followHIM - Matthew 4; Luke 4-5 Part 2 • Dr. Jan Martin • Jan. 30 - Feb. 5

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

Dr. Jan Martin continues to examine the invitation Jesus Christ gives every disciple to leave their previous lives behind to follow Him.Please rate and review the podcast!Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.coApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/follow-him-a-come-follow-me-podcast/id1545433056Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/15G9TTz8yLp0dQyEcBQ8BYThanks to the follow HIM 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 DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsIgor Willians: Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Welcome to part two with Dr. Jan Martin, Matthew chapter four and Luke chapters four and five. Let's jump over to Luke chapter four, just so we can have a look. We've already looked at the temptations. You'll see those at the beginning of Luke, but when he comes out of the temptations, we have this return. You look at verse 14 of Luke chapter four is where we'll pick it up. And Jesus returns in the power of the spirit. But that was the whole point he went into the wilderness was to come out with this pre-spiritual power. And he does. He's going to go public now. He's going to go announce his ministry officially to people now. And he does it from his hometown. So he goes back to Nazareth where he brought up. And I love verse 16 where he goes and does something. And then this phrase as his custom

was, he did this all the time. Yeah. He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, first of all. That tells you something about his obedience to the laws of things of going to where he needs to be when he needs to be there. And then he stood up for to read. Now, whether his custom was to go there and read every time he went there, I don't know. But very possibly, he was someone who would be handed a scroll. That's what you do in their synagogues. If you can read it, you're handed a scroll and you stand up and read it and then explain

it to the group. And so it sounds like he maybe did that frequently. Kind of like a gospel doctrine slash fasting testimony meeting together. Yeah. They seem to at least be comfortable enough with him being there, first of all, and then handing him scrolls to read. So maybe he's been reading them in the past and this is not his first time reading, but he stands up to read. And then we get this book from the prophet Isaiah. For those of you wondering about the word Esaias in verse 17, that is the Greek version of Isaiah's name. So you're not confused. Like who's this prophet Esaias? Well, prophet Isaiah. And he opens up the scroll. We have scrolls. And this is one of the fun things about reading a KJV New Testament, for example. They often anglicize concepts, opening the book. They don't have books in those days. They have scrolls. And so you just need to be aware he's got a scroll, not a book that we're familiar with. And he unrolls the scroll and we'll be reading that aloud. And then we have these powerful verses of Isaiah to

deal with. So here we are. That's interesting with the KJV, they're like, he unrolled the scroll. Well, he opened a book. And you'll see that a lot in the KJV Bible, all the way through the Old Testament, New Testament. They'll take words that English people are more comfortable with and put them in there instead of using a more literal translation. But that should be a scroll. I love when the Book of Mormon says he unfolded the scriptures like, whoa. We'll save that for next year. Yes. What is that? That could possibly mean. Yeah. We have a lot to think about here with Jesus standing up to read, standing up to teach. He doesn't have any official credentials as far as the typical education system goes for doing what he's doing.

But people obviously are touched by the way that he teaches, the power that he teaches. And then he causes a ruckus right here with this verse. Luke, it's quick to point out, this is where he was brought up. This is his hometown. Yeah. As he announces, you know, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. He's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives. These verses, from what I understand from Old Testament scholars, that people in that day interpreted them as millennial, that these verses are going to take place when the Messiah comes later. They're familiar with them. They recognize them. But to

have somebody saying, this is now, and this is about me, you can see why that would be controversial, cause a bit of a ruckus, because the typical understanding of these is millennial, not now. And to have them applied to somebody that's standing in front of them would be unusual. And then their response is not this Joseph's son in verse 22. Like, we know this guy. We grew up with this guy. How can he possibly apply these verses in this way to himself? You can just imagine the whisperings and the

offended feelings going on with verses that they understand in a particular way. When we did Isaiah 61, I think I mentioned this before, but I love to think of this as, well, I ask my students, choose your favorite Old Testament verse that you think perfectly describes the Savior. And that sends them on a search. But then I'm like, we don't need to choose it. Jesus chose the one. And he used this verse to describe his mission. And look at what he says. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to get those commandment breakers, to punish those people, to tell them they're all disobedient. That's right.

The way we sometimes look. Actually, I came to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, like you've talked about so beautifully, Jen, today. I came to heal broken hearts. I came to preach deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, set at liberty them that are bruised. The manual this week asks us, do you know anyone who is brokenhearted or who needs to be set at liberty to them that are bruised? To have Jesus choose the verse, to have it be about healing broken hearts is another window into how he sees his mission, I think. I've come to heal people and to bless people.

