Hank Smith: 00:00:01 Welcome to followHIM, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come Follow Me study. I’m Hank Smith.

John Bytheway: 00:00:09 And I’m John Bytheway.

Hank Smith: 00:00:11 We love to learn.

John Bytheway: 00:00:11 We love to laugh.

Hank Smith: 00:00:13 We want to learn and laugh with you.

John Bytheway: 00:00:15 As together, We follow Him.

Hank Smith: 00:00:20 Hello my friends. Welcome to a new episode of followHim. My name is Hank Smith. I’m your host. I’m here with my rich man co-host, John, Bytheway. John, you are a rich man.

John Bytheway: 00:00:33 It depends on how you define it, but I’ll take that. We used to watch Fiddler on the Roof as kids, and my dad would always say, “Listen to this part right here.” When Tevye would say, ‘Would it spoil some vast eternal plan if I were a wealthy man?” Right at the end of the song. My dad, “That’s my question.”

Hank Smith: 00:00:52 That’s awesome.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:00:54 The nicest thing about that song really is the reason he most wants to be rich, though, which really factors in what you’re doing here. “If I were rich, I’d have the time that I lack to sit in the synagogue and pray, and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall.” Still a little pride there. “And I’d discuss the holy books with the learned men seven hours every day. That would be the sweetest thing of all.” It’s very Jewish, very lovely sentiment. The main reason is, so we have time to do what we’re doing today, study the scriptures.

Hank Smith: 00:01:29 John, before we go any further, we probably ought to introduce our guest today. We needed a Bible expert and we have one here. Who’s joining us?

John Bytheway: 00:01:36 Yes. And we’re so glad to have Dr. S. Michael Wilcox, back with us again. And briefly, he received his PhD from the University of Colorado and taught for many years at the Institute of Religion, adjacent to the University of Utah. He’s spoken at a campus education week for years, takes tours to the Holy Land, to China, church history sites, Antarctica, as we just talked about. He served in a variety of callings, including a bishop, a counselor in a stake presidency. And I’m actually looking at one of his most recent books, Holding on, Impulses to Leave and Strategies to Stay. Michael and his late wife, Laurie, are the parents of five children and 14 grandchildren, with one on the way in August. So we’re really glad to have you back.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:02:23 One last one.

John Bytheway: 00:02:23 Yeah. One more.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:02:24 Thank you. It’s always nice to be with you.

Hank Smith: 00:02:27 One more, and then you start a new product line. You start the great-grandkids.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:02:31 Yeah. Maybe one of these days, I’ll be great-grandpa. We’ll see.

Hank Smith: 00:02:35 Mike, our lesson today is packed with incredible stories and just profound teachings. Luke Chapter 12 through 17, and John Chapter 11, where do you want to start us out?

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:02:49 Oh, we can just start in chapter 12 and kind of go through. Maybe there’ll be a few times we’ll jump because there are some themes, certainly one major one that flows through those chapters, and that deals with wealth, money, financial issues, which, it’s good to know that the Lord is aware of practical temporal things in our lives. And He gives us a little bit of counsel on those kinds of things say.

  00:03:18 If I ask somebody, “Does Jesus teach more about family, which is so important to us in the New Testament or more about wealth?” A lot of people would be surprised that he doesn’t teach a lot about family. We get some. We get to see him as a child. We get one great teenage lesson out of him at the temple when he effectively says to his parents what every teenager should say to a parent, “You may not know where I am. You may not know what I’m doing. You may not know who I’m with, but wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, and whoever I’m with, be assured I’ll be about my father’s business.” Now, if every teenager, every child just did that, they only need that one rule, see.

Hank Smith: 00:04:05 That would be perfect.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:04:07 And we see Him as a son, at the wedding of Cana, and then on the cross, but hardly anything about marriage, He teaches. But He does have a lot about wealth, and financial matters, and some warnings, and there’s at least five parables in this section that deal with it.

Hank Smith: 00:04:25 So let’s just jump in, since we have so much to do. We love to just learn from you, Mike. So John and I might jump in once in a while, but where do you want to start?

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:04:34 Well, let’s start, I mean, like you said, there’s a lot of things. Maybe we can pick up a few tiny things, but let’s at least, look at some of those parables. Parables are designed to teach us that we’re maybe not doing everything that we should be doing. Maybe we’re not thinking the way we should be thinking. They’re not aimed at the intellect, they’re aimed at the conscience. And it’s important to realize that because sometimes, we doctrinalize some of the parables, and I don’t think that’s what the Savior meant. They’re aimed at not the intellect, but the conscience, to help us live better.

  00:05:09 If I skip the first part of chapter 12, because we’re not going to be able to do everything, and we pick it up in verse 13, one of the company, that would suggest probably those you travel with, and maybe not an apostle, but he traveled with more than them, said to him, “Master, speak to my brother that he divide the inheritance with me.” And he said unto him, “Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?” It’s interesting. I just recently had this, almost every trip I ever go on, especially if we talk about Israel, Joseph and his brothers and forgiveness. Inevitably, I’m going to have one member of the group, sometimes more, talk to me about family problems. They’re not talking to each other. They have difficulties. They’re mad at each other. And I’m telling you, eight out of 10 times, it’s over money and inheritance issues.

  00:06:05 I just got back from a three-month run and not one week ago, I’m having a deep discussion with one of the members of the company, that her brothers are mad at her because of the dividing of the inheritance and it didn’t come out well. And I’ve heard it so much and so many times that there’s a part of me that says, “Maybe if you are arguing with family members over the inheritance, you ought not to have an inheritance.”

