Thursday, March 20, 2014

The Lost Teachings of Jesus Blog Tour


Welcome to the blog tour for The Lost Teachings of Jesus and the Sacred Place of Women by Alonzo Gaskill!


The wife and the mother are the inappreciable treasures given unto you by God. They are the fairest ornaments of existence, and of them shall be born all the inhabitants of the world.” This extra-biblical text, thought to be the words of Christ, is presented and explained by Alonzo Gaskill where he expounds the divine role of women in the gospel and family. This book will help you learn how to better appreciate and respect women and their part in God’s plan.


Alonzo L. Gaskill is a professor of Church history and doctrine. He holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, a master’s in theology, and a Ph.D in biblical studies. Brother Gaskill has taught at Brigham Young University since 2003. Prior to coming to BYU he served in a variety of assignments within the church Educational System— most recently as the director of the LDS Institute of Religion at Stanford University (1995–2003).

Connect with Alonzo Gaskill on his blog, Facebook, and Twitter.

Review:

While we are all familiar with the accepted sermons of Jesus, there are many more attributed to him in the world. One of these is the subject of this book. In the sermon, there is a discourse on women and their role in the world. While the words are not directly attributable to Jesus Christ, the ideas and lessons taught are in-line with past and current teachings. Going verse by verse, this book provides messages of love and support and councils for men, children, and women to help them all truly appreciate the important place of women in the gospel.

I found this book so interesting! To be honest, I don't ever really read much outside the accepted standard works for the LDS church, although I am aware that other possible teaching exist. Reading this really opened my eyes to all the good things that could be found. This book is full of inspiration I think. The words of the sermon are beautifully written, almost reading like poetry. The author also does a great job of breaking them down and showing how they both fit and expand upon those things we are taught in the church. 

One of the most interesting things I found in this book was a verse to counterpoint the rather infamous verse in the New Testament about wives submitting to their husbands. This sermons contains a verse talking about husbands submitting to their wives. I love the symmetry and equality in that. That we should both be listening to the other person as they provide ideas and insights. What a wonderful state relationships could be in if we listened to each other more. There was only one part that read a little weird to me where the advice to women discussed the importance of our dress and appearance. I think I get what the author was trying to say, but it almost read a little old-fashioned to me. I think just changing a couple words there would better convey the author's intent without seeming to be promoting strange 1950's expectations onto women. Other than that I found a lot to love in this book and felt really inspired and loved. It's easy to read and will provide a lot of inspiration to men and women alike.

Book provided for review.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

How can I submit a book for review? Thanks

Kelly Blackwell @ Heres My Take On It said...

I don't find the wives submit to your husbands thing a big deal because it also says right after that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church. If the husband is following this, he should be treating his wife right. When I was in an abusive relationship I kind of freaked out on this until I spoke with my pastor about it. Does the writer say that Jesus gave that sermon? Because that was a letter from Paul to the church in Ephesus.

Looks like an interesting book. Thank you for sharing your review.