Background: So I was reading in the New Testament yesterday, and I've been reading it in Dutch actually. I'm doing everything I can to not lose it, so most of my scripture and Gospel study has been happening in Dutch. I hope I don't starve spiritually because of this decision, but I'm doing my best to make sure I understand everything. Google Translate is a great pseudo-dictionary.
Fun realization about the Lord's prayer: When I was reading this phrase in the Lord's prayer "En leid ons niet in verzoeking, maar verlos ons van den boze." Something caught my eye. Here, the verb leiden (English: to lead) is used with the preposition "in." (English: in) That's weird, because in modern Dutch, if you denote being led to something you say "Leid naar..." Now I understand this is older Dutch, so maybe I don't understand everything, so I did a little text search on the verb stem leid through different chapters, to see the other prepositions it was used with. I found this chapter, and in the beginning, it uses "leiden" with the preposition "tot" which can also mean "to, toward" in English, so my suspicion is correct, the phrase is not saying "And lead us not into temptation..." like in the English phrasing:"And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil." There's obviously a difference in meaning between the two translations. The Dutch one in my opinion is saying "And lead us not in temptation, but save us from evil." Which I take to mean that if you're being tempted by something, then the last part of the prayer is asking for help avoiding it, instead of it being allowed to continue with you while you're receiving Heavenly Father's help.
The most powerful lesson I learned: The thing that struck me the most about Luke Chapter 11 was the end of the chapter made it sound like Jesus drew the hatred and malice of the Pharisees and the scribes because he chastises them for corrupting their religion. He's not lying, but his words obviously stoke their hatred. What hit me really hard about these passages of scripture was the importance of self honesty and acceptance. The slaying of Jesus came about because some people weren't willing to accept the truth when they were being told it. Yes, it was negative what Jesus was saying, but it was not untrue. This just showed me that if we want help preparing ourselves to meet Heavenly Father again, we need to be able to accept some of the not so nice things about ourselves. Because if we can't recognize those things then we can't fix them.
There's a little passage from the Book of Mormon that goes directly with this realization:
"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."
- Ether 12:27
I really like how strongly the Book of Mormon and Bible support each other and expound on each other when teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This passage does a good job of showing us that we don't have to be ashamed of our weaknesses, because we will be given the power to overcome them if we do what's right.
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