John Bytheway: 00:06:37 It’s ruining things.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:06:38 I don’t mean that as a punishment. I mean, you can’t handle it because it’s become more important than family ties. So here, we have this very practical little story, it’s going to give us a little parable, but a situation that is so often in the scriptures, so relevant and common to our lives. Not everybody’s going to have inheritance issues, but a lot of families really deal with it, and sometimes they stop talking to each other. So the Savior says, “First of all, I don’t want to be involved in these things.” And then he says, “Take heed and beware of covetousness. For a man’s life consists of not in the abundance of the things which he possesses.” Really, a great phrase. We sometimes assess ourselves by the things that we have, and He’s trying to get them not to do that. We don’t want wealth, money, things to divide family. Family is more important.

  00:07:36 So now, it gives a little parable, the first of a number of parables. Like I said, there are four, five. I can count the prodigal son because the prodigal son is a parable about inheritance. It’s really about forgiveness, but it’s about inheritance too. So he spake a parable saying, “The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully.” I’ve been blessed plentifully. A lot of us have adequate and beyond. And he thought within himself, now as you go through these three verses, three little verses, I sometimes say, count the I’s, the my’s.

  00:08:14 And you see part of this man’s problem. “What shall I do because I have no room where to bestow my fruits.” And he said, “This will I do. I will pull down my barns and build greater.” I’m going to come back to that phrase. “And there will I bestow all,” keyword, “All my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take thine,'” We could add thine to the I’s and the my’s. “‘Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.'” So you can see right away, the emphasis.

  00:08:55 Part of the problem is we tend to think of ourselves, maybe too much. Even the phrase, “Soul thou hast much goods.” Part of me says the soul might say, “I don’t eat any of this stuff. I eat different things.” The soul, I think the Savior crafts his parables very, very well. And I think the fact that he says to the soul, because the soul doesn’t need what he has in the barns. There is a tendency, and I think there is a warning the Savior’s giving. Not only, don’t fight over inheritances, don’t let inheritances, don’t let wealth divide families. Families are more important.

  00:09:40 And the other thing I think he’s suggesting here is, we do have a tendency to build greater. I call it the creeping average. I grew up in an average middle class home, 1200 square feet. It had three bedrooms, one for me, my mother, my two sisters had one. One bathroom and a little half bath, a kitchen, a living room. We had one TV, the family car, one telephone. This was standard middle class. The house I live in now, one that my children grew up. We have more. And what is considered average for my children and on my grandchildren has crept up quite a bit. Does that make sense? Not trying to condemn it, not trying to say it’s wrong. I’m just saying there is a tendency in our lives sometimes to want to build greater and greater and bigger and more.

  00:10:39 And so He starts this little parable with the warning, don’t let it divide families. And maybe the question that we always ask in politics, are you better off now than you were four years ago? Maybe the proper answer is, I was fine four years ago. I’m fine now. I don’t have to have more. I don’t have to build greater. Then he finishes the parable with, “God said unto him.” The scriptures are always very blunt. They always tell you the truth. Sometimes we don’t like the truth. Sometimes the truth hurts. But there’s a very blunt statement that assesses this problem. He simply says, “Thou fool.” Now we want to be a little bit careful. We don’t want to bash the wealthier, the rich. There’s a lot of wonderful people who do really good things, but this man kind of has the I, my problem and the build greater problem and the want more problem.

  00:11:37 So there’s three reasons why God calls him a fool, “This night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then who shall those things be, which thou hast provided?” Number one, you don’t know when you’re going to die. I was in Cambodia just a little while ago and there’s a lot of Hinduism there and Hindus like riddles. And one of the riddles that’s in a series, the last question is, what is the greatest wonder on earth? It’s a very famous one. And the answer is that people die every day, but nobody wakes up in the morning saying, “Today is my day.” So he’s saying that’s the greatest wonder.

Hank Smith: 00:12:18 I think someone said once we all wake up like the turkey on Thanksgiving morning, thinking we’re going to have lunch as usual.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:12:25 Yeah, that’s a good way of saying it. You might be lunch. In Ecclesiastes, I know it’s Old Testament and last year, Solomon gives the same idea. The answer to that question, “Who shall those things be which thou hast provided?” The first thing you may die tonight.

  00:12:45 The second thing, who’s going to get it and what are they going to do with it? And in Ecclesiastes chapter two, one of the things that Solomon is concerned about, he says, “I hated all my labor under the sun.” That’s probably too strong of a word, “Because I should leave it unto the man that should be after me.” I’m going to work all this and then I’m going to have to leave everything I got, “And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet shall he have rule over all my labor wherein I have labored and wherein I have showed myself wise under the sun.” I was wise and knew I handled, but the next person didn’t. “I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labor which I took under the sun. For there is a man whose labor is in wisdom and in knowledge and in inequity, yet to a man that hath not labored, therein shall he leave it for his portion. This is vanity.”

  00:13:38 There is a little bit of a sense of if you earn it and work for it, you’re probably going to be more responsible in it, but if it’s just given to you, you may waste it. Which parable in the New Testament teaches that fairly powerfully, even though that’s not the purpose of the parable? And that is the prodigal son. So part of the wisdom Christ is helping us within financial matters might be, it isn’t always wise to leave a lot of money, even though we want to leave an inheritance and a legacy to our children and grandchildren, they may not be able to handle it. So we need to think a little bit.

  00:14:15 There are studies that say 85% of people who leave, I think it was over $50,000 to their children, 85%, it’s gone in a year and in almost all cases it has a negative impact on people. There’s a link to the prodigal son. We don’t want to focus on the prodigal son, but that’s what he’s saying. Be careful. You may die before you could enjoy it and what’s going to happen to those you leave it to? And then the last thing in verse 21, “So is he that layeth up treasure for himself.” That’s the I, my problem, “And is not rich towards God.” So that’s the first parable that he’s dealing with on this theme that runs, especially through the gospel of Luke on temporal affairs. Temporal affairs impact our spirit. He knows that.

