It’s amazing how much I’m learning in my study of the Bible this year. I never understood the history in the Old Testament before!
In my reading lately, I’ve learned about how Israel split into the North (Israel) and South (Judea). And when I read that the capital of Israel was Samaria, some lights went on.
Oh, that’s where Samaritans come from.
But didn’t the North get destroyed and scattered? I thought they were all lost. How could there still be Samaritans at the time of Jesus?
So I did some research (a 2-minute conversation with Chat GPT 😉) and learned so much!
Yes they were smitten, but some of the North survived and intermingled with foreigners. This made them unclean, in the eyes of the Jews.
They also built their own temple and rewrote their Torah, rejecting all the scriptures past those first 5 books.
Wow!
Talk about wayward.
An unauthorized temple? Their own version of scripture? Rejecting the truths of (what would become) the Bible?
See where I’m going here?
But nonetheless, Jesus came to Samaria and loved them, taught them, and saved them.
I wonder if he corrected all their false traditions, or did he simply say “Come Unto Me”?
But if Jesus extended his hand to Samaria, even with all these false traditions and nonsense, then I do believe He is with the Mormons too.
He extends his hand to all who will receive Him, even if on some level — whatever their understanding is, whatever they’re capable of.
He invites to partake of His Grace, even if on some level — whatever their understanding is, whatever they’re capable of.
And He rescues, and He saves.
He brings those out of it whom He chooses.
Maybe others He saves and gives them a mission within the LDS Church.
Maybe.
Something I’ve been pondering a lot lately.
“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth” (John 4:21-24)
All I Possess 