Hank Smith: 00:03 Hello my friends. Welcome to Follow Him. My name is Hank Smith and I’m here with the Pentecostal John Bytheway. John, Pentecostal, baptized by the spirit, speaking in tongues. I thought of you.

John Bytheway: 00:17 I would love to have one of those days that I could describe a day of Pentecost.

Hank Smith: 00:21 Yeah. Filled with the Holy Ghost. John, what do you think it would be like for those 11 apostles? Jesus has been crucified and has been resurrected, their world has changed.

John Bytheway: 00:32 What do we do now? Is there a general handbook of instructions? What are we supposed to do now? It was great, but are we done? What do we do? They have a whole world in front of them that they don’t know what to do with, I guess.

Hank Smith: 00:43 Exactly. What is the Elder Holland quote? These 11 Galilean fishermen and a handful of other disciples are going to change the world. It’s a good thing, John, that we have a Bible expert here with us today. His name is Stephan Taeger. Welcome Dr. Taeger.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 01:01 Hi. How’s it going?

Hank Smith: 01:02 Good. Good. What do you think it was like for those 11 apostles and the other disciples?

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 01:07 It must have been extremely difficult and trying to figure out what direction they should take, how to lead this movement that Jesus started, how to carry on the Kingdom of God. On my mission in Las Vegas, a movie came out. It was actually a DVD, for our younger viewers, that’s a circular thing that actually plays movies and it was called Finding Faith in Christ and it showed the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. And a missionary friend, he actually showed the DVD to an investigator and very sincerely, without trying to be sarcastic, the investigator asked the missionary a question that was unintentionally extremely profound. It was actually more of a statement. He said, “It’s a shame that Jesus had to leave because we could really use him in our world today.” And what the Book of Acts is going to do is it’s going to show us how the Savior continues his ministry in our world, post his mortal ministry. What does it look like for Jesus to continue to do his work in our world now. And so that’s what the Book of Acts is going to teach us.

Hank Smith: 02:09 Beautiful. Elder Holland once said, “The location of the Savior had been altered, but the direction and leadership of the church were exactly the same.” Hey John, why don’t you introduce Dr. Taeger to our audience?

John Bytheway: 02:23 Yes. Born and raised in Western Massachusetts. Following his mission to Las Vegas, he received a bachelor’s degree from Utah Valley State College, now UVU. A master’s degree from the University of Utah and a PhD in instructional psychology and technology from BYU and before coming to BYU where he is now, Stephan worked for seminaries and institutes for about 17 years. He’s married to his wife Kirsten. They have six children and we’re delighted to have you here to help us with the book of Acts today.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 02:53 Thank you, John. I’m excited to be here.

Hank Smith: 02:55 This is going to be a lot of fun. Different than our previous lessons here, Stephan, is we don’t have to jump around from gospel to gospel. We’re going to stay in one book this entire way. Since this is our first lesson in the Gospel of Acts, do you have anything you want to introduce to us before we jump in?

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 03:11 Yeah, absolutely. Luke wrote the book of Acts. This is the sequel to the Gospel of Luke and he writes it to a man named Theophilus. We’ll break that down more in just a second, who that might be. It’s estimated to be written towards the second half of the first century. This is pretty important. It covers from the 30s to about 62AD and there’s some significant themes that the Book of Acts hits on, the Holy Spirit, the witness of the apostles, quoting scripture. About one third of the Book of Acts is actually a speech and the book of Acts, people are always breaking out into a sermon and a speech, and then we also see a lot about the fulfillment of God’s promises. It’s actually very sophisticated Greek. It’s written really well. And as far as the main character, the main character is Jesus and his continuation of his work. But secondarily, it focuses on Peter and Paul and their ministry as the Christian Church is beginning to be formed.

Hank Smith: 04:10 There is a great paragraph that opens up the Come Follow Me manual. If you don’t mind, I’m going to read that and then hand it over to you, Stephan. “Have you ever wondered what Peter might have been thinking and feeling when he and the other apostles looked steadfastly toward heaven as Jesus ascended to his father?” Something we’re going to cover here, I’m sure.

