President Nelson’s unique general conference footnote
Some readers suggested adding more substance from talks to last week’s list of observations from general conference — a great idea.
Most of my observations along those lines already were evident in the choices in my coverage of the conference over its two days. So, to be additive, I took a different approach and published a story about how some church leaders supplemented their own talks with their footnotes.
President Russell M. Nelson wrote several of the most illuminating apostolic asides, but it was another leader’s footnote that led to a different discovery that didn’t make it into the footnote story: President Nelson was the first Latter-day Saint leader to mention footnote b in Matthew 5:48 during a general conference.
That footnote, attached to the word “perfect,” appears in the Latter-day Saint edition of the King James Version, and reads: “GR (Greek): complete, finished, fully developed.”
In his October 1995 talk, “Perfection Pending,” President Nelson says he had been studying the English and Greek editions of the Bible and had concentrated on each use of the term perfect “or its derivatives.”
The Greek word used in Matthew 5:48 is “teleios,” which means complete, and is a form of “telos,” which means end. The infinitive form is “teleiono,” which means “to reach a distant end, to be fully developed, to consummate, or to finish.”
“Please note that the word does not imply ‘freedom from error’; it implies ‘achieving a distant objective,’” President Nelson said in his 1995 talk. For example, he said that when Christ declared on the cross, “It is finished,” the Greek word used for “finished” was derived from “teleios.”
This is a pattern of both learning and teaching we’ve observed in President Nelson’s ministry. Of course, last week, 25 years after sharing with the church what he learned about “perfect” from studying the Greek, he shared what he had learned about studying the word “Israel” with Hebrew scholars.
Yes, Latter-day Saint leaders chiefly use footnotes to their general conference talks to cite scriptures they used, but they also make personal observations, share data about the church, refer to research or describe details about church policies and practices.
There is a lot to learn in these apostolic asides. Read more about 29 brief observations culled from the footnotes of the talks by church leaders.
Correction: Salt Lake County has five temples completed or planned — Draper, Jordan River, Oquirrh Mountain, Salt Lake and Taylorsville. Last week’s newsletter omitted Taylorsville. |
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| What I’m Reading ... See the updated chart of general authorities and general officers of the church.
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