“Humble yourselves . . . that He may exalt you in due time” (1 Peter 5:6), etc. The unpleasant interval is not to be taken seriously, “For all flesh is as grass” (1 Peter 1:24); we are merely “strangers and pilgrims” here (1 Peter 2:11); it is a frightening prospect, but “if you will it shall be as nothing.” Peter preaches a thoroughgoing exchange of earthly values for heavenly values.
James does not mince words: “Know ye not, that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4 [James 1:16]). Nor does John: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world . . . is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof” (1 John 2:15–17 [John 1:9]). “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. . . . “We are of God: he that knoweth God, heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. . . . And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness” (1 John 3:13 [John 2:2]; 4:6; 5:19).
These were truly the disciples of the Lord who said, “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets” (Luke 6:26 [Luke 5:9]). There is no place here for a popular program. The whole consolation of the saints is in the resurrection and glory to come, “whether we wake or sleep, . . . Wherefore comfort yourselves” (1 Thessalonians 5:10–11). There is a complete disconcern for the possible success or failure of the church on earth, and a total silence on the subject of future generations—never a thought of that “inevitable triumph” which later church historians were to insist should have been their chief consolation. “The foundation of God standeth sure,” not in a visible institution of salvation, but “having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his” (2 Timothy 2:19). Every opportunity to play up the church is passed by in silence.
The Twelve Chosen; the Sermon on the Plain
He prays all night, names twelve men in the morning, and then comes down off the mountain to stand on level ground and preach: blessings, and then woes, to a crowd that has come to touch him.
Tap a Gospel to show or hide its column. Narrow to any two to read them side by side.
Note. Luke’s sermon is not Matthew’s abridged. It is preached standing on a plain, it adds four woes, and the Joseph Smith Translation revises it far more than it revises Matthew: lifting the beatitudes out of the second person, and giving the counsel to turn the cheek two sentences of reasoning that the King James does not have.
? How to read this edition
The reading is the Joseph Smith Translation, in the text of the Covenant Christian Edition, carried beside each Gospel and set against the King James baseline. Headers give both numbering systems: the CCE chapter and verse, and the traditional KJV reference.
13And he goes up into a mountain and calls unto him whom he intends, and they came unto him. 14And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach 15and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out devils. 16And Simon he surnamed Peter; 17and James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James, and he surnamed them Boanerges — which is, the sons of thunder; 18and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Canaanite, 19and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.
And they went into a house.
12And it came to pass, in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. 13And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples. And of them he chose twelve, whom he also named apostles: 14Simon, whom he also named Peter, and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, 15Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called Zelotes, 16and Judas the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, who also was the traitor. 17And he came down with them and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coasts of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases, 18and they who were vexed with unclean spirits; and they were healed. 19And the whole multitude sought to touch him, for there went virtue out of him and healed them all.
20And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said, Blessed are ye poor: for yours the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God.
21Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye they who hunger now, for they shall be filled.
Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye they who weep now, for they shall laugh.
22Blessed are you when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from among them, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake. 23Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is shall be great in Heaven, for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.
24But woe unto you that are rich, for you have received your consolation.
25Woe unto you who are full, for you shall hunger.
Woe unto you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
26Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets.
27But I say unto you who hear my words, love your enemies, do good to them who hate you, 28bless them who curse you, and pray for them who despitefully use you falsely accuse you and persecute you. 29And unto him who smites you on the cheek, offer also the other. Or in other words, it is better to offer the other than to revile again. And he who takes away your cloak, forbid not to take your coat also, for it is better that you suffer your enemy to take these things than to contend with him. Truly I say unto you, your Heavenly Father, who sees in secret, shall bring that wicked one into judgment. 30Therefore, give to every man who asks of you, and of him who takes away your goods, ask them not again.
31And as you desire that men should do to you, do also to them likewise. 32For if you love only those who love you, what reward have you? For sinners also love those that love them do even the same. 33And if you do good to them who only do good to you, what reward have you? For sinners also do even the same. 34And if you lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what reward have you? For sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. 35But love your enemies, and do good, and lend hoping for nothing again, and your reward shall be great, and you shall be the children of the Highest. For he is kind unto the unthankful and the evil. 36Be therefore merciful as your Father also is merciful. 37Judge not and you shall not be judged. Condemn not and you shall not be condemned. Forgive and you shall be forgiven. 38Give and it shall be given unto you — good measure, pressed down and shaken together, and running over shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that you mete, it shall be measured to you again.
39And he spoke a parable unto them: Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not both fall into the ditch? 40A disciple is not above his master, but everyone that is perfect shall be as his master. 41And why do you behold the speck which is in your brother’s eye, but perceive not the beam which is in your own eye? 42Again, how can you say to your brother, Let me pull out the speck that is in your eye, when you yourself behold not the beam which is in your own eye? You hypocrite, cast out first the beam, out of your own eye, and then shall you see clearly to pull out the speck which is in your brother’s eye. 43For a good tree brings not forth corrupt fruit, neither does a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit, 44for every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush do they gather grapes. 45A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, brings forth that which is good; and an evil man, out of the evil treasure of his heart, brings forth that which is evil. For of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks.
46And why do you call me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? 47Whoever comes to me and hears my sayings and does them, I will show you to whom he is like. 48He is like a man who built a house, and dug deep, and laid the foundation on a rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house and could not shake it, for it was founded upon a rock. 49But he who hears and does not is like a man that, without a foundation, built a house upon the earth, against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.
Virtue Going Out, and the Ordination of the Twelve
If Any Men Ever Had Reason to Claim This Promise
Luke’s last beatitude is for the hated and the reviled, “for the Son of Man’s sake,” with the reward in heaven and the prophets as precedent. Writing from Liberty Jail in December 1838, Joseph Smith quoted Matthew’s form of it and claimed it for himself and the men imprisoned with him, and named who had spoken evil of them. A letter, so there are no reporters’ accounts. The same letter is given under The Beatitudes.
Letter to the Church in Caldwell County, Missouri, 16 December 1838, Liberty Jail (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 124) · Joseph Smith Papers ↗… and again blessed are ye when all men shall revile you and speak all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake, rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Now dear brethren if any men ever had reason to claim this promise we are the men, for we know that the world not only hates us but speak all manner of evil of us falsely for no other reason than because we have been endeavoring to teach the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ after we were bartered away by Hinkle and were taken into the militia camp we had all the evidence we could have wished for that the world hated us and that most cordially too. If there were priests of all the different sects they hated us, if there were Generals they hated us, if there were Colonels they hated us, and the soldiers and officers of every kind hated us, and the most profane blasphemers and drunkards & whoremongers hated us, they all hated us most cordially. And now what did they hate us for, purely because of the testimony of Jesus Christ. Was it because we were liars? We know that it has been reported by some but it has been reported falsely Was it because we have committed treason against the government in Daviess County or of burglary, or of larceny or arson, or any other unlawful act in Daviess county.
The Virtue That Goes Out of a Man
Luke ends the descent from the mountain with a strange clause: the crowd pressed to touch him “for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all.” Joseph Smith described the same thing happening to himself after blessing children at Ramus, and named what it was.
Journal entry, 14 March 1843, Nauvoo · Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 281 (History of the Church, 5:303)
I saw Lucifer would exert his influence to destroy the children that I was blessing, and I strove with all the faith and spirit that I had to seal upon them a blessing that would secure their lives upon the earth; and so much virtue went out of me into the children, that I became weak, from which I have not yet recovered; and I referred to the case of the woman touching the hem of the garment of Jesus. The virtue here referred to is the spirit of life; and a man who exercises great faith in administering to the sick, blessing little children, or confirming, is liable to become weakened.
He Chose Apostles and Ordained Them
In the sermon of July 23, 1843, given in full under John’s Question from Prison, Joseph Smith set the ordination Mark records here against John the Baptist’s Aaronic authority, and named which priesthood the Twelve received.
Discourse, 23 July 1843, Nauvoo · Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 318–19 (cf. History of the Church, 5:516–18) · Joseph Smith Papers ↗Christ was the head of the Church, the chief corner stone, the spiritual rock upon which the church was built, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. He built up the kingdom, chose Apostles, and ordained them to the Melchizedek Priesthood, giving them power to administer in the ordinances of the Gospel. John was a priest after the order of Aaron before Christ.
Woe unto You, When All Men Speak Well of You
Luke’s fourth woe is the one that has no counterpart in Matthew, and Nibley treats it as the plain sense of how the earliest Christians understood their position in the world: not a temporary hardship on the way to institutional success, but the permanent condition of the thing.
The Twelve Disciples Around Their Master
Why twelve? Barker preserves the early Christian answer, from Cyril of Alexandria: the twelve loaves of the Bread of the Presence, renewed on the table each Sabbath, were read as the twelve disciples gathered around the one they surrounded, and Cyril made that reading immediately after discussing David and the showbread, citing the very chapter Luke is in.
He then explained how the Saviour was “pre-typified as Bread by the Law, and the Apostles again as cakes by their likeness to him”. The twelve loaves of the Bread of the Presence were the twelve disciples surrounding their Master, and as the Bread of the Presence was the Sabbath bread, so too the bread is the food of the last times in the world.
Although the Bread of the Presence was food for the priests, when David took it to feed his men (1 Sam. 21.6), he pre-figured its being given to others too (cf. Luke 6.12–15 [Luke 5:1] where Jesus mentions the same story).
The temple ritual for the Sabbath was the renewal of the bread of the Presence, a high priestly ritual, and the Day of Atonement was the major high priestly ritual. There is a conspicuous silence about both of these in the surviving sources, but such fragments as can be recovered correspond to elements in Christian ritual.
Barker cites Luke 6:12–15 for the showbread story, which in Luke actually stands a few verses earlier, at 6:1–5, the section immediately before this one. The connection she is making is between that argument and the choosing of the Twelve that follows it, which is exactly the join this section sits on. The quotations are from a scanned printing of The Great High Priest: spacing errors from the scan have been corrected, and the wording is unchanged.