  04:28 “The church that was founded by the Son of God was now in Peter’s care. The task of leading the effort to teach all nations now rested on him.” Oh man, poor guy. “But if he felt inadequate or afraid, we don’t find any evidence of that in the Book of Acts, what we do find are examples of fearless testimony, conversion, miraculous healings, spiritual manifestations and significant growth for the church. This was still the Savior’s church, still led by him. In fact, the book Acts of the Apostles could also be called the Acts of Jesus Christ through his apostles. Guided by an outpouring of the spirit. Peter was no longer the unlearned fisherman Jesus found on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, nor was he the distraught man who only weeks earlier, was weeping bitterly because he had denied that he even knew Jesus of Nazareth. In the Book of Acts, you will read powerful declarations about Jesus Christ and his gospel.” I’m already excited just from our first few minutes here, Stephan, that we’re going to take this apart. Where do you want to start?

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 05:28 I’d like to go Acts 1-5, but I’d like to continue to frame it around this question. How can we allow the Savior to continue to minister to us even though he has left his mortal ministry and what does that look like and how do we invite that into our lives? And I think the Book of Acts is just such a powerful framework to answer that question, and already in the first few verses we’d start to get some insight into that question.

Hank Smith: 05:51 That sounds like a fantastic way to go about this, Stephan. So I’m ready to jump in. What do you want to do?

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 05:58 Okay. So right in the very first few verses, we start to get a sense of where the book of Acts is going and how we can answer this question. How do we allow the Savior to continue to minister to us? So verse one, “The former treatise which is referring to the book of Luke, have I made oh Theophilus,” and that’s who the book is written to. It seems like the book of Acts could be written to more than just him, and it’s hard to tell exactly who Theophilus is, but he could be a recent convert or a Roman official, maybe a member of the church. And he says, “Of all that Jesus began to both do and teach.” So he says the book of Luke covered that until the day in which Jesus was taken up after that, and here’s one of the major themes of the book of Acts.

  06:44 He or the Savior through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen. And so right there, we start to see how the work of the Lord is going to continue even though the Savior’s mortal ministry is finished, “To whom the apostles also he showed himself alive after his passion or sufferings by many infallible proofs.” Now that is a really powerful little phrase there. If it’s okay, I’d like to read this from the Institute Manual. What it says about these infallible proofs. It says the Greek term translated as infallible proofs suggest a token or proof that causes something to be known with certainty. During the 40 days when the resurrected Savior taught his disciples, those who saw and spoke with him witnessed infallible proofs, which included the wounds in his resurrected hands, wrists, and feet. So there’s something powerful and sacred that might be referred to here in this phrase, these many infallible proofs.

John Bytheway: 07:49 Oh, got it. The wounds.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 07:51 Right. And then it says, “Being seen of them 40 days.” Obviously we see a lot of 40 days in the Bible and in other scripture, one scholar refers to that as “important transitions.” Another scholar I found refers to it as “divinely ordained periods” and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. So the apostles get these 40 days of personal ministry from the Savior training them, I would imagine, to go out to be representatives of him throughout the whole world.

John Bytheway: 08:22 Now I’m glad you said that Stephan. Somebody just sent me an email today, one of my friends that is also a teacher and said, “Hey, look up the lexicon on infallible proofs.” So I did and I read a couple of really old Protestant commentaries that said that tekmerion, I think was the word in Greek. It said these were signs and tokens of his being alive, and I thought of our hymn that we sing, Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief, the tokens in his hands I knew, the Savior stood before my eyes and I thought, wow, look at that connection there with yeah, this is he who was crucified and is resurrected and those were the infallible proofs, these signs and tokens, which it’s cool and makes us go, “Oh, I see what he was doing after the resurrection.”

Hank Smith: 09:10 Yeah, John, I would also add that I think Luke is saying, and Stephan, you can correct me if I’m wrong here, but in some way he’s saying, “Look, this is undeniable. This is not fiction. I have absolute proof as the sun shines, this is truth.”

