Meridian Magazine--Come Follow Me Latter-day Saint Podcast

October 2-8

What does it mean to be a “stranger in the world”? That’s a lonely idea, right up there with one of the saddest words in our language—homeless.  Paul tells the Gentile converts, “Now, therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the Saints” (Ephesians 2:19). Being a stranger in the world is what it means to be without Christ in our journey. A stranger in the world is exiled from Him and from home. That would be lonely, indeed.

September 25-October 1

The Book of Galatians is little known among us.  It’s only 6 chapters, in 149 verses and a total of 3,084 words.  Can we glean some eternal lessons from this brief letter of the Apostle Paul?  We certainly can!  In today’s podcast we will draw out some of Paul’s teachings that we think will bless all of our lives.

September 18-24

In this book of 2 Corinthians we come nearest to the inner feelings of Paul than in any other of his writings. As one writer said, here Paul reveals his “joy and depression, anxiety and hope, trust and resentment, anger and love.” We see his human qualities. Some writers have suggested that one of the best words to describe 2 Corinthians is that it is a defense. What would Paul have to defend? We'll discuss that this week.

Septebmer 11-17

This mortal experience was never meant to be easy—it was meant to be a school—but a school full of joy and wonderful learning.  Paul wrote to the Corinthians:  We are troubled on every side (have you ever felt that way?), yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.” (See 2 Corinthians 4: 8-9) Paul sounds like he is talking to us in our day—not to the people living in Corinth in the 1st Century A.D.  Or was he talking to both?  Let’s explore this together.

September 4-10

In 1 Corinthians, Paul is addressing early converts to the Church who brought with them baggage and false ideas from their previous beliefs. To make matters even more difficult, they were far away from any central administration of the Church and so old ideas, firmly entrenched in their minds could clash with the gospel. Among these new converts were polytheistic Gentiles who had once worshipped idols, Jews who held to the Mosaic law, and all of the ideas influenced by the philosophies of Greece. How did Paul handle this whirlwind of opinions?

August 28-September 3

This week’s readings include some of the most important teachings in all the scriptures.  You’re familiar with them:  Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I AM NOTHING.  We’re excited to explore this most coveted gift from the heavens.

August 21-27

Corinth was the powerful, bustling, and wicked trade center of the Roman province of Achaia. When Paul wrote what we call 1 Corinthians, to the members there, it wasn’t his first letter to them. That one is lost to us in time, but this second letter, that we call first, was motivated in part, by the concerns of a woman named Chloe and her household, who had written him. We’ll tell you why.

 August 14-20

The Apostle Paul begins in this week’s readings with a bulls-eye on the struggles we have in this mortal experience and then tells us how to free ourselves from this bondage.

August 7-13

The book of Romans has some scriptures that are so familiar to us like “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ”, and at the same time, we may sometimes find it hard to understand what Paul is saying beyond those scriptures we know well.  Let’s dive in and see if we can unwind some of the mystery.

July 31-August 6

In this week’s lesson we find the prophecy of Saul bearing witness of the Lord before Kings already being fulfilled. Paul’s testimony would reverberate throughout the world.

July 24-30

Why does Joseph Smith directly compare himself to Paul? What did he see in Paul’s experience that made him feel that the two held so much in common?

July 17-23

Preaching the gospel had been restricted during Christ ministry, with few exceptions, to the House and children of Israel.  In a series of days on the beautiful coast of the Mediterranean Sea—all that would change.  It reminds us of a very special day in June of 1978—a day never to be forgotten.

July 10-16

What is this surprise in the nature of Paul that he can go from “breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of Christ” one day and be a submissive disciple of Christ the next? Of course he had this stupendous vision on the road to Damascus, but is there something more we can learn about the life of Paul, itself, that can give us clues to his energy and passion?

July 3-9

For many people, one of the most enigmatic and mysterious parts of the life of Christ, comes after His resurrection when He spent forty days teaching the Apostles. What was the instruction that He gave them and is there some way to learn more? Do any sources give us a window into that teaching?

June 26-July 2

We’ve all been studying the life and mortal mission of Jesus Christ for the past six months.  Don’t you agree that you feel closer to the Savior now than you did at the beginning of your studies?  This week’s lesson has some surprises and is the culmination of the Savior’s perfect ministry.  How would you have felt if you had come to the tomb early that Sunday morning after your own pain and sorrow at the loss of Jesus—and you looked in only to find it empty?

June 19-25

After his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, another kind of agony was about to begin for Jesus who was already exhausted with the weight He had borne. Before the night was finished, He would be betrayed, falsely charged, scourged, spit upon and maligned in a trial that was utterly illegal. Why illegal? And who is the only mortal on record that Jesus refused to speak to? We will tell you in this week's podcast.

June 12-18

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said, “That first Easter sequence of Atonement and Resurrection constitutes the most consequential moment, the most generous gift, the most excruciating pain, and the most majestic manifestation of pure love ever to be demonstrated in the history of this world. Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, suffered, died, and rose from death in order that He could, like lightning in a summer storm, grasp us as we fall, hold us with His might, and through our obedience to His commandments, lift us to eternal life.”

June 5-11

Did you know that the preparation for the Last Supper began with a miracle?  It’s subtle, and most readers of the account will not see it—but when you understand the culture and the setting of the time, it’s obvious and it’s amazing.

May 22-28

We have two questions for you:  1) Which chapter in the New Testament did Joseph Smith make the most changes to? It’s Matthew 24 where Christ during his last week on earth told his apostles just what to expect before He would return. Here’s the next question: 2)  Do we have any precedent in the Gospel or in history where a people were preparing for the coming of the Lord; they knew He was coming; they knew where He was coming; they even prepared a place for Him to come—and then He came?  Of course we see this in the Book of Mormon—but is the same pattern happening in our time?  We’re going to explore this question in this podcast.

May 15-21

Jesus once told Mary at Cana that “Mine hour hath not yet come,” but now as we start this lesson that has changed as we take you to the beginning of the last week of His mortal life. Now he will say, “Mine hour hath come,” a statement that will break His followers hearts and have implications for every one of us.

May 8-14

Many questions were posed to the Savior during His mortal ministry.  If you had the chance to ask Him one question, in person, what would that question be? In this week’s lesson we have a very powerful question asked of the Lord face to face in his ministry and it’s worth all of us pondering about this specific question.

May 1-7

Have you ever given a party, invited many people, and no one came? In this week’s chapters, we’ll explore a parable about a great feast and how, when invited, many people found shoddy excuses not to attend. As we hear this story, it seems so strange that anyone would find any reason to miss a marvelous feast put on by the Lord, but he is talking to us. Are we, knowingly or unknowingly, rejecting wonderful invitations that the Lord offers?

April 24-30

Have you ever wondered why John the Beloved included the story of the woman taken in adultery in his record?  Surely he had hundreds of stories he could have chosen to complete his testimony—why this particular story?  We’re going to explore at least three things about this tender encounter that you

April 17-23

The Lord often requires us to do things that we think sound impossible. Forgive seventy times seven? This does not mean 490 times, but boundless forgiveness, that we travel with forgiveness for those who have wronged us. Forgiveness is not always easy, especially when we have been deeply hurt or wronged or if we live in a situation where we are poorly treated continually, but the Lord’s command to forgive is one that can free and heal our hearts and cultivate boundless love for our neighbors.

April 3-9

We love Easter as the most important celebration of the year because it is Jesus Christ’s atonement and resurrection that answers every uncertainty, loosens every bond and supplies every hope for our mortal experience. More people saw the resurrected Jesus than we sometimes realize, including John Murdock, an early convert to The Church of Jesus Christ in Kirtland. He described what Jesus looked like in detail and then said this, “It left on my mind the impression of love, for months, that I never felt before to that degree.”

March 27-April 1

Not all of the moments and sayings in the life of Jesus can we read as a sequence of events. We have stories and sayings that we can’t always connect. But in today’s study we can see things in sequence, which adds meaning to the story. This includes the feeding of the 5,000, the rescue of the apostles while they are struggling against great winds on the Sea of Galilee, and the Bread of Life speech which motivated many of Jesus’s followers to desert Him.

March 20-26

Jesus taught in parables both to reveal and conceal truths. There is more in even apparently simple statements than immediately meets the eye in what Jesus taught. What for instance does it mean, “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father”?

March 6-12

This episode of the Come Follow Me podcast relates many stories that you probably haven’t heard into the calling of an apostle and what today’s apostles say about their own special witness of Jesus Christ. You will also come to know, by tradition, how each of the Twelve that Christ called eventually died.

As mortals we are on a journey to move from being broken to healed, and it is the Lord who is our attending physician. The stories in the New Testament are not only about the halt, the blind, and the person afflicted with leprosy. They are about us, and our universal need for his healing touch.

February 20-26

How can we become better at praying? It is a question that most of us ask ourselves as serious disciples of Jesus Christ. In these chapters from the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Himself teaches us how to pray. If the Lord says this is how we should pray, then, there is something deep to learn.

Other interesting questions arise in these chapters. What does it mean to judge not? How can I beware of false prophets without making judgment calls? And what is my duty to forgive others?

February 13-19

The Sermon on the Mount was called by President Joseph Fielding Smith, “The greatest sermon that was ever preached, so far as we know,” and President Harold B. Lee called it “the constitution for a perfect life”. In this 30-minute podcast, Scot and Maurine Proctor explore the rich meanings behind the Sermon on the Mount that invite us to change the entire way we consider life.

February 6-12

John’s gospel is so beautifully structured to reveal eternal truths to his audience who are Church members. One story reinforces and points back or forward to the next. For instance, both the wedding at Cana and the visit to Nicodemus at night are teaching the same thing—an idea the casual reader might miss.

January 30-February 5

Sometimes we don’t look deep enough at the time Jesus was tempted of Satan. We think He went into the wilderness to be tempted of Satan. No, He went into the wilderness for 40 days to be with His Father and afterwards He was left to be tempted of Satan. The voice of the Father had declared at His baptism, “This is my beloved Son.” Now Satan attacked that heavenly manifestation by saying, “IF thou be the Son of God.” Let’s look at this together.

January 23-29

This week's lesson is about John the Baptist. What a radiant, powerful voice that attracted crowds to leave Jerusalem and come to the wilderness to hear him. Both John the Baptist and Joseph Smith share something, and that is that they weren't influenced as much by the paradigms and teachings and education of their times because they were set apart. John spoke after four hundred years of silence. Joseph spoke after numerous centuries of silence.

Two different men named John give us their testimonies of Jesus of Nazareth. How can we resist studying these eyewitness accounts from men called the Baptist and the Beloved? We’ll see one of the best missionary tools in history, an approach that can’t help but bring curiosity to the seeker of truth. Let’s study John, Chapter 1 together.

January 9-15

The chapters in this week’s podcast are familiar to us because we have recited them so many times at Christmas. The surprise is that there are hidden gems and ideas in these chapters we might not have seen before. The Joseph Smith Translation (JST) also adds new dimensions to the old story we love so well.  Come and join us again this week.

January 2-8

You know, it's important that you add the Joseph Smith Translation to all of your studies in the coming year because Joseph gives us so many insights into the New Testament. We'll talk about them here and there, and you just need to pay attention to those. One of the very first ones that we need to look at is just the fact that Joseph changed the name of the books—those four Gospels— that we call The Gospel According to Matthew to The Testimony of Matthew, and The Testimony of Mark, The Testimony of Luke, and The Testimony of John. That makes a real difference.

After four years of Come Follow Me, Meridian Magazine’s founders, Scot and Maurine Proctor, are excited to continue bringing you our 30-minute podcast on the “Come, Follow Me” curriculum for the week. This is so you can listen with your scriptures in hand, or while you are about life’s many other duties. If you want some thoughts about teaching your family or in Church lessons, this can be a place to turn. If you live alone, let us study with you. This week's lesson:  "We are responsible for our own learning."

December 19-25

It’s never easy to comprehend that another year has flown past us and it’s Christmas again. Don’t the days seem to go quicker than they used to? With this glorious season upon us, we are blessed to be able to talk about this day of days and this time of times when the Savior came to this earth to experience mortality and to wrought the Atonement in our behalf. Do we realize that this entire last year of study has truly been about God’s people anticipating His arrival? Let’s talk about that.

December 12-18

Turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers is one of the most important works in mortality. It has been the burden of the ages and is especially critical in the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. This scripture is mentioned in the Old Testament (Mal. 4:5:6); the New Testament (Luke 1:17); The Book of Mormon (3 Nephi 25:5,6), The Doctrine and Covenants (see Section 2) and the Pearl of Great Price (JS History 1: 38,39). We think the Lord is trying to get our attention. Come this week and explore the promises of tithing and the joy of family history work.

December 5-11

You remember that the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem in 586 B.C. and carried away many to Babylon. Well, then Babylon got their due and in 538 B.C. they were overthrown by the Persian empire under Cyrus the Great. He then ended the exile of the Jews and allowed them to start returning to Jerusalem around 537 B.C. Frankly, not everyone wanted to go back and the return happened in waves. Do we get too entrenched in Babylon ourselves? Are we reluctant to come unto the Savior and give our all to Him? Do we understand what he really wants from us? Let’s talk about this.

November 28-December

We’ve been studying the Old Testament all year and now we are coming upon prophets that we know little about. These three prophets: Nahum, Habakkuk and Zephaniah, likely contemporaries with our friend Lehi, may be deemed by some as only prophets of doom, but, as the Lord always does, before there is imminent destruction of a people who have rejected His commandments, He sends His servants the prophets to warn them and invite them to come to the only One Who can keep them safe: Jesus Christ Himself. Let’s look together today at the Lord’s everlasting ways and explore some thoughts about justice and mercy.

November 21-27

Jonah is much more than a fish story, but the story of a man who is cast down into a boat, down into the hull of the boat, down into a big fish, and at last, covered in seaweed in the utter darkness is rescued. We may see ourselves here when life bears down on us, and we know who the ultimate rescuer is.

November 14-20

Why does it matter so much that we live in a time when a prophet is on the earth? How is it the Lord’s lovingkindness to us? Why does the Lord make known all of his secrets to His prophets? Duane Boyce and Kimberly White tell us why it matters.

November 7-13

Hosea may not be a book you have spent much time in, but this prophet gives us the description of the covenant relationship that perfectly reflects that a covenant with the Lord is not just a contract (You promise and I promise), but so much more. The covenant people are His bride, and He seeks a connection with us that is more profound and total than we sometimes know. Patrick Degn joins us to speak on a subject he loves.

October 31-November 6

King Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem in 605 BC and began his first deportation of Jews to Babylon. He chose the elect to deport first, so this group included “the king’s seed, and of the princes.” Among this group was someone who was most likely a teenager at the time, a young man named Daniel and three of his friends. They were all true and faithful to the living God. Daniel, a Jewish prophet, would serve in the courts of Babylon and then Persia until he was more than 80 years old. Today we’ll tell you the rest of the story.

October 24-30

The Lord promises the most remarkable thing to His children—even to those who seem to be cast away, like the Jewish captives in Babylon. “A new heart…will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).

October 17-23

In earlier Jeremiah chapters, the prophet lists the woes that will befall apostate covenant Israel, but he doesn’t leave it there. Only the Lord knows how to turn this level of desolation and mourning to joy.

October 10-16

Jeremiah was foreordained for the tough prophetic job he was called to do. The Lord said, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5). We often point to those verses as a reminder that the Bible does refer to a pre-mortal existence, but something else strikes us additionally here. It is as if the Lord said, “Jeremiah, I am going to send you one of the toughest, most heart-rending missions that a prophet can have, preaching to a society who have obstinately doomed themselves, and who will never listen to you, but I have chosen you, because I know you. My eye has been upon you. I’ve seen you from the beginning and I trust you for this mighty, unpopular and sometimes agonizing calling.

October 3-9

Isn’t it amazing that Isaiah’s prophecies date back more than 2,700 years and they are so completely applicable today! No wonder the Lord Jesus Christ commanded the Nephites and the Lamanites: "And now, behold, I say unto you, that ye ought to search these things. Yea, a commandment I give unto you that ye search these things diligently; for great are the words of Isaiah. For surely he spake as touching all things concerning my people which are of the house of Israel…" (3 Nephi 23:1-2). Isaiah is speaking to us today and let’s see what he has to say about fasting, keeping the Sabbath Day holy and the last days we are in.