  00:15:09 Now the rest of Luke chapter 12, most of it till we get to the end, he continues to talk about that. And a lot of it is a repeat of what I’m sure you talked about back in the Sermon on the Mount, the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field and you can add to your stature and seek first the kingdom of God. I’m sure you talked about all that. So I don’t want to go there. Basically the rest of those next two columns of scripture, the Savior is saying, can you just simplify and just worry about the basics? If you just worry about the basics, President Hinckley’s words was, “A modest house and a basic car.” If you just have the basic modest things, you don’t have to be, in verse 29, “Of a doubtful mind, worried and anxious.” You’re going to have enough. There are more important things to seek than building better and bigger barns.

  00:16:05 So if I were to pull one thing out of chapter 12, that seems to be one of the major things that he’s dealing with and he’s going to pick it up again in chapter 14 and He’s going to pick it up again in chapter 16. He’s going to pick it up in 15. It really runs through this section. Peter has a question in verse 41. He says, “Lord, are you speaking this parable to us or to all?” I mean how personal are we supposed to take this? Now He adds a little thing about knocking at the door. I mean I’d love to spend a little time on that, but we may not have time. And Jesus often doesn’t answer His questions, people’s questions, directly. He wants us to apply them to ourselves and the Lord says, “I want you to be faithful, wise stewards.” We’re going to see a parable that suggests everything that I have belongs to God anyway, so we’re all stewards.

  00:17:02 So what I’d like you to do, in verse 42, “Instead of accumulating, would you give?” See that word in verse 42? “Who is the wise and faithful steward, whom his Lord shall make ruler over his household to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh, shall find so doing.” It’s a parable and a section about preparing for the second coming, preparing for the coming of Lord whenever, preparing for death whenever it comes. And when that comes, I want to be giving. Now giving the meat, I think means teachings, knowledge, truth, feed them, feed the sheep. That’s a more important thing than accumulating something that you may not live to enjoy and may hurt somebody that you leave it to.

  00:17:59 Give them the things that won’t hurt them. Give them the meat in due season. Give them truth, give them a great legacy. The Buddha, when he left, he was wealthy, he was a prince and he left to seek enlightenment, for his wife and his child and for all mankind, he tries to find a way to end human suffering. And he spends years and he comes up with an answer. The answer is to live selflessly and in compassion. That’s the key idea of Buddhism. And he comes back and his wife says to the son, “Go and ask your father for his inheritance.” Maybe she’s a little upset that he left, but he’s seeking a solution for them too. And he says, “I have nothing to give my son as a worldly inheritance will only cause him worries and anxiety, but I will leave him a better inheritance. I will leave him the gift of a holy life.” And his son follows him and the wife, and it changes and the family reconciles himself to this search he does to try and find an answer to human suffering and dilemma.

  00:19:06 So I sense that in chapter 12, “Let’s give meat in due season.” And when Christ comes, whether it’s death, or in his own second time, he’ll find us teaching primary, happy family home evening, on our mission. He’ll find us giving meat in due season rather than counting how many things we have in our barn and building bigger and bigger. So that’s kind of my takeaway for chapter 12.

Hank Smith: 00:19:39 I love it. Maybe the best thing we can offer our children is a spiritual inheritance and not a financial inheritance. Not maybe. I think that’s what the Lord’s saying here is we work so hard to give them a financial inheritance, but are we working to give them a spiritual inheritance to carry on?

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:19:55 Yeah, I think so. And there’s one other thing I would do in chapter 12, just because it’s so indicative and necessary for our world. If we go to verse 54, “He saith also to the people, ‘When you see a cloud rise out of the west, straight away, you say there cometh a shower and so it is.'” Out of the west, off the Mediterranean, where rain comes into Israel. “When you see the south wind blow, you say there will be heat.” That’s coming off the desert, “And it cometh to pass.” Just go to the next phrase, “Ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth, but how is it that ye do not discern this time? Yea, why even of yourself judge ye not what is right?” I look at that and I think we have so much technology, so much knowledge, so many things we can do medically. Just last night my granddaughter and her husband were showing me ChatGT, I don’t know, you probably know what I’m talking about.

John Bytheway: 00:21:00 ChatGPT.

Hank Smith: 00:21:00 It is crazy.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:21:03 This artificial intelligence and I think, what a time we live in and yet the Savior’s saying,” Yeah, you know a lot. But do you discern the times that are going on? Do you understand what is right and wrong anymore?” When I look at our times, I say, well, what is the times? We are confrontational. We are judgmental, we are canceling. Everybody wants to be victims sometimes in this world. Where our times are permissive, our generation, our baby boomer generation, we are called the me generation and then the next generation was called the me me me generation.

  00:21:47 I called, just for fun, again, I’m not trying to be critical too much because we do live in a very critical time. We’re just very critical and judgmental and harsh on one another and we’re kind of the selfie, TikTok group now. Cameras pointed the wrong direction. I think the Savior would say, “You need to point the camera the other way.” There’s nothing wrong with selfies. Please don’t get me wrong. I use this as a descriptive. Or we’re posturing on TikTok. We’re selfie-ing ourselves and there’s just something about that question that has bothered me all my life. Am I discerning my time, the spirit of my time, the problems of the time? Am I losing the anchor that is, what is right, what is wrong? What is moral? What is ethical? What isn’t? What is the meaning of life? What is the right way to live? How do we interact with people in our relationships?

  00:22:46 And it just seems like we’re not discerning the time very well. I hope I’m discerning it well. Then I don’t want to get caught up in some of, everybody probably will answer that question a little bit, but I think it’s a good observation of the Savior. You can do so much, but you are losing track of other things that maybe are important.

Hank Smith: 00:23:08 Just in this most recent general conference, President Nelson said, “I’m greatly concerned that so many people seem to believe that it is completely acceptable to condemn, malign and vilify anyone who does not agree with them. Many seem eager to damage another’s reputation with pathetic and pithy barbs. Anger never persuades, hostility builds no one. Contention never leads to inspired solutions.” He goes on, I’m sure all of our listeners have heard this talk.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:23:36 Well, I’m glad I’m in the right channel here then because that’s exactly what I think he’s saying about, we can do a lot, but are we discerning our time? Do you understand our time and are we losing sense of what is right and wrong? So that’s the last thing in chapter 12.

  00:23:52 Quickly, if we want to go to 13 and the first part of 14, maybe just one thing I thought would be a little bit on the Sabbath. Jesus heals on the Sabbath in both chapter 13, the woman with an infirmity, that’s 13:11. And in 14:1, He starts healing. And sometimes I wonder if Jesus, I don’t want to say he enjoyed kind of, I hate to say breaking the rules, but at least, challenging the accepted rules of the time because it seems like He does a heck of a lot of healing on Sabbath. And part of me thinks, I just wonder if he’s doing that on purpose? Because he prefers it because He wants to make a point that people are carrying things too far and that if I made a list of just some of the things He said, what could you do on the Sabbath? If we look in 13 verse 11, there’s the “Woman which had a spirit of infirmity 18 years and could no wise lift up herself.” Well, you can lift up people on the Sabbath. That’s a good thing to do.

  00:25:08 “Jesus saw her, called to her and said “Thou art loose from thine…'” Well, you can loose people from infirmity on the sabbath. I’m not just talking about physical things here. I’m just trying to get some phrases to stick in my mind. To say, am I loosing? Am I lifting up? “Immediately she was made straight.” Am I helping people to be made straight and to glorify God? Verse 16, “Ought not this woman whom Satan hath bound be loose from the bond? Am I loosening the adversary’s bonds? Chapter 14 verse three, “Jesus spake to the Pharisees, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?'” To, “Pull out of the pit.”

  00:26:00 I just like those phrases. If I use them in terms of spiritual things, we can lift people up, are we? We can loose them, we can make them straight, we can help them glorify God, we can help to remove their bonds. We can heal, we can pull them up. I just like all those phrases and probably, the rule breaker in me kind of, maybe I’m justifying, I probably am. If I can’t see a good reason for a rule, I may be willing to bend it. If not break it in bending it so much. That I have a little comfort in the fact that I think he did it on purpose. I think he was trying to make a point. Let’s be a little more moderate. Let’s not get too caught up in every tiny little detail of life.

  00:26:51 The more rules you need, it’s a sign of spiritual immaturity. More rules, the more spiritual immature I think people are. I hate to keep going to Buddhism, but it’s been on my mind a lot because of where I was. The Buddha said, “There is no pathway in the sky enigmatic.” But what he meant, among other things is, you don’t need the pathway. You don’t need the signposts and the barriers because we would say the spirit’s going to tell you what to do all the time. He’s just going to guide you and you’re going to know what’s right. So if you need a lot of rules, it’s okay, but we’re hoping to get you to a little higher level of spiritual maturity where you can walk in the sky without a path. So that’s kind of 13. If I were going to pick something out of 13.

Hank Smith: 00:27:41 Yeah, I think if it would heal, if it would uplift, if it would get someone out of a terrible situation, if it would help someone become more God-centered, that sounds like a Sabbath day activity the Savior would approve of.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:27:57 Yeah, I like the phrases. I just like them and applying, He’s talking about physical things, but everything Jesus did on a physical level, everything. All the miracles that He did for an individual was His way of saying what I’m doing for this individual I can do for everybody on a spiritual level. And we have to look at the miracles always that way saying, how does that apply to me and to my life on a spiritual level? Whether it’s healing the blind or the lame or in this case, these two, walking on water, feeding the 5,000, we’re going to see the raising of Lazarus here a little bit later. It’s always a visual of what he will do for us spiritually. I just look at the visual and I’ll get the message.

John Bytheway: 00:28:45 To give an amen to what we’ve just been talking about. Verse 3 and 4 of Luke 14, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?” You mean he looked around, lawyers and Pharisees. Yeah, He’s teaching that it’s okay to do good on the Sabbath. I love this, this daughter of Abraham, 18 years and his adversaries were ashamed when he said that, he was appealing to their humanity. And so I love that. The next chapter, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? And they held their peace this time.” And I guess trying to say, “Look, people are more important than this policy here that you’ve taken too far.”

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:29:20 Yeah, that’s my major takeaway from those. I mean there’s lots in here. 14, we get a number of parables. The first part He gives some pretty good common sense. “If you go to a feast, take the lowest seat.” Don’t go up and take the seat of honor because you may embarrass yourself. So it’s humble. And if you’re going to make a feast, we’re going to see this list in verse 13 again who he suggests you invite to the feast. “When you make a feast call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.” Those four. “And you’ll be blessed because they can’t recompense thee.” If you invite the wealthy, they may return the favor, but you’re going to do this. We’re going to see those four again in the next parable. So if we pick it up in verse 16, “Then said he unto him, ‘A certain man made a great supper and bade many.'”

  00:30:16 Some people say the Father is the great supper or Jesus is the great supper. There’s a great feast awaiting in the gospel. The Savior has a lot to feed us. He’s the bread of life, out of his flows of living water. It’s a great supper. He’s going to give us the new wine. There’s a lot of eating imagery in the New Testament and the old. So here’s the great supper, and he invites many and, “And He sent His servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, ‘Come for all things are now ready.’ And they all with one consent, began to make excuse.” Now, they’re not bad people, it’s just that there’re things that are more important to them than the feast that He wants to give them.

  00:30:57 “The first said unto Him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground.'” I got a real estate I need to handle. “‘I must needs go and see it. I pray that he have me excused.'” Like I said, they’re not bad. They just have a little priority challenge here. You probably could go to the feast and see the piece of ground tomorrow. “And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen. I go to prove them. I pray that you have me excused.’ Another said, ‘I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come.'” No comment on that one. I don’t know what to do with that one.