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 09:27 Yeah, absolutely. In fact, that’s at the heart of what Luke is trying to do in his original gospel is point to concrete witnesses of the truth, right? It seems like the Institute Manual points out this really interesting insight. It might be that third Nephi could provide a model for what happened during these 40 days. The Nephites also come up and in all of surety that he is the crucified one, the holy one of Israel, and then the Savior spends time to teach them and train them and teach them the gospel of the kingdom. So there might be something there to look at the Nephi as a model of what could have happened during that 40 day ministry. Let’s zero in on this phrase in verse two, “He through the Holy Ghost, had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen.” So in other words, the Savior’s going to continue his work through living apostles. In chapter one, the Savior tells them exactly what they’re going to do as Apostles.

John Bytheway: 10:22 Stephan and Hank, I’m looking at verse six. “When they therefore were come together, they asked of him saying, ‘Wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?'” It’s like all the times they thought, this is going to be a political messiah, “Are you going to do it now?” Did you get that impression when you read that? Man, we’ve been waiting for so long. Now, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel? Was there still a misunderstanding of exactly the kind of Messiah he was, do you think?

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 10:47 Yeah. It seems like there might be a hint of that there. It’s taking them a minute to put this together what kind of kingdom that Jesus is bringing to the earth. It’s extremely difficult to understand the meaning of the four gospels and the rest of the New Testament unless you understand what Israel was waiting for. They were waiting for a kingdom to come and fulfill the promises of Abraham, a messiah who would come and set things right in the world. And it seems like they’re still trying to ask him, is this the moment where we’re going to defeat the Romans and everything’s going to be right. It’s hard to tell exactly, but there might be some of that there that question.

Hank Smith: 11:25 One thing I find fascinating just before we move on, you have Jesus acting through the Holy Ghost to continue his work when so many teach something to the effect of, we don’t need prophets and apostles anymore because we have Jesus and yet here we are the very first chapter after Jesus’ ascension and he’s working through apostles and prophets. So I think the book of Acts tells me I should be looking for more apostles who have the Holy Ghost, to teach me.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 11:58 Yeah, absolutely. It’s interesting when people will say things like, “I don’t need prophets, I don’t need apostles.” Either a secular person would say, “I don’t need a religious person to direct my life.” Or a religious person might say, “I only need Jesus of Nazareth.” But in all truth, every single person on this planet, believe it or not, has prophets. Every single person has people they point to, to give them guidance and direction and there is no New Testament, there is no story of Jesus without Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Divinely appointed representatives. And so it has been in the plan of our father in heaven to call prophets since the beginning, and it always will be as long as the people are willing to receive. It’s not a time of apostasy. There will always be people who will be called to lead his church.

John Bytheway: 12:42 Oh, I love that. I think one of our previous guests said, “Who are you discipled by?” Does that ring a bell, Hank?

Hank Smith: 12:50 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 12:50 So everybody’s a disciple of something. They have thought leaders that they follow or something. That’s a good point.

Hank Smith: 12:58 What a fantastic answer, Stephan. All right, we keep stopping you. Let’s keep going.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 13:03 So in verse eight we get a lot of clarity on exactly how the apostles are going to go out and what their work is going to be and where their work is actually going to focus on. It says, “The Savior says to them, ‘I’m standing on the Mount of Olives, but you shall receive power. After that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem.'” Now if you want to mark in your scriptures at home in your own copy, if you’re listening, you might want to put chapters one through seven there because chapters one through seven of the Book of Acts cover the witness of the apostles in Jerusalem. And if you want to write at home chapters eight and nine, that’s where we see the ministry of the apostles in Judea and Samaria, those chapters and unto the uttermost part of the earth, and that’s chapters 10 through 28. And the book of Acts is actually going to end in Rome because in the ancient world they would’ve thought of that as the ends of the earth. We’ve covered our understanding of the known world.

  14:02 In fact, we see Paul preaching the gospel in Acts 28 and it shows that the gospel has now gone to all the ends of the earth. “And when he had spoken these things while they beheld, he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, behold two men stood by them in white apparel, which also said, ‘Ye men of Galilee.'” So Judas who was a Judean, was actually dead at this point. “Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? The same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.”

  14:46 So Elder Holland has a fantastic quote about this. He says, “Jesus Christ and his father, the God and Father of us all appeared to the boy prophet Joseph Smith in fulfillment of that ancient promise that the resurrected Jesus Christ would again restore his church on earth and again ‘come in like manner’ as those Judean saints had seen him ascend into heaven.” And so at least partially, the first vision might play on this motif of, we see the Father and the Son come back down in like manner as the way the Savior ascended up into heaven. We’re beginning to see in this our day the restoration of these promises and fulfillment of what the Book of Acts is talking about.

John Bytheway: 15:30 I always thought that was second coming, so that’s cool to think… And I’ve heard people say that in reality we should maybe call it second comings because there’s so many different visits. Maybe the first vision is one of those that’s cool. Where was that, Elder Holland?

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 15:45 He says that in Ensign 2006, page 106, Prophets in the Land Again.

Hank Smith: 15:52 I’ve always read this as these angels looking at these guys saying, “Well, why you staring up? You know what to do, get moving, get going. Why you just standing there? Let’s go.”

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 16:06 That’s such a good point, Hank, because we want to ask ourselves now the Savior leaves and like you framed it at the beginning of our time together, what do you do now? And of all of the things we could do, what do we do? Organize a ward camp out? Do we look over the budgets? Do we figure out the hymns? To keep the kingdom of God going, what’s the first thing that we’re going to do? What is the most important part and it’s continuing the kingdom of God on earth and we see what they do. Let’s just go to verse 20 if that’s okay. It says, “Peter stands up and he’s speaking and he says ‘It is written in the book of Psalms.'” He’s speaking to a group of followers, “Let his habitation be desolate and let no man dwell therein.” That’s a quote directly from Psalm 69:25 “And his bishop work, let another take.” That’s Psalm 109:8.

  16:57 What is Peter talking about here? For Peter, he sees in the book of Psalms an indirect prophecy about the need to replace Judas. “Wherefore of these men which have 1.,” I’ve added the one obviously, “Accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until that same day that he was taken from us, must be 2. ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection.” So Peter says, “We’ve got to replace Judas and these people have to have two requirements. They have to have been with us since the ministry of John and they have to be a witness with us of his resurrection.” That’s probably the most important part is that they have to continue to be a witness of his resurrection.

  17:48 Paul is going to be called as an apostle. He obviously doesn’t fit into that first category, but he fits into the most important category, which is, he was called to be a witness of his resurrection and they appointed too Joseph called Barsabbas whose surname, which just means family name, Justus and Mathius. And they prayed and said, “Thou Lord,” I just have to stop here for a second. This is such a sacred and powerful moment where they’re seeking the will of God to know who should be the next apostle. It almost feels like this incredibly sacred privilege to get to overhear this prayer. They prayed and said, “Thou Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, show whether of these two thou has chosen, that he may take part of this ministry and apostleship for which Judas by transgression fell that he might go to his own place,” and they gave forth their lots.

  18:44 Now we’re not exactly sure how they did this. There’s just different ways they could have randomized an answer. Maybe they wrote down names, drew something out, had a yes/no written on rocks or pottery or some form of trying to randomize these two names and the lot fell upon Mathius and he was numbered with the 11 apostles.

  19:05 Now just really quick, I actually really love this story because it shows that the Lord will often work through our cultural understandings to bring about revelation in his will. In the first century, they thought this was one way that God could communicate with them and the Lord in his goodness and kindness communicates with them through this casting of lots to call this new apostle. Okay, so back to our overall question. How can we allow the Savior to continue to minister to us even though his mortal ministry is finished? The first thing, the foundational thing here is to connect with living apostles and prophets. That’s one of the primary ways that the Savior continues to minister to us is through living apostles and prophets. In your own unique ways, how do you stay connected to the teachings of latter-day apostles and prophets?

