Maxwell Institute Podcast

Listen to Pastor Derwin Gray and Vicki Gray speak on Derwin’s new book, Healing Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, About Racial Reconciliation!Link to book: Amazon The post Maxwell Institute Podcast #149: Healing Our Racial Divide, with Derwin and Vicki Gray appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Jesus promises in the Gospel of John that he will not leave us comfortless, but that He will come to us. He promises in Matthew that he will give us rest when we are weary and heavy-laden. In my experience, though, that isn’t at the first instance of pain, whether it’s physical, mental, spiritual, or emotional. God asks us to find answers, to knock, to work and watch and fight and pray with all our might and zeal. How do we do that? And how can we think about being comforted by the Divine while also knowing that divine lessons often come in the pursuit of finding that comfort? We’ll discuss that and much more on today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.” The post Abide: Isaiah 40-49 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Isaiah. Latter-day Saints have a special relationship to this Old Testament prophet. Not only do we recognize prophets across all dispensations, but his words were carried by Lehi’s family to the Americas. How do we think about Isaiah? What should we know about the construction of the book of Isaiah? We discuss this, and much more, on this episode of Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast. The post Abide: Isaiah 1-12 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs can fall by the wayside when we study them in Sunday School. They don’t always fit into the narratives that we understand about dispensations of authority or give us sustained treatises in the way that a theologian might consider during personal scripture study. However, in preparing for this week, our team recognized the value of these books and understanding the literary, doctrinal, and other beauties that accompany these books. We’ll discuss these topics, and much more, in today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.” The post Abide: Proverbs and Ecclesiastes appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Kate Holbrook, PhD (1972–2022) was a leading voice in the study of Latter-day Saintwomen and Latter-day Saint foodways. As managing historian of women’s history atthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints history department, she wrote, studied,and interpreted history full-time. Her major research interests were religion, gender,and food. Her primary professional activity was to discover, encourage, and celebratewomen’s flourishing in the scholarly and spiritual realms. A popular public speaker, Kate was voted Harvard College’s Teaching Fellow of theYear for her work as head teaching fellow in a course that enrolled nearly six hundredstudents, and she co-edited Global Values 101: A Short Course (Beacon Press, 2006),based on that class. In 2012, Kate co-organized a conference entitled “Women and theLDS Church: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.” She and her co-organizer,Matthew Bowman, edited a collection of essays that sprang from this conferenceentitled Women and Mormonism: Historical and Cont

A book has many lives. It’s thought, it’s edited, it’s printed, it’s reprinted, it’s commentated on, and this repeats, if the book merits it, ad infinitum. This is certainly true for the Bible as a whole, but, I suggest, for the Psalms in particular. How do we think about Psalms as an ancient text conveyed for a modern people? The post Abide: Psalms Part Three appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

In the decades before the Civil War, Americans appealed to the nation’s sacred religious and legal texts – the Bible and the Constitution – to address the slavery crisis. The ensuing political debates over slavery deepened interpreters’ emphasis on historical readings of the sacred texts, and in turn, these readings began to highlight the unbridgeable historical distances that separated nineteenth-century Americans from biblical and founding pasts. While many Americans continued to adhere to a belief in the Bible’s timeless teachings and the Constitution’s enduring principles, some antislavery readers, including Theodore Parker, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln, used historical distance to reinterpret and use the sacred texts as antislavery documents. By using the debate over American slavery as a case study, Jordan T. Watkins traces the development of American historical consciousness in antebellum America, showing how a growing emphasis on historical readings of the Bible and the Constitution gave ri

One of the first things I tell my students, and that I repeat throughout a semester, is that texts do not interpret themselves. Every time a person reads scripture they see it with new eyes and with shifting perspectives. The words on the page may be the same, though, of course, with the Bible, those words may vary, but it is up to us to seek learning by knowledge and through the Spirit. We’ll discuss that, and much more, on today’s episode of Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast. The post Abide: Psalms Part Two appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Psalms! There’s over 150 of them marked in the book by the same name in the Old Testament. How can we read them? Are they more useful as a narrative thread, or as a spice to season our spiritual diet? We’ll discuss that and much more on today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.” The post Abide: Psalms Part One appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Job, as a literary and biblical figure, gives us a lot to think about. He goes from riches to rags to riches again. He loses his family but begins another. He’s at the center of a contest between god and a devilish character. He relies on his friends but those same friends accuse him of doing evil works. What can Latter-day Saints think about when considering Job the book, Job the figure, and the implications of both man and book? We’ll discuss that, and much more, in today’s episode of Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast. The post Abide: Job appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