Hank Smith: 00:31:32 It sounds like a better excuse than the other ones.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:31:34 It might, yeah. In Matthew’s account he says, “Some went to their merchandise.” And so there are more temporal things that are preventing them from feasting. “And the servant came and showed his Lord these things and the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and bring hither.'” Here’s our list again. So he said, we want to invite these. So here’s our four, the poor and the maimed. He changes the word from lame to halt, and the blind. And the servant said, “I did it. There’s enough room for more.” “Now go into the highways and the hedges and urge them.” Compel, unfortunately was used by the inquisition to justify forced religion. So a better word is urge. “Urge them to come in that my house may be filled, for I say to you that none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.”

  00:32:34 So here’s another one about distractions. And the rich fool, he got a little distracted because he had so much and needed some space and wanted to build more. And in this one, they’re busy, they’re not doing bad things, it’s just that there’s a priority that’s not in the right order and they’re missing the feast. Now what’s interesting about this is, Isaiah 25 talks about a feast and Doctrine and Covenants section 58 combines both Isaiah 25 and this parable and applies it to the temple. So if we wanted to get specific, we don’t have to get specific. There is a general feast for all of us, of truth and goodness and spirit, love that the Savior wants us to have. He says, “I’m the bread of life.” He is the feast also, sometimes. But there is a wonderful feast in the temple.

  00:33:32 I mean I know I do sometimes just say, I’m just so busy, proving my oxen and looking at my piece of ground and going to my merchandise, that I just don’t quite have time to feast on maybe, some of the things that would help me in the spiritual thing. And remember I said to my soul, “Soul, we have enough.” Well, but the soul says, “Well, there are some other things I’d like that maybe you aren’t doing.” So it’s a priority issue there again. He’s just trying to give us food for thought and an assessment of our life. Remember the parables are designed, not to appeal to the intellect, but to the conscience, to the will so that we learn to be better people.

Hank Smith: 00:34:18 Mike, I would say, isn’t this the parable, the sower and the weeds, too many weeds that the plant can’t grow?

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:34:27 And the plant’s not dead in that one. The plant dies on the shallow soil and the plant never grows on the wayside, but this plant grows. The phrase that’s so powerful is, “It brings no fruit to perfection.” Too much of the strength, there’s fruit there, but it’s just not to perfection. It’s just not edible now because it didn’t have enough strength to bring it to where it needed to go.

Hank Smith: 00:34:52 Yeah, can’t compete with everything else.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:34:54 Everything. Yeah. So I say it’s surprising to me, when I teach this, how much in the New Testament he does talk about these issues to help us not be distracted. There are prides that come out of different things. We’re warned of pride of being, of wealth. We’re warned of the pride of learning, but that’s not the most dangerous pride Jesus says we need to be aware of. Interesting. The most dangerous pride is the pride of righteousness. Isn’t that interesting? There’s a certain temptation in feeling morally superior and feeling that you’re morally superior. A self-righteous, a judgmental. Again, we go back to the spirit of our times, that is very dangerous, pride and He’s fairly easy on the wealthy and He’s trying to warn them, but he’ll really nail people for self-righteousness.

Hank Smith: 00:35:46 Yeah, over and over.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:35:47 Yeah. I don’t know why I brought that in. But anyway. He does have another priority issue here in 14. I’m going to skip 15 and come back to it because we’ll go to 16 and kind of finish this theme. Verse 25 of chapter 14 says, “There went great multitudes with Him and He turned and said unto them.” So a lot of people are following him and mostly, Jesus teaches what I call velvet truth. We’re going to get the most velvet of all velvet truths ever in history, in chapter 15, the prodigal son. But every now and then there’s a little sandpaper in His. And here’s an example. He turns to the multitude following, says, “If any man comes to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brother and sisters and even his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” And I said, wow, that’s pretty strong. Now he likes hyperbole. Jesus teaches with hyperbole and He teaches with figurative language. He’s a very literary teacher. English majors love the gospels, okay, because they’re so literarily beautiful.

  00:36:56 So there is a little bit of hyperbole there. And hate here means, also could be translated to love less or to prefer over. And in the Matthew version, he doesn’t say hate. He says, “If a man loves them more than me, can’t be my disciple.” But it’s a matter of preference. He wants father, children, wives. But I think he said, there maybe come a time in your life where you may have to make a choice, a difficult choice, between me and a relationship. If you want to be my disciple, the choice will need to be me. Now the only reason I bring that up is that sometimes, people choose not to be His disciple for a lot less reasons than this very serious one that He’s, like I say, He’s talking in hyperbole. I don’t read verse 26 literally. I think he’s trying to make an emphasis.

  00:37:59 But people do choose to cease being an apostle for things a lot less than mother, father, wife, children, brother, siblings. And I think this is when he says, so look, you count the cost and does a little tower parable. I want you to build a tower. Some people start, they don’t finish. So make sure you understand that eventually what the cost might be, and I need to be a priority.

Hank Smith: 00:38:30 The priority, right?

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:38:31 I need to be the priority. If I am, things will probably be better with wife, children, brothers, sisters, et cetera and so forth. But it’s again, one of those little more sandpaperish things. You get the tower parable there, start in 28. “Don’t start building and not finish.” The similar thing is in the story of the Jaredites, when the Lord says, they’ve built some barges and done half of their journey, and even the brother of Jared, they get on the beach and they camp for four years.

John Bytheway: 00:39:08 This is a nice situation.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:39:10 Yeah. It’s nice, it’s good. And the Lord says He didn’t want them to stop. He doesn’t want us to stop halfway. He wants to get us all the way into His kingdom. Don’t take half the journey. In this case, don’t build half the tower, but understand that as you build, and I’m going to give you a whole lifetime to build and I’m going to give you even after this lifetime to build. I’ll give you every chance you need. But understand that, and there may be some very difficult choices if you want to be my disciple, it’s not easy. He is going to ask Peter, “Lovest thou me?” Well, He asks all of us that question all the time, and we want to be able to say, “Yes, Lord, I love you and I’m in for the whole journey and I’m not going to walk away and I’m not going to quit. Even if it costs a lot.” Which verse 26 suggests it might cost you, even your own life, He’s saying.

  00:40:14 Verse 33, “Whosoever forsaketh not all that he has cannot be my disciple.” So some fairly strong teachings there about counting the cost of discipleship. I like the tower image. I like the journey image in the Book of Mormon. We want to say to the Savior, “You have my vote. I’m here. I’m here for the long time, and if you’ll be patient with me, brick by brick, I’m going to build that tower. Nothing’s going to deter me from it. Nothing’s going to be more important than my discipleship to you. Even relationships that are important there.” I guess I think there’s a little hyperbole in verse 26.

John Bytheway: 00:40:55 But I think it’s following up the same idea in the, “Oh, I have oxen. I have a piece of land.” Elder F. Melvin Hammond. He said, perhaps this parable could be called the, “Don’t bother me now, Lord” parable.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:41:10 Right. Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:41:12 We try to excuse ourselves in various ways. Each rationalization comes from selfishness and almost always relates to something temporal. For some it’s the word of wisdom, for others, the law of tithing, perhaps it’s a reluctance to live the law of chastity. Whatever the reason, we who reject or delay our response to the Savior’s invitation show our lack of love for Him who was our king. I just like what you said at the beginning that so many of these parables are not to be taken apart intellectually, but are speaking to the conscience.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:41:43 They are. I want to come back to Luke 15 because there’s probably the greatest chapter of all scripture, is the prodigal son.

  00:41:51 So there is a nice pacing. I can read 12, 13 to 14 and feel a little down. Wow, my gosh. And I don’t think Jesus wanted for us to feel bad. I can do it. I can find guilt. I can feel the sandpaper. I prefer the velvet. So it’s almost as though, okay, I’ve given you some pretty tough things here. Now let me just make you feel wonderful and good. I’m going to give you this beautiful story of hope, the prodigal son, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the pacing that sometimes in the scriptures, the positioning of things, carries some of the message. So if ever you want an example of, “Reproving betimes with sharpness.” which means correct and the right time. Early, betimes means early, correct early with truth. Sharpness means truth and then show an increase of love. So there’s been a little challenge, a little bit a challenging here and now He’s going to keep His own rule. He’s going to just give this, even if you waste it in riotous living, there’s forgiveness.

  00:43:07 But let’s come back to that and finish this other. Chapter 16 has two parables. I want to focus on the second one. They both have to do with this theme of temporal things and wealth. The first is very, sometimes a difficult one. The unjust steward, I won’t read through it. Most people know it. The steward is found that he’s been wasteful. He’s not been a very good steward and he’s going to get fired. So he goes to the credit of the people that owe the debtors of his master and he says, “Look, how much do you owe?” “Well, I owe 100.” “Well, write down 50.” “Well, you write down 80.” And he reduces them because he wants to have some friends later on who’ll take care of him because he took care of them. Okay? It’s a rather strange parable, I have to admit.

  00:43:58 And then we go to verse eight, “The Lord commended the unjust steward because he had done wisely.” I would probably translate that with another word.

John Bytheway: 00:44:08 Clever.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:44:09 Maybe cleverly, prudently, might be a little bit better a word. He’s looking after his future. And the point of the parable is, we want to be looking after our spiritual future, as well as people look after temporal future. So if I’m trying to build my better barn, bigger barns, let’s have bigger barns in heaven too. And if I’m trying to make friends here on earth, let’s try and make friends in heaven. Verse nine, “I say unto you, make to yourself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness that when ye fail.” Meaning when you die. “They may receive you into everlasting habitations.” Use the resources and the blessings God has given with you to make heavenly friends that when life is over, you will go to an everlasting habitation. “He that is faithful in that which is least.” So he considers temporal things, money and stuff, least.

  00:45:19 11, “if therefore, you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?” So show me you can at least handle your resources, your talents, your opportunities well, and I will give you really, the great riches. And, “If you have not been faithful in that, which is another mans, who will give you that which is your own?” So it’s consecration and everything I have belongs to him anyway, so please try and use it in the proper ways. That’s what this parable is all about, is what’s my 401 in heaven look like?

John Bytheway: 00:45:55 Yeah, I appreciate this about this parable because it is a little different than a lot of them. Elder James E. Talmage in, Jesus the Christ. He said, “Be diligent for the day in which you can use your earthly riches will soon pass. Take a lesson from even the dishonest and the evil. If they are so prudent as to provide for the only future they think of, how much more should you, who believe in an eternal future, provide therefore? If you have not learned wisdom and prudence in the use of unrighteous mammon, how can you be trusted with the more enduring riches?” That one helps a lot.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:46:33 That’s the principle. That’s what it’s saying, but it is a little difficult. It’s difficult because he commended him for doing wisely, and we’re thinking, wait a minute, he was dishonest. But like I say, you don’t push the parables too far. You take what that’s meant to say. Get your heavenly 401 loaded up and use your earthly 401 to get your heavenly 401 loaded up better.

Hank Smith: 00:46:58 I think you’re right on here, Mike. It sounds to me that the Savior’s saying, look, your money’s not going with you, but your relationships will. So use your money to create great relationships, if you have any.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:47:09 Let’s jump to another parable, I really love, I mean the prodigal son, I think is the greatest one, and we’re going to get there in just a second. But I love this parable, the second part of Luke 16. We’re going to start in verse 19. When I teach this parable, I like to ask people, and as I read these first couple of verses, ask yourself, what are the differences between these two men? “There was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate full of sores and desiring to be fed with the crumbs, which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores.”

  00:48:01 Now, I just stopped there and said, okay, what are the differences between the two people? I won’t put you guys to the test here, but I’ll get, well, one’s wealthy, one’s not. One’s has enough to eat, one doesn’t have enough to eat, one has sores and one is in good health. Their clothing is different. And then I’ll say, well, they’ll do all these. They get all those, and then I’ll ask, you’ve missed the most significant difference between the two men. So look at it again and tell me what the most significant difference is between the rich man and the begger? And the answer is, one of them is given a name.

