What Was Christ’s Mission and Ministry?

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Jesus teaching

The Sermon on the Mount, by James Tissot © Brooklyn Museum of Art / Bridgeman Images

Jesus Christ covenanted in the premortal existence to come to Earth and be our Savior (see Moses 4:2; Abraham 3:27). As our Savior, He accomplished both His mission and His ministry.

President Russell M. Nelson explained: “The Lord’s mission in mortality was to accomplish the Atonement … [and] to make eternal life a possibility for anyone who would qualify for it. … His ministry was everything else that He did—His miracles, His teachings, His love, His focus on ordinances, His teaching us how to pray.”¹

Aspects of Christ’s mission and ministry are described in many places in the scriptures. Take a look at the descriptions given by His mother, Mary, in Luke 1:46–55. Hannah, also an example of submissiveness, offered a similar prayer about the Lord’s ministry in 1 Samuel 2:1–10.

As the Come, Follow Me manual suggests, you might compare these with Jesus’s Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3–12.²

Consider listing some of the aspects of Christ’s ministry that these scriptures describe; one aspect has been listed as an example:

Christ came to help satisfy our spiritual hunger (see 1 Samuel 2:5; Luke 1:53; Matthew 5:6).