And it wasn't a big obedience commandments thing, which are all important, but how does he characterize it? He chose the verse. That's a question I've always had. Maybe you know, Jan and Hank, but did they hand him the scroll or did he say, give me that one? Did Jesus say, give me the Isaiah scroll? Yeah. Now you look at verse 17, it doesn't tell you they're delivering him this scroll, but there's no information at all about how he asked for it. Yeah. Did he ask for it or did someone just bring it?

Or maybe Jesus was so good. No matter what scroll they hand me, I know where I'm going to go. He could just do it. Yeah. Yeah. But they handed him this one. And I just love that. You want to know how the Savior described his mission, announced who he was? Well, that's Isaiah 61. And it's about

healing broken hearts. I think it's awesome. Yeah. And you look at verse 21, how bold he is this day, this scripture fulfilled in your ears. Like what? Like right now, today, you're taking this millennial scripture and you're moving it up. Like, really? That's the mic drop moment, isn't it? Yes. And I love verse 22, because after he says that, and all bear him witness and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. So, they're feeling the spirit of it. They're seeing the spirit of it. They're seeing the light of it. There's something different about this claim, but they're having a hard time getting their

head around it. It's not this Joseph's son. Okay, let's have this conversation. As the interaction goes on, you look at verse 23, and he starts into trying to help them understand kind of who he is and what's going on here. So I'd be interested in what you guys make of that conversation as he starts looking at people who are not Israelite and the miracles that have happened for non-Israelites and how you connect that to this conversation about his identity. I have some ideas, obviously,

but it's fun to just talk about it. Yeah, I've been impressed that he says, I know what you're going to say. You're going to say, you're going to say, do some miracles. We've heard of some miracles being done. Do some miracles. And he says, it's almost like you have to believe first. Don't you remember these stories from the Old Testament? Don't you remember the story of Elijah and the story of Elisha and how they were rejected by Israel,

their own people, but accepted by Gentiles, accepted by people you wouldn't think who would accept them. Yeah, and you have Naaman the Syrian being mentioned as being healed of his leprosy. And I just find it really fascinating as they're struggling to get past what they think they know about Jesus, what he's doing here to kind of help them a little bit. Find it fascinating to me.

They're going to say, okay, do a miracle. Do a miracle. Then if you're really who you are and it's like, that's not how it works. Yeah. And then you look at 28 after this conversation, here comes all the anger. Like verse 22, they're feeling the graciousness and recognizing the spirit. And then he does kind of this, I'm not going to do what you're wanting me to do. And here's my reasons.

And now the anger comes and then they try and take his life. How dare you compare us to those ancient Israelites who rejected prophets? Let's reject him. You can't be you because you're from just down the street and you're Joseph's son. And my students have asked me, hey, wait a minute. I thought that the reason they took Jesus to Pilate was because they couldn't do capital punishment. I remember I asked one of my professors, I think it was Kelly Ogden, wait a minute, I thought they couldn't do that. And he said, well, he said, this is more like mob behavior in verse 29.

This is mob behavior, yes. Yeah, and so that's a different thing than an official state capital punishment. So they just wanted to, all of them, throw him off the brow of the hill. They're just mad. You know, this is a rage moment, isn't it? A mob mentality of, you've made me angry. But again, as we were talking about in the temptations, notice this. They want to cast him down.

They take him to this point up on a hill, and then they're going to bring him down. So again, this spirit of contention, the spirit of anger, the spirit of rejection, and it always leads to going down. It doesn't make things better. If they'd just stopped and started recognizing what spirit was leading this show here, then they could have said, wait a second, we're not actually being filled with a happy spirit. He's right in their midst and they don't get it. He's right there in front of them. Isaiah says that the Savior would be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. This has to be one of those moments where his own hometown decides they'd rather have him dead than be taught by him.

It says he passing through the midst of them went his way, but I wonder if his head was down. That didn't go well. Yeah. But as soon as he leaves there in verse 31 and goes down to Pernium, then we have a very Book of Mormon sounding type verse. They were astonished at his doctrine. His word was with power. Which again is what he was in the wilderness for. And here he comes out and you see him being able to, with power and authority, teach unlike anyone

else. So this is one of the common themes through the gospels is people are just repeatedly astonished at his way of teaching, the power of his teaching, that he's got this authority that their other scribes that they're used to hearing from don't have. And clearly they're recognizing something, even if they can't always figure out what. When somebody says, astonished at his doctrine, his word, was that a feeling? Because I think we felt that before. Somebody's teaching and we go, whoa, is it a feeling? Is it a spirit that carries it to them? Is it both? I guess it's all of that because I'm sure there were other people

who could teach scriptures and stuff. But when Jesus taught, it was different. Sounds like he had a way with it. Yeah. Yeah. Where does it say elsewhere? He taught with authority and not as the scribes. And then the JST says he taught with authority from God