Hank Smith: 00:48:50 That’s what I was going to say. I should have gone for it.

John Bytheway: 00:48:55 Tell me if I’m wrong. The only parable I can think of where Jesus gives a character in the parable a proper name, which I think we’re probably going to talk about why in a minute.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:49:06 Yeah, he gives him a name, but that’s not normal. It’s the wealthy that have the name. I mean, you could sit and say, okay, who are the big names in the world? Now you are going to come, I’m not going to go through all the names, but people can name them. It’s the unnamed masses. I just got off a three-month run of trips and I see a lot of poverty. I just see a lot of poverty, in a lot of places. I see a lot of wealth too, but a lot of poverty and a lot of beggars. A lot of people are coming up or they’re trying to sell you something for a dollar or something. You can’t help everybody. But I always think, whenever I see people, they have a name and God knows that name. He gave the name to the poor man.

  00:49:58 He was a subtle teacher, Jesus sometimes and beautiful in his subtlety. This is a beautiful thing if we catch it. That it’s the poor man that gets the name and he’s the one that becomes personalized. The other one is just another rich man.

John Bytheway: 00:50:16 Yeah, a certain rich man.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:50:18 But it’s the opposite in the way we look at the world. Now, he’s going to carry this on, the English major’s coming out of me here now because I really like good writing. I really like good storytelling. So I’m going to read the next verse. Now, I’m going to read it in the tone. The tone of scripture is important to get sometimes. I’ll read it in an obvious tone so you get it. So now I’m going to go to verse 22, “And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.” And can you see what he’s doing there? Again, it’s the reversal. It’s the flip. It’s the wealthy who get the eloquent description, the big funerals, the eulogies, the write-ups, and it’s the poor that this just are died and are buried, just died and buried. I think that he’s doing this on, is part of the power and the wonder of the parable. That we take notice. They have names. You just don’t bury them. You just don’t. But that’s kind of what we do.

  00:51:34 I was at the killing field just about 10 days ago and graves with 1000s in them, and they have a big memorial in one of them by Phnom Penh, and this was from the Khmer Rouge in 1975, 1979, when almost 2 million were killed. And you can see as you come up to the memorial, the skulls of all that they’ve pulled out in this memorial, and I just cried. It was so overwhelming. I didn’t realize I was going to be affected as much as I was.

  00:52:10 And I thought about this as I was walking in there, saying he knew every name of every Lazarus that died there. I could hear their cries. I could feel their fear, their bewilderment, the astonishment of what was happening to them, and it was comforting to know, He knew every one. He knew all their names, and that people are carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom. We could end right there. I love that part. There’s one other little thing that I really like, at least in terms of how well-crafted this is, “And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.'”

  00:53:15 Okay, this is again, literal imagery, but how much water would be on the tip of your finger if you dipped it in water? How much water?

Hank Smith: 00:53:27 Maybe a drop or two.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:53:28 A drop. Now what word in verse 21 matches drop?

Hank Smith: 00:53:36 He just wanted crumbs.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:53:37 He just wanted crumbs. See, so you get that, again, it’s just such a well written, beautiful, crafted story.

Hank Smith: 00:53:46 Your situation has been reversed.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:53:48 It’s been reversed. The tip of the water, the drop, versus the crumb, the name versus not the name, the eloquent burial versus, just died and buried.

Hank Smith: 00:54:00 Sounds like Lazarus could see the rich man from where he was, and now the rich man can see Lazarus from where he is.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:54:06 Yeah. Now we tend to, just a very quick comment, maybe on the last part, we won’t go into again, detail here. We tend to doctrinalize this last part. I’m always cautious about doctrinalizing parables because again, I think they aren’t written to the intellect, they’re written to the conscience. So Abraham said, remember in your lifetime you had good things and he had evil things, so now he’s comforting your torment. It’s kind of opposite. I think 26 might be said with a little ironic tone, “Beside all this, between us and you, there is a great gulf fixed so that they, which would pass from hence to you cannot, neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.”

  00:54:55 Like I say, we tend to doctrine that. I don’t mind doctrinalizing that there is barriers in the spirit world, but I don’t think that’s what he’s trying to teach here. I would say since he’s talking about financial wealth, rich, poor, I would look at that and say, wealth does create great gulfs between people, where you can’t cross over, class structure and status. I use this example when I moved to Salt Lake, I’d never lived in Utah before, I moved to Salt Lake 35 or so years ago, trying to find a house, and I can’t tell you how many people gave me advice on different places in the valley to buy a house. And it didn’t take me very long to realize that, in the Salt Lake Valley, there was a great Gulf fixed. It was called I15. I’m saying this, I’m glad you’re laughing because, but it is just so true and different comments people would say about those two sides.

Hank Smith: 00:56:08 You don’t want to live over there-

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:56:10 That’s right. Or here, there. This is where the proud people are. Well, we’re humble here. We don’t want to go over there. But when you’re buying a house, location, location, location, I understand that. But there was a certain gulf that was fixed. I mean, you can’t read English novels and not see class structure in that. There are gulfs fixed in these things. I lived in a small Mormon town in Canada. There, the Gulf was those who lived on the hill and those who lived on the river bottoms. There’s just some gulfs. I like to think that Verse 26 is stated with a little bit of an ironic tone about gulfs being fixed, and it’s not really a doctrinal statement about the hereafter. And then he says, well, he is changing the rich man. Send somebody to my father’s house. I have five brothers. I don’t want them-

Hank Smith: 00:57:04 To end up like me.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:57:06 Like me, which is good. He’s learning. And Abraham says, “Well, they have the scriptures and they can listen to them.” And he says, well, “But they won’t.” But if somebody came back from the dead, they would. And then Jesus makes I think, a reference to himself, “If they can’t be persuaded by the prophets, even if I rise from the dead, they’re not going to be persuaded.” And you do have, I think a specific reference in verse 31 to His own, but it’s also one that if the scriptures can’t change you, then probably nothing is going to change you.

