Maxwell Institute Podcast

One of my favorite sermons in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a sermon delivered by President Hugh B. Brown at BYU. It’s entitled God is the Gardner; I’m confident that many of you have heard this before. But I love the part at the end where, when dealing with a massive professional disappointment, that Brother Brown says that, he takes his fist and he shakes it at heaven, and he says why would you do this to me, God? I’ve done all that I know how to uphold the standards of the Church, and yet you’ve cut me down. He then remembers that he had said something very similar to a currant bush, and he recognized the lesson that God would do as he saw fit for his best growth. And then repeated part of the hymn “It may not be on the mountain height, or over the stormy sea. It may not be at the battle’s front, my Lord will have need of me. But if by a still small voice he calls, to paths that I do not know, I’ll answer dear Lord with my hand in thine, I’ll go where you want me to go.”

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Throughout the scriptures, the Lord and His prophets teach of covenants, the ability for us to bind ourselves to God through the power of the priesthood. Sometimes, though, we forget that we are also in covenant relationship to those we hold most dear. Indeed, that not only are we covenentally bound to our family members, but to all those in our community. We’ll discuss covenants, and much, much more, in this episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.” The post Abide: Hosea and Joel appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Andrew Jenson undertook a lifelong quest to render the LDS historical record complete and comprehensive. As Assistant Church Historian of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jenson tirelessly carried out his office’s archival mission and advocated for fixed record keeping to become a duty for Latter-day Saints. Reid L. Neilson and Scott D. Marianno offer a new in-depth study of Jenson’s long life and career. Their account follows Jenson from his arrival as a Danish immigrant to 1860s Utah through trips around the world to secure documents from far-flung missions, and on to his public life as a newspaper columnist and interpreter of LDS history. Throughout, Jenson emerges as a figure dedicated to the belief that recorded history united past and present Latter-day Saints in heaven and on earth–and for all eternity. The post Maxwell Institute Podcast #152: Andrew Jenson and Latter-day Saint History, with Reid L. Neilson and Scott D. Marianno appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

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We are blessed to live in a time of prophets. I define this in two ways. The first is that we are fortunate to live in a time where the priesthood has been restored and that the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints speaks for the Lord under priesthood authority. The second is to live in a time where God conveys His word to use through good people of all faiths or no faith at all. Prophecy, or speaking prophetically, can and must and does happen under the authority of the prophet, but also takes place in how we speak to each other, doing our best to align our wills to God and to care for Their children as They would have us do. We’ll discuss prophecy and much, much more on today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.” The post Abide: Ezekiel 1–3; 33–34; 36–37; 47 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Latter-day Saints recognize the Book of Mormon as the “keystone of our religion,” a book that will bring a person closer to Christ than by any other book. How do non-Latter-day Saints read the Book of Mormon, though, especially in their academic work? To answer that question, we’ll speak to Dr. Rosalynde Frandsen Welch, Research Fellow and Associate Director of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute, about an article she wrote called “The Secular Syllabus and the Sacred Book: Literary Scholars Approach the Book of Mormon.” As always, we ask you to share the podcast with a friend by word of mouth, sending a link to our YouTube page, or to one of our social media handles @byumaxwell. Without any further ado, let’s speak to Dr. Rosalynde Frandsen Welch. The post Maxwell Institute Podcast #151: The Book of Mormon and Literature Studies, with Rosalynde Frandsen Welch appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

In last week’s episode, we discussed how Jeremiah introduces ideas about seemingly disparate events, including the apocalyptic here-and-now and the hope of a better future for all of humankind. As we continue into our second episode on Jeremiah, we take a turn to earthy practicalities. How do we commit ourselves to God’s work? How do we recognize prophetic teachings? And what’s important about the fact that Lehi and Jeremiah lived at the same time? We discuss that and much more in this week’s episode of Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast. The post Abide: Jeremiah and Lamentations Part II appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

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In June 2022, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship and the David O. McKay Center for Intercultural Understanding hosted a conference based upon Patrick Mason’s and David Pulsipher’s new book Proclaim Peace: The Restoration’s Answer to an Age of Conflict.  Participants–scholars and non-scholars alike–reflected together on the interpersonal, ethical, and social dimensions of Christian discipleship and the search for peace in non-Christian traditions.  You can hear Professors Mason and Pulsipher discuss Proclaim Peace on the Maxwell Institute Podcast HERE. The post Maxwell Institute Podcast #150: The Proclaim Peace Conference appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Today we are joined by Dr. Joseph Spencer, a philosopher, theologian and Assistant Professor of Ancient Scripture here at Brigham Young University. Dr. Spencer is the editor of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies and a leading scholar of the Book of Mormon. He is a prolific author, and among his recent works are The Vision of All: Twenty-five Lectures on Isaiah in Nephi’s Record (Kofford, 2016) and 1st Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction, published by the Maxwell Institute in 2020. He has recently completed a monograph on Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, which is currently under review with Oxford University Press. The post Abide: Isaiah 58-66 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

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.