John Bytheway: 19:55 I like that you said the Lord works through our cultural understanding because I know that, gave forth their lots sounds more like a vote than a casting their lots, which sounds like throwing the dice and it’s hard for us to wrap our heads around what? They cast lots for something this important? and so I like gave forth their lots. I hope that’s what it means, but I also just love to show my students how they started. They prayed. They were seeking the will of God, not their own will at the beginning of this process. Like you said, so important, so sacred. So they started asking God and using whatever their cultural understanding was for him to manifest His will. I like that you said that.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 20:41 Yeah, and whatever method they used, what’s most important is that they prayed and sought the will of God and received it. In the end, it’s revelation that transcends culture and allows God to speak to us in whatever culture or historical setting we’re in. Right? So back to our original question, how can we allow the Savior to continue to minister to us even though his mortal ministry is finished? What we see here in Acts 1 is to connect with living apostles and prophets. This is foundational for the work of the Lord to continue after the Savior’s mortal ministry. And I think obviously, the simplest way to connect with apostles and prophets is to listen and take in conference messages from the leaders of the church. But I think there’s some other things that we can do as well to make sure that we’re really staying connected to those who hold the keys to the kingdom.

  21:32 For example, I find it really important to discern prophetic priorities. There’s lots of talks given, but then when you start seeing themes and ideas repeated, that seems to be one of the clearest ways that the Lord is directing his kingdom. And just for me, some of the prophetic priorities that we’ve been picking up on the last few years are one, President Nelson’s emphasis on us to gather Israel, also for us to know our true identity as children of God, children of the covenant, disciples of Christ. One of the things that the leaders of the church have been teaching often, recently, is to teach the laws of God, the commandments of God, and to be bold in that but to do it with love. To this idea of both law and love at the same time, obviously, the Sabbath has been something that President Nelson has been teaching. That’s the Savior working through living apostles and prophets to direct his kingdom in our day and that’s allowing the Savior to minister to us, to heal us as we’re obedient to that council.

Hank Smith: 22:30 Which is going to happen here. A lot of people are going to be healed by these apostles both in word and deed. I love this phrase in verse 24 that you talked about as they’re choosing the new apostle, they prayed and said “Thou Lord, which knowest the hearts of all.” And that’s one way I think about the apostles. One way I connect is I get a sense of where their heart is. When you hear them speak, I’ve had a chance a couple of times to be around them and you know can sense where their heart is and why they were chosen, because their hearts are so centered on doing good and helping as many people as possible. I don’t know, John, you were around when who was called? Was it Wilford Woodruff?

John Bytheway: 23:14 He was going to send me a telegram, but they hadn’t invented that yet. So I think that they’re always pointing us to Christ too. It’s very clear, as you’ve said Stephan, that they’re being guided and are pointing us to Christ and I was going to add the covenant path to one of those things. It’s such a good, wonderful way of describing that we’re on a journey and a path and that path involves covenants and that covenants involves gathering Israel and all those things come together the way you expressed it.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 23:49 One of the blessings we have also in the modern age is that we can follow the leaders of the church on social media and can you imagine if we had that in Nephi or Paul’s time? And we get these little powerful insights from them. We see pictures of them ministering all over the world and it’s just a little book of Elder Bednar or a little book of Elder Rasband. It’s such a blessing that we can get to witness the Lord working through them almost in real time.

