In Which I Am Alive

If I lived 100 years ago (or 200, or 300, or 400. Take your pick.) I would have wanted to work at a printing press. The crisp, musty smell of new paper, the thick, honest blackness of home-made ink, and the sounds of the press hard at work have an unmatched romance for me. I could get lost for hours in the methodical organization of setting type, and would grow strong pulling the levers of the press and inking the machinery. But most of all, I'd be in it for the feeling that my work mattered. I'd be helping spread new ideas and bringing the world together in a community of readers. I remember learning in elementary school about the lives of children my age in earlier centuries. I was shocked to hear that young boys had to choose their trade young, sometimes as early as 9 or 10. "How can you decide your life's work that early?" I wondered. Famously indecisive, I spent most of last semester worrying about what I would major in, and now that I've declared...

So, about two weeks ago, I walked into my apartment to Michael Buble singing "Let it Snow," followed by Christmas song after Christmas song. For my roommates, the Christmas season evidently starts at the beginning of October. This irritated me at first, but as I've thought about it, I realized, why confine the joy we feel at our Savior's birth to one month of the year? We owe Him gratitude and praise every day of the year, not just during December. So along those lines, here is my blog post for today. Looking at the two birth narratives in the New Testament (Matthew and Luke), I found it interesting that neither narrative contains “the whole story” as we commonly hear it. The main elements of our Nativity story seem to be split fairly evenly between these two books. Matthew starts with Mary becoming pregnant by the Holy Ghost, (1:18) and Joseph’s reaction to this. I really admire Joseph’s behavior in this story. First, when Joseph discovers his fiancée is preg...

A wise friend told me this story last week. It really helped me put a few things in perspective. Once there was a clever old man who lived in a suburban neighborhood. One day, this old man was in his sumptuous study, trying to take a nap, when the sounds of children playing on his front lawn woke him. This had been a recurring problem, and the old man decided to put a stop to it. Now, an ordinary ornery old man would have run out waving his cane and chased the kids off his property, but this ornery old man was clever. He stepped out his door, identified the ringleader, and said to him, "Oh, you children. The sound of your playing brings me such joy. If I pay you each a dollar, will you come back and play on my lawn tomorrow, just as loudly as you are today?" The boy agreed, and the children all came and played on his lawn the next day. Every day that week the children came and played on the old man's lawn, and every day he paid them each a dollar. However, when th...

Who was Luke? Luke was the author of the Gospel According to Luke and the Book of Acts. The Gospel of Luke chronicles events in the life of Jesus: his birth, ministry, miracles, teachings, death, Atonement, and Resurrection, and contains valuable information not found in the other Gospels. It is from Luke that we gain the most detailed account of the events surrounding Jesus’ birth and childhood. Without Luke, we wouldn’t have the story of the Angel Gabriel appearing to Mary, the birth of the Savior in a humble stable, or the announcement of Christ’s birth to the shepherds. Luke tells us about of Jesus as a 12 year-old boy, “going about his Father’s business” by teaching the doctors in the temple (Luke 2). Additionally, Luke’s gospel has more of a focus than the other gospels on Christ’s interactions with His female followers, such as the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10. Acts, a continuation of the Gospel, chronicles the events of the early Church after Jesus' Ascension....

I'm about to do something revolutionary. I'm going to write a blog post that isn't for my New Testament class. I don't think that anyone really reads this blog, but if you do, listen up kids because this is big news. Well....not really. I just wanted to share some thoughts. The other day, I was returning from the grocery store. I started for the bus stop carrying my heavy bags of nutritious goodness when I glimpsed, waiting at the stop light, THE BUS! My bus! I started running, but my human legs couldn't keep up, and the bus had soon paused at my stop, and carried on without me. Disappointed, I made my way to the bus stop, groceries in tow, and sat on the bench, only to have the sprinklers turn on. I jumped out of the way and found a place to stand where my groceries wouldn't get wet. As time passed by, doubts crept into my head, "Maybe...the bus isn't coming? No, of course not, the bus always comes. It's just in...BYU game traffic. Oh my ...

Mark begins His account of Jesus’ death in chapter 14, with the woman who came and anointed His head with spikenard. When the disciples rebuked her for this apparent “waste” of money, Jesus defended her, saying “She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of a memorial of her.” (Mark 14:8-9). This woman understood that Jesus would not long be with them, and chose to honor Him. That night, Jesus met with the Twelve for what is now known as the Last Supper. At this Passover meal, Jesus predicted His betrayal by Judas (Mark 14:18), His impending death, (Mark 14:23), and the unfaithfulness of the Twelve (Mark 14:27). He instituted the ordinance of the sacrament, introducing it as “the blood of the new testament, which is shed for many,” (Mark 14:24), speaking of the new covenant to come with His death and Re...