followHIM - Matthew 15-17; Mark 7-9 Part 1 • Dr. Kerry Muhlestein • Apr. 10 - Apr. 16

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

Who do you say Jesus is? Dr. Kerry Muhlestein explores how God’s covenant path creates a kingdom of priests and priestesses, how humility helps avoid hypocrisy, and how formal covenants change our natures.00:00 Part 1–Dr. Kerry Muhlestein00:56 Introduction of Dr. Kerry Muhlestein02:14 Background about Pharisees, Saduccees, and how they vary by region09:17 Ritual cleanliness and Jewish law and customs regarding parents16:15 Rationalization and loopholes17:46 What defiles a person21:53 Finding fault23:28 Jesus casts out an unclean spirit north of the Sea of Galilee28:39 Jesus teaching Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles32:19 Jesus returns to Capernaum and Decapolis and performs miracles35:40 Jesus heals with touch, spit, clay, etc. and the symbolism connected37:30 Some Pharisees and Saducees asked Jesus for a sign41:43 When asking for a sign is a mistake42:28 Bread, yeast, and metaphors of corruption47:47 The challenge of the world’s influence51:02 Jesus heals a blind man in stages56:20 End of Part 1–Dr. Kerry MuhlesteinShow Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.coFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the followHIM team:Shannon Sorensen: 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 DesignWill 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/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-piano

Welcome to Follow Him, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come Follow Me study. I'm Hank Smith. And I'm John, by the way. We love to learn. We love to laugh. We want to learn and laugh with you. As together, we follow him. Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of Follow Him. It's a beautiful day here in the studio. I am here with my rock of a co-host, John, by the way. Welcome, John, by the way. John, you're a rock. I'm more like cream spinach, but I'll take it. I bring that up because Peter is going to be called the rock today. Thou art Peter. So, John, we are going to be in the gospel of Matthew today and the gospel of Mark today.

Who is joining us to help us understand all this? Well, I've been looking forward to this day because we've had Dr. Kerry Muehlstein with us before in the Old Testament, and I'm so glad that he's back today. So let me reacquaint everyone with Kerry. He earned two degrees at BYU in psychology and Hebrew and ancient Near Eastern studies. He received his PhD from UCLA in Egyptology with a second emphasis in Hebrew language and literature. He spent significant time in Jerusalem, including as a student and a teacher at the BYU Jerusalem Center.

He directs an excavation in Egypt. He's a historical and biblical geographer, leads tours and study groups in Egypt, Israel, and Jordan, is a best-selling author who has published nine books, and he hosts his own podcast called The Scriptures Are Real. And he and his wife, Julianne, have six children and one grandson. And I just wanted to mention his books, Finding Promised Blessings on the Covenant Path, another one called God Will Prevail, and one that a lot of people in our podcast have appreciated called Learning to Love Isaiah.

So we're really glad to have you back, Kerry. Thanks for joining us again. Yeah. I'm so happy to be back. I always had a good time with you guys, and I always learn something. This podcast has enhanced my study of the scriptures tremendously over the last few years. We're grateful you'd say that, Kerry. Thank you. We love doing it. Kerry, we've got a bunch to cover today, so let's jump right in. The name of the lesson is Thou Art the Christ, and we're going

to be in two gospels, Matthew and Mark. Where do you want to start? I think we'll bounce back and forth between the two. Really, in this particular reading, they cover pretty much the same material, but you'll see, like, for example, let's start in Mark. You'll get a little bit more of the story with the Pharisees and Mark. You get a little bit more when we get to the Man of Transfiguration and Matthew, and we might just bounce back and forth. And we'll try and highlight some of the unique things about each gospel and some of those literary devices that each gospel writer is prone to use. You get advantages from a harmony account and advantages from a non-harmony account. And we've heard a lot about the advantages of looking at each gospel writer, but I think there's also something about putting them together and trying to come to a more well-rounded picture

of the Savior and highlighting the Savior in that way. So we'll try and do both if it's all right. Yeah, that sounds fantastic. I'm going to put a marker in each one. Yeah, no kidding. I brought two Bibles with me today so that I can just jump back and forth. Have them both open. Yeah, yeah. The Come Follow Me manual starts out by saying, isn't it strange that the Pharisees and Sadducees would demand that Jesus show them a sign from

heaven? Weren't his many well-known miracles enough? What about his powerful teachings or the multiple ways he had fulfilled ancient prophecies? Their demand was prompted not by a lack of signs, but by an unwillingness to discern the signs and accept them. That comes out of Matthew chapter 16. Where do you want to go from here, Kerry? Well, let's start in Mark 7. And it does start immediately with the Pharisees.

And maybe we should just pause and say something about the Pharisees to begin with. Because most people in Galilee and Judea at the time, most of the Jews in that area, are really following the Pharisaic tradition. They're the ones who are setting the ideas that this is proper practice, Orthodox practice for how you live as a Jew. Jesus is very Jewish. He keeps the law of Moses. He really is a good Jewish boy. So people are going to follow the Pharisees, but we talk about the Pharisees as if they're this monolithic,

everyone is the same, everyone practices the same, wherever they're from. And that's not true at all. They have schools within the Pharisaism and different masters, different people follow, they have different interpretations and different ways of doing things, and even in the areas. So it would seem, and I don't know that we have enough data to really be hard on this, but it would seem that Jesus has a little bit of a different relationship with the Pharisees in the Galilee area than he does with the Pharisees in Jerusalem. And note that this is really specific in both accounts. So we'll read Mark 7, verse 1.

