Gospel Message Day 150

Gospel Study Insight

I feel I've finished the last topic, but my scripture study wanted to be shared today instead of beginning a new topic. My bishop challenged our ward to read the New Testament this year, to help us with our study of it in Gospel Doctrine. I decided to start today, but this time for my reading I thought I would try going by the Harmony of the Gospels as listed in the Bible Dictionary. I remember being challenged to this before. Maybe in my New Testament class at BYU? But I can't remember if I finished it. I don't think I did.

So I feel it is a good challenge for me. As I waited in the temple to do some service, I began this challenge and managed to get up to Jesus' baptism. (I'm also reading the scriptures that we have received through latter-day revelation--meaning revelation since the Gospel was restored (thus Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price). I love reading these together. Because I had time to read, I was able to manage a lot of reading and not just a few verses. And I was able to see better than I usually do with my typical focus on chapter by chapter in one work and book of scripture just how much all 4 of our scripture works correlate to each other. How the others truly testify of Christ and support the New Testament in what was written.

I also found it amazing that in a world WAY before cell phones and any other digital device and connection, people all over the world testified of one Jesus Christ. Jacob did ~550 years before Christ's birth. And could prophesy and testify of Him by name. King Benjamin prophesied and testified of Him by name 124 years before the Savior came. Samuel the Lamanite prophesied of Jesus by name 5 years before His birth. Isaiah also prophesied and testified of Him by name hundreds of years before the birth. And even further back, Enoch testified of Christ by name when he told of how the Lord revealed the Plan of Salvation (and the Savior's name and mission with it) to Adam. The very first man on Earth.

Christ was foretold of for many generations. He has been talked of for generations since. All before anything digital could spread the word around the globe. He didn't need to go viral with media. Jesus Christ, His mission, His message, His teachings, His life, His Atonement, His death, His resurrection--they all spread throughout the world because people opened their mouths to share the Good News. And that is what we are supposed to do today. Open our mouths--keep spreading the Good News!

Doctrine and Covenants 33:8-10:

Open your mouths and they shall be filled, and you shall become even as Nephi of old, who journeyed from Jerusalem in the wilderness.

Yea, open your mouths and spare not, and you shall be laden with sheaves upon your backs, for lo, I am with you.

Yea, open your mouths and they shall be filled, saying:Repent, repent, and prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand