This is Scripture Roundtable 102 from The Interpreter Foundation, in which we discuss the New Testament Gospel Doctrine Lesson #4, “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord,” focusing on scriptures in Matthew 3-4 and John 1, bringing in various insights to help us better understand the scriptures. These roundtables will generally follow the 2015 Gospel Doctrine schedule of scriptures, a few weeks ahead of time.
Panelists for this roundtable are Jeffrey Bradshaw, Martin Tanner, Daniel Peterson, and Cassandra Hedelius.
This roundtable is also available as an audio podcast, and will be included in the podcast feed. You can listen by pressing the play button or download the podcast below:
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:04:38 — 22.2MB)
The C.S. Lewis quote mentioned by Cassandra is from Mere Christianity: “No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness — they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means — the only complete realist.”
Thank you for adding this!
To Dan’s point regarding whether Jesus had to come to a knowledge of who he was, and whether Satan was trying to plant a seed of doubt: We know that Jesus was tempted in all way as we are, and for any temptation to be truly a test or a trial, the veil of forgetfulness needs to be in place. If he had a full knowledge of who he was, without any need for faith, it wouldn’t have really been a test for him. His understanding of our sins and trials would necessitate that he be in our shoes, without full knowledge.
Please, please get some better recording equipment for Cassandra.
I skip, fast forward through, her comments because it is so miserable to listen to the poor recording.
Kathy maybe you could buy some better equipment for her?
This is a housekeeping comment. I find Cassandra very difficult to understand on the podcasts. There are echos and other noises that interfere.
I agree every time Cassandra has participated in the conversation she has an echo and you can hardly hear her comments. Love this forum.