Hank Smith: 24:17 Yeah, that’s fantastic. This Mathias, I’ve always been interested in him because he’s been there the whole time. He’s never mentioned in the gospels, but apparently, he’s been there. He’s been with them since the baptism of John and he’s been with us up till the resurrection. To me, he represents so many people that are unknown.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 24:40 The apostles are obviously called at this time to direct and lead the church by revelation, but the text also tells us in Acts that they’re supposed to be witnesses of his resurrection. We’re going onto sacred ground here, but I was wondering if I could just read a few quick quotes from modern apostles and prophets and they’re witnesses of the resurrection. I don’t want to add a lot of commentary because this is sacred ground. This is about Lorenzo Snow in the Salt Lake temple, and this is his granddaughter, if I remember correctly. “Then grandpa came a step near and held out his left hand and said, ‘He stood right here about three feet above the floor. It looked as though he stood on a plate of solid gold.’ Grandpa told me what a glorious personage the Savior is and described his hands, feet, countenance and beautiful white robes, all of which were of such a glory of whiteness and brightness that he could hardly gaze upon him.”

  25:39 This is from Elder Melvin J. Ballard. He was on a church assignment and he had this experience, a visionary experience. He says, “As I entered the room, I saw seated on a raised platform, the most glorious being I have ever conceived of and was taken forward to be introduced to him. As I approached him, he smiled, called my name and stretched out his hands toward me. And if I live to be a million years old, I shall never forget that smile. I fell at his feet and there saw the marks of the nails and as I kissed them with deep joy swelling through my whole being, I felt that I was in heaven indeed.”

  26:21 This is from Orson F. Whitney while he was on church assignment and he had a vision of the Savior in Gethsemane. “As he prayed,” speaking of the Savior, “The tears streamed down his face, which was toward me. I was so moved at the site that I also wept out of pure sympathy. My whole heart went out to him. I loved him with all my soul and I longed to be with him as I longed for nothing else.”

  26:46 1989, general conference, Elder David B. Haight and Elder Haight, he plays a very important role in my family. My father heard him speak and was deeply converted by his testimony. When my dad was looking into the church and coming into the church. It was actually Elder Haight who was instrumental in this testimony. This is what Elder Haight says in October, 1989. He had recently just spent some time in the hospital and he says very directly, “I was shown a panoramic view of his earthly ministry, his baptism, his teaching, his healing the sick and the lame, the mock trial, his crucifixion, his resurrection and ascension.”

  27:24 Elder McConkie, this is such a beautiful talk. I’ll just quote from it shortly, Purifying Power of Gethsemane. Elder McConkie testifies boldly. He says this, “I am one of his witnesses and in a coming day, I shall feel the nail marks in his hands and his feet and shall wet his feet with my tears. But I shall not know any better then, than I know now that he is God’s almighty son, that he is our Savior and Redeemer and that salvation comes in and through his atoning blood and in no other way.”

  27:57 And just one more from President Eyring, one sentence. October, 1996, this is from a talk, witnesses for God. He says this, “I am grateful that I know as surely as did the apostles, Peter, James and John, that Jesus is the Christ, our risen Lord and that he is our advocate with the Father.” Everyone has apostles, everyone has spiritual leaders that they look to whether they’re religious or not. Everyone has people they trust that I am so, so grateful that the leaders of this church are witnesses of the risen Christ, that they can testify directly and boldly that God truly raised his Son from the dead.

Hank Smith: 28:43 Beautiful.

John Bytheway: 28:44 I remember listening to that and the impression that [inaudible 00:28:48] when he told that story in 1989 because that was like… All of us in my family were, “Wow.” Because he talked in detail about what he saw in general conference in that. Yeah, thanks for sharing those. I think just the very fact that they are putting Matthias in there tells us that this organization of the 12 was intended to continue, which that’s huge.

Hank Smith: 29:15 Excellent point, John. Yeah.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 29:17 That’s a great point John. We also see precedence for that in the Book of Mormon. Fourth Nephi, there’s a continuation of a calling of the disciples. And so it could be that Acts 1 is at least establishing a pattern or setting up for this continuing of calling apostles. We see other apostles called throughout the New Testament, but even if it’s not, even if Acts one doesn’t mean that, a lot of traditional Christians, the way they read this text is that the original calling of the 12 was supposed to be a terminating office. It wasn’t supposed to last. Even if that’s what is intended in Acts 1, the whole point of Acts 1 is that God continues to lead his church through revelation. And so as latter-day saints, we’re not bound by what the Bible says. We love the Bible, we uphold the Bible, we revere the Bible. But the primary source of truth according to Elder Oaks is revelation itself.