and not with authority from the scribes. And it makes it even better. he taught with authority from God and not with authority from the scribes. And it makes it even better. He taught with authority from God. So I was again doing some background research on teaching credentials and what this means for Jesus because he doesn't come through the typical scribal education process. The Jews have several levels of education that you can go through. And if you're going to become a rabbi or a teacher or a scribe like this, you follow someone who's well known for that. You become a disciple. You sit there in their school for years and years. And then when you come out of it, everybody knows who you have followed. Like when you learn about Saul, he says, I follow Gamaliel. Who's your rabbi? And Jesus doesn't have any of that. So I was looking just into some of that and found a great article by Matt Richardson on the Religious Studies website, and you can find it. But the title of the article is Jesus,

the Unorthodox Teacher. So if anybody wants to go and have a read of it, it was pretty helpful. But one thing he said was, what is astonishing is not that Jesus was without proper credentials, but that the people even cared. Most teachers without proper training would be dismissed without a second thought. But this uncredentialed teacher astonished the people to the point that they not only recognized him as an outstanding teacher, but they actually addressed him by the title teacher. And some even went so far as to call him a teacher come from God. So that's in John three. So as we're talking about this, clearly he doesn't have the typical worldly credentials, but people are being touched to

the point that they're caring and interacting and calling him a teacher anyway. What does that say about what he's doing here? Could you please display your degree so that we know? And I like that, is it in John 7? Where did you get this doctrine? And my doctrine is not mine. It's him that sent me. Yeah, yeah. Because that seems to be a common question. Wait, wait, who did you study under? Where'd you get your degree from? Who's your rabbi? We get those kinds of questions today. Where'd you do your degrees? Where'd you come

from? But Jesus actually just is like from God. From God? Where else will I get it from? If you know who I am, where do you think I'm getting this from? So. Is that an accredited school? Exactly. So as we pointed out, he's been rejected by his own people. And one thing that I just wanted to mention is that that is sometimes the most painful type of rejection that we have in this life. Yeah. Is to be rejected by the people that are closest to you and that should know you the best.

Sometimes the people that we know the best kind of limit what we can be and do. Sometimes they don't want to let us be seen differently. And you watch that prophet that has no honor in his own country. I can't get past your preconceived notions of me. So I'm now going to go somewhere else where they don't know him from a child. They don't know him from a teenager. And he has some really powerful experiences elsewhere because they aren't limiting what Jesus can do by their preconceived understanding. That's kind of important to think about for us when we're dealing with our own families and friends or people that are our families and friends. And let's try and maybe not limit them to their past or limit them to what we know about them.

Yeah. Especially when they get a calling or something. Yeah. We're like, whoa, they called him. Yeah. I know him or her. But isn't that wonderful? Look what the Lord can do with an Amulek.

Yeah. So then we head over to Capernaum. I think it's worth just helping people with Capernaum, if you aren't familiar. This is up on the Northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. It's a fishing village. From what I understand, it had about 1500 inhabitants at the time. It's also located on the famous Roman road, the Via Maris, the way of the sea. You're going to have lots of people from different towns and nations coming through here. You just have to kind of get the background for the population and the visitors and the tourists and the travelers and different nations that will be coming through here because the road linked Egypt with Syria and Mesopotamia.

So it's a big long road and it's highly traveled. It's Peter and Andrew's hometown, as you'll find out. And then from what I have found, there's more recorded miracles in Capernaum than any other town. Maybe because it's such a melting pot, they just have an ability to allow the spirit to work without restraining it or something. But this is quite a place where we have a lot of powerful things happening. And for anyone who wants to know, Capernaum has been abandoned. It was abandoned in the 11th century.

There's nothing there. It ruins today, but at one time it seems to have been a bustling pass through spot where you'd come through as you're on your way somewhere. So good place for Jesus to be. This is great. I'm excited to get to Luke chapter five where Jesus actually starts calling his apostles.

Can we go into Luke five? Yeah, let's do it. One of the things about Jesus that I appreciate as a teacher is that he was willing to teach anyone, anywhere, in any way. So here's an example. He's not in a synagogue. He's not sitting comfortably somewhere. He's at the side of the lake and he gets out in a boat and he goes out there and he thrusts out from the land and he sits out there and he teaches anyone who's willing to come in and listen. We have this beautiful example of teaching, but then we moved to this

interesting interaction with Simon Peter, calling him. And the backstory is here that they've been fishing all night and weren't able to get any kind of a catch. And then we have this miraculous, oh, just put your net in here. And you got to love Simon for being willing to put the net in. He does say that we didn't catch anything, but he does it anyway. It sounds like they're all done for the day. They were washing their nets. They were putting everything away.

Yeah, they're coming in. Yeah, I saw Michael Wilcox reenact this once that I thought was so funny because he was like, Simon answering said, Master, we've toiled all the night and have taken nothing. Nevertheless, at thy word, he talks about the nevertheless, like you're looking at the Savior. Nevertheless, okay. Sure. Who are you arguing with? Yes. Well, you have to wonder what the Savior's facial expression was right there. He's listening to this explanation. We've toiled all night.

