An explanation
This came to me through an email and I thought I should address it here. This is the email I received:
“I got information through the grapevine about a woman who is claiming that Denver ordained her to do something and that he put his hands on her head and set her apart for some type of work. I don’t know all the details, but I was not happy when I heard that. I know that he wouldn’t do that but thought that Denver should know that this woman is going around telling people this.”
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All is well in Zion
This forces The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints into a dilemma. It must either proclaim that it is the only repository of saving truth, or it must strike a compromise which betrays the reason for its existence.
HBO and Politicians
Sobbing politