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

April 11-17

Elder Bruce C. Hafen, former member of the Seventy and an author, joins Scot and Maurine Proctor today to look more deeply and understand with greater clarity the magnificence and personal nature of the Savior’s atonement. He helps us see how the atonement is not just for sinners, but for the range of human weakness, miscalculation, negligence and error that humanity in a fallen world are liable to. He teaches us what the place of grace is in our lives and how the Savior’s sacrifice can help us see our weaknesses and be transformed through Him. Daily repentance can become a daily refreshment.

Elder Hafen is the author of The Broken Heart; Faith is Not Blind, any many other significant books.

April 4-10

Why are the Children of Israel continually complaining and murmuring against Moses? Though they’ve seen the miracles that brought them out of Egypt, and then watched the Red Sea part so they could cross on dry ground, they still say: “Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, well-known for his extensive commentaries on the Book of Moses and Genesis,  joins Scot and Maurine Proctor today to talk about strength or fear, firm or wavering in the face of our personal Red Seas.

March 28-April 3

Scot and Maurine Proctor are joined today by Daniel C. Peterson, retired professor of Islamic Studies and leader of the Middle Eastern texts project at Brigham Young University. In Egypt, there are more gods than you can count, and Jehovah makes it clear that not only is He God, but He is the only one who can deliver the covenant people out of bondage. Moses is gradually transformed from one who quakes to think of going before Pharoah to one who has the spiritual strength to lead an enormous group of people into a barren desert and part the Red Sea, with confidence that God is with him.

March 21-27

Daniel C. Peterson, retired professor of Islamic Studies and founder and editor-in-chief of the Interpreter Foundation, and producer of the film Witnesses, joins Scot and Maurine to explore Moses’s profound encounter with the burning bush and the charge he was given to confront Pharoah with the message to “Let my people go.” This explores the story in a way you may have not heard before. Among other things we ask, what does “I AM’ mean?

March 14-20

When Joseph became vizier of Egypt, second only to Pharoah and wearing his ring of authority, he also got a new name that doesn’t exactly roll off our English-speaking tongues. It is Zaphnath-paaneah and what it lacks in clarity, it more than makes up in its meaning which is “savior of the world.” Yes, his starving family will come from Canaan, hoping to buy the corn that Joseph has stored in Egypt, but his name signifies even more than that. We’ll tell you in this episode.

March 7-13

Children can tell the story of Joseph being sold into Egypt. We know it well, with nasty brothers, slave dealers, false accusations, pits of despair and drama galore. What’s most important about this story, however, may not be obvious, and that’s what we are talking about in this episode.

February 28-March 6

The story of Jacob in the Bible has all the elements of high drama. True love thwarted, family division, a deceiving father-in-law, a tight escape. If it was a movie you’d want to watch it, but it’s much better than a movie because over arching all, it is the story of the covenant in the lives of real people.

February 21-27

In the chapters in Genesis that should be about Isaac, he hardly shows up. He plays a surprisingly passive role, which leads you to think how much we’re missing in his story. After all this is the son, who willingly went with Abraham to be sacrificed and therefore was a similitude of the Savior. This is the son his parents longed for through decades, and then, when we might get a chance to meet him, he is whisked off the stage. 

February 14-20

I remember the first time I visited the massive, ancient building erected by Herod the Great in Hebron. He had it built over the Cave of Machpelah more than 2,000 years ago to mark and protect the sacred resting place of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Leah. I walked into the building as a ten-year-old with a covering over my head and my parents, brothers and a number of friends at my side. There was one place where you could go to your knees and carefully look through a brass grate and see into the cave below. A small lamp was burning there. A feeling came over me at that moment, not only that this was a sacred place, but that I was connected to Abraham. He was my direct-line grandfather. I have never forgotten that moment.

February 7-13

In Genesis, we soar through the stories of generations in a few pages, as if we were flying thousands of feet above them and getting the merest glimpse. Then suddenly we drop for a closer view for many chapters of one man and his family—Abraham.