THE TESTIMONY OF SAINT JOHN

Now available in a stand alone edition in both hardback and paperback. 

You can order a copy on Amazon:  Amazon Link  or on Aerio: Aerio link

The book also includes a side-by-side comparison of the King James Version of St. John along side the this new account of John’s record that has now been revealed. Here is an example of one section that I highlighted in yellow that I thought is beautiful. 

Sidenote:

Scriptural precedence for the fulness of John’s record to be revealed

Ether 4: 16

"And then shall my revelations which I have caused to be written by my servant John be unfolded in the eyes of all the people. Remember, when ye see these things, ye shall know that the time is at hand that they shall be made manifest in very deed."

D&C 93:6, 18-19

6 And John saw and bore record of the fulness of my glory, and the fulness of John’s record is hereafter to be revealed. And it shall come to pass, that if you are faithful you shall receive the fulness of the record of John.

18-19 And it shall come to pass, that if you are faithful you shall receive the fulness of the record of John. I give unto you these sayings that you may understand and know how to worship, and know what you worship, that you may come unto the Father in my name, and in due time receive of his fulness.

Background History

There is a new edition of the scriptures being prepared which will use the JST of the Bible. That will result in both the Book of Moses and JS-Matthew being removed from the Pearl of Great Price. When I was asked to take a look at the project I had the impression that a new translation of John's Gospel was needed and ought to replace the missing texts. I asked a qualified Greek Scholar to undertake that project and he declined. But the impression remained that it needed to be done.

I made it the subject of prayer and was told to do the work. I spent a few days working with an English-Greek New Testament, the JS Translation of John, and a Greek Lexicon before becoming hopelessly discouraged by the many options and choices. I prayed about it before retiring for the night and essentially quit. I explained that it would take years for me to accomplish this, and that I was not going to be able to solve the riddles of the text. I went to bed assuming I was done with it.

In the middle of that night I was awakened and given the solution to every dilemma I had been facing in the work on the text. So the next day I continued on from where I had abandoned the work and, to my surprise, everything was opened to my mind so clearly and continuously that the entire project was completed in less than three weeks. The light of heaven opened the material in a way I had never thought of nor had previously attained to in considering the Gospel of John. At times it progressed so rapidly that I was unable to finish one part before the next came rolling out. Many new and different things were added, and at least one thing was dropped entirely because it was not part of John's original composition. Because of the rapid way it rolled out, once I finished the text I went back to clean up a lot of what had been left as incomplete sentences, run-on sentences, missing words (particularly conjunctions) and cryptic or inadequate explanations. The intent of the writer, John, was revealed, including why some things were included in the text and the manner he wrote.

When it began it was an attempt at a "translation" but by the time it was completed it was clearly a "revelation" and not merely a translation of a text. Therefore the result does not have my name on it, because I cannot claim any credit for the content. I failed in what I was attempting. What resulted came from heaven. -DS

Some advice to the youth

On Sunday, I attended a youth fireside with my teenage daughter. The speaker shared some great advice to the youth that I wanted to post. One of the things he shared was an excerpt from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts' commencement address at his son’s ninth-grade graduation in 2017.  Judge Roberts gave some advice that ran counter to many typical commencement speeches. Here is an excerpt from the speech that was repeated to the youth on Sunday:

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"Now the commencement speakers will typically wish you good luck and extend good wishes to you. I will not do that, and I’ll tell you why. From time to time in the years to come:

• I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. 
• I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. 
• I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. 
• I wish you bad luck from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. 
• And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. 
• I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, 
• and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. 

Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes."

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Typically, as parents and youth leaders we want the best for our youth. We want them to succeed. I thought this address was so interesting to wish for the kids to be treated unfairly, to be lonely, to have bad luck, to lose, to be ignored, and suffer pain.. all for their growth. Because Chief Justice Roberts is right, all of these things WILL happen in a person's life, but only the wise will learn and grow from the experiences.

Sidenote: 

Yesterday ended a month-long fast that was organized by some amazing youth. One of the organizers asked me to post this thank you to those who joined them in their invitation at the beginning of the year. While his dad called me personally to see if I would post this, it was the young man's personal email to me that I couldn't turn down. This is for you Lucas.