Day 215

  • Principle: Having charity is required for exaltation.
  • Book of Mormon Reading: Alma 44:16 - 45:19
    • Why did Moroni stop attacking in verse 20?  Today you are going to study about the two great commandments.  How do Moroni’s actions adhere to these commandments?
  • Jesus Christ gives the two great commandments alongside the parable of the Good Samaritan. Read about this parable along with Jesus’ visit to Mary and Martha, teaching the disciples about prayer, and teaching about cleanliness.  As you are reading ponder how Jesus teaches and demonstrates charity.
  • James E. Talmage taught of the devotion of Mary and Martha
    • “There was no reproof of Martha’s desire to provide well; nor any sanction of possible neglect on Mary’s part. We must suppose that Mary had been a willing helper before the master’s arrival; but now that He had come, she chose to remain with Him. Had she been culpably neglectful of her duty, Jesus would not have commended her course. He desired not well-served meals and material comforts only, but the company of the sisters, and above all their receptive attention to what He had to say. He had more to give them than they could possibly provide for Him. Jesus loved the two sisters and their brother as well. Both these women were devoted to Jesus, and each expressed herself in her own way. Martha was of a practical turn, concerned in material service; she was by nature hospitable and self-denying. Mary, contemplative and more spiritually inclined, showed her devotion through the service of companionship and appreciation.” (Talmage, Jesus the Christ, p. 433.)
  • Note the difference between Luke 11:4 and Matthew 6:12
    • J. Reuben Clark, Jr. taught: “The prayer as given in Luke has been considerably tampered with. “Scholars affirm the changes . . . stem from the pen of Marcion, the heretic of almost 1800 years ago. (CR, Apr. 1954, p. 42.)
  • Bruce R. McConkie quoting Joseph Smith expands on what Jesus spoke of in Luke 11:52
    • ‘‘Woe unto you, lawyers! For ye have taken away the key of knowledge, the fulness of the scriptures; ye enter not in yourselves into the kingdom; and those who were entering in, ye hindered.” (Luke 11:53, Inspired Version.) “The devil wages war against the scriptures. He hates them, perverts their plain meanings, and destroys them when he can. He entices those who heed his temptings to delete and discard, to change and corrupt, to alter and amend. . . . “Accordingly, Jesus is here heaping wo upon those who have contaminated and destroyed scriptures which would have guided and enlightened the Jews.” (McConkie, DNTC, 1:624–25.)
  • Additional Study: