Whose Church Is It?

When Christ asked the disciples as a group, "What will ye that I shall give unto you?", here is their response:

"Lord, we will that thou wouldst tell us the name whereby we shall call this church; for there are disputations among the people concerning this matter." (3 Nephi 27:3)

I think this just shows the newness of the gospel to these disciples. I mean, they were good people, but Christ came and organized His church, and called twelve disciples to lead, and He taught them to meet together and take the sacrament and things like that. There was no Church Handbook or anything that they could directly reference when they had questions. They had to rely on prayer and fasting and the Spirit to help guide them (except, of course, in the cases when Jesus was in their midst teaching them. Here is Jesus' response to their question:

"4 And the Lord said unto them: Verily, verily, I say unto you, why is it that the people should murmur and dispute because of this thing?

5 Have they not read the scriptures, which say ye must take upon you the name of Christ, which is my name? For by this name shall ye be called at the last day;

6 And whoso taketh upon him my name, and endureth to the end, the same shall be saved at the last day.

7 Therefore, whatsoever ye shall do, ye shall do it in my name; therefore ye shall call the church in my name; and ye shall call upon the Father in my name that he will bless the church for my sake." (3 Nephi 27:4-7)

At first I read that and it sounds like He is being a little hard on them. It almost sounds like He's saying, "Seriously, you don't know?" But I know the Savior is kind and loving, so I think He was using this as a teaching moment. I think He wasn't just sounding incredulous like "I can't believe you guys don't know the answer to this question", but that he was pointing out that there doesn't need to be any argument about this. Then He teaches them to turn to the scriptures (which I guess kind of count as a Church Handbook) to try to find their answers.

After He teaches them to turn to the scriptures for answers to their questions, He also leads them to the answer to their question. He points out related scriptures to what they are asking ("take upon you the name of Christ", and "whatsoever ye shall do, ye shall do it in my name"), and then explains that they should call the Church in His name because we are supposed to do everything in His name.

I think more important than giving them the answer, He showed them how to come up with their own answers. It's the classic "give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime".

It makes sense that the Savior would want to teach them to find their own answers. He wants the same for each of us.