And you just wonder what body language is going on there for him to go, nevertheless. Okay. Jesus is like, I don't remember asking. Yeah. He puts this big pause in there. Okay. So I have a question, though. Why would they call him master?

Is this the first time they met? Did they know him? I did some looking into that word again, because that's a King James thing. So the word that's under there in the Greek is didaskalos, which would be translated as teacher. Now, the interesting thing about the King James Version is mostly it uses the word master, but most other modern translations will use teacher or rabbi here. Yes. This is kind of a KJV thing. And why would they be doing that? Well, back in their culture, they kind of have that social hierarchy. They kind of have a way of using that

word master. That's a very anglicized viewpoint for the 16th century, 17th century. So that them, but a normal modern translation would either have teacher here or rabbi here. We just need to remember what Peter's going after is this kind of links us to our conversation about why did they see Jesus as a rabbi or a teacher when he didn't have any credentials? But by this point, they've seen him teach and heard his doctrines at least enough to be giving him that title. Interesting. Yeah. They knew something different about him enough to call him master. Yeah. What was the Greek? Didaskalos. Yeah, that's the word. But like I said, most of the other translations will either put teacher there or rabbi there. They don't use

master. KJV kind of keeps that to itself, but that's a very 16th, 17th century word. And I don't know if anybody's read the Lord of the Rings or done any of those kinds of things, but if you have, you'll see Samwise, the character calling his master Frodo, master all the way through there. Just a very English way of showing respect to somebody and conveying that they're on a higher plane than you. But that's not really, I think teacher or rabbi would be closer to what the Greek is having there. I think verse five lets us in a little bit on the personality of Peter. And he's like, what? We've just been fishing. We just did that. We just cleaned up. Yeah. But okay. I know. I love the pause. Nevertheless. And the depiction of this in

the chosen, I just thought was so delightful. How excited they were when they pulled those nets up and all the others came running. And that's when I got, okay, I got to watch this show. That was so well done. Yeah. And to me, you see in this explanation, I don't know if any of you have had this experience with your students, but you've asked them to do something and they haven't done it. And then the first thing they do is give you all the reasons why they haven't done it. And I can imagine the look I give them usually is, and I realized that you had all of those, but I still need you to do the following.

And so what a fun student-teacher interaction here. It's just very typical. Peter, you almost feel like he feels a little defensive a little bit, but we really did try to do this. So we've done our best. We've worked all night. There's nothing out there. I promise there's no fish out there. And then that kind of look from the superior rabbi of, oh, okay, I'll do it. You got to trust me on this.

You got to trust me on this. Right. You got to trust me. Go do it again. I'm the fisherman. So what do you know about fishing? Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if that's why he calls him teacher, John. He's like teacher, not fisherman. You're a teacher. I'm a fisherman. I'm the fisherman. I'm the expert on this part, at least. And I've been out here all night. So just the amount of fish that they get, you just got to love that imagery.

They filled both ships and they both began to sink. The boats are sinking with all that tilapia. Yes, exactly. And then you look at this reaction, especially since we've been having fun with that first interaction of kind of the, I know what I'm talking about, but I'll do it anyway. And then you look at Simon Peter, he falls down, Jesus's knees depart from me for I am a sinful man. Oh Lord. Yeah. You almost get the feeling he knows what's coming.

He knows you're calling. I know that some people get a sense that a calling is coming and their first reaction is no, not me. I am not the guy. I am not the woman you're looking for. I promise. Can I read something from Elder Holland about this?

Sure. This beautiful phrase in verse four, launch out into the deep. This is what Elder Holland said about that. Peter could not have known the ever-widening circles that single command would make in the stream of his plain and simple life. He was launching out into the expanse of godliness, into the eternal possibilities of redeemed and simple life. He was launching out into the expanse of godliness, into the eternal possibilities of redeemed and celestial life. He would be learning the mysteries of the kingdom. He would be hearing unspeakable things. To launch out into that limitless sea of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Peter brought his craft ashore, turned his back on the most spectacular single catch

ever taken from Galilee, forsook all and followed him. From that moment on, Jesus taught and trained Peter at every opportunity. That's September 1975, end sign. I'll make sure to link all of these quotes in our show notes on followhim.co. So you can go to one place to get all of these great quotes we've been using today. There's something else, too, that I think is true. Verse 6 says their net break.

