Benjamin's people had this experience of Christ, right? They've fallen to the ground and they cried out for mercy and they've received it. This is where Paul starts

talking about the beggar. But one of the things he says, he says, so if you can get this kind of attitude, right, if you can get this every day, then he says, you will take care of the beggar. He doesn't say, you had better. It becomes a natural outreach. And in fact, that famous verse where he says, now you might say to yourself, will stay my hand, which means my hand is already reaching out. Automatically, I'm reaching out at this point. And you might try to talk yourself out of it. But if Christ has really worked on you, you can't but reach out and help. Joe, as we're going along, I'd love for our listeners to have practical ways of practicing this. Along the way're if you think of things yeah i mean asking a philosopher to be practical that can be difficult but it's it is worth saying i mean right from the outset here there's this amazing talk years ago by elder holland uh called

are we not all beggars right from general. And toward the end of that talk, he says, now the problem is enormous. What do we do? And he literally says, I don't know, right? And then he says, but that's why you've got to get on your knees. There's no general program here. You've got to take this up with God. What can you do?

And I think that's important that this is the kind of thing we can't program. It's the kind of thing we have to always feel a little uncomfortable with. We can't be at ease in Zion. I like a line from C.S. Lewis about this when he says, I often get asked, how much should you give? And he says, if it doesn't hurt, you're not giving enough. A little uncomfortable, right? Am I giving enough? Am I reaching out enough? If I feel like, yeah, I'm doing great. You're probably not doing great. That's interesting because I often hear from general authorities, a generous fast. That's never given an amount, right? It's never given, here's what a generous fast is.

It's a generous fast. I'm fascinated when the widow threw in her might that Jesus didn't say, oh, give it back to her. He let her do that, which is amazing. That was all she had. Yeah, and it's, I mean, maybe important to emphasize that Paul is writing to a community. I mean, he's asking them to gather up what they can to send outside of their community, which of course we have that responsibility. Often that's what fast offerings end up doing. They help locally, but then the extras head off and can help elsewhere. I mean, last time I read statistics, a billion people go to bed hungry every night in the world, right? We have serious

responsibilities on that score, but he's also writing to a community. And in so many ways, like this is the practical reality of what it looks like to take care of one another is the kind of simple everyday work that can only happen in a community. So-and-so is struggling and it's their neighbor that actually reaches out and recognizes that something's going on. I'm lucky in that I live in a ward in Provo where our whole ward is seven blocks big, right? But the result is the neighborhood is the ward, the ward is the neighborhood in a lot of ways. And it allows you to see way more clearly the kind of work a ward community can do for each other than sometimes when you're spread out completely intertwined lives. And when someone's in any kind of difficulty, what the saints are willing to do for each other. And I think that's very much a manifestation of the same kind of thing. So, Joe, let's keep going on this. I don't think this is all Paul has to say on this, right?

He has a lot to say. And I mean, a lot of it can feel very practical and sort of focused on what's happening there in Corinth. But one thing that I think is interesting here, there's a strategy Paul uses that we might pick out of a couple of verses that might feel a little weird in some ways, but I think is actually really intriguing. So this is actually jumping back a verse to chapter eight, verse eight, and then we'll actually jump ahead to a verse in chapter nine. So chapter eight, verse eight, he says, I speak not by commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others and to prove the sincerity of your love. And then jumping to chapter 9, verse 2, he says this, for I know the forwardness of your mind for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia, which is where Corinth is, that Achaia was ready a year ago, and your zeal hath

provoked very many. Those two verses show that part of Paul's strategy in trying to gather this collection is to create a kind of contest, right? To try to get the saints in Macedonia to be like, no, we're going to beat the saints in Achaia. It really does feel that way a little. And that feels a little strange. We're kind of like, is that really the way you want to go about this? Yeah. Do we want this to be competition? But I don't think it's quite that Paul is trying to create competition, but he does want to use each other's successes to build up the other, right?