  30:08 So even if some scholar can prove something in a text, we’re beholden to the will of God as manifested through modern revelation. So we’ve just witnessed the calling of prophets and their work, how the Lord continues to minister to us through their work. But prophets can’t be available for every question all of the time. Well, we can’t write to Salt Lake and ask the prophet which job I should take or how to handle a specific situation with a child or we can’t ask Elder Holland to write our sacrament meeting talks. That wouldn’t be beneficial anyways. Well, how else is the Lord going to lead his church and work through his church besides just apostles and prophets? And I think we get a key insight here in Acts 2. Let’s start off in verse one.

  30:52 “And when the day of Pentecost,” Pentecost, it’s the first harvest. It’s 50 days after Passover. It’s one of the three major pilgrimage feasts that Jews celebrate. “Was fully come and they were all with one accord in one place.” So the membership of the churches is in one spot and suddenly, “There came from heaven, as a rushing mighty wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting.” This represents the presence of God or his spirit coming into this house. “And there appeared unto them cloven,” which means forked, “Tongues like as of fire. And it sat upon each of them.” So these forked flaming tongues come down and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance. And so the New Testament actually talks about two types of speaking and tongues.

  31:49 One type is what we would call ecstatic speech. Paul talks about this in Corinthians. This is speaking in an unknown tongue that needs to be translated. But another type of gift of tongues is what we more commonly understand in the church. And that’s when someone is given the gift to speak in a known language that they didn’t know before. And that’s what we see happen here in this chapter. The people have this powerful experience. Traditional Christians sometimes call this, or at least I’ve heard some call this the birthday of the church. The spirit comes among them and they go out and speak and talk to different people. And people are very shocked by this. The people in the street see all of these members of the church speaking in these different tongues and they’re wondering what’s happening.

  32:33 But Peter standing up with the 11, this is verse 14, if you’re following along at home, lifted up his voice and said, and this begins a sermon like we see throughout the book of Acts. Peter’s going to stand up and give a sermon in this context, said unto them, “Ye men of Judea and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you and hearken to my words for these are not drunken,” just in case we were confused by that, right? As you suppose, seeing it is but the third hour.” That’s 9:00 AM.

Hank Smith: 33:02 That makes me laugh every time.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 33:04 It’s too early for that.

Hank Smith: 33:05 We’re not drunk, it’s only 9:00 AM.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 33:08 Of the day. “But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel,” and he’s going to quote Joel too here. “And it shall come to pass in the last day, saith God, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. And on my servants and on my handmaidens, I will pour out in those days of my spirit and they shall prophesy.”

  33:35 Now we’ve likened this verse also to the latter-days, but this just shows us that scripture is not limited to what it meant at the time, but the spirit of God can use a scripture in whatever way he wants to. And Peter is applying it to their time saying, “This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. God’s kingdom is breaking forth as manifested by the coming of the Holy Ghost.” In fact, the Book of Mormon consistently insists over and over again, if the kingdom of God is present, you’re going to see the workings of the spirit, the gifts of the spirit, visions, miracles. So how do we allow the Savior to continue to minister to us even though his mortal ministry is finished? We connect with living apostles and prophets. And two, we receive the Holy Ghost. As we’ve already talked about, this is key in the way that the Savior continues his ministry.