But when Jesus comes again post-resurrection, the net doesn't break. And I've always wondered if there's a symbolic meaning there or something. So I'll throw it to you guys. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's lots you could do with that. the life that you've lived is going to be different now. Yeah. Those nets that you're going to be using to catch men. Yeah. I'm going to have you catching men. You're not going to be doing this anymore. And I need you to be willing to kind of separate from your old life, which would be really hard to give it up. I've always tried to help my students see that this is very much a first Nephi 3.7,

because if Simon has a wife and kids and this is their only means of livelihood, how do you take the main provider out of the house and not have him providing fish anymore? And so this moment allows them financially to leave. Like this is a windfall, a financial windfall. And so how does the Lord help us fulfill callings that he asks us to do? He does help us. And we got to look at that enabling. Here's the enabling power of the atonement into Peter's life and James and

John's life because they're these major breadwinners. How are you going to have those families survive without the money from the fishing? And look at this. There's a preparation and help financially to do what they need to do. So the way has been provided. Me too. I love what Peter sees in himself and what Jesus sees. Two totally different things. I'm a sinful man and Jesus sees a fisher of men. I think Jesus knows about Peter. Yeah. What do you see in you versus what does he see in you? Yeah. I love in verse 10 too, that he starts it off with fear not. Of course, you're going to be nervous. I'm a fisherman.

I'm not a missionary. I'm not a leader of something. I don't know. I've never done this. I don't work with people. Fear not. I am going to tutor. As Elder Holland said, I'm going to tutor and train you into catching men, which is

going to be a steep learning curve, a difficult time. Everything's going to be different for Peter, James, and John from henceforth. They have every reason to be insecure and to be anxious and afraid. But I need you to not be afraid. I'm going to help you. Yeah, and we can all take comfort in that with any new calling. Yeah. Getting the calling to be the gospel doctrine teacher or the Relief Society president or the young women's president.

Fear not. You can do this. And then you have that lovely verse at verse 11. They forsook all and followed him. Now, one of the interesting things when I was reading about teachers and disciples and the education system in the Jewish times to just understand why Jesus was so unusual. But one of the things I read was that teachers and people you wanted to go study under, they didn't invite you to come study with them. You went and asked if you could study with them. But Jesus is always inviting people to come study with him.

Come and see, come and follow me, come and forsake everything and come, come, come. Again, that makes him an unusual rabbi is he's always inviting disciples. And that's not normally what you did. You had people coming and asking to study under you, which is the typical academic way. Even today, when you do PhDs, you have to go and approach a doctor of something. You find a tutor and you ask if you should apply and you get support. You don't just apply for a PhD program. You find someone you want to study under and ask if you can. This is, again, just really fascinating with he's inviting them to come and study under him. And they are.

They're willing to leave everything behind. Hey, follow him. It's right in there, isn't it, Hank? Hey. We kind of like that phrase. Yeah. And you got to think that maybe part of Peter is like, let's stay here and do this. Right?

Let's stay here and catch all these fish and get really rich. But it's, no, I gave you enough. Like you said, Jan, I've given you enough to where now you can walk away and go full time to the ministry. It's like Elder Holland said, if I want fish, I can get fish. He's saying that the Savior is saying this. If I want fish, I can get fish. I need you to be a fisher of men. There's another quotation that I like with this, that Elder John Longdon, we're talking in the 1960s before you and Hank were born.

He said something like, and he was quoting, it's kind of an old saying type thing. Satan chooses his disciples when they are idle. Jesus chose his when they were busy at their work. And I thought what an interesting idea is that they were busy at their work and Jesus chose them. Satan chooses people when they're idle. And that's a whole interesting topic. The Doctrine and Covenants and the Book of Mormon talk about people that are full of idleness. And I guess you get in trouble when you have nothing to do type of a thing.

But Jesus chose people who were already working. I thought, oh, that's interesting insight. Yeah. And what that says about their work ethic, because preaching the gospel, all of this is work oriented. We have to wear the garments of the laborer. And you want to pick people who already have a work ethic and invite them to then transfer their good work ethic to something of more eternal value than maybe what they were doing.

And so, you know, Peter, James and John clearly are hard workers. They've been up all night. They've been fishing. They've been trying to earn a living. It's not like they're sitting around waiting for the fish to just come to them. They're out there looking but now we're going to take all that talent and hard work and we're going to have to put it in a realm where they're not used to working and see if we can transfer the skills over to do something new but you're working with people who are already used

to hard labor and this is going to be hard yeah when nephi says that we got to separate from the lamanites lehi dies in second nehi 4, and in 2 Nephi 5, he takes his people, they call it the land of Nephi, and Nephi says, and I did cause my people to be industrious and to labor with their hands. There was a lot of things he could have done. All right, we're gone. Let's party, right? But he says, okay, let's get to work. And they did. They built a temple. Yeah. And then you're looking at what they were asked to give up. They forsook all. They left their families behind to whatever extent.

They left their jobs. They changed their focus. They went on traveling around instead of staying at home. That's something to think about, too, is sacrifice is part of the gospel. It's one of the first principles of the gospel that we learn to sacrifice. And you watch a massive sacrifice happening here, but then you think about all the things that Peter, James, and John are going to get to receive in return for their sacrifice that they could never have had any other way.

And doesn't Peter bring that up later? Hey, we've forsaken all. Well, that's when he's asking about the rich people who can get into the kingdom, isn't it? And doesn't Peter bring that up later? Hey, we've forsaken all. to become a disciple of Christ. The things that we get, it's that Doctrine and Covenants verse that neither eye nor ear hath comprehended or whatever word they use, the things that God has in store for them that love him. 1 Corinthians 2.9. Yeah, is that where it is? Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither entered into the heart of man. Yeah. Well, it's in the manual too.

This was quoted recently in General Conference, page 22 in the manual. Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover he can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. Know how this happened to Simon Peter and his fellow fishermen. Jesus saw something greater in them

than they saw in themselves. He wanted to make them fishers of men. Fascinating who he chooses. He doesn't choose these students of the scriptures in Jerusalem. He chooses fishermen from Galilee. And then over in verse 27, he chooses a publican. That's got to be hard for some in the group. This is Matthew in verse 27, his publican named Levi. And he left all, there's that word again, he left all, rose up and followed him. He's kind

of putting together quite an odd team. An odd team. He is. And that's something we have to remember too is, and I remember Elder Ballard saying this, he came to BYU a couple of years ago and did a question answer session. But one of the things he said to the students was, sometimes you misunderstand what it means to be a general authority. I'm not an authority on every subject. My job is to bring you to Christ and to teach you how to come into Christ. And I'm an expert in that. I'm not an expert in every biblical subject or every scriptural topic or every church history subject.

And we need to remember what our leaders do and what they don't do. And none of these people were scriptorians. He doesn't call anybody who's been studying under a scribe or who's got an education. Everybody has to learn the scriptures from the ground up. And our leaders are very similar to that. Some of them have had a seminary teaching background or something, but a large majority of them come from whatever walk of life. Business, law, medicine, whatever. You look at the first presidency right now.

Yeah, you got medicine, law, and education. So we need to be reasonable about what we're expecting them to be able to teach us. And remember that they're learning and studying and getting revelation the same way. Hank has heard me talk about an interesting experience in my life. I was 17 years old and called to be what they used to call the junior Sunday school chorister. I was a primary chorister basically, and I was 17 and a boy. And I know that I love telling the story. We don't have time for here, but there were other teachers watching me struggle to teach the kids there were other primary teachers going who called him who called him I'm sure that was happening and it's it's a fun story to tell because suddenly I found

myself opening an area in the Philippines in Benelon and having a bunch of people show up to our branch and a lot of kids. And I knew exactly what to do. It was a really interesting moment for me to go, I know what to do. And I knew the songs, they were in my head. So we may have those moments. Who called him? Right. Or who called her?

Who called her? But the Lord is smarter than we are. And he might call a publican and a fisherman and say, I'm going to picked on, bullied, nobody who's ostracized socially and a loner, basically, to turn to see a future of being able to be a teacher and be in front of people and be able to do stuff like this. Wow, what a transformation from this, the person that hid in the corner and never wanted to be noticed and did everything to avoid any attention because it was usually negative to being comfortable teaching and interacting with large populations of people.

You are a personification of that idea. Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover he can make more out of their lives than they can. You didn't see it in yourself, but he saw it in you for all along. And you taught physical education for a while too. Yeah, I did a degree in that. I did a little student teaching and things, but it was just kind of one of those realizations that though I wanted to be a teacher, I hadn't quite discovered the field that felt exactly right. I had a journey to figure that out

and I'm so grateful that I'm here, but it didn't start there. So all of us kind of have this adventure figuring out who we are and what our purpose is in life and what the Lord has for us to do. And for me, it wasn't remaining in that. Yeah. I think for all of us that teach young adults sometimes they're, well, should I major in this or should I major in that? And you're kind of like, for a lot of people, it really doesn't matter. The Lord's going to find something He wants you to do. So you might work in the same degree you studied and you might not. You might not.

And I certainly don't. It was an adventure. It was just line upon line, learning piece by piece, gathering the preparation for certain things. And you just let the Lord lead you. But he's got it. He can get you where he needs you to be. I will order all things for your good. Yes.

It's fascinating to me that he calls this fisherman and he calls this publican and then he throws a dinner party. That's going to be our first order of events is we're going to have a dinner party and he gets highly criticized for it, that he's eating with sinners and publicans. And what a great answer he gives. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. That's verse 31, right, John? 31. They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

How do you argue with that? I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. So he's got them all called and he's like, all right, let's get started. Let's get started. Yeah, let's get to work. I like how Elder Holland says the church is not a monastery for perfect people, although all of us ought to be striving to become better. But he said it's more like a hospital for those who are ill and want to get well.

This is an important thing to remember because I think it's Elder Maxwell that said, we are each other's clinical material. We're all running around in this clinic together, the church being a clinic. And we're all running around in this clinic together the church being a clinic and we're all imperfect people we all do and say things that are not helpful sometimes and it can be really difficult to be a member of an organization with imperfect people but this is where we have to apply the gospel and say we're all disciples i can forgive we can work things out and just because something unkind happens which which happens, doesn't mean I have to leave the organization and be offended by it. I need to expect that people are going to do things that aren't great.

And I need to find a way to work it out and continue being a disciple instead of leaving the clinic and going elsewhere because I was bothered that somebody didn't do the right thing. Yeah. Elder D. Todd Christofferson gave this talk called Why the Church? And I took that apart and just made a bullet point for everything that he said. There are so many good reasons, but one of them was to experience the application of divine doctrine. And then he said, we have to put up with each other's idiosyncrasies. And then he said, or as President Packer called them, our idiot syncracies. But where do we learn love and forgiveness and mercy? Sometimes in our own church,

we're learning to get along. And like you said, we say things that are hurtful or didn't mean to be hurtful. Sometimes maybe somebody did mean to be hurtful. Well, what are we going to do? Well, where else are you going to go? This is still the Lord's church and we're all doing the best we can. So I like that you brought that up. It's tough. I've lived long enough to have had many of difficult experience with various church members. But the ultimate question you ask every time something happens that's hurtful or disappointing

or didn't go the way that you hoped it would is, why am I here and who am I following? I'm following Jesus. I'm here for the Savior. And that makes everything else go to the sidelines and be put in their proper place. I'm not here following that particular leader or I'm not here following that particular member who hurt my feelings. I'm here because I love Jesus Christ and I'm a disciple of Christ. So I'm going to stick with Christ and then I'm going to learn, as painful as it is, to apply his teachings to help me deal with everyone else who's following Christ. It can be hard. Elder Christofferson, he said that in that talk about who am I following?

He said that we are striving not for conversion to the church, but to Christ and his gospel. And I thought, I have used that language myself. My dad was a convert. But I noticed the Book of Mormon never calls it they were converted to the church. It always says converted unto the Lord. And there's one verse, I want to say 3 Nephi 28, 23, I think where it says, and they were converted unto the Lord and united with the church. And you kind of see the object of our conversion is Christ, not the

members, not the church. And if we're converted to the right thing, then we can have that perspective and stay in. We're experiencing application of doctrine. Yes, we are. It can be so painful and it really pushes us right where we are, right in that core sometimes to have to work with forgiving other members of the church for things they either did or didn't do. But it's important to remember this concept of who am I following? I'm studying under the Lord Jesus Christ. And he can handle everything that's going on in the clinic. He's aware of all of those little things. In fact, later on when the Savior talks about his disciples and how he's aware that on occasion they were fault-finding and having contention amongst themselves, it's not like he was blind to that.

He knew about all of that. But his teachings are there to help us how to handle all of that and still be a disciple. So we belong in this group, even as sinners. He's saying they belong right next to me, right out of the manual. It says sometimes people feel guilty when they are tempted to sin. But even the Savior who lived without sin was tempted. Jesus knows the temptations we face and how to help us overcome them. So anybody listening who's saying, I'm not a fisherman or a Republican, I'm a sinner.

Well, you were invited to the party as well. Well, and you know what's so funny about this comment? I mean, the richness of it and the all-encompassingness of it is amazing. Because the scribes and Pharisees are murmuring because they think they're better spiritually than everyone else because of the way they live their lives. And here's the Savior saying, they that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But the people he's addressing that comment to are sick as well because of their judgment of others, their rejection of others. They're sick too. It's kind of this invitation here of, well, I am going to hang out with these people, but I actually need you to come and be part of these people because you're kind of part of these people. All of us are sinners in one way or another.

And all have fallen short of the glory of God. Right. And it seems like the Savior is harder on people who think they have no sin. How would you say it? He seems to be harder on hypocrites than on sinners. And hypocrisy is not willing to admit that you're a sinner. Why are you eating and drinking with publicans and sinners? Well, who else am I going to find on planet earth to eat with? Exactly. All that Lord's ever had to work with is imperfect people. Elder Holland, you know that famous thing? Yes.

Must be incredibly frustrating to him, but he deals with it. And so should we. This is all there is. I couldn't find a perfect person, so I chose this guy to be the bishop. That's what my ward said. And that's such an important thing for us to do when we're tempted to point fingers at the weaknesses and sins of others is to really just stop and say, well, maybe I don't do that particular thing, but there's other things that I do. And the minute you start doing that, you can be humbled and get off the judgment pedestal and be like, maybe I didn't like that that person did that, but these are my weaknesses and I want someone to be merciful for mine. So how can I find it in my heart to be merciful to someone else's problems. That then allows that unity you were talking about to happen. Humility is a major component of being able to be unified. We all have to just be humble and then it's easier to connect. So I love that he's saying something like that, that he's coming to heal the sick, but kind of sending a message to the people he's talking to that they're included in the group. As good as you are.

What was the joke? It was like Zig Ziglar or somebody that said that I'm not coming to your church. There's just a bunch of hypocrites. And he said, well, we got room for one more. That's funny. I want to read this paragraph to both of you out of the manual and get your thoughts on it. Kind of sums up the entire lesson. It says, from his youth, Jesus seemed to be aware that he had a unique sacred mission. But as Jesus prepared to begin his earthly ministry, the adversary sought to plant doubt in the Savior's mind, if thou be the Son of God, Satan said. But the Savior had communed with his Father in heaven. He knew the scriptures, and he knew who he was. To him, Satan's offer, all this will I give thee,

was a hollow one. For the Savior's lifelong preparation allowed him to receive the power of the Spirit. That's that reference to Luke 4. So despite temptation, trials, and rejection, Jesus Christ never wavered from his appointed work. Quote, I must preach the kingdom of God, for therefore am I sent. And then we could add that he called others in that same way. Jan and John, both of you, what do you hope our listeners walk away with from these three chapters we've studied today? common problem of self-doubt and not maybe feeling comfortable with me or my mission and what I'm here on earth to do and to really be able to connect with the Savior who's kind of shown us a way to handle that. As we said with the temptation section, we spent so much time

looking at that, but every single verse is incredibly rich about how do I deal with Satan? How do I deal with the weakness of mortality? How do I deal with temptations and still remain faithful and true to the fact that I'm a daughter or son of God and I was sent here to do some specific things? And I would hope that the audience out there would just be really touched at, here's some tools I can use to discover that and remain faithful to who I am and what I came here to do. And to see that in others as well. It seems that he sees that in himself, and then he goes and finds these fishermen and publicans and even sinners, and he sees something in them. He sees a greatness in them as well.

You know, I love that idea. I thought, I love it when we can find a way not just to see what's here and to try to be scholarly and to be able to say, what do I do with this? And I think, Jen, you helped us find a beautiful way to apply how Jesus answered those temptations and that all of us can think that God sees more in us maybe than we see in ourselves. I liked what you said about practical ways that we can take these passages and to help us go through this life. I really like that. I love that he has those experiences and then just even announcing who he is and the pushback he gets from announcing who he is. And it's not just Satan who keeps questioning if, if, if it's other people. Even that last incident that we're looking at with the scribes and Pharisees saying, why are you eating with publicans and sinners? There's an if in that. If you were who you said you were,

you would not be doing this. That's one of our biggest pieces of adversity and mortality is forgetting who we are and what we came here to do. So I appreciate President Nelson's reminders of those identities and that we need to really cling to those eternal identities and not apologize for who we are and what we came here to do and push through the adversity that comes against those things and not let them dissuade us from that. It's so easy. And I've had so many times in my life where unkind things have been said or people have complained about something, and it can really devastate you and make you question, why am I even doing this? Why am I even trying to teach the gospel? How come I'm even up in front of those people when sometimes it just feels like you're a target

for the complaining or the misunderstanding or the whatever, and it can really undermine you. And every time that happens, it's a real temptation to cave and to self-doubt and to say, well, maybe I am in the wrong place. Maybe I do need to find another job. But when you come back to those spiritual moments and you're like, no, this is what the Lord has asked me to do. And as I focus on that,

I can overcome any of the pushback and we're all gonna get it. So it just gives us the strength to be comfortable and confident like the Savior is. He's so confident and he never deviates from his purpose. So well said. Wow. What a fantastic, fantastic day, John. How did we get this job to sit at the feet of people like Jan Martin and to learn today, it's just been an absolute treat. My scriptures are well-marked after today.

I've got a whole bunch of to-dos. Go find this, go find this, go find this. Some of the things you shared. Cherish your personal burdens. Whoa, wow. Go find that. Yeah. Thank you, Jan.

Yeah, you're welcome. Been fun. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. We want to thank Dr. Jan Martin for being with us today. We want to thank all of our listeners. Of course, we want to thank our executive producer, Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. We want to remember our founder, the late Steve Sorensen, and we hope all of you will join us next week. We're going to come back. We're studying more of the New Testament on Follow Him. friends. To reach those who are searching for help with their Come Follow Me study, please subscribe, rate, review, or comment on the podcast, which makes the podcast easier to find. Thank you. We have an amazing production crew we want you to know about. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Nielsen, Will Stoughton, Crystal Roberts, and Ariel Cuadra. Thank you to our amazing production team.