John Bytheway: 00:57:36 Or that Lazarus, a real Lazarus is going to rise from the dead

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:57:42 Or a real Lazarus, which is we’ve got this week too.

John Bytheway: 00:57:46 Hey, can I ask you a question? The English major in you? I absolutely love a Christmas Carol and the Charles Dickens story, and I’ve wondered if by some chance, he got this idea from verse 28, of Jacob Marley coming to Ebenezer Scrooge and warning him about this place?

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:58:07 Well, you can certainly make that connection, whether he got it or not from that, you can certainly make the connection.

John Bytheway: 00:58:14 I wondered if you knew, I just think it’s interesting.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:58:17 I don’t, England in the 1800s, one of the ways they celebrated Christmas, was to tell ghost stories. So it’s kind of natural that he would tell a ghost story. But did he get this idea of sending somebody back? Be nice, wouldn’t it? We’d love to think, I’m sure Dickens knew his New Testament, and whether he did or not, the match works, but I don’t know that that’s where he got it.

Hank Smith: 00:58:43 One thing I noticed from this parable is this great gulf between them seems to be created by the rich man himself. Even in verse 24, he says, “Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus.” He still sees Lazarus as less than him. He’s a servant. “Send Lazarus.” And by the way, we learned that the rich man knew who Lazarus was. He calls him by name right there.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:59:07 He calls him by name. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, he does. The naming of the beggar is the most significant part of the parable. I think it’s the one point we want to get, above all, that they have names.

Hank Smith: 00:59:20 “If you didn’t give crumbs away while you were on earth, you’re not going to get many drops in the next life.” I ask my students when I read this, what would you give away if you knew the only thing you’d have in heaven are the things you gave away?

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:59:33 That’s a good way to ask it.

Hank Smith: 00:59:34 They’d have a lot of gum, a lot of cookies, a lot of old clothes and old stuffed animals. So we’ve had a good time with that. But I like the question, what would you do?

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 00:59:44 Well, let’s go back to Luke 15 and kind of change the subject a little bit. You see that theme flowing through there?

Hank Smith: 00:59:52 I got to tell you both, Mike, I can barely keep these pages in my scriptures. These are the two that-

John Bytheway: 00:59:57 You worn them out?

Hank Smith: 00:59:58 Use so much that they’re worn out. Yeah, they’re hanging on by a thread. I don’t know how yours can handle it, Mike.

Dr. Michael Wilcox: 01:00:06 Yeah, mine are scotch tape. It’s a beautiful chapter. I don’t think there’s anything in chapter 15 that isn’t just pure velvet. It’s given to two main audiences. Sometimes it’s helpful to know the audience. I don’t think one of the main audiences in verse two is the Pharisees and the Scribes, in terms of audiences who read it and bring it. Sometimes we think that the older brothers kind of matches the Pharisees and the sinners match the prodigal.

  01:00:41 The main audience is in verse one, “Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him.” That’s who he’s giving the prodigal son to. To those people who need to know. I just love, I never get through this. For those people who need to know that there is a robe and a ring and shoes and an embrace and a kiss waiting for them. No matter what they’ve done, no matter where they’ve been, the robe, the ring and the shoes are sitting there waiting for them. That’s the main audience, the sinners he’s telling us for. Because we’re going to find out that the prodigal doesn’t feel worthy. And often, that’s the way people feel. People just don’t feel worthy.

  01:01:40 Sometimes when I teach this, I can tell by the comments of people, who they think they are in the parable. You can read the parable in three different viewpoints. The viewpoint, some people think, “I’m the prodigal.” Some people think, “I’m the older brother.” And they get a little upset sometimes, or at least they make comments that wonder, “Well, but he’s not going to be equal to the other one who never sinned.” And I say, “Well, you say that because you think that’s who you are in the parable.”

  01:02:13 The best viewpoint to read it from, is from the father’s viewpoint. Okay? That’s the best viewpoint. So the main audience is those who need forgiveness and need to know that the robe and the ring and the shoes are there and that you don’t come back as a servant, you come back as a son. The other main audience is for, and there are lots of them in the church today, for parents of children who have gone into far countries, and far countries can be a lot of different things. So those are the two audiences.

  01:02:57 There is another audience that he’s addressing to, let’s not be threatened by the prodigal that returns home. One of the most beloved characters in the Book of Mormon, is the prodigal son named Alma the Younger. So let’s not be threatened by them coming. It’s just a beautiful story for any parent. The most beautiful story ever told is for people who need to know they can come back and for the parents of those people. And that’s who I think he’s given it to.

  01:03:35 It’s the only parable that has too many parables introducing it. So we start with verse four, “What man of you, having a hundred sheep if you lose one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after that, which is lost, until he find it?” We never give up on these people, never. “And when he had found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calls together his friend.” Some joy needs to be shared, “And neighbors, saying unto them, ‘Rejoice with me.'” This is Jesus at his inviting best, he’s saying to the Pharisees and the scribes who are murmuring, that you’re eating with sinners, be happy with me, look at, they’re listening, they’re coming. This is a cause for rejoice. Don’t condemn them. Rejoice with me.

  01:04:24 “I have found my sheep, which was lost, and I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repentance more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance.” I don’t like to read anything in Luke 15 negatively. I don’t think that that’s an ironic statement that, well, you are the 99 out there. Don’t think you need repentance because the 99 are going to match the older son and he loves the older son. Like I said, there’s nothing negative for me in this.

  01:04:58 There are two kinds of joy, though. There is the intensity of joy over the one, and there is the constancy of joy over the ninety and nine. And there are different kinds of joy. But I don’t think God loved Alma the Younger more than Nephi. But there’s a different feel to it. And that’s the only way I can describe it. That there’s an intensity of joy of the prodigal and there’s a constancy of joy over the ninety and nine and the older brother.

Hank Smith: 01:05:40 Please join us for part two of this podcast.