The one success is to build up the successes of the other and to say, look, it's possible. There's more that you can do because look over here, it's going on. That may be a helpful thing and a healthy thing to think about. Sometimes we can hear success stories in the church and just feel like, oh, then that means I'm terrible. Here we go, right? Someone else did something, oh, that Relief Society president did all those things, which shows me that I'm not doing anything like I was supposed to do. I'm a worthless non-giver. Right. But there's also the version of it where if we

have the right spirit about it, hearing the successes of others can make us go, oh, hang on, there's work that can be done here. There is more that we can do. I need to get over myself a bit here. So the fact that Paul is sort of playing these two regions off of each other. Interesting and suggestive in certain ways, I think. I believe it was the woman of Bethany that anointed Jesus' feet. Jesus just has this wonderful phrase, she hath done what she could. And I love that phrase because I can't do as much as that person did. I can't do as much, but rather that comforting phrase, she did what

she could and we can have peace in that. I did what I could. The woman who anoints Jesus's feet, that's the same story that Elder Holland brought up in the talk we mentioned previously, Are We Not All Beggars? He talks about that phrase, she has done what she could. And then he says this, what a succinct formula. A journalist once questioned Mother Teresa of Calcutta about her hopeless task of rescuing the destitute in that city. He said that statistically speaking, she was accomplishing absolutely nothing. This remarkable little woman shot back that her work was about love, not statistics. Notwithstanding the staggering number beyond her reach, she said she could keep the commandment to love God and her neighbor by

serving those within her reach with whatever resources she had. What we do is nothing but a drop in the ocean, she would say on another occasion. But if we didn't do it, the ocean would be one drop less than it is. Soberly, the journalist concluded that Christianity is obviously not a statistical endeavor. He reasoned that if there would be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 who need no repentance, then apparently God is not overly preoccupied with percentages. So as much as we'd love to eradicate all poverty, that's probably not within one person's reach. So we can't say, well, because I can't get rid of all of it, I'm not going to do anything. Yeah. And it's so easy to feel like we aren't doing what we can. And we

alternate between extremes. We tend to either think that we're not doing anything like what we should do when we're actually doing all right. Or we tend to think we're doing everything great when we're not doing anything at all. I was speaking at a fireside recently up in the Salt Lake area, and a woman asked a question during the fireside about, I just feel like I don't do enough and so on. And we talked about it a bit, but she came up to me afterward to talk and said, so here's my situation. I'm from Zimbabwe. I'm just here visiting. And she said, and back home, I'm in the Stake Relief Society presidency. I'm in the ward primary presidency and I run all the music for the ward. And I just don't think I do enough. You're doing my heavens, my heavens, my heavens. You're good. But then, yeah, at the other extreme, we can feel like, oh,

my heavens, you can't really ask that of me, right? So, yeah, we tend to alternate between extremes. But if we can see the kind of work that others are doing not as competition, but as encouragement and a kind of collective spirit, then there's something I think could come out of this kind of thing. Yeah. So, maybe Paul's not wanting them to compete as much as he wants them to be inspired by these other congregations. Yeah. In chapter 9, verse 7, Paul says this, Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver. I'll go ahead and read from N.T. Wright's translation again,

so we get the flow and feel of the larger passage. So starting in verse 5, So I thought it necessary to exhort the brothers that they should go on to you in advance and get everything about your gracious gift in order ahead of time. You've already promised it after all. Then it really will appear as a gift of grace, not something that has had to be extorted from you.

This is what I mean. Someone who sows sparingly will reap sparingly as well. Someone who sows generously will reap generously. Everyone should do as they have determined in their heart, not in a gloomy spirit or simply because they have to, since God loves a cheerful giver. And God is well able to lavish all his grace upon you so that in every matter and in every way you will have enough of everything and may be lavish in all your own good works. Just as the Bible says,

they spread their favors wide, they gave to the poor, their righteousness endures forever. He's quoting from the Psalms at the end of that. So yeah, the context I think makes quite clear what's going on there. He's worried about these saints in Corinth getting a bit stingy and not quite coming through on what they had pledged. But he says, look, I could have just shown up and told you all off or something like that, but I thought I'd write you before I get there and see if I could encourage you to set something straight so that when we come and when these brothers show up to get the collection, it'll have been done out of the goodness of your heart and not regretfully and not resentfully. So that the way, again, it's translated here, right?

