Matthew 5:13-16<\/a><\/p>\nCompare Mark 4:21; 9:49-50; Luke 8:16; 14:34-35; John 8:12<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
We sometimes seem to imagine that, eventually, everybody on the planet will accept the Gospel and join the true Church. \u00a0And, sometimes, we\u2019re derided by critics \u2014 especially of the cynical, apostate kind \u2014 because the Church has signally failed to convert most of the world.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But I can\u2019t see that the prophecies have ever indicated that the Church would enroll every single man, woman, and child on earth\u00a0\u2014 certainly short of the Second Coming and the Millennium, and, it seems, not even then:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
And it came to pass that I looked and beheld the whore of all the earth, and she sat upon many\u00a0waters; and she had dominion over\u00a0all\u00a0the earth, among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were\u00a0few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon\u00a0all\u00a0the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw. \u00a0(1 Nephi 14:11-12)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
When the Savior tells his followers that they\u2019re \u201cthe salt of the earth,\u201d that, too, seems to suggest that they won\u2019t predominate in numbers. \u00a0The imperial church of Constantine and the very political church of the Middle Ages weren\u2019t in his view. \u00a0A small amount of salt seasons a large dish. \u00a0(Elsewhere, Jesus compares the Saints to leaven, where the same principle holds.) \u00a0An entire dish of salt would be entirely unpalatable, so that can\u2019t be what he had in mind.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
On an unrelated note, the \u201ccity set on a hill\u201d here might well be an allusion to the hilltop town of Sepphoris. \u00a0It was a booming new area\u00a0during Jesus\u2019 lifetime, still being constructed, and was within walking distance of Nazareth. \u00a0The town of Nazareth was too small, probably, to sustain a \u201cbuilder\u201d (tekton<\/em>) like Joseph. \u00a0(There\u2019s little wood in Palestine; he almost certainly wasn\u2019t a carpenter. \u00a0Not solely<\/em> a carpenter, anyway. \u00a0Perhaps \u201cconstruction worker\u201d will serve as an adequate translation for tekton<\/em>.) \u00a0But Sepphoris offered plenty of employment, and the young Jesus may well have walked over with Joseph and helped him in his work. \u00a0References in the New Testament to corner stones and to building houses on rock rather than sand and so forth suggest some possible background with stonemasonry.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Richmond, Virginia<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Matthew 4:24; 5:1-12 Compare Mark 3:7-13; Luke 6:17-23 \u00a0 I have a very great deal to say about the Beatitudes, but not the time to say very much of it right now. \u00a0I hope to eventually write a small book on them. \u00a0 For right now, I\u2019ll content myself with a brief comment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4096,4093,4099,1369,2589,4090,4102],"class_list":["post-70627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-beatitude","tag-carpenter","tag-hunger-and-thirst","tag-jesus","tag-nazareth","tag-sepphoris","tag-tekton"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Flowers](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2015\/01\/800px-Mount_of_Beatitudes_View_Sea_of_Galilee_Golan_200704.jpg\")
<\/a>