In Original Grace, Adam S. Miller proposes an experiment in Restoration thinking: What if instead of implicitly affirming the traditional logic of original sin, we, as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, emphasized the deeper reality of God’s original grace? What if we broke entirely with the belief that suffering can sometimes be deserved and claimed that suffering can never be deserved? In exploring these questions, Miller draws on scriptures and the truths of the Restoration to reframe Christianity’s traditional thinking about grace, justice, and sin. He outlines the logic of original sin versus that of original grace and generates fresh insights into how the doctrine of grace relates to justice, creation, forgiveness, and more. The post Maxwell Institute Podcast #146: God’s Original Grace, with Adam Miller appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Can one be directed by God when one doesn’t know that one is being directed? The answer, of course, is yes. We learn about how God directed Esther in ways that may not have been recognizable to her, to ancient Israelites, and in ways that still surprise us today. We’ll discuss that, and more, in today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.” The post Abide: Esther appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

If an eighteenth-century cleric told you that the difference between “civilization and heathenism is sky-high and star-far,” the words would hardly come as a shock. But that statement was written by an American missionary in 1971. In a sweeping historical narrative, Kathryn Gin Lum shows how the idea of the heathen has been maintained from the colonial era to the present in religious and secular discourses―discourses, specifically, of race. Kathryn Gin Lum is Associate Professor in the Religious Studies Department, in collaboration with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford. She is also Associate Professor, by courtesy, of History in affiliation with American Studies and Asian American Studies. The post Maxwell Institute Podcast #145: The Idea of the “Heathen” with Kathryn Gin Lum appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

How do we learn from failure? Especially the end of an organization as large as a kingdom? What if two kingdoms fall? Today, as we look at the end of both Kingdoms of Israel, I hope that we can explore what it means to understand a people’s historical failures and recognize that modern people are just as capable of failing, despite being God’s chosen peoples, as ancient peoples. How do we avoid the hubris of declaring ourselves indestructible? How do we embrace the humility needed to rely on God and trust His word? We discuss that and much more in today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.” The post Abide: 2 Kings 17-25 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Elijah and Elisha are well-known to Latter-day Saints. The prophecy that Elijah would return was foretold in each of the four books of the Latter-day Saint canon. Indeed, Elijah visited the Prophet Joseph Smith and his counselor, Sidney Rigdon, in the Kirtland Temple, restoring the keys of the sealing power to the earth. Elisha may be less known, but his miracles are seen as some of the most didactic of any performed by prophets after Moses in the Old Testament. What can we learn from these prophets and their ministries? We’ll discuss that and more on today’ episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.” The post Abide: 2 Kings 2-7 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Solomon’s reign was glorious, but what he gained in wealth, wives and infrastructure he lost in spiritual standing. He had not been faithful to the God of Israel. Instead, he adopted a cosmopolitanism that accommodated the religious preferences of his wives. However, God kept faith with David and Solomon, and the kingdom was split in two, with the ten northern tribes, the new Kingdom of Israel, being led by Solomon’s servant Jeroboam, and the southern Kingdom of Judah being led by Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. The post Abide: 1 Kings 17-19 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

The post Abide: 2 Samuel 5-7; 11-12; 1 Kings 3; 8; 11 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Spiritual experiences are famously transformative. They sometimes inspire dramatic effects of conversion and healing, of vision and new life direction. But even in their more quotidian forms they expand our cognitive and emotional capacities, help cultivate virtues, and intensify our feelings of closeness to God, others, and things we deem ultimate. For Matthew Wickman, spiritual experience makes us feel more deeply alive. And literature functions as a special medium for capturing the nuances of spiritual experiences, helping us reflect more deeply on them and become more receptive to them. In Wickman’s experience, which he reflects on in his new book from the Maxwell Institute’s Living Faith Series, LIFE TO THE WHOLE BEING: THE SPIRITUAL MEMOIR OF A LITERATURE PROFESSOR, literature has also helped him negotiate the complex relationship between spirituality, faith, and organized religion. He discusses all this by way of deeply personal experiences, theological reflection, and discussion of literary texts

In Mosiah 29, Mosiah says that “if it were possible that you could have bjust men to be your kings, who would establish the claws of God, and judge this people according to his commandments, yea, if ye could have men for your kings who would do even as my father dBenjamin did for this people—I say unto you, if this could always be the case then it would be expedient that ye should always have kings to rule over you.” However, commandment-keeping kings aren’t always available or a possibility. So, as we go through several chapters in 1 Samuel, what can we learn about Kingship? Both their preparations and their reign? We’ll discuss that and much more in this episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.” The post Abide: 1 Samuel 8-10; 13; 15-18 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

The Old Testament names more women, and has more books named for women, than any of the other texts in the Latter-day Saint canon. They fulfill their roles as disciples, family members, and in following their personal integrity with living up to their commitment within community relationships. How do they fulfill those roles? And how can Latter-day Saint better fulfill these roles by following these disciples’ examples? We’ll discuss that, and much more, on today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.” The post Abide: Ruth; 1 Samuel 1-3 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.