Hank Smith: 00:00:03 Hello my friends, welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name’s Hank Smith. I’m your host and I’m here with my converted co-host, John Bytheway. Welcome John Bytheway, to followHIM, another episode.

John Bytheway: 00:00:14 Thank you, Hank. Yes, I’ve I went from SAE to metric, I’ve converted.

Hank Smith: 00:00:19 You’ve converted.

John Bytheway: 00:00:20 I’m metered.

Hank Smith: 00:00:20 I need to think about that. I’m converted. John, Jesus is going to say in this week’s lesson, he’s going to say, “Conversion is an ongoing experience.” And he’s going to say to Peter, “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” We are in some wonderful, touching chapters of the New Testament today and we needed a Bible expert to join us. Who’s with us?

John Bytheway: 00:00:40 Yes, we’ve got one. Dr. Dan Belnap is with us again. He was with us last year in Old Testament. He was born in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, raised in Pocatello and Sandy, Utah. Served his mission in the Pennsylvania Pittsburgh mission. He married Erin Penny in 1997. They have four children, Emma, Jack, Samuel, and Tabitha. He has a BA in International Relations from BYU, an MA in Ancient Near Eastern Studies from BYU, an MA and a PhD in Northwest Semitics from the University of Chicago.

  00:01:14 He was a part-time instructor before coming an assistant professor in 2007. He achieved the rank of professor in 2020. His areas of expertise include the Hebrew Bible, which I remember from last year, Ugaritic studies and ritual studies. Many of our listeners will remember. He was the co-editor of that book From Creation to Sinai. He was a co-editor with Aaron Schade, The Old Testament Through the Lens of the Restoration, that amazing book. And we’re so glad to have you back. Been looking forward to this. Welcome back, Dr. Belnap.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:01:47 Thanks, happy to be here.

Hank Smith: 00:01:49 We loved having Dan on last year and I know we’re going to love having Dan on this year. He’s just a brilliant scholar, good friend of mine. Dan, we’re going to be in Luke 22 and John 18 today. Of course, this is going to be looking at the Savior in the garden of Gethsemane. But before we do that, Luke 22 opens up with, we’re back at the last supper. There’s now a feast of unleavened bread called the Passover. The chief priests and scribes are trying to kill him, and now you have Luke describing it this way. “Then entered Satan into Judas, surnamed Iscariot, one of the 12.” So before we go any further, Dan, I want to ask you, how do we make sense of Judas and what he does here?

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:02:33 That’s a tricky question, a hard question, and part of the problem is the text never really does, any of the gospels, they never really give us insight as to why Judas does what he does. We know that he’s one of the 12 disciples that Christ has called. We understand that. We recognize that we have a few stories here and there that suggest maybe he’s not concerned about Christ’s mission the same way. There’s the concern he has about the ointment that is poured over Christ. That cost a lot of money, maybe we should have been given that to the poor. But then again, Christ had been teaching that you should be taking care of the poor, and so who knows exactly what was meant by that. The gospel writers certainly see that Judas is going to betray Christ and this is reflected across all four of them, but it’s unclear exactly his reasons why he might have done that and the motive that lies behind it.

  00:03:29 One idea that some have suggested might just go with the term Iscariot, right here, that maybe he’s involved with a Jewish kind of freedom movement in some way or he was involved, in which case Christ’s claim to be the Messiah is one that he’s responding to. There’s a lot of people that might be thinking of him in a more political sense of that Messiah. A warrior king who’s going to come and restore Israel or restore Judah, Israel, to its golden age of freedom and independence and power and so forth. And maybe he’s got caught up on that. Maybe he’s looking at this and thinking Christ all of a sudden isn’t acting the way I would expect the Messiah to act. During this last week, we started with a triumphal entry. Things were great, but it’s just gone kind of downhill from there.

  00:04:18 He keeps going home and leaving Jerusalem every night, but we don’t know. We don’t really know. We have this text here from Luke where he says Satan entered into Judas simply suggesting that Judas has been overcome by the adversary, which really is a theme that’s going to run through both of these chapters of Christ’s disciples dealing with the challenges of the way this story is unfolding. The way these events are happening, I don’t think they’re expecting him. No one’s going to fully understand what Christ’s mission was until after. At which point when he shows up in a resurrected body, they’re like, “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay, now that makes sense. Now I grasp that now. That makes better sense.” So Judas is, like the other disciples, he’s lost.

  00:05:02 And I think both Matthew, it’s not in Luke per se, but both in Matthew and Mark, Christ had mentioned, “I’m a shepherd. You’re going to be like sheep that have scattered. You’re just going to be offended these next day or two.” And by offense he means to trip, to stumble, to fall. You’re just going to be tried and they all get tried. I can’t speak to the whole narrative and I don’t want to certainly apologize for what Judas does, but in Matthew, for instance, when Judas leaves this table, Christ calls him a friend. It’s something that shows up a few verses later in chapter 22 in verse 22 you find, “And truly the son of man goeth as it was determined, but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed.”

  00:05:42 The concept of a woe, a woe oracle, this is a woe pronouncement. We find these in the Old Testament and elsewhere. They’re often associated with a prophetic statement. Where they come from is almost a mourning background, to mourn someone. If someone’s suffering or has died, you mourn them and a woe is the type of pronounce that you would make there. Woe, they’re in such bad states.

  00:06:06 So you’ve got Christ referring to him as a friend in Matthew. You’ve got a woe pronouncement here in verse 22. There’s a sense that Christ still very much loves Judas even as he recognizes that betrayal is going to happen. You’ve got the story later of where Judas is going to have great remorse for what he did, and it just seems from these stories that there’s a sense that Judas, he knows why he did what he did, but I don’t think he’s thought it through completely and understands all the ramifications of it. And when he does, realizes that he has betrayed Christ and he’s destroyed by that.

Hank Smith: 00:06:44 Bitter tears of regret, bitter tears.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:06:46 He’ll take his own life as a way to maybe get through that pain and not that this is a great way to start this, but that’s a dark, sobering story of where you’re going to have someone who commits suicide and sees there’s no way out, there’s no way out from their behavior except for suicide. I think when you read verse 22, you see Christ almost prophetically mourning the death of his friend.

Hank Smith: 00:07:14 I wanted to read this to both of you. Elder James Talmage certainly had strong feelings about Judas. He said quote, “He had pledged himself to the blackest deed of treachery of which man is capable. And from that hour, he sought the opportunity of superseding his infamous promise by its more villainous fulfillment. We are yet to be afflicted by other glimpses of the evil hearted Iscariot in the course of this dread chronicle of tragedy and perdition. For the present, let it be said that before Judas sold Christ to the Jews, he had sold himself to the devil. He had become Satan’s serf and he did his master’s bidding.” That’s strong language from Elder Talmage.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:07:57 Yeah, and it’s possible that Judas believes that of himself by the end. And that’s what I’m getting at. You look at the overall across all of these gospels, Judas, no, I’m not saying he’s a tragic figure, but Judas comes off as a figure who is, who’s completely taken over in the sense by Satan. Whatever his reasoning was, Satan’s using that. Satan may hate Christ. I don’t know if Judas ever does hate Christ, right? He may be turning to what he thinks is the right thing, but he’s second guessing all the way through and we end up with, I’m not kidding, we end up with a suicide by the end of this story. It’s a tragic, horrific account, and yet at the same time, at least from a Latter-day Saint perspective, Christ will go into the garden of Gethsemane and pay that price too. We think of the sacrifice in the garden of Gethsemane, the atoning act that Christ performs, and we think of it often in terms of ourselves.

  00:08:54 We are egocentric, and I mean that in a positive sense of the word. We think of the atonement in the ways it fixes us and we use it for all the negative things that are going on in our life. But Christ has just experienced the betrayal of a really close friend, and I wonder if there’s an element of that that lies behind this. This great promise that’s given in Isaiah 53 that after Christ pays this price, he should be able to see his seed. I don’t know what’s going to happen to Judas. I don’t obviously know the eternal ramifications of what he did, but he tried to fix it at the end in the only way that he knew how. And it’s a tragic way to go, but knowing full well that Christ was going to have to pay this price, I think Judas is redeemable in the end. Now, that’s my opinion. That’s Dan Belnap’s opinion, but I think he’s redeemable in the end, and I think the texts suggests that Christ understood that he was redeemable in the end.

Hank Smith: 00:09:54 Yeah, we believe in an infinite atonement, infinite.

John Bytheway: 00:09:58 I’ve often wondered, love your comments on this, if the atonement could have been accomplished, perhaps without Judas betraying him. There would’ve been other ways to find Jesus for those who are trying to get him. I don’t know, and I’ve often thought, like we said, we don’t really know exactly what he was thinking. That statement that Satan entered into Judas is pretty strong, but I wonder if he thought, well, Jesus has gotten out of all sorts of things. He can do anything. Maybe he can get out of it.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:10:30 We don’t know, and that’s why this gets tricky. The text gives us no indication to motive except for this statement.

Hank Smith: 00:10:37 The four gospel authors just don’t comment.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:10:39 Yeah, they don’t.

Hank Smith: 00:10:40 They just report the facts on this one and just move forward.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:10:43 And that might be indicative on its own. They don’t say, “This is between Judas and Christ.” In that sense, there’s an element of it where it even takes you to 76. If Judas is a son of perdition in 76, you’re told, “For the sons of perdition there’s a place for them.” And then Joseph, the prophet is simply told where they are, how big that place is, what the depth of it is. Anything about that, that’s none of your concern, that’s between me and them. At least from 76’s perspective, there’s an answer here, and that answer is, they’re mine. I’ll deal with them. They’re not your concern, and that’s probably the best answer to say here with Judas. And you see that because you can juxtapose Judas with what’s going to be happening with Peter through this night.

Hank Smith: 00:11:28 Excellent.

John Bytheway: 00:11:28 Always a good answer, isn’t it?

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:11:30 Right?

John Bytheway: 00:11:30 Yes, you can look at everything that’s going on out there, but look to your own self.

Hank Smith: 00:11:35 Let’s keep moving forward here. We’re now back at the last supper. You’ve got Peter and John saying, “Let’s eat the Passover meal.” And they asked Jesus, “Where should we prepare?” What’s different in this Luke account than the other accounts we’ve read?

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:11:51 For the most part, I think the basic story line’s the same. Christ tells him, “Go in and get a place for it. You’ll find someone in there. Tell them, where’s the guest chamber? I shall eat the Passover with my disciples.” That’s verse 11. He’ll show you the room. We’ll go in there, we’ll get Passover. So that’s exactly what happens, obviously in verse 14, this is when it becomes, “And when the hour was come, he sat down and the apostles with him.” Now that little phrase, “with him,” I know a couple of scholars have pointed out here that this can be a way to play with an understanding of the events through the rest of this night. There’s a discussion of who’s with him, who’s not with him, and we’ll see that phrase “with him” or “with them” in different places between chapters 22 and John chapter 18. We’re getting a kind of an underlying current who exactly is with Christ during this evening, and I already pointed out that Matthew and Mark have Christ saying something about sheep being scattered, that the disciples will be like sheep being scattered.

  00:12:48 So, there’s a real sense that these gospels are leading to an image of Christ all alone. Whether that happens in the garden, whether it happens on the cross, you’re going to end up with a Christ who is isolated and alone and perhaps lonely by that. So we’re going to have a little bit of play back and forth with this, who’s with him, who exactly is with Christ? Obviously this will take greater significance when we end up dealing with Peter’s betrayal, of which he’s going to pretty much explicitly say, “I’m not with him.” That’s kind of the point. So just keep that in mind as we bounce through that. As for the sacrament itself, Luke adds verse 15 that the others don’t, which provides a sense of, again, motive to why he’s doing what he’s doing. I keep coming back to this concept of motive.

  00:13:37 Sometimes the scriptures just tell the narrative and they don’t really explain why people do what they do, but verse 15 gives us a little bit of an insight, possible insight, of which we can maybe tease it out and pull it a little bit more and see what’s revealed. In verse 15, the reason why Christ wants this Passover, he says, is “I have desired to eat with this Passover with you before I suffer.” Now, the way Luke has phrased that is he’s just suggested then that maybe one of the purposes behind the Passover is not just to institute the sacrament and not just because it’s Passover, but because Christ knows that he’s about to suffer. Now, he might not know exactly what that suffering is, but he knows that. He knows the game plan. He knows what’s supposed to move forward here, and he simply wants to have a meal with his friends before he does.

  00:14:24 I think there’s an element of the gospels and of Christ’s experience, his mortal experience, and that’s not to take away from his divinity at all. The Book of John establishes Christ’s divinity well, but there is a mortal element of this and part of it is Christ is going to be alone, very much alone here, moving forward. And having support from his friends and his family that would be important to anybody. So the idea of having this final meal, I think one element of it is like, listen, “I’m about to do something that’s really difficult. I’d like to just have a meal with my friends if that’s possible before we do.”

  00:14:59 And I think that goes to an element of just why we have meals in the first place. I talk about this sometimes with my students. We don’t really like to eat by ourselves. Eating is something that we have to do, but meals are often a social event and they’re one of the primary ways in which we demonstrate who belongs, who’s a part, how do we demonstrate inclusion? And so when you look at different meals that we have, you’ve got your regular meals during the week. We try to have a family meal at night if that’s ideal. We all gather around and we share stories about the day and maybe it’s 15, 20 minutes long and then everyone scatters. But for 15, 20 minutes, we kind of remember that we’re a group, right? You’ve got Sunday meals. Sunday meals are usually your best meal of the week, best food, they’re usually longer. This might be a place where you invite people.

Hank Smith: 00:15:50 Especially on Fast Sunday.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:15:52 Especially on Fast Sunday.

Hank Smith: 00:15:53 Especially on Fast Sunday.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:15:54 And for students, that’s a big one. They tend to have kind of break your fast type meals, so the whole ward comes together. So, we use Sunday meals to demonstrate who’s part of the bigger family perhaps. For here in the United States, Thanksgiving is our greatest meal of the year, best food, best dishes, largest quantity of food. You’re inviting all family and friends over. We use meals to demonstrate who belongs.

  00:16:19 And I think at least for me in the scriptures, there’s two great set of symbols that to describe the power of the atonement for me. And the first one is clothing, the acts of clothing or divestiture investors is what we call them. Which clothing tends to represent identity, and by virtue of that, then the atonement transforms us, changes our identity. But one of the other ways is a meal. If we think of the word atonement as from the English meaning, at one with, William Tindale. This idea that we come together and become one. One of the primary symbols used in the scripture is to describe that oneness or unity that can emerge thanks to the atonement of Christ are meals. Eating. And you can see different variations of those meals scattered throughout, and I think this is one of them. From Christ’s perspective, I’m going to be by myself, can we be one together one last time? I think that’s kind of beautiful.

Hank Smith: 00:17:14 That’s really nice.

John Bytheway: 00:17:16 I like to think of the sacrament too as not just remembrance of his sacrifice, but the Savior saying, “Come and eat with me, again.” I look at the sacrament table and I think it’s like an altar, but it’s like a table where we remember the last supper too, and as you said, to eat with people is to accept them and affirm them. That upset the scribes and Pharisees sometimes. “Look, he’s eating with sinners”, but that the Savior invites us to eat with him. I like to think of the sacrament that way. Maybe I’m going too far, but I like that he’s inviting us in fellowship back to that table.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:17:50 I agree with you a hundred percent. I think of the sacrament as a meal. It’s a symbolic meal. Granted, a very small meal, but you’ve got other places where he does the sacrament and it becomes a full meal. You’ve got third Nephi. Third Nephi, chapter 19.

John Bytheway: 00:18:05 They eat until they are filled.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:18:07 And you’ve got elements of the Kirtland Temple, which carries with it some sacramental elements of where they’re all eating at night, bread, and it’s a meal. And even though we tend to eat in silence and we all take our little small piece of bread, we have our small cup, we do it communally. The sacrament is a communal ordinance. We do it together. Even as we sit in silence, we’re sitting next to our family, next to our friends. It’s very much a communal experience. And I think sometimes we miss out on the sacrament if we don’t recognize its communal nature. I mean, we see this as we move down through this. This isn’t necessarily unique to Luke, but when he goes on to say, “For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God come.” Right? That’s verse 18.

  00:18:51 What’s fascinating to me is as Latter-day Saints we have section 27 of the Doctrine & Covenants. By 1835, Joseph Smith has received more instruction as to this future sacrament. Verse five has him talking in section 27, you have Joseph Smith being told, “Behold, this is wisdom in me, wherefore marvel not, for the hour cometh that I will drink of the fruit of the vine with you on the earth.” So he’s talking about the fulfillment of this sacramental prophess.

  00:19:19 And I know others have talked about it, but what always strikes me about that, he says, “I’m going to be coming, Moroni will be coming.” Verse six, “Elias will be there.” Verse seven, “John the Baptist.” Verse nine, “Elijah.” Verse 10, “Joseph, Jacob and Isaac and Abraham.” Verse 11, “Michael.” 12, “Peter, James and John.” And then he sums them all up in verse 14 by saying, “And also with all those whom my father has given me out of the world.” Which means the sacrament is prophetic. It’s not just a memorial, it’s prophetic of where we look forward to this all-inclusive meal that we’ll have with Christ, the Messianic banquet that others have talked about. We really do believe that as Latter-day Saints, and we look forward to that. And so the sacrament isn’t just a reminder of Christ’s sufferings and trials. It also points us towards a future event, a future sit down Thanksgiving meal with everybody.

John Bytheway: 00:20:14 I love that he says “with Moroni”, because I mean Moroni spent so much time alone and kind of the way I read it, it sounds like “My father was killed in battle. This was my father’s life’s work was this Book of Mormon, and I don’t know, I don’t have ore. Am I supposed to finish this?” And he does beautifully, and I just love that the Lord would say, “And with Moroni.” Who spent those last decades of his life alone.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:20:44 Yeah. You look at that chapter, and I know we’re slightly out of Luke 22 now, but when you look at Mormon, chapter eight, if we found out that Moroni was depressed or was experiencing even a… What does he say? “I have no ore, I have no family, I have no friends. I have no place to go.”

Hank Smith: 00:21:00 I have no friends, no kin.

John Bytheway: 00:21:00 Right?

Hank Smith: 00:21:01 Yeah.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:21:02 I don’t even know what the Lord’s will is for me moving forward right now. That is another individual who is completely isolated and abandoned and from his sense, forgotten and broken. So again, these are kind of more sobering topics, but you’re right, there’s this beautiful ordinance that Christ institutes of a meal where we’ll get together and will celebrate that aspect of the atonement, the ability for Christ to bring us and make us all one. And I think that’s just cool.

John Bytheway: 00:21:30 So I kind of want to say the Passover was looking forward to the events of this weekend, the events of the atonement of Christ, and he’s telling us how to remember to look back to that weekend, but what you’re adding is, and it’s also a prophecy that someday we will have another meal with him. And he will accept, take all of us in, and we’ll have another meal with him.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:21:58 I think that’s another way to look at the sacrament. The Passover, we don’t know exactly how Christ performed it, the Passover, but we do know at least later Jewish tradition has like four cups associated with that, and of course they’re celebrating.

John Bytheway: 00:22:13 Yeah, and that’s mentioned in verse 20, the cup after supper. Is that the third one?

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:22:18 Yes. According to later Jewish tradition, it would be the third cup. You’ve already got a festival that reminds you of the freedom and liberating power of God in Israel’s life. To that point, John, this isn’t just a reminder of a past event when God delivered us, this can actually be used to point us forward to a future event when we will all celebrate the liberty and freedom that has been made possible through the events that I’m about to perform.

Hank Smith: 00:22:43 Yeah, that’s fantastic. I have a great thought from Charles W. Penrose. I bet both of you know that name. Remember the first presidency, I believe, a long time ago, he said exactly what Dan’s saying here. “In the sacrament, we do this in remembrance of him, in remembrance of the atonement, which was wrought for us and all mankind who listen to his voice and obey his commandments, and also to direct our thoughts to another great event in connection with the history of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, which is yet to take place. We take the sacrament this afternoon, not only in remembrance of the past, but to direct our minds to the future. We partake of it to witness that we believe in the atonement wrought by the Lord Jesus on Calvary, and also that we expect his reappearance on the earth.

  00:23:30 We expect he will come again, not the next time as the babe in Bethlehem, not the next time to be despised and rejected of man, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but as the Lord of life and glory, as the king of Israel, to sit upon the throne of his Father, David, to rule from the rivers to the ends of the earth, not to be brought unto the subjection of men, but to have all things made subject to him.”

  00:23:53 And he goes on. It’s really a powerful, powerful message that’s way back in Journal of Discourses, Volume 15.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:24:01 For me, the sacrament has another element to it, which ties into everything that’s about to happen. But in third Nephi, chapter 18, when he introduces the sacrament to the Nephites, when he institutes it in verse six, you see he breaks out the bread in this case. And he says, “And this shall you have always observed to do even as I’ve done, even as I have broken bread and blessed it and given it to you, and this shall ye do in remembrance of my body, which I have shown unto you.” For the Nephites, the sacrament wasn’t a memorial of Christ’s broken body but of a resurrected body. And I always think, how different would it be if I thought of the sacrament as a reminder of Christ’s resurrected body?

Hank Smith: 00:24:41 Resurrection.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:24:42 How does that change this ordinance? And of course, therefore, when you read Moroni’s versions of these sacramental prayers later in the Book of Mormon and he talks about Christ’s body, this is what he’s talking about, this is the Nephite experience of Christ’s body. In the old world, you’ve got a body that is mortal that hasn’t died yet and that they’ll end up seeing on a cross. And I get that, but from the Nephites, they see a resurrected body. And how does that change the sacrament? So between that and section 27, we’ve got two other ways to look at this. And I think that both of those are still very much at least implicit or implied in the gospel versions of the sacrament.

Hank Smith: 00:25:23 That’s awesome.

John Bytheway: 00:25:24 I’m always intrigued by things the Lord has us repeat, and the fact that he wants us to do this every week just tells you how important he sees that it is. And I think it was President Kimball, Spencer W. Kimball many years ago who said, “When you look in the dictionary for the most important word, do you know what it is?” He said, “It could be remember.” And then he talked about the sacrament prayers that we do in remembrance. And that’s fun because you go through the Book of Mormon and you see warnings about forgetting. “How could you have forgotten?” Nephi says to his brothers, and “Oh, remember, remember my sons” And it’s a fun way next time you go through the Book of Mormon and watch for remember and forget. It’s kind of interesting to see that. And the Jaredites, “And they remembered the things the Lord had done for their fathers”, and then things go bad and they did not remember.

Hank Smith: 00:26:13 They did not remember.

John Bytheway: 00:26:14 Yeah.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:26:15 Yeah. No, that’s important stuff.

Hank Smith: 00:26:17 Dan, I’ve noticed that right here during this amazing sacrament experience, the apostles are still yet to really fully grasp who they’re supposed to be. And I say that knowing that I’m a long ways away from that, further than they are. But in verse 24, it says, “There was a strife among them about who should be counted the greatest.” So here they are at this last meal, the Savior wants to eat together and sounds like my family. Come on, let’s all get together. Let’s have a wonderful time. And then there’s strife among them.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:26:45 That also happens at Thanksgivings.

John Bytheway: 00:26:49 This is not what I envisioned.

Hank Smith: 00:26:51 Don’t talk about politics at Thanksgiving.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:26:53 And this question seems like, when do I get to go to the big table? I mean, that’s one of the fun things about Thanksgiving is there’s a little bit of a rite of passage. If you’re at the small table, by that we know it’s the kids that when you get to move up to the big adult table, that’s a good sign.

John Bytheway: 00:27:09 Yeah. That’s a big event.

Hank Smith: 00:27:10 You can take part in the strife, too.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:27:12 Right? Exactly.

  00:27:15 So the way this has been working, so he’s established the sacrament. We talked a little bit about that now. That this, the body, and by the way, back in verse 19, there’s an element of this which is unique to Luke. “This is my body which is given to you, or given for you.” So we’ve got now four different ways to think about this sacrament. But in any case, he’s done that. And then we get verses 21 and 22, which we kind of talked about when we dealt with Judas about how the betrayal would be there. Christ identifies this individual and says that he’s here with us, and I mourn the fact that he’s about to betray. And then you get verse 23, “And they began to inquire amongst themselves, which of them it was that should do this thing.” Now that’s a positive, I think, as everyone looks and maybe does a bit of a self introspection. He goes, is that me? What am I doing?

Hank Smith: 00:28:00 Lord, is it I?

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:28:01 Right? But according to Luke, apparently that conversation goes a little bit further and they begin to wonder, I never would. And I don’t know if that now means they’re like, well, I never would, and that’s just it. I’ve got to be the greatest then. I would never of course betray Christ. I mean, that’s crazy talking. By the way, who are we going to determine is the leader of this group and the greatest?

Hank Smith: 00:28:22 Who is the greatest among us?

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:28:23 Right? Oh man, I would never do that. So I must be better than others. And this could be a place where Luke ties in something that Matthew dealt with. Matthew puts it a little bit earlier, but somewhere during this last week, he has a discussion with his disciples, the mother of John and the sons of Zebedee come to him. There seems to be a question about, again, who’s got placement and who’s going to have prominent positions with Christ. Luke puts this into that discussion, or at least that contention. He’s putting it here within the last supper meal. So they’ve talked about, is it me, but it’s not me, but who’s who among of us is the greatest? Who gets to determine this? And you get Christ saying, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them and they then exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.”

  00:29:13 So we have a description of this idea of benefactors, right? The idea that one of the ways in which authority was spread across the Greco-Roman world was through a means of patronage. Meaning, you would give money and you would become part of this patronage system. They would take care of your needs, you would give your loyalty to them by them supporting you that way. And in benefactors, maybe you would put down a set of money. The rest of the Roman Senate would look after you then. Maybe you’d become a part of that Roman senate a little later. The idea is almost that you could buy favor in some way, that this was an economic exchange. It was a social system, but it was based on more of an economic exchange, this sense of benefactors.

  00:30:01 And for Christ, he’s like, that’s not how this is going to work. That’s not how my system and my kingdom is going to be set up. And since you’re going to have questions about whether or not he’s the king, particularly in John 18, “Are you a king? What is your kingdom?” And he’s going to say, “My kingdom is not of this earth. It’s not the same.” You’re getting another element of it here. So part of one of the things that the gospels are doing during this last bit is giving us insight into this kingdom that Christ is establishing. He is still the king. Even if he’s not going to be this incredible political messiah they’re all expecting, you’re still learning things about the kingdom and in this kingdom patronage isn’t the way we’re going to do this nor this system of benefactors. That’s not how it’s going to be. Instead, he says, “The greatest among you let him be the younger or by virtue of this, the junior member or the servant.” Right?

  00:30:52 This is the idea that the greatest among you is the servant of all. “Let him be as the younger, and he that is chief as he who doth serve.” So interestingly, he switches the idea. The greatest should help out others. There’s no question they should help out others, but it’s a question, are you doing it for a patronage system or are you doing it to actually serve this individual, authentically serve the individual? Where do you see yourself? John develops this idea a little bit further in the last supper when of course you have Christ washing the feet of the disciples.

  00:31:23 And it could be that Luke who didn’t add that story in is still carrying with him elements of that reflection that even though John’s account is unique in that way, you still see bits and pieces of it alluded to or reflected in the other gospels. And so that conversation could very well have arisen then because we see it in John. John chapter 13, where we see Peter talking about this. I don’t want you to wash my feet, and Christ is like my job is to serve you. I’m here to prepare you for a kingdom. And you see that in verse 29 of Luke 22, “And I appoint unto you a kingdom as my father hath appointed unto me.” It’s that same idea that Christ had taught in John that I’m to wash your feet to prepare you for entrance into my father’s kingdom. That’s what I’m here to do, and if I am your master and your servant now, then maybe I’m setting an example of how to engage in leadership when I’m gone.

John Bytheway: 00:32:21 When I was reading verse 27, “For whether is greater, he that sit at that meat or he that serveth, is not he that sit at meat, but I am among you as he that serveth.” I was thinking, I bet Martha liked that verse right there. I was thinking, Martha. See, I was serving.

Hank Smith: 00:32:40 I was doing the right thing.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:32:42 There is this theme that runs through Luke, all of the book of Luke, of where you see this. What is a servant? How do you serve? What’s the value of service? Mary and Martha is in fact an important narrative of this account, and you can see these little elements where the writer of Luke is masterful in that they’re able to bring back little ideas. He was back there in chapter 10 of Luke. This had been set up for you to start thinking differently about how to serve in the kingdom and what service is and how that determines leadership and authority and so forth. I think those lessons have been building, and I think it’s very possible that the reader, even if they’re not fully aware of it, have been led to that point by Luke in this narrative so that you can see how this teaching of Christ is like now this fits exactly what he’s been teaching.

Hank Smith: 00:33:35 I love the personal stories we get from our modern-day prophets and apostles about this type of service. If you read President Monson’s biography, if you read President Eyring’s biography, I’m sure if you read any of them, you find out they have been serving and serving and serving when really nobody was watching. What was it? President Monson and how many widows, John?

John Bytheway: 00:33:56 85 or something in his ward.

Hank Smith: 00:33:58 85 widows.

John Bytheway: 00:34:00 I think that’s the number.

Hank Smith: 00:34:02 And he’s in his twenties?

John Bytheway: 00:34:04 Yeah, right.

Hank Smith: 00:34:05 He’s what, a 22-year-old bishop?

John Bytheway: 00:34:07 Yeah, and I guess, I don’t know. I guess he had 85 ovens, made them all turkeys. I don’t know how he did that, but I remember he-

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:34:13 I use him as an example of this type of Christ-like service. We work for the church. I don’t know when, he’s doing this at Christmastime, he goes and visits all of those widows. I looked it up once just because that’s the type of geeky thing that I would do, but I looked up how many conference addresses President Monson has given over his lifetime. If someone thought, boy, he sure talks. He’s always got a story about a widow. I’m like, you’re right, he does. And he still had about 30 widows that we don’t have stories of.

  00:34:44 In other words, he gave like 50 to 60 conference talks over the course of his lifetime. He could have told one story about one widow for every conference and still would’ve had extra, but to visit these widows every Christmas, every single one of them during the Christmas season, that is commitment. That’s a commitment of time more than anything else. In fact, that’s what we talk about a little bit. There’s lots of ways to serve, but time may be the biggest sacrifice of all. In some ways, it’s easy to write a check. It’s easy to do certain things. Going to visit someone, that’s commitment.

Hank Smith: 00:35:17 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:35:19 I remember when I was living in Provo after my wife and I were married, there was a guy that was moving out of the ward, and of course the Elders’ Quorum gathered over there to help, and during the course of it, we discovered he didn’t really have a moving van, and our Elders Quorum President rented him a van. And then I was surprised to find out Brother Kitchens ended up driving the van to St. George from Provo. And I just thought, wow. Because like you said, Dan, you can write a check and lots of people can do that, but to say, “I didn’t plan on this, but I’m going to help you move to St. George in a van with a limiter at 55 miles per hour on it probably.”

Hank Smith: 00:36:03 Oh man.

John Bytheway: 00:36:05 And just being like, whoa, that is service. That was a great example to me. I’ll never forget that.

Hank Smith: 00:36:12 I have to share with both of you this story. I don’t think I’ve ever shared this before, and I hope my wife will not be upset with me. I don’t think she will. We lived in St. George and we had been dating, I don’t know, six or seven months, so I felt like I knew her pretty well. And I was driving by the care center, which is close to the college at the time, and I saw her truck there, and I thought, well, that’s interesting. This was back when St. George was a little smaller, I think. I didn’t think much of it. I thought maybe her dad had taken her truck and gone over there to do something and then happened again a couple of weeks later that I saw her truck there and I thought, what? Does she have a secret boyfriend in the care center? What’s going on?

  00:36:56 And I finally got a chance to ask her about it. I said, “I’ve seen your truck over the care center a couple of times.” And she said, “Oh, yeah, I go there once a week.” And I said, “How come I’ve never known about this?” And she said, “Well, I don’t know. Do you have to know where I am at all times?” I’m like, “Yes, I have to know where you are.” And she said, “No, I just go over and I paint nails because the CNAs don’t really have a lot of time to paint the nails of some of these women, and so I just go over and paint nails every week.” And she wasn’t looking for notoriety. She hadn’t told me a thing about it. I had just happened to see her truck there a couple of times, and that to me is, again, time like you talked about, Dan, giving of your time to sit with someone.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:37:42 We sometimes call these sacrifices. We tend to think of sacrifice as a loss. So I sacrifice something on behalf of something, I’ve lost something, whatever it is. Maybe it’s the item, maybe it’s the animal, maybe it’s the money, whatever it is. But the word sacrifice is a Latin word, and it really means to make holy or to transform. And sacrifice then is an act of transformation. It’s an act of change. It’s not loss. I think sometimes we mistake those two. It’s an active agency by which we transform something from one state to another.

  00:38:18 So we can pick tithing for instance. You can say, “Oh, I sacrificed tithing.” And I want to go, “You didn’t sacrifice anything. You didn’t lose the money. You didn’t drop it down the drain. What you did is you changed the way you’re using that money.” And a sacrifice of time. You’ve changed it, you’ve used it. Whereas you were going to use it to do laundry, now you’ve decided to use it to help out the poor. You’ve changed it. A sacrifice of time is similar. We sometimes see it as, oh, I’m going to lose an hour or I’m going to lose two hours. But what you’re really doing is you’re changing the way you use that time. It’s a transformation.

Hank Smith: 00:38:49 I’ve made my time holy.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:38:51 Exactly. And the word holy is an English word, which is tied to the word whole, to be whole, to be finished, to be complete. So the concept of holiness carries it with a sense of to become completed, to become whole. And sacrifice then is this primary way by which we through our agency, choose to make things whole.

Hank Smith: 00:39:15 That’s one of the best insights I have ever heard.

John Bytheway: 00:39:17 Yeah, That’s great. I’m writing it down.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:39:20 I don’t know what to say that, but it gets even funner in the Hebrew. Then you look at the Hebrew word for this and you learn that the word, this kadosh, this root, which we could transliterate as Q-D-S-H type thing, carries with it two nuances to it. To be holy as in, I’ve been made holy, I’ve been moved into a new state of holiness and so forth. But there’s also this one, which is kadosh, which is what’s the words used to describe God? God is kadosh. He’s holy, but he’s not made holy. He makes things holy. So this kadosh carries with it a sense of dynamic movement or dynamic activity. So that when you read in Leviticus, “Be ye holy, even as your God is holy”, then you have to go, which version of the Hebrew am I looking at? Am I looking at kodash as in I’m being made holy? Or am I looking at kadosh? I’m being asked to be holy?

  00:40:13 And the word there is kadosh, right? In other words, God is asking us to become holy as he is, to make things whole, to make things complete, to make things finished, which is actually how it ties into, at least in my mind, to the Sermon on the Mount, when Christ says, “Be ye perfect.” That Greek word telios there, carries with it the same sense of to be finished, to be whole, to be complete. That’s ultimately the plan of salvation, to become whole. And what Christ is about to do is perform an act that makes it possible for us to become whole, complete, finished. And we demonstrate that through sacrifice by which we make things whole, complete and finished. Which is why it’s a sacrifice of broken heart and contrite spirit.

Hank Smith: 00:40:56 Wow, that was fantastic. I remember President Hinckley saying, “What appears now to be a sacrifice will actually over time be an investment that will pay you dividends for the rest of your life.” I think he was talking about a mission, but I think you could apply that to anything. It’s not really a sacrifice. It’s an investment to become holy.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:41:19 Right. And Paul’s going to describe it this way. In Romans 12, he says, “I beseech you, therefore brethren,” this is near the end of his letter, “I beseech you, therefore brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Paul seems to have grasped that sacrifice is a transformation. He sees this, right? This final one, “Make yourself a sacrifice. Be ye transformed.”

  00:41:48 Without ranging too far off, Amulek teaches a very similar principle in Alma chapter 34, when he points out, “You can pray to God just as Alma taught you to do. You don’t have to be in a synagogue to pray, but if that’s all you’re doing, if that’s all you’re doing, then something’s missing here. And he goes through a list of conditions of how to take care of each other, take care of the needy, take care of the poor, the sick, but he sums it all up and says, “Therefore, if you’re not charitable…” Now for me, that bounces to the next element of the Book of Mormon, which is of course, Moroni 7:45 or 48 where we learn charity.

  00:42:25 For me, that verse tells me how to get it and why I want it. And by virtue of that ends up telling me what it is. Obviously, we don’t want to go through all of charity right now, but how to get? It’s not easy. It’s not inherent within us. We have to pray with all the energy of heart according to Mormon to get this. It’s bestowed only upon those who are true followers of Christ, and we all get to determine perhaps amongst ourselves what makes us a true follower and what makes us just a follower. But he goes on to say, “So that you might become the sons and sons and daughters of God.” And then he says, “That when He shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” What I find fascinating about that is what makes us like Christ is that we’ll be able to see Him as He is, as he really is.

  00:43:08 There’s the way he’ll appear, there’s the way he is. Do we know who Christ is and that makes us like Christ? But if that’s true, then what makes charity the pure love of Christ is he knows us for who we are, not the way it appears to be, not the way things may seem to be, but the way things are. So charity, I look at it and I go, this is divine knowledge set directly from God to the true divine nature of another human being. We know who they are versus the way they seem to be or the way they appear to be. And when you know the true nature of another human being, you don’t serve out of pity. You serve because you know who this being really, really is. And because you know who they are, how could you not but treat another human being that way?

  00:43:55 If we truly recognize the divine nature of everyone around us, that implication would be we’re in the presence of divine beings. How would you not want to serve someone like that? So to your wife’s story, this is an individual who could see the divine nature of a group of people who in many cases have been forgotten by society, have been regulated to something over here, but she saw more than that. She saw beyond that. She saw a divine being encased in this body, and that’s what makes it the pure love of Christ. It’s pure, it’s not sullied by the way the world sees things.

  00:44:32 Even though charity isn’t necessarily mentioned in this story, Christ is about to perform an act because he knows the divine nature of every human being who’s ever been, and he sees it and he acts on it. This is where Christ’s great role model of someone who knows and sees the true divine nature of every human being that has ever lived on this earth and ever will live on this earth and is able to get past it.

  00:44:56 One scholar talked about some of these things of an asymmetrical story. I talk about the gospel sometimes with my students as asymmetrical, meaning that description of charity by Mormon in Moroni, chapter seven, verse 48, charity isn’t dependent on whether or not others have charity for you. If it really is divine knowledge, then it’s asymmetrical. Whether anybody else has charity for me doesn’t change the fact that I need to have charity. Does that make sense? I know this stuff now. I know it to be true, and since I know it to be true, it doesn’t matter whether anybody else knows it to be true. I know it to be true, and it changes the way I act and it changes the way I see things. Lehi talks about that in second Nephi, chapter one. It’s in verse 21 where he speaks to his sons and says, “Arise from the dust my sons and be men and be determined to be of one heart, one mind.” And that’s the word, that determined to be of one heart and one mind.

  00:45:52 The one heart, one mind is the way we describe Zion. Zion is a group of people who are of one heart, one mind. Lehi adds in, yeah, I don’t want you to just be of one heart, one mind. I want you to be determined to be of one heart, one mind, and that determination isn’t based on anybody else. It’s individualized. Whether Sam, Nephi’s brother, is determined to be of one heart, one mind, doesn’t matter. Nephi’s expected to be determined of one heart, one mind. It’s asymmetrical, and I think there’s an element of this as Christ is teaching. Listen, it doesn’t matter whether anybody else wants to be the greatest of all. You need to make the decision on your own right to serve. That’s an asymmetrical decision. It isn’t reciprocal. Whether someone serves you back doesn’t matter.

  00:46:39 The asymmetry is reflected in the golden rule. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It doesn’t say do unto others if they do unto you. The implication is that you will do because that’s just what you should do regardless. And so I think in Luke 22, there’s an element here of the kingdom of which Christ is teaching a principle. If you’re going to serve in the kingdom, it’s going to be asymmetrical. You’re going to do it because you know better, not simply because you should.

Hank Smith: 00:47:06 Not because everyone else is

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:47:07 Not because everyone else will.

Hank Smith: 00:47:09 Reminds me of Mother Teresa. There was a reporter following her around and she was cleaning this person who I think had a leprosy or some sort of disease, and the reporter watching it just said, I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars. And Mother Teresa said, “Oh, neither would I.” Because like you said, Dan, she sees a human being. She sees a glorious being inside this.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:47:33 It’s incomparable. It’s that pearl of great price. It’s that it is an incomparable greater than rubies and gold. It’s a treasure that when you can see that divine nature in another human being, it changes everything. To me, that’s the beauty of the temple sealing. When someone gets married in the temple or just the wedding day or whatever, it’s a celebration and there’s so much going on, but for that 15, 20 minutes, you just see how God sees this individual across from you, and that’s how that relationship begins. There’s promises that are laid down, but there should be this just moment where you see the divine nature of this being across from you and how God sees this individual, and that should be the foundation of that relationship moving forward. I think it’s beautiful.

Hank Smith: 00:48:20 Me too. Me too. The next thing the Savior says, he turns to Peter and he calls him Simon and says, “Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee. That thy faith fail not. When you are converted, strengthen thy brethren.” A famous statement there to Peter, who you would think isn’t he already converted? So what do you make of these, of this little exchange here?

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:48:45 This begins now to me, an interesting element of this narrative moving forward as Peter becomes involved in this story. We’re about to read what Christ goes through, but intertwining it is this narrative with Peter, and this kind of begins it. At least from Luke’s perspective, this begins it. Matthew, Mark put this story right when they go to the garden of Gethsemane, so they enter into the garden of Gethsemane. Before Christ begins to pray, he tells them, as I already said, this idea of a shepherd whose sheep are going to be scattered. Peter and some of the others are like, “No, that’ll never be me. that’ll never be me.” Well, Luke puts this account in part of the last supper before they go out, which is fine, but it sets up here and allows him to maybe do a couple of different things with it. The first one would be he calls Simon by name in this case, whereas before it’s Simon reacting to something Christ says.

  00:49:39 Now the Lord turns to Peter and actually says, “Satan desires to have you.” One of the things like we said with Judas, the difficult story of Judas, is he’s not the only disciple who is going to struggle this evening. He’s not the only disciple who’s going to make some really difficult and wrong decisions. We never get how Judas feels about that outside of a narrator who tells us what happens to him. I would find it fascinating to see what Judas would say about this, but we do have Peter. And Peter, we end up with this narrative and we know what becomes of Peter later. So one of the things that strikes me about this is I’m always curious when I read these, who’s telling him these stories? This is Peter’s story, but every gospel has Peter telling him this version of this account of what’s going to happen, this prophecy that’s given by Christ and the fulfillment of this prophecy later.

  00:50:35 Some go into greater detail. Luke is one of those that goes into greater detail. John’s going to give us a little bit more detail, but they all tell a story, and I always think, what does that say about Peter to allow this really difficult, perhaps shameful story, humiliating story, of maybe when he was at his lowest and made all the wrong decisions to be put in his record? And it’s not even his record. He’s allowing everyone to tell the story in their gospels. That just takes guts. I’m always impressed in the scriptures where when we find these prophets who are willing to tell these difficult stories about themselves. Nephi doesn’t always come off looking great in the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith tells us of the time that he completely disregarded the Lord’s advice.

Hank Smith: 00:51:22 That’s his opening revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants, right? You have section one, the intro, section two, this is what Moroni told me, section three, this is when I completely messed up.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:51:32 That’s just wow. And to say that needs to be in the record. I think we look at these individuals for examples, and I know that we tend to look at Peter and we say, well, he’s impetuous and he makes wrong decisions. He’s sometimes emotional and all that. And I go, yeah, but he still let the story get in. He knows this story and he’s letting people tell the story. He’s probably telling it himself. And I want to think, how does that perhaps reflect verse 32? We’ll talk about this conversion and strengthening thy brethren. Is there power to telling a story of where you failed, where you did not live up to the expectations perhaps of yourself, perhaps of others?

Hank Smith: 00:52:14 And being vulnerable, especially with your own family? Saying this, I haven’t always been. I think my kids think I was born in a shirt and a tie. I started teaching the moment to the doctors in the delivery room.

John Bytheway: 00:52:28 Right.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:52:28 What does Peter tell his kids about this story? Do they hear the same thing that they’re reading in the text? I mean, I would assume he would or it wouldn’t be in here. The fact that it’s in all four of the gospels, this account, tells you it’s a significant part of this narrative moving forward, but it’s in there and this is where it begins. So if we look at verse 31, we have Christ turning to Simon saying, “Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.” We’ve already seen Satan’s agency play out in the beginning of the chapter. He entered into Judas. Here we learn that he wants to do the same thing to Peter. And by that, by extension you can say he’s wanting to do that to every one of the apostles.

  00:53:07 And for Christ to prophesy again in Matthew and Mark that they’re going to be scattered this night. They’re going to be offended as in you’re going to run, you’re going to be broken. This is not going to be a good night for you guys. You are not going to represent yourself as well as you could. Let’s put it that way. Satan, this is his hour. There it is right there in verse 53 when Christ meets up with the individuals outside of the garden. “When I was daily with you in the temple, you stretched forth no hands against me, but this is your hour and the power of darkness. This is Satan. Satan wants you, Peter. He wants Judas. He’s got Judas. This is not going to be pretty tonight. So with that said, verse 32, “But I have prayed for thee.”

  00:53:52 One of the things I like to do in the scriptures is look at Christ’s prayers when we can. When you can find the text that is Christ’s prayers, John 17, Third Nephi 19, places where we find Christ actually praying and get a sense of not just how he prays, but the things that he’s praying for. What insight can we get from that? The idea here that he says that, “Satan wants you, but I prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.” I have an interesting question. Maybe I’ll turn it to you guys. “I prayed for thee that thy faith fail not, and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” Did Peter’s faith fail then over the course of this evening?

John Bytheway: 00:54:33 That gets into that whole thing we talked about President Kimball’s, was Peter commanded to deny Christ or was he to save his own life or-

Hank Smith: 00:54:44 What was his motive?

John Bytheway: 00:54:45 Yeah, what was his motive?

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:54:47 That by the way, is one of the problems with these two chapters. There’s some really tricky, difficult things that are being said of which we don’t have great answers to.

Hank Smith: 00:54:56 Yeah. I’ll turn it over to Joseph B. Wirthlin. He said, “Imagine for a moment that you were Peter. Three years ago, a holy stranger invited you to set aside your fishing boat and your nets, your means of support for yourself, your family, and then asked you to follow him. You did so without hesitation and for three years you have continued to follow and to love and support and sustain him. You have seen him confound the wise, comfort the weary and the afflicted, heal the sick, raise the dead to life. You have seen him conquer evil spirits, calm troubled seas, and for a few minutes at least, you even walked on water toward him. You were at his side when Moses and Elias appeared to him. You saw him transfigured before your eyes. You have committed your entire life to him, and now he questions you by instructing you to strengthen your brethren when you are converted.”

  00:55:43 He says, “Peter was surprised.” Maybe Joseph B. Wirthlin has an insight. “Peter was surprised. He assured the Lord, ‘I am ready to go with thee, both to prison and to death.’ But Jesus knew and understood. He was not condemning Peter for a lack of conviction. Peter demonstrated his conviction during the Lord’s arrest. Rather, the Savior was telling Peter what he needed to do when his testimony became more secure.” I like that insight that maybe Peter thinks his testimony is secure, but perhaps it’s not. One more sentence from Elder Wirthlin, “As he knew Peter, the Lord understands you and me when our testimonies may not be the brightly burning bonfire you may think they are or want them to be.”

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 00:56:27 I like that because I think that might give us a little bit of insight. When Christ says, “I’ve prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.” One of the things that makes this tricky is that we could easily say that Peter’s faith fails, but Christ suggests here that it hadn’t. It might have wavered, it might have been blown if we use the bonfire imagery, it might have gone down, but it never failed. It never went out. That at some level here, even with failure, you didn’t fail yet. You didn’t fail completely. I don’t know how to explain that any more than that, but the idea that “I’ve prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.” We could easily look at this and go, yeah, your faith. You did not have faith when you denied the Savior, but that doesn’t mean your faith is a failure. I know both of you have talked about this before with audiences, we’re going to fail and that’s just going to be a part of this.

  00:57:20 Theoretically, we could live sinless lives, but we’re not going to do that. Theoretically, we would never question the gospel, ever. I mean, these are all possibilities. It’s just not normal reality. We’re going to fail. The challenge is that the adversary wants you to believe that once you’ve failed, it’s you’ve failed. There’s no coming back from that. Whereas just because you failed in this instance doesn’t mean that your faith is a failure. Does that make sense? Just because you’ve made a mistake or that maybe you entered into a period of doubt doesn’t mean that you fully failed, that your faith hasn’t completely gutted out. At least it doesn’t have to. Failure’s just going to be a part of this process. So part of me is just this idea that Christ has prayed for you. “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.”

  00:58:10 Christ seems to have faith in us and a lot of it. One of my favorite verses is actually in Galatians where Paul talks about this element, and I’m just going to bring it up here. I don’t know if I’ve read this with you guys before or not, but Galatians chapter two, verse 20, he says, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” Now, there’s two ways to read this faith of the Son of God. He says, “I live by the faith of the Son of God.

  00:58:45 One could be, I live because of my faith in the Son of God. I’ve gone through a lot and I live by my faith in Christ. I think that is what we’d often say, that my faith in Christ sustains me and so forth. But the Greek is vague enough that it allows for, “I live by the faith of the Son of God, i.e. His faith in me. I’m sustained by Christ’s faith in me, and if you read it that way, then those following clauses explain how Christ demonstrates that faith.

  00:59:16 I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. How do I know that Christ has faith in me? Because he gave himself for me. That’s my proof. That’s my evidence that Christ has faith in me. And for Paul to go, if that’s what he means, I’m sustained by my faith in Christ. I think there’s an element here of where Christ is saying, “Simon, you’re going to fail. You’re about to fail, but I’ve prayed over you and your faith is going to fail completely.” Peter doesn’t know what that means yet, but Christ does, and I think maybe that’s what it might mean with “thou art converted”. When Peter understands Christ’s faith in him.

Hank Smith: 01:00:03 Yeah. Not his faith in Christ, but Christ’s faith in him.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:00:06 Right. I think conversion then requires a twofold understanding of Christ. One, when we understand why we must have faith in Christ, but I think there needs to be a part of that relationship where we recognize He has faith in us. That He has faith in us or else he wouldn’t do what he does, and Peter needs to know that. We don’t know when that conversion takes place, but we do know according to Paul, that at some point of following the resurrection, Peter and Christ had a one-on-one by themselves, and what we do know from that is at the end of that process as described in Acts four and five, boy, when Peter decides that he’s on board, he’s on board.

Hank Smith: 01:00:46 He’s amazing.

John Bytheway: 01:00:47 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 01:00:48 Yeah.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:00:49 50 days after this event, he’s going to be able to go up to these same people that he denied Christ to and go, “You remember that Jesus? You know the one that you guys crucified, the one that you killed?”

Hank Smith: 01:00:58 You crucified.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:00:59 “You remember him? Yeah. That’s the one I’m talking about right now.” He’s bold. There’s a boldness to Peter 50 days from now, and I think he learned how to weather a faith crisis, if I can put it that way.

Hank Smith: 01:01:12 You actually quoted Acts, chapter four, verse 13. “Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and perceived that they were unlearned, ignorant men, they marveled.”

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:01:21 Oh, those chapters are so fun to teach. This is Acts five, but in verse 29 and 30, he’s engaging with the high priest of the temple, the leadership of the temple, and then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, “We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you slew and hung on a tree.” You remember him? You remember that guy? That’s the one I’m talking about, that individual, the one that you just killed. That’s the one I’m talking about today.

Hank Smith: 01:01:49 We are his witnesses of these things.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:01:51 And so I think Peter learns a lesson of how to act when the knowledge that Christ has faith in you.

Hank Smith: 01:01:59 Man, you’re just blowing me away today. So can I say that faith in Christ means making an effort to see His faith in me?

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:02:08 I think that can be a part of it, that we are sustained not just by our faith in Jesus Christ, but by His faith in us.

Hank Smith: 01:02:16 And if He has it, then it must be there.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:02:18 Right? This is a very dark narrative. This is not happy, but you’ve got these glimpses, these little elements of where Christ is clearly pointing to greater joy, greater happiness. Whether it’s the sacrament of which, yes, this is going to be a memorial. You’re going to remember this night, trust me, moving forward, but it points us towards a time when we’re going to all have this great celebratory meal. Or this case, Peter, your faith is going to be tried. It’s not going to be pretty, but I’ve prayed over you. I’ve prayed for you that thy faith wouldn’t fail you.

  01:02:50 So I think there’s an element where you look at verse 62 of this, “And Peter went out and wept bitterly.” I think he thinks his faith has failed him, but Christ’s prayer will sustain him. Christ’s faith in Peter will let him know, “I’ve got faith in you. Your life is sustained by my faith in you. How do you know? I gave my life to you.” Now, this is just me guessing, but back there in verse 19 when Christ had said, “This is my body, which is given for you.” And we get this whole story with Peter, is that what Peter remembers from this? Is this lesson where he learned that Christ gave himself for me I prayed that your faith wouldn’t fail you, so you’re fine, Peter.

Hank Smith: 01:03:30 That’s fantastic, and I love what you said earlier about he must have been sharing these stories.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:03:36 And if that’s part of it, this is what he’s sharing to strengthen the church members. You can fail. Not that you’ll want to fail, but things will happen. You’re going to fail, but that doesn’t mean your faith has failed. In fact, odds are it probably hasn’t because Christ prayed for you. We could rely a lot more on Christ if we gave him the chance. I think there’s something liberating and freeing to know that Christ has faith in you.

Hank Smith: 01:04:05 I think so too. I think it’s very compelling. I can do this because he believes that I can.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:04:12 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 01:04:13 As I’ve talked to people, they feel like they’re grateful for Peter being so honest about his ups and downs because they feel like they have it. And I’m thankful. I was talking to my class yesterday about isn’t it interesting the Book of Mormon starts with a family that had a lot of problems. Not a perfect family, the family where at times they were, Hey, let’s kill Nephi. Hey, let’s kill dad and Nephi. The fact that Peter had these ups and downs is willing to share them with us, makes us go, okay, maybe there’s hope for me because there was hope for Peter. And the Savior, he corrected him over and over again, but he never abandoned him.

Hank Smith: 01:04:52 That’s great, John. Dan, let’s move now to the Garden of Gethsemane. We have our Luke 22 account, but we also have this story in both Matthew and Mark and John. A little bit different in John. Walk us through what happens here.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:05:06 Okay. So this begins at verse 39 for us, at least in Luke, right? Luke 22, like the others, like in Matthew and Mark and John for that matter, they leave where they are for the last supper, the upper room for the Last Supper, and they go to the Mount of Olives. Interestingly, almost all of them point out, as we see in verse 40, “And when he was at the place.” They don’t tell you where on the Mount of Olives, but everyone, all the readership, the writers assume, we all know where this was.

John Bytheway: 01:05:33 We all know.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:05:34 We all know the place. You know the place, so I don’t need to describe it to you, but the place where he’s wont to go, where we all went. He went to that place. We all know that. I would love to know that. If you’ve ever been to Jerusalem and go to the Mount of olives, boy, they’ve got all kinds of places where “the place” could be type of thing, but wherever it is, that’s where he goes. I think that’s intriguing to me in the sense that Christ goes to a place that he’s comfortable with, that he knows well on the Mount of Olives to perform this act. Sometimes I think we think he just goes to the Mount of Olives, he just finds some place and then he begins to pray. These texts suggest that isn’t the case. There is a place. There is a place specific to the Mount of Olives that Christ went to for refuge, for repose, to rest, to maybe look over the city. He shared it with his disciples. This is his place. This is his sanctuary. I don’t want to call it a temple, but it’s his.

  01:06:34 And he’s made it his, and again, it’s not like this is the first time he’s ever been there. He’s apparently been there many times. This is his place. When we read about him going to the Mount of Olives, this is his place. And so he’s going to a place that he’s familiar with, that he’s comfortable with, that he feels secure in. This is his place, and that’s where he goes to perform this. So for me, verse 40, when he’s like, “And when he was at the place,” all the writers are like, well you know the place, we all know the place. This is his place.

Hank Smith: 01:07:04 One of the gospel authors says, “As he was wont.”

John Bytheway: 01:07:06 Yeah.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:07:07 Yep. Right.

Hank Smith: 01:07:07 He goes to this place.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:07:09 Straight in 39.

John Bytheway: 01:07:10 In our conversations, we say things like, “Oh, that is my happy place”, and I have places that I like to go. I like to go up Parleys Canyon and overlook this little lake if I want to go think or something. So when I see that, I think, yeah, that’s where I go. I’m glad you pointed that out. This is a place that he knew and a place where maybe he had communed with his father before and he goes back to this place.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:07:38 And I think it’s important to have a place. If we go by earlier in Luke, he knows he’s about to suffer. I don’t know what that means, but he knows. As he said with the sacrament, “I’m doing this before I go suffer.” I know something’s about to happen and it’s going to be extremely hard. So I want to go to my place. I want to go to my rock. I want to sit under my tree. I want to be in my place when I do this. So there’s a sense that there are things to this he can’t fix. He can’t fix the pain and suffering that he’s about to go through, but he’s going to try to find the right environment for it. Luke doesn’t mention it, but the others do. They sang songs. He is creating an environment that’ll be most conducive for what he needs as he goes through this.

Hank Smith: 01:08:27 A holy space.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:08:29 He’s making a holy space. That’s exactly right. And it’s possible it didn’t look like anything else, anything particular to the Mount of Olives. It’s not like this was a more beautiful place. It’s just, it’s the place. The waters of Mormon in the Book of Mormon are a great example of this. I know we have that beautiful picture by Arnold Freiburg. I love it. The beautiful waterfalls in the background.

Hank Smith: 01:08:50 Right? I like that it’s perfect.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:08:51 I’m like, wow, that’s incredible. Of which, if I were the king, I would own that property, but they’re running to a place that is outside of the territory. It says it’s a temporary watering hole for animals. I don’t know if any of you have hunted or gone to any temporary watering hole of animals. Those places stink. They’re muddy. It’s disgusting. But how beautiful is this place to the feet of those who entered into the church and the covenants that were made there? The waters of Mormon, I think were probably absolutely gross. I know that goes against some, I understand that, but the description in the Book of Mormon, and yet it became the place. Right?

Hank Smith: 01:09:32 It’s beautiful to those who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer.

John Bytheway: 01:09:37 They were hiding from the searches of the king. There is a set of Book of Mormon paintings, another set by an artist named Walter Rane, R-A-N-E. Look up that one. I love this one because Alma the Elder was a young man when he defended Abinadi, and if you’ve seen this, oh, he just looks like this young man. He’s got his arm outstretched. He’s inviting people into the Waters of Mormon. See if you can find a Walter Rane. They have him up at the BYU Salt Lake Center on the fourth floor, all of these, a whole series. And I think one time there was a virtual gallery on ChurchofJesusChrist.org of the Walter Rane Book of Mormon paintings, but that’s one of my favorites. Because we can deduce he was about 25 years old, Alma the Elder, and in the painting he looks like one of my students. I love it.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:10:30 When you’re at the Jerusalem Center, we take students to the Jabbok River over in Jordan. Now the Jabbok, it’s not even a river, it’s a creek now. It’s a stream. It’s disgusting. It is absolutely disgusting. I mean, the water tends to be fluorescent because of so much of the waste that’s up stream. But we take them there and we sit them in a gravel pit. I mean, it’s where we take them. It’s just off the side of the road, and we sit there and talk about how Jacob saw God there. What makes a holy place?

John Bytheway: 01:11:02 Yeah.

Dr. Daniel Belnap: 01:11:02 Standing in holy places. What makes a place holy? What is it about that? How are you making it holy? Back to this concept of holiness, this place, wherever they are, wherever the Garden of Gethsemane is, it’s Christ’s, it’s His place. It’s where He goes.

John Bytheway: 01:11:21 Please join us for part two of this podcast.