Hank Smith: 34:25 That’s awesome. Stephan, as you’ve talked about clinging to the Savior through the Holy Ghost. I have always loved Doctrine & Covenants Section 11 verses 12 and 13. It’s easy to remember. 11, 12, 13. And the Lord says, “You can put your trust in the Spirit.” And then he defines the spirit, “Which leadeth to do good, to do justly, to walk humbly and to judge righteously.” And then he repeats himself. “This is my spirit.” So it’s so fascinating to me sometimes when people say, “I don’t know if I’ve ever felt the Holy Ghost,” and I always take them to this verse, Doctrine Covenants 11, 12 and 13, have you ever wanted to do good, to be honest, to be humble, to not judge people? Yeah, I felt all of that. He says it right there very clearly. This is my Spirit. So it’s just one of my favorites. When you brought up the Holy Ghost, I thought, oh, I wanted to share.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 35:24 Yeah. I think what I love about that verse is when we’re led by the Holy Ghost, that doesn’t mean we’re led like a puppet or it erases our individuality, our creativity, but the kinds of decisions that lead us towards those things, we can be confident that we’re being led by God. And so the Spirit mixes with our own individuality and creativity to then do good in the world. As that verse says so clearly. First Nephi 10, verse 11 says, “And after,” speaking of the Savior, “And after he had been slain, he should rise from the dead and should make himself manifest by the Holy Ghost unto the Gentiles.” Right there in the Book of Mormon, this has always been a part of the plan of God, is that the Savior will continue to manifest and minister to us through the Holy Spirit. And at least three ways that that’s going to happen is one, motivation, two, inspiration, and three, transformation.

  36:18 So the Holy Ghost here is described as fire and the Holy Spirit is an incredible source of motivation. The best. So as we are doing our morning devotionals at a table early on, wiping the sleep from our eyes, we’ve got scriptures, notes, marking insights down, and we read just the right verse and it fills us for the whole day. A little day of Pentecost every single morning if we do our scripture study right, or weekly church or temple. These are all things that motivate us to love God and others. The Holy Spirit also gives us inspiration. At the end of the day, we’re just not smart enough. We need help, with family, with church, with work, and we plead with our Father in heaven to give us insight and inspiration on how to move forward with some of the most difficult challenges that we have.

  37:06 And finally, transformation. The Spirit also changes our very nature. It makes it so that sin is less appealing. This is what King Benjamin teaches in Mosiah 3:19, that we become saints through the atonement of Jesus Christ as we yield to the Holy Spirit. I have a buddy who was watching some movies once, and as he was watching it, he noticed that as a kid, he wasn’t offended by this movie, but now he was. And later on he was praying about it. He was talking to our Father in heaven about this, and he said, “Why does this bother me now?” And the Lord whispered to his heart, “You’re being changed. You’re becoming something new.” And as we live in the Spirit, we notice that sin just has less pull on us. This is a part of the way that the Savior continues to minister to us in the latter-days.

Hank Smith: 37:54 Yeah. Little imperceptible changes maybe from day to day, but an experience like that, like your friend had, will show you how far you’ve come.

John Bytheway: 38:03 I like what you’re saying there that For the Strength of Youth guide, it’s very interesting to read to see how often any standard, whether it’s speech, dress, media, it all comes down to keeping the Holy Ghost. And I like what your friend said, it’s like you get to that realization where it doesn’t say in there don’t see movies that offend you. It says, “Don’t see movies that offend the Holy Ghost.” Well, it doesn’t offend me. Oh, okay. Well then no, it’s what makes the Spirit leave you. The sacrament table said, you always wanted the Spirit to be with you. So what is it that offends the Spirit? That’s what we want to keep with us. And it’s fun to see the Holy Ghost working in here with these people like you said it. What were those words you used?

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 38:52 Motivation, inspiration, and transformation. Yep.

Hank Smith: 38:55 Yeah. And look what it’s doing to Peter here in this chapter. We haven’t seen Peter stand up and give speeches in front of crowds.

John Bytheway: 39:05 Yeah, no kidding. This is so fun to see. The Peter in the gospels and the Peter in the Book of Acts, and you think, what happened? Well, that resurrection happened.

Hank Smith: 39:15 Yeah. Resurrection and the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 39:18 Yeah. We see him motivated. We see him inspired on what to say, and we see him transformed. He’s a completely different person.

John Bytheway: 39:27 Please join us for part two of this podcast.