Then came together unto him the Pharisees and certain of the scribes, which came from Jerusalem. So he's in the Galilee area, but these people are coming from Jerusalem up to meet with him. And typically the Jerusalem group, especially the Sadducees, that's who he's going to have the greatest conflict with at the end of his life. That Jerusalem group seems to be a little more hostile, I would argue. And I've had discussions with some of our colleagues, even a little bit of a debate on my own podcast about this, but I would argue that some of the Pharisees, especially those from Jerusalem, there's a little bit of a power struggle. They see Jesus as someone who is gaining in popularity and power, and he hasn't gone through

the same system that they've gone through, and that seems to just cause a little bit of friction. It's under their skin. Yeah. We're reading a lot of things into it, and I want to make sure we're careful, and it's tempting for Christians in general to just say Pharisees are bad, and I don't think we can accurately say that. Most of them, I think, are fantastic and great and have good intent and so on. But of course, in any group, and we can say the same about our own faith, in any group, you have people who are struggling with doing things the wrong way or for the wrong reason, and so on, right?

Okay. A little bit of a power struggle from those in Jerusalem. You can see that. He lives in Galilee. He doesn't live in Jerusalem. Sometimes I would ask my students, where does Jesus live? And they'd say, oh, Jerusalem. No, he never lives in Jerusalem.

He lives in Galilee, the northern part of Israel. Yeah. A very small percentage of his time is actually in Jerusalem, but it's significant when he goes there, so we hear a lot about it. And it's worth noting that the Galilee area is known for being a hotbed, and this will become a much bigger deal as we get towards the end of the Gospels, but it's a hotbed of dissent against Rome and wanting to have a rebellion and looking for a Messiah that will help them to rebel against Rome. The people from Jerusalem are automatically going to be just a little suspicious of any big movements in the Galilee area. They see this as possibly blowing up, and that's exactly when things come to a head at the end of the

Gospels. It is largely over this issue. Is this man becoming so popular that it's going to bring the wrath of the Romans upon us? That's a real part of what's going on. So let's read. They've come, as we read in verse 1 and in verse two, and when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is to say with unwashed hands, they found fault. Let's pause and talk about that as well. Traditions about how much you need to wash and when you need to wash were in flux and they were changing. And we try and look at records we have from various time periods to see when they've decided what. And the problem is that most of the records we have are from the Mishnah, which is quite a bit later than this. And based on the records that we have, it seems like they're in

the middle of a transition period right now. And that it's becoming increasingly common to say that you need to wash your hands anytime you're going to eat or anytime you're going to do a number of other things that might be connected with rituals and so on. But they're probably in a transition, so probably not everyone agrees with that, but it's starting to become the norm. So they seem to be questioning him on this practice, and they don't say that you're not washing your hands. So I don't know if we can know whether the Savior is or not, but his disciples aren't washing their hands. And let's take another step back and notice something that is happening not, but his disciples aren't washing their hands. And let's take another step

back and notice something that is happening here, and you're going to see it a bunch of times in the Gospels. And that's a tradition among the Jews, and especially among the Pharisees, of debating points of law and understanding of Scripture. We might call it a Holocaust, this tradition over oral law, or how do you interpret and act out the law of Moses? And it's normal to have a debate. Why do you do it this way? Why do you say it this way? Well, because of this and this and this and this. And so we say we do it this and this. And usually you appeal to people who have already had arguments a little bit like we do in court cases today. You say, well, such and such decision and such and such a decision make us think we should interpret it this way. That's the typical way of doing things. Sometimes what we see as huge

confrontations, they would have seen as kind of normal discussion. This is what we do. We debate these things, right? And that's just a cultural thing that is, even some families are more used to, let's debate this. Whereas other families, oh, contention, I don't know, I'm not comfortable with this. So we need to understand that this is typical for Pharisees to ask people questions. And it may not be as confrontational as sometimes we think it is. Although in this case, we will see that by the end, the Pharisees are offended. So it got somewhat beyond the norm, probably because he calls them hypocrites. That might be part of it. But in any case, it starts out as a fairly normal thing.

I think they're saying that the norm now is that this is how we've interpreted the law. You should be washing your hands and your disciples aren't doing it. And look in verse 4. It even tells us about when they come from the market, except they wash, they eat not. So the idea is that you've been to the market and there are Gentiles or there are people there who may have things that are not kosher or haven't been kept ritually clean. Just because you may have come into contact with ritually unclean things, you should wash before you eat. Now, this is about ritual cleanliness. It's not about hygiene, right? We think you should wash your hands before you eat to get rid of germs. They're talking about

ritual cleanliness, right? They wash their cups and their vessels and their tables and all of these things. And then it gets back in verse five. So Mark has that nice little explanation of the current Jewish, or at least largely Jewish and Pharisaical custom. Then the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, why walk not thy disciples according to the traditions of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? So there they're going back to say, look, our group is established. This is a tradition. You're not doing it. Why?

Right? And this is an interesting thing because, as I said, Jesus is a good Jew, but he's also not afraid to challenge the kind of normal thing that is being established by hierarchy and leadership. He's not afraid to go against the grain. And that's what he's going to do here is he quotes Isaiah to them. And this is where they may take offense. And he says to them, well, hath this Isaiah prophesied of you? I mean, I would feel bad if someone said this of me, by the way. Of you hypocrites, as it is written, this people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. How be it in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the

commandments of men. To take Isaiah, whom they revere, and say, when he was saying bad stuff, he was talking about you. That's pretty sharp criticism. I know we don't want to paint the Savior as someone who can come out harshly, but I think this is pretty harsh. Yeah. And then he gets into a specific of how they do this. He says that laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men as the washing of pots and cups and many other such things as you do. So he's saying, look, you're forgetting about what God commands us to do, and you're focusing on all these little things. So for us, this might be you're focusing on, hey, did you fold that sacrament cloth the right way? That's not the way we arrange the cups in the tray as opposed to what the ordinance is really about. So verse 9, and he said unto them, full well you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your own traditions. For Moses said, now he's going to get this is real law, real commandments.

When we get to Moses said in 10 commandments, this is as fundamental as it gets for them. For Moses said, honor thy father and thy mother, and whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death. Read that this morning with my son. He didn't like that part. I'm going to read that to my kids. I'm going to put that in vinyl in the kitchen. Yeah. So what does die the death mean? That's punishable by death. Yeah. They could be stoned for not honoring father and mother. Now, of course, up to interpretation at what level of dishonoring rises to capital punishment. But the clear thing is you should be honoring your father and mother and taking care of them.

But verse 11, he's highlighting their kind of lawyerish way around this. But ye say, if a man shall say to his father or mother, it is Corban, we'll come back to that, that is to say a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, he shall be free. And ye suffer him no more to do aught for his father or his mother, making the word of God of none effect through your tradition which you've delivered. And many such like things do ye. So let's look at the example and then we'll say, here, they do a lot of other things. And then maybe we can ask how in the world we probably do this in some way. I think every member of the church probably has some way they do this.

So korban comes from the Hebrew word karab, which means to approach or bring near. And in Leviticus, you get this as the description of when you bring an offering to God. You approach God and you bring this offering near. So it's the word when you bring an offering to God. You approach God and you bring this offering near. So it's the word that designates an offering. What he's saying is if you say this is an offering to God, then you can't use it to take care of your parents. So hang on, I'll get back to that. But what they're drawing on is something that we get in Numbers, Numbers chapter 30, verses 1 through 2, where Moses says, you cannot go against an oath. If you make an oath, you cannot break that oath. And I think we'd all agree with that. The

problem is that they're making an oath that makes it so they can't keep a commandment. Because what they seem in practice to be doing is to say, okay, I know I'm supposed to take care of my father and mother. And this goes kind of to this idea that as you get older, you can't really take care of yourself. They don't have social security. What they have is children that take care of their parents. But you've accumulated some wealth and you don't want to spend it on taking care of your parents. So you say, actually, when I die, I'm going to give all of this to the temple or something like that. Right. So that's Corbin. It's now Corbin. It's a vow that I am going to give as an offering to the temple. So now I can't use it to take care of you. Whatever's left, I can spend all I want, however I want, on me.

But when I die, then it's going to be given. And I'm just using this as an example. We don't know exactly how the Corban worked and what they would do, but it would be something somewhat like this. I don't have to use it to take care of you. And Jesus is saying, and this is part of this halakha, there's a debate. When you make an oath, you have to use it to take care of you. And Jesus is saying, and this is part of this halakha, there's a debate. When you make an oath, you have to keep it. But what if that oath was an oath you shouldn't have made because it makes it so you can't keep the commandments? And Jesus is coming out on this and he's saying, you can't do that. The commandment that given to Moses is higher than whatever stupid idea you came up with that you made an oath about. So quit making oaths that

you shouldn't make is really what he's saying. They've found a technical way around, yeah, that's exactly right, around taking care of their parents rather than going with what they really, I mean, think of covenant and what we talked about. They should love God and love each other. They should be taking care of their parents because they love their parents and they want to take care of their parents. But they found a way out of that. And he says, you do a lot of things like that. I guess one of my questions is, how might we do that? Is this why the Savior says later, you strain at a gnat but swallow a camel? It's this idea of you wash your hands, but you don't keep one of the Big Ten commandments.

That's exactly right. And again, I don't think he's condemning everyone or even every Pharisee, but it's this notion and this idea that sometimes we find ways around it. And I'll tell you, I mean, I know I'm exceptionally good at rationalizing. If I feel like, okay,

well, I know things should happen this way, but I'd like it to happen this way. I can usually find a reason why it's okay for me to do things the way I want to do things. I I want to do things. I'm a master rationalizer. If you know the scriptures well enough, you can find a good enough. You can find a loophole.

That's exactly right. And so I would just encourage everyone in the audience to stop and think, is there a way I'm doing this? Is there a way I'm rationalizing? I'm not keeping the heart of the covenant or the laws? I'm not keeping the core of it. I'm going through some actions, but I'm not really acting out of love for God and each other. I think the little verse six that he kind of introduces this idea with, they honor me with their lips. Okay, there's these words, there's this commandments that you can say, but where's your heart in all of this? And you see in those next verses, commandments versus traditions,

commandments versus tradition, making the word of God through none effect, word of God strong through your tradition. And he's putting those side by side and you guys have these out of order here. Your traditions have become bigger than the commandments of God. Is that a fair way to put it? Yeah. Yeah. I think the big question is, are you trying to find ways to not keep commandments? Right? You're looking for justification. And if you need to use the scriptures to make yourself feel justified, then we're into trouble territory. Yeah, I would agree. And let's make sure love of God and each other is at the heart of all that we do. Oh, yeah.

We can keep moving on. Verse 14, he's going to make a bigger point, and this probably also is part of what offends them. So we're still on Mark chapter 7, verse 14. And when he called all the people unto him, so he's not making this a small little conversation just between him and the Pharisees. He's going public with this. Let's talk about this with everyone. Like, oh, man. Yeah, okay. Now that I've got the megaphone, let's go through this. Let's talk about this with everyone. I go, oh, man. Yeah, okay. Now that I've got the megaphone, let's go through this.

He said, hearken unto me, every one of you, and understand. There is nothing from without a man that entering in him can defile him. But the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. And then he goes on to talk about this a little bit more. And the disciples will say, okay, we don't understand. And he'll kind of explain it more. We get that a little bit more in the Matthew account.

But the principle really is, he's saying, it's not what you eat. It's not unwashing hands or anything that defiles you. It's what comes out of you. But I think we should take a step further and say, it's not just what comes out of you, right? So he talks about lasciviousness, sin, covetousness, all these kinds of things. That's what comes out of us. But I think it comes out of us because of what we are, what we've become. So what goes into us does matter in some degree. If we're going to look at the kind of the metaphor, the physical metaphor, you are what you eat, right? So you become what you've eaten. And then what you have become influences what comes out of you, what you do, what you say, and that kind of a thing. Yeah. What comes out of your mouth. Yep.

Yeah. I think that should be our focus is what are we becoming and how that's manifest by the things we say and do. That's what come out of us is what we say and do. But the question is, what are we becoming? And that focus, again, not on the little things of what you do, but why you're doing it and so on that affect what you're becoming. I think that a classic talk that President Dallin H. Oaks gave is called The Challenge to Become. And you're just reminding me of that. Yeah, I love that talk. Yeah. And it seems in here, there's this focus on what are we doing? They've got the laws, they've got the traditions, but President Oaks was like, it's not just what we do. It's not just what we know. And it's not

even what we do. When we know what to do and we do what we know, we become something different. And that's the outcome of all of this is what kind of person are you becoming? And that's why I see that. You honor me with your lips. You've got the right words down, but your heart, where are the intents? And that was the whole Sermon on the Mount. It was a higher inner law. What are your motives? What are your reasons? And what are you becoming? That's harder to measure. Do you remember Elder Lynn Robbins? He talked about, we all have to-do lists, but none of us have to-be lists. Do you remember that talk? He said, I can take my wife on a date, which is a to-do, but being a good husband is a lifetime effort. That's on my to-be list, which I thought was a

really good way to look at it. And that's what you're saying, Cary. What are we becoming? Yeah. So, Cary, is Jesus saying here, look, washing your hands is fine. It's a fine law to keep. But if you're not keeping these larger laws out of your heart is coming evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetedness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride and foolishness. If you're not worried about those, washing your hand isn't going to help you much. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. So if we were to translate this into our day, we can say, okay, so you don't drink coffee and you don't smoke or vape, but you're mean to your neighbor all the time. Yeah. That's still a problem, right? You should avoid taking the wrong stuff into your body, but you should also be careful about what you are so that what comes out of you is kind to your neighbor. Yeah. Okay. I am a thief, but I always wash my hands afterwards.

Yeah, that's good. That is good. I steal. That's what we love about you, John. I steal, but I never swear while I'm stealing. That's good. I'm proud of you. Thanks. But I wear a white shirt and tie when I steal. It's different. Okay. I think we understand this part finally, G. John and I. If we can make jokes about it, we get it.

There you go. There you go. And that's this little confrontation with the Pharisees. And again, it's probably less confrontational than we think it is. It's debating of law. But at some point point they get offended. So it must have been at least somewhat confrontational. The Savior doesn't mince words sometimes. I wanted to just share something really quick. In chapter seven, verse two, this all started with them finding fault in others. This whole conversation started because they found fault.

And I've always loved this Marvin J. Ashton quote, nothing is easier than fault finding. There's no talent, no self-denial, no brains are required to set up in the grumbling business. It doesn't take a lot of brain power to find fault in other people. And I think Jesus is saying, okay, if you want to find fault, we can find some more. Let's talk about some of the faults I find in you since we're talking about that. So just be careful in fault finding in other people. It's probably not going to lead somewhere you end up looking like the great guy, right? That's good.

And maybe we can also look at this from a different point of view. The Savior always finds teaching moments. So they bring this debate about law, and he turns it into a teaching moment for the small group of disciples and then a larger group of disciples to talk about a principle he really wanted to teach and talk about. I think the Savior can do things we can't do. I don't know that it would be my place to gather a large group around if I'm going to tell someone what they've done wrong and so on, right? That's not my place, but it is the Savior's place. So, still, a teaching opportunity is something I should be looking for. He does turn this into quite a lesson. Since you brought it up, let's turn it into a lesson.

Be careful bringing things up around Jesus. He might just turn your comment into a bigger lesson. Yeah. So after this, the Savior's going to leave. So he's in the Galilee area at that point, but now he's going to leave up into what is currently the Lebanon area, the area of the Phoenicians and Tyre and Sidon. So this is a long walk. I have to say one of the things that when I first took my children to Jerusalem, and as we were driving around all the different places he went in the Galilee area, I had a, my oldest son was 13 at the time, and that was his comment to me. I had no idea how much the Savior walked.

He walked so far, so many places, just never tired of going around trying to spread the word. And you have to admire that about him and his disciples. So they're going to go a long ways north up to Tyre and Sidon. He enters into a house and he wasn't trying to be public, but he was too public like everyone knew about him now, so he couldn't be hid. We're still in Mark 7 and we get to verse 25. For a certain woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek.

Now, my guess is she's not actually Greek. This is just Mark's term for meaning Gentile or something like that because he tells us specifically she's a Syrophoenician by nation. So she is from Phoenicia and that Syria-Phoenician area. And she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, Let the children be first filled, for it is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it unto the dogs. Now, that's interesting, right? That can also be seen as harsh. And it brings up an interesting dilemma. And let's go to the Matthew account of this, where you get even a little bit more information.

We're going to be in Matthew chapter 15, verse 22. And behold, a woman of Canaan, now they're not called Canaanites anymore at this time, but a woman of Canaan came out of the same coast and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David. So she is acknowledging both this Jewishness and this kind of royal Jewish line. She's not saying son of God, but she's acknowledging who he is, including the covenant identity, both Abrahamic covenant and Davidic covenant with all of this. And she's not of that line. In the Matthew account, he doesn't even answer her. He answered her not a word and his

disciples came beside him saying, send her away for she crieth after us. And he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So first of all, that statement doesn't make sense if the disciples are saying, Just toss her out. Just get rid of her. Because he's telling them why he's not going to deal with her, which would agree with why they should toss her out and get rid of her. So they must be saying, Send her away, as in give her what she wants so she'll leave leave is what I assume here. But he says, no, I'm just to the house of Israel. And that's an important distinction here. And for some of us, this seems like it can be rather exclusivist or elitist or something along those lines. Like really, you won't even talk to the Gentiles. And we know actually the Savior interacts with the Gentiles a lot. Luke will point that out a ton, but we get it

even here in Matthew. He certainly interacts with Gentiles, but he seems to be saying, my mission is to covenant people. And there's a pattern that we can see all over in scriptures, including happening today, that if we understand that pattern, I think we can understand what's going on here. The Father sends the Son. We're too cut off from the Father's presence to interact with him directly. So the Father sends the Son to interact with us. He's the intercessor. The Son will primarily interact with covenant people. And I think there's not exclusively, right? I don't want to say that people who aren't in the covenant that believe in Christ don't have experiences with Christ and often real, powerful, and meaningful experiences.

Of course they do. But in this kind of official capacity, he is going to work with people who have entered into a formal and clear relationship with him that has changed their nature enough that they can interact with him in a different way. So he will have that group that he interacts with, and then he sends them out to everyone else to get them to join that group. So it's our job to go to the world and get them to come to Christ through covenant so that Christ can bring them to the Father. So that's the order of things. We bring people to Christ, he brings them to the Father, and I think that's what we're

seeing here, is that he's saying, no, I'm going to interact with you, my disciples, my covenant disciples, and then I will, and we'll see this when we get to Acts, and we see it a little bit in the Gospels as well, I will send you out to everyone else. And initially, he sends them only to the house of Israel. The first time he sends a message, just go to the house of Israel. Then he's going to send them to the Gentiles eventually. You talked about this, for example, when you had Matt Gray on and you talked about the tabernacle. You have these degrees of holiness or degrees of nearness to God. Anyone can be near to Christ in a way, but as President Nelson has been teaching so powerfully, when you're in a covenant relationship with him, you have greater access to his power. You have a closer relationship with him.

So he will interact with you and get you to get others to come to him. Okay. Does that make sense? And John, you said you get lots of questions about this. Is there some other ways that you look at this or you explain this? The only thing that comes up sometimes is, yeah, but what about the woman at the well? She was a Samaritan. Is she considered part house of Israel then? And that's why it was okay for him to kind of go home that way and talk to her. Yeah, it's a great question. And I would say, first of all, yes, I mean, she's partially Israelite, intermarried, but partially Israelite. But second, we also want to be clear, the Savior doesn't exclusively interact with Jews.

We're going to see him interact with any number of Gentiles. I would guess that in some way, I mean, I think he knows what's going to happen here. I may be wrong, but I think he knows. I think this is a teaching point. He wants to make sure that he teaches exactly what we just talked about. He's going to go to the covenant people, and the covenant people are going to go to the world, which is exactly what we're engaged in right now as a church the gathering of israel the greatest cause on earth today i like that carry out i like also that he probably knows how much faith this woman has and he's going to teach his disciples a lesson

when they're saying oh she's a gentile just give her what she wants. She'll go away. And he's like, oh, I'm not here for Gentiles. But then kind of thinking to himself, watch what this Gentile's about to do. She's going to teach you something. She could take offense at this one. He just called her a dog because the parable or the analogy he uses to teach this is I'm sent to the children. The children are the house of Israel and I'm feeding them. Why would I give food for the children to the dogs? So he's calling her a Gentile dog, basically. But look at her humility and her faith.

Then came she and worshiped him, saying, Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table. So she is not going to be deterred, for one thing. And let's highlight, we're going to see in this reading a couple of times, parents wanting blessings for their children. And my guess would be that any parent listening right now has felt that way and will feel that way many more times. I've experienced no pain for myself that has been as great as the pain I've experienced when I want my children to be relieved from pain and when I want to bless my children. And we're going to see that again and again. So she is not going to give up and she's humble enough to accept what he said and still demonstrate her faith. I believe that

even just a teeny little bit of what you're doing, if you can do just a teeny bit, you can heal my daughter. That's incredible faith. And then that gets us to this incredible verse that's in verse 28. Maybe John, could you read that and talk about that for us? Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith. Be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour. So faith precedes the miracle type of a thing. Kerry, I liked what you said, that he probably knows what's about to happen.

And so he's like, let's insult her and watch her reaction. And she is going to end up teaching the disciples. This is what faith looks like. It's a beautiful lesson. If only we had the faith of that woman and the humility of that woman to say, maybe I'm not worthy of every blessing, but I believe we need this blessing and we believe you can give it to us. So I don't care what I'm called. It's fine. I'm a Gentile. I know how this works. I just need this blessing. And as Kerry said, if you're seeking a blessing for your child

and you can't give the blessing, I mean, you're at a point where I'll take crumbs, anything you've got, because it's my child I'm talking about here. And that makes you pretty humble at that point. Anything you can do, please do it. Yeah, we'll come back to that idea because it comes up a number of times in this reading. Now, if we continue in the Matthew account, we get kind of a broad sweeping story, and then we'll get an individual story in the Mark account.

In the Matthew account, verse 29, after that powerful verse that John read, we get Jesus departed from thence, so from that Phoenician area, and came nigh unto the Sea of Galilee. So he's going back to where he typically is, right? Home base is in Capernaum. He's doing a lot of moving today. He's doing a ton of walking. Yeah. In fact, I'll tell you, one of the things I do in my classes is at the beginning of class every day, I put up a map and I say, just for the reading for today, here's where we see the Savior go. Here, here, here, here. It's just so that they can kind of picture. And it's incredible how much he travels to try and have everyone be blessed.

In any case, he comes back to Galilee, and he went up into a mountain and sat down there, and a great multitude came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet, and he healed them insomuch that the multitude wondered when they saw the dumb to speak, and the maimed to behold, and the lame to walk, and the blind to see, and they glorified the God of Israel. This is just continuation of this mass wholesale healing and miracle working that he's doing everywhere he goes that serve as signs of who he is. This is what gets people to recognize that this is, eventually they'll go from even a great prophet to more than

a prophet. And we'll talk about that as we get to chapter 16. But we get a very specific story in the Mark account. Okay, so we're going back to Mark? Back to Mark 7, and when he talks about them coming under Galilee through the midst of the coast of Decapolis. So that's an interesting thing that touches on what we were just talking about. Historically, as they kind of carved up this area, the Romans carved up the area into administrative districts. You've got Judea as one administrative district, Samaria as one, Galilee as another, but there was this group of 10 cities that were not very Jewish. They're, we'll say Hellenistic. They're not necessarily actual Greeks, but they're

Hellenistic from all sorts of areas. And they were worried because there had been some earlier, under the Maccabees, there had been some forced conversions. They were being forced to convert to Judaism when they didn't really want to be Jewish. The Romans set aside this area that's on both sides of the River Jordan that they call Decapolis, meaning 10 cities. There are 10 cities that they form a geographic area, and those are very, very Gentile cities. They are not Jewish. They're probably Jews in them, but they're largely Gentile. So the Savior is going through some Gentile areas. Maybe he's only preaching to the Jews in there. I don't know. It doesn't tell us, but he certainly is going through some Gentile areas. For example, if people are familiar with it, Beit She'an is one of the Decapolis cities that's somewhat close to the Galilee area. Hippos is right next to the Sea of Galilee. It's a Decapolis

city. So you've got a couple of those that are likely candidates for where the Savior is going as he does this. Is Tiberias one of these cities? No, it's solidly in it's in galilee yeah it's in his his realm right it's becoming his capital so it's here at antipas's city but he is going to make it more hellenistic than most of the cities around there so that's a good point anyway and they bring unto him one that was deaf and had an impediment in his speech. And they beseech him to put his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude and put his fingers into his ears. And he spit and touched his tongue. That's maybe not good hygiene, but there's some great symbolism here, right?

We've had a number of times where we've had touch being associated with healing or with miracles. And then we get this, and he looking up into heaven's side and said unto him, Ephatha, that is be open. So it comes from the Hebrew word patach. He's probably speaking Aramaic, but it's a cognate language. So patach means to open. And so he's saying be opened. And straightway his ears were opened and the string of his tongue was loosed

and he spake again. And then interestingly, he, meaning Jesus, charged them that they should tell no man but the more they charged them the more they told everybody yeah yeah which is sometimes how it goes anytime you tell someone to keep a secret that's the best way to make sure everybody knows but yeah the savior is certainly getting to become well known as a miracle worker i like what you said there about uh touch the guy can't hear him so he's got to do something else to give him something to know what's happening that's a good point i hadn't even thought of that he can say uh be open but then and other people will hear that but he's interacting with him in a way that works for him and it's a symbolic action

which is important for this culture as well. Yeah. Yeah. Give him something to have faith in. Yeah. Now, I don't know how much you'd like to talk about the feeding of the 4,000. This is after he's fed the 5,000. And we have a very similar story where he has to kind of teach the disciples again and get them to bolster their faith again.

But it's similar enough. And you've talked about that with the feeding of the 5,000. Yeah, I think we're okay to move on because we've got so much other good stuff here. Yeah, we really, really do. Well, let's go back to the Matthew account. And chapter 16, verse 1, the beginning again is really interesting to me. The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came. Now, they're usually, I i mean they work on a council

the sanhedrin together but they're often somewhat at odds so when they're working together this is significant and what's more sadducees are largely from jerusalem their power base is the temple and these are the descendants of zaddikite priests that's where the word sadducee comes from zaddikite so they're not exclusively from Jerusalem, but that's where their power base is. So again, it suggests that we've got a group of Pharisees and a group of Sadducees from Jerusalem coming up, and they are specifically, it says tempting, it's like to test him or to try him, right? They're trying to find a way to have a problem with him. And typically, the more the Sadducees are involved, the more this is the case. And so they ask him to show a sign.

And I have to say, just personally, I love the sign he talks to them about. He takes them to task. And in verse 2, he answered and said unto them, When it is evening, you say, it will be fair weather, for the sky is red. And in the morning, it will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and lowering. So now I just have to say, before I even recognized this in the scriptures, I knew this saying that is basically the same saying. My family loves to water ski. When I was really young, my dad built a boat because we couldn't afford to buy one. He

built a boat. We'd go water skiing. Well, he learned to water ski on a canal in Provo, on a canal behind a car. And then he built a boat and we went water skiing and we just skied all the time and we'd go to Lake Palo and everything. So from the time I was young, my mom and dad taught me this saying, pink at night, sailors delight, red in the morning, sailors warning. We'd always want to know because best skiing is in the morning when it's calm and you don't have other people out on the lake or whatever. Every night, if we wanted to go skiing, we'd go and look to see if it was pink. Every morning, if we were going to go, we'd see if it was red. I never, ever found a time that that was wrong.

Now, sometimes it's not either pink or red, right? So then you don't know. But often it's pink at night and then you know, okay, we can go skiing tomorrow morning. If it's red in the morning, not going to be a good day. That sign was completely accurate in my experience growing up as a water skiing fan. And that's exactly what the Savior's telling him here. He says, look, you know this little thing. You can read those signs, but you've already had plenty of signs from me that you are refusing to read.

So why should I play this game with you? I've already given you what you've asked for. I know you know how to deal signs. You've shown me you're just not going to believe. So I'm not getting involved in your game. And he uses it then as a teaching moment. Verse 4, a wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. Now, I think we want to be careful with that as well.

Sometimes because of that, and Joseph Smith says, anytime someone asks for a sign, you can be sure they're an adulterer. We start to think any kind of signs are bad. But the scriptures are actually full of all sorts of signs that aren't bad. So I would say it's the show me a sign or I won't believe. If we combine what we've got here with some Book of Mormon stories, I think that's the kind of sign. I'm not going to believe until you show me a sign. That kind of a sign is a problem.

But we find examples in the scriptures of people like Gideon and others who say, okay, I'm already doing what you asked me to do. I just want to know, are you still with me? Am I still doing this the right way? Is this the way you want me to do it? Or is this the way you want me to do it? They believe and they're acting and they just want some direction or some interaction or something like that from God. And I think that's a different kind of sign that God seems to be willing to work with. It's like the dew on the fleece. That's the Gideon sign, right? He's a believer. I've heard S. Michael Wilcox talk about this. I just need a fleece.

I need something to help me to keep going. And Gideon's already there with an army. It's not like he's not already acting. I've certainly had this in my life where I'm just seeking and seeking and seeking for an answer to prayer and nothing's coming. And so I try and follow like what Elder Scott and some others have said. Keep moving forward and the Lord will let you know if it's the wrong way. And sometimes I just say, you know, if this seems like it's what you want me to do, I'm going to move forward. You need to send something to tell me it's wrong if this isn't what I should do.

And sometimes I've had something that was a pretty strong sign. That's not the right way. And sometimes a pretty good sign. Okay, this is the right way. Often only after a long time of not knowing what was the right way. Yeah. And keep working, keep moving forward. Our friend and colleague, Dr. Robert Millett, I remember him saying once, what do adultery and sign seeking have in common? And he said, a sign seeker says, I want the evidence. I don't want to do any of the work

or exercise any of the faith. An adulterer says, I want the pleasure of another person, but I don't want any commitment. But that was a, oh, okay. It's kind of a something for nothing mentality that both of those kind of imply. That helped me to see why those are so often grouped together by the Savior. I want something for nothing. Yeah, no effort, just payoff. Yeah. Which goes back to what we were talking about earlier. You don't become what you need to become with that kind of a scenario. Part of the reason that effort is required for all good spiritual things

is because we're a gospel of becoming, to use President Oaks' phrase. It's about what we become as we do think, pray, and so on. And that really takes us into the theme of the next part, which is when Jesus is going to, again, create a teaching moment. We've got verse 5. We're still in Matthew 16, verse 5. And when his disciples come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. So, he's going to use this as another opportunity to teach. And he said unto unto them take heed and beware of the leaven of the pharisees and of the sadducees and they reason among themselves saying is it because we've taken no bread what's what's he talking about right so they're a little off course off track there yeah they're like oh he's telling us to go in and buy

bread but make sure you don't buy from phes. Don't buy the Pharisees bread. It's bad bread. They have poisonous yeast or something. And so let's talk just because I like people to be able to picture what's happening and how life works for them and make the scriptures real. They didn't use leaven the way we use yeast. Typically, most of the time when they raise bread, what they do is it's a little bit like we do sourdough. You have to have a bit of dough that was left over from the last one that is fermenting, right? That's what causes it to rise. And then you mix that dough in with your new dough you've just made. And then it takes a long time. It's not fast like what we do now. It takes a long time. Like some of the reports are that the women would have time to go to the temple and come back and now their dough has risen, right?

So it takes a while for that natural fermentation to happen. So basically what you do if you are going to make bread and you don't have any starter dough with you, you've got to go get someone else's starter dough. So that's kind of the assembly saying, don't go get starter dough from the Pharisees, and then let that ferment. And that's why most of the time, not all the time, but almost all the time, leaven becomes a sign of decay or spiritual decay or spiritual corruption, because what makes the bread rise really is fermenting. And that's good if you let it go to a point, but it always becomes a problem if you let it go too long. So it becomes the symbol for something that can become corrupting. That's what he's talking about. And I think it's a great metaphor for the Pharisees or for some of

the things we were talking about earlier. And again, I don't want to say every Pharisee or anything along those lines, but at least that group that was just there questioning the Savior, trying to cause a problem for him. Because he says the Pharisees and the Sadducees, right? And that's the group that had just been with him. And I think he's saying, look, they're both built on a good base. They've both got a good starting point. But if you go too far with what they're doing, this will corrupt you. And that's what at least that particular group that was just with them, they had become at least corrupt to the degree where they are trying to cause a problem for the Savior.

So again, we have to ask ourselves, what from the world around us is good, taken in little measure, but we just keep letting it ferment in our lives and it becomes corrupting? And my guess would be that the answer is just about everything. Whatever you're taking in from the world, if you do too much of it, it's a problem. I think that's probably part of why President Nelson said, and I'm just paraphrasing, but why I said, if you get all of your information from social or other media, you will be deceived. So you need to make less time for that and more time for Christ. Because if you're getting more from the world than you are from Christ, you're going to go moldy, as it were, spiritually moldy. That's what we don't want.

It's great when they figure it out in verse 12. Then understood they how he bade them not beware of the leaven of the bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Ah, okay, that's what you meant. I love those moments. And I do love that we see that, how patient the Savior is. I wonder how many times he's sitting up there going, why don't you get this? I've taught this to you so clearly and you're doing your own thing, but I'll just keep working on explaining it to you.

And I will be honest that sometimes that explanation has come through listening to this podcast or general conference or other sources like that where you suddenly i go oh oh i get it thinking of that wrong this whole time that's that's really helpful so it's it's nice that the lord can just keep patiently working with us yeah and we have to beware of the of any doctrine that doesn't come from christ it can be a corrupting influence any teaching that doesn't come from the savior, you've got to watch out and be careful around that. And there are certainly good things that come from the world around us, but as you said, you got to be careful. Even a good thing, if we go with it too much, becomes a bad thing if it's anything but coming from God. That's why we need more general conference and less of some of the other stuff I listen to. So yeah, I think it's a powerful lesson.

Just beware of the corrupting influence. Yeah. How much of the world's dough are you mixing in with your new is a question for all of us to ask. And this sounds to me just like a repeat of what we've already talked about. How much traditions of men have taken over from the commandment of God or from the word of God? And it's just another way

of saying it. I think that this probably is the greatest challenge that we face today. And I'd say certainly the generation of like young adults and youth, but I think really everyone, is how much we're influenced by the world and how that corrupts the way we perceive or receive the things of God. I think if you go and look at President Nelson's talks the entire time he's been president of the church, you'll find that theme in just about every talk. You can see ways he's set this up, whether it be him asking, how do you hear him? And then after that saying, okay, are you letting God prevail in your life more than anything else? You have to let God prevail more than the world in your life. And then saying, okay, like I said just a minute ago, make more time for Christ.

Let's take you to the next step. You're letting God prevail. You need to do it even more. Listen to the world less. Listen to God and Christ more. Even to where we get to this last one where he says, if you're accepting the world's values of power, popularity, possessions, or pleasures of the flesh, you will find they cannot satisfy you and give you peace and rest. You will have to go to God and Christ through the covenant if you really want peace and rest. He just keeps

teaching us this in a thousand different ways. And actually, President Oaks has given similar themes a lot of times, the influence of the world, beware of the influence of the world. And yet we listen to the world so much. We have these little ear pods in and we're listening to all sorts of stuff all the time. And I think we don't realize how much we are influenced by the way the world thinks and what the world tells us is important and how we should get things, this incredible individualism of the world and so on, the you-do-you idea. And then when the prophets tell us something, we start to filter it through what the world has told us, and we either twist it or we reject it or we live with some dissonance and friction in our lives, like, well, okay, I believe the prophets, but I don't believe it on this because the world told me this and so on. But we don't quite see it that way. And it inevitably causes us problems where really what we should be doing is filtering

everything that the world tells us through what the prophet is telling us and what the scriptures, what Christ is telling us through ancient and modern prophets. Let's put it that way. Too often we don't do that because the lion's share of our time is given to listening to the world, not to God. Excellent. And I see that struggle so much with the youth and the young adults in the church today. I see it with me too, so with everyone, but especially with that group that has grown up with so much access to listening to the world all the time. Yeah. So today the Savior would say, maybe don't beware the leaven of the Pharisees

and Sadducees. He would say, beware the leaven of the world. Beware of what the world teaches you because it can spread. Yeah. And it does spread. Just think of your mind as the dough and you put that fermented dough from the world in, and it's just going to infiltrate your entire mind. So that's what we have to be careful of. It influences the way we think more than we realize. And we have to every now and then stop and ask ourselves, how am I thinking about this issue? And how much of that is influenced by the world as opposed to the way God would have me think of it? Excellent. Thanks, Gary. We're not spending a lot of time on the feeding of the 4,000 and so on, but right after that in the Mark account, you get a really remarkable story that I think is worth thinking about.

And my guess is that a lot of our audience will resonate with this. So, Hank, do you want to read? We're in Mark chapter 8. Do you want to read verses 22 through 26 for us? Absolutely. I love this story. And he cometh to Bethsaida, and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand, led him out of the town.

And when he had spit upon his eyes and put his hands upon him, he asked if he saw aught. And he looked up and said, I see men as trees walking. And that he put his hands again upon his eyes and made him look up, and he was restored and saw every man clearly. And he sent him away to his house saying, don't tell anybody, right? Neither go into town nor tell anybody in the town. I'm sure he did anyway. Yeah, and lots of others probably did as well. Now, that's a really unique and unusual story because typically, I mean, the Savior heals other blind men and he just touches them and they can see fine. This one is interesting that takes a minute.

It heals them in stages. I don't know why. We can theorize all sorts of things, but I'll tell you at least one lesson that I've taken from that that I'd taught a number of times, but it's become more real to me recently. It seems to me that often in life, the Savior doesn't answer our prayers all at once. Everything made fine and whole all at once. It can be a process, and that process is still miraculous, but it's harder to see the miracles when it's a process, right? And I've thought and believed that for a long time. We have for a while gone through some trials as a family. I have a child who's had some really difficult health challenges that of course are difficult enough in your spirit and your body and your mind interact that they can

become mental health challenges and so on. I cannot tell you how much over the last, it's almost exactly a year now that some of these got more acute and it started a really tough year. And I cannot tell you how often I have prayed and pled and begged for miracles. And really, it's kind of taken over our whole life. And we've just pled for miracles. And President Nelson, about a year ago, said, pray for and expect miracles. And I have taken that so seriously. And I keep praying. I say, I know you can do miracles. We're praying for all sorts of healing. Please, please, please.

And there have been times where I've thought, why isn't this happening? But there have also been times where we've been able to look and say, you know, we've actually seen a number of little miracles. And we're not where we want this to be yet. But I believe it's going to get there. And I don't know how long it is. And honestly believe it's going to get there. And I don't know how long it is. And honestly, I wish the road were shorter and I wish it were less painful. And I'm not talking about for myself. I'd like it to be less painful for my child and I'd like it to be quicker for my child. But when I think about it, we have seen miracles. We have seen

things that would be like, oh, I can see men walking his trees. I'm not where I want to be yet, but I'm not where it was. It's gotten a little bit better. And that's true both the physical healing and emotional healing, not just in our family. I think that's probably true for a lot of people where sometimes you just have to stop and see the miracles that are there while you're waiting for the full miracle, like this man who was at Bethsaida, and take joy in the process, even though there's still pain, or as President Nelson described in his last talk, we can have this in the midst of our most vexing problems,

there's still joy from the little bits of miracles that we see as we're healed and made whole in stages. I would guess that a number of people are feeling that in their lives right now. I have in my margin right there, I have BRM, which is my code for Bruce R. McConkie, who said men also are often healed of their spiritual maladies by degrees. Yeah, and it doesn't lessen the miracle. It's still a miracle. And I'm grateful for this story to help us recognize that sometimes the Savior works that way. Please join us for part two of this podcast.