Everyone should do as they have determined in their heart, not in a gloomy spirit or simply because they have to, since God loves a cheerful giver. This ought to come right out of the abundance of your heart. I don't want this to be extortion. I ought to come right out of the abundance of your heart. I don't want this to be extortion. I don't want this to be the kind of thing you do because you white knuckle your way through giving, right? I want this to be something where you have been genuinely transformed by Christ. You get this clear in your mind and then you give and God can celebrate that in every way. Thanks, Joe. That was fantastic. John, what do you have for us? I'm back with King Benjamin still, how he said, okay, what if you see the

beggar and you don't have anything? And he talked about King Benjamin says, I would that you would say in your heart, if I had, I would give. So he's talking about where your heart is in all of this. That ultimately is the doing what you could thing. And I appreciate that King Benjamin is talking about not just the amount, but where's your heart? I think it probably pains some people. I think King Benjamin said that they can't give more. And that makes me think of the person you mentioned, Joe, from Zimbabwe that was doing all this stuff and still didn't think they were doing enough. I'm reminded of something that really blessed me from President Henry B. Eyring. I'll have to paraphrase, but in this talk, he mentioned someone who might have a calling that feels overwhelming. So I'm kind of shifting gears a little bit here.

And maybe like that person in Zimbabwe that's got three callings. And he said, you might even feel resentful, even might want to complain. But the Lord has given you not demands on your time, but opportunities for service. And then he said this, and I just thought, oh, thank you for saying that. So when you approach the Lord, just you can't do it all. Just ask, what should I do next? I thought, oh, that's perfect. I can't, what's the game, whack-a-mole or something? You can't get it all. So ask the question, Lord, what should I do next? And that blessed me a lot

when I was a little bit overwhelmed. What's the next best thing I can do? And then I can try to be at peace with that. That's really nice. Yeah. I like to put myself in the mind of our listeners and saying, okay, I want to help. I think my heart's in the right place. What do I do? Well, one thing that's very simple to do is to give a generous fast offering. We've already mentioned this before, but I'll tell you a little story. I was a financial clerk. It was a long time ago.

It's probably 20 years ago now. This is back when people used checks. I don't know if either of you remember this time. Phase of our history. Yeah, people wrote out checks. And it was my job as financial clerk to open those tithing envelopes and count everything up. And I remember one person specifically, a very wealthy man in our board, and he gave a, it was a very large tithing check.

But then I always noticed that at times his fast offering was more than his tithing, which shocked me. I remember pointing that out to my bishop, Bishop Wade Sperry. I remember I said, Bishop Sperry, this is pretty incredible. And he just, he kind of nodded and said, that's who he is. And yet maybe I can't do that. Maybe I can't give all of that. So maybe on, I think, central to this message. It's you have resources, give them. Are there other things we can give though? This is what she writes. She writes, one young woman deciding after reading her patriarchal blessing that she

wanted to do something grand to help the poor and needy. After unsuccessfully trying to give aid to some people she saw on the street, she thought she'd fail. Then she got home and found her brother crying because he'd been teased at school. After taking him out for some ice cream and listening to his troubles, she learned a lesson. The poor are just as likely to be in your home as on the streets, she says. There are all sorts of needy people in the world, those who need food and shelter, of course, but also those who need love, counsel, and encouragement. So there's two things we can do. One, we can give a generous fast offering, increase that fast offering. And then second, just look around you at your family and then look in your neighborhood,

like you said, Joe, those seven blocks of your ward. You're bound to find someone who needs your help. The older I get, the more astonished I am at just how much hurt there is in the world. In big ways, but also in small ways. And just how much of it is hidden behind the front walls of a house or how much of it is hidden in the heart. The impoverished is a much bigger crowd when we take into account things beyond just what's physically necessary, though also, my heavens, what's physically necessary. Yeah. I frequently joke with my students that Latter-day Saints get together a couple times a week to lie to each other about how they're doing. How are you? I'm doing great.

How are you? Fine. Fine. Doing really well. Can't complain, right? When everybody is struggling in some way. Hank, I remember hearing a bishop say that he figured everybody was okay. And then when he became a bishop and started hearing what was going on, he'd sit on the stand and go, that family's going through this, that family over there is going through this, that family over there is going through this. And then I got to sit there too. And, and that's exactly right. Everybody's going through something and it really softens you up to let you

know, everybody's dealing with something. And you're so glad that they're they are there and pray that they'll feel that outpouring from being there and taking the sacrament feel the savior's love because everybody's going through something yeah yeah let's hit one more verse in chapter 9 and then all of this really leads well into what we're going to find in chapters 10 through 13 but this is the way way that Paul ends these two chapters about the collection. And it's just beautiful in the King James. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. So all this grace we've been talking about, how much God is giving us and then what that means for us and so on. We want to talk about

a cheerful giver, a grateful giver, right? Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift. Paul has spent two chapters speaking about gifts, but the gift that God gives us is his unspeakable gift. Paul has spent two chapters speaking about gifts, but the gift that God gives us is the unspeakable one. So I like the way that that juxtaposes, again, Christ, unmeasurable bounty and what he's given us, and then the measurable, but so hard for us, but the measurable gifts we're meant to give. The contemporary English version of the Bible says, thank God for his gift that is too wonderful for words. I look at that word unspeakable, like, what does that mean? The gift that is too wonderful for words. And probably a good place to settle here to start would be in chapter 12. So chapters 10 and 11 set up some things, and I think we'll want to circle back and look at that a bit. But Paul really kind of gets going here. What he's been doing for a little bit in chapter 11 is fake boasting. What's going on in these chapters, he's upset about some people that he actually calls super apostles. These people who are claiming to be like, they're not just missionaries, they're like the best or something like that. And he's kind of fed up with what's going on in Corinth there and really starts going after them. And so in a kind of parody of them, he boasts a bit.

So for example, in verse 21 of chapter 11, I speak as concerning reproach as though we had been weak. How be it where and so ever any is bold, I speak foolishly. I am bold also. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool. I am more. And labor's more abundant, and stripes above measure, and prisons more frequent, and deaths oft. Of the Jews, five times received the forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Thrice I suffered shipwreck. A night and a day I have been in the deep. In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness, in painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger, in thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

Besides those things that are without that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. So Paul does a little bit of parody boasting, right? Parodic boasting here, kind of making fun of these supposed super apostles who are claiming that they have so much spiritual authority. But all of that sets up what he contrasts with that attitude. And that i think is what we really want to spend some time on so this is now chapter 12 he opens chapter 12 with a little further fake boasting but he talks here about revelations whenever i boast i'm going to say that from now on this is just fake boasting fake boasting don't take me serious Don't take me serious. Don't take me serious.

But let me tell you how great I am. Right. Because one thing, I mean, back in chapter 11, all the boasting is, look, I have all the same credentials as any of these people. And on top of that, look at all I've gone through. But at the beginning of chapter 12, he focuses on revelations. And he puts it in the third person. He's like, I know a guy, right? I know someone who, and of course he's talking about himself. But what he does here, I think is really interesting in a lot of ways. So chapter 12, verse one, it is not expedient for me doubtless to glory

to boast. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above 14 years ago, whether in the body, I cannot tell whether out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth. Such an one was caught up to the third heaven, divine vision. And I knew such a man, whether in the body, out of the body, I cannot tell, God knoweth. How that he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter of such in one will i glory yet of myself i will not glory so he's playing this little game right but i will glory in mine infirmities so he's built up this whole story all these things he could boast of could boast of could boast of even to the point of look i had a vision something like section 76 of the doctrine covenants i was carried

up into the heavens i saw all this and he's all of that, who cares? None of that is worth boasting about. And presumably the people that are claiming they've had revelations and so on. But he's like, all of that, meh, this isn't the thing. I want to talk about my infirmities. That's really quite a thing. And he's going to spell this out further. A thing to note before we go further, notice that he can't say anything about that revelation that he had in heaven. He says he heard unspeakable words. It's not lawful for a man to utter. He can't pass that on, but he goes on to talk about another revelation and he can utter it. So this I think is very interesting. So this is jumping to verse seven. Lest I should be exalted above measure through

the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me, and he said unto me, here's a revelation, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Then Paul adds, most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. So this I find very interesting. The chapter opens with, there's a revelation I had.

I can't utter it. I can't explain it. I can't pass it on. All I can say is that it happened. But he can go on immediately to talk about his weaknesses. And he says, here, God spoke to me and this I can't pass it on. All I can say is that it happened. But he can go on immediately to talk about his weaknesses. And he says, here, God spoke to me and this I can share. This is the kind of thing to boast about. God spoke and he said, yeah, you're pathetic, right? But my grace is enough. So this I think is a passage really worth dwelling on some here.

So then verse nine, the language there should sound familiar to Latter-day Saints, not just from Paul, but from the Book of Mormon, right? This is the same language we get in Ether 12. What we have happening in Ether 12, of course, is it's Moroni. He's been telling this Jaredite history and then pauses to talk about faith. And he gives a long series of examples of faith from Nephite history and how witnesses come after our trial of that faith. But at the end of that long history, that long series of examples, he mentions the brother of Jared and his ability to write and so on

and kind of loses his mind. Moroni just starts going, yeah, I can't write. I've read the brother of Jared. He's a good writer. I'm terrible. And eventually seems to just kind of cry out to God and say, fix my writing. And God's response to him is very like this.

So this was Moroni's thorn in the flesh. Paul's, we don't know exactly what it was, but whatever it was that kept him humble. But the language is really remarkable here. So coming back to verse 9 in chapter 12, what God says is, my grace is sufficient for thee. And you could translate that more humbly, I think. N.T. Wrights is very nice, I think. He just translates it as, my grace is sufficient for thee. And you could translate that more humbly, I think. N.T. Wrights is very nice, I think. He just translates it as, my grace is enough for you. So how do we hear sufficiency or enoughness here? To say my grace is enough for you is just to say, why do you want

more than that? Why are you trying to be something I haven't made you to be? Why are you trying to reach beyond that when I have given you everything you could possibly need here? Why do you need to do this on your own? That's a hard but also a really beautiful thing, whatever. Grace is enough. God is enough. Why do we want to somehow be beyond that, above that, better than that? What on earth are we thinking? And he goes on to say, this is just to finish the words of the Lord there, and then we can dig into it further, I think. The Lord goes on to say, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. That might sound kind of strange. For God to say that his strength is made perfect in weakness? Yeah. But there are a couple of obvious ways to hear that. One, of course, if this is Christ speaking to Paul, then that's exactly how it happened. His strength, his divine strength was made perfect in that he came down in the flesh and was nailed to a cross in utter passivity, utter weakness. My strength is made perfect in that he came down in the flesh and was nailed to a cross in utter passivity, utter weakness. My strength is made perfect in weakness. Why are you any better, Paul? But the other way it can be heard, of course, too, is that God's power, God's strength is made perfect in humans embracing their weakness. If human beings are strong enough on their own, if they're somehow good enough to do it all on

their own, then where would God's strength show up? We wouldn't need it. We wouldn't ask for it. Only in as much as we are weak and we stop running from the fact that we're weak, can God's strength be made perfect, show up in the world. Joe, I love that you brought up Moroni. It sounds to me when I read Mormon chapter eight, that his father's death was a surprise, was not expected. And all of a sudden, the book of Mormon, the whole book of Mormon fell into Moroni's lap. And it's like, this is my father's work. I have no oar. My father's been killed in battle. All my kinsfolk, I don't even know how long I'm going to live. And all of a sudden, he has to finish it. And it's an amazing

moment when later in Mormon, chapter eight, Moroni says, I make an end of speaking concerning my interpretation, the past. I am Moroni. I am a son of Mormon. I'm going to finish this record and has this amazing transition, but he still keeps confronting his own weakness. I just feel like when Nephi said, oh, wretched man that I am, that was one of his greatest moments. And maybe for all of us, when we see our weakness, and that's the Ether 1227, right? What would prevent you from seeing your weakness? Well, you know, pride would, but that could have been one of Nephi's greatest

moments when he felt wretched. And Paul used the same language. So this whole message, I think, sounds like when we can see our weakness, that's when God can do something with us. That's beautifully put. Thanks for bringing up Mormon 8. I think that's exactly right, that Moroni is just crushed by the way this is played out. A detail that's way too easy to miss in that chapter, in fact. When Moroni actually puts a date in there for the first time, it's maybe verse six or something of Mormon eight, it's the year 400. And the final war when his father died was 384. It takes Moroni 16 years to write six verses, which I think makes us feel the weight that he apparently felt like he just was crushed under this burden for years. But when he finally comes

out of the fog by, yeah, it was verse 12 or so when he's like, okay, I'm Moroni. Let's do this thing. He's still, boy, there's anxiety, right? He comes out of what seems to be a really serious bout with depression and probably PTSD, but he's not unscathed. He comes out anxious and worried about whether he's good enough, whether he's strong enough. Wrestles with that for the rest of his life as Aether 12 makes glare. Thank you. And I think of how different the Book of Mormon would be if he were not there. If he didn't come back in Moroni chapter one and say, I am not supposed to have written

anymore, but I'm not dead yet. So I'll write a few more things. And boy, imagine without Moroni 10, without his father's letters. I mean, there's some great stuff in those last 10 chapters. Thank you, Moroni, for persisting in times when you felt weak. So anyway, it's going to be fun to talk Book of Mormon next year about that very thing yeah well and maybe we should dwell with moroni a little further too on ether 12 yeah because it's footnoted there footnote 9c you've got your ether 12 27 reference there made perfect in weakness right exactly and there's a there's actually a line in ether 12 that i think we often read poorly if we don't read it with Paul. So, Ether 1227, there are actually

a lot of things in this verse we read poorly, I think, in everyday ways, right? So, the Lord's speaking to Moroni here, and we're seeing very similar language to Paul. If men come unto me, I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble. And my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me. For if they humble themselves before me and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them. I think we have a tendency to read that last line as meaning something like, I have things that are particular weaknesses to me, and yet I can replace those with strengths. But I wonder if that's the right way to hear it,

when the wording is, I will make weak things become strong. That's not necessarily replacement. It could be that once we recognize that weakness is in fact a gift, which is how the Lord talks about it there, then those weak things embraced as weak things are strong. At least that's the way Paul talks in the very next verse back in 2 Corinthians 12. In verse 10, therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. It's not that the weakness has to be replaced with a strength. It's when I finally stop resisting the fact that I am weak. Oh, wretched man that I am.

That's the very moment that I'm strong. And it may be then weak things becoming strong is not at all replacement. Weak things are strong in their weakness. And I'm struck, Ether 12 just going on, verse 28, this is still the Lord speaking. He promises to show the Gentiles their weakness. And that might feel like it's unconnected from what he says next, but I think it's actually directly connected. So he says, I will show unto the Gentiles their weakness, and I will show unto them that faith, hope, and charity bringeth unto me the fountain of all righteousness. So what does showing the Gentiles their weakness have to do with showing

them that faith, hope, and charity brings to Christ. And I think the answer has to be that faith, hope, and charity are perfect examples of something that is profoundly weak and profoundly strong. If I have faith, it means I don't know, I can't prove, I can't just knock everyone over with it. It's weak. It's a position of weakness. And yet faith is what moves mountains. Faith is the strongest force we can have in Christ. Hope, the future could turn out different. I could be hoping for the wrong thing. My hope could be completely misplaced. The future is unknown. It's always a position of weakness to be in a position of hope. As we all know, hope is the kind of thing that makes us strong enough to keep going through very difficult things. Charity or love, there's no more vulnerable

or weak position than being in love, whether that's romantic or whether that's just fraternal or whatever. Love opens you up to abuse and hurt and sorrow and sadness and so on, and yet nothing moves the world like love. So I think these are perfect examples of we don't need to take weak things out of us and get strong things instead. It's when we get weakness right, it is itself strength. Well, I never thought of that before. That is great stuff. I knew where you're going with faith and hope. And then I thought, where is he going to go with charity? But you're right. I remember Truman Madsen, I think, saying, when you truly love someone, you have doubled your capacity for pain. Yeah, right. How? It's so true. It's so true. Because you hurt for them or you worry about them. And that makes you vulnerable because you love and care for them. But then

when they go through hard times, you go through hard times too. That's great stuff. Thank you. Yeah. Weakness is a gift. Weakness is a gift. I mean, to concretize that a little, my own experience as a missionary years ago went along these lines. I spent the first year of my mission trying to be everything as a missionary, right? I was going to do all the things missionaries do right and well. And a couple of experiences about a year out just humbled me to the dust, right? I just realized I had no idea what I was doing. But then as a result, somehow over the next year, I began to realize, well, there are some things I seem to have a gift for, and there are other things that I'm just really, really bad at as a missionary. And instead of then trying to like,

okay, my job is to take those things I'm bad at and just work on those all the time. I thought, well, what if I leave to others who have those strengths, right? That stuff. And I work on the thing God seems to have given me certain gifts for. I got over my weakness. I stopped trying to be good enough. I stopped trying to do all things. And the transformation in my experience as a missionary was night and day. Immensely more success, immensely more happy, and just completely different. But my heavens, if I continued trying to make sure I do all the things. This is not talking about obedience, right? I was still obedient, but I didn't have to be the perfect tractor and the perfect discussion giver and the perfect leader

and the perfect companion. I just had to find a couple of things where God could work through me really clearly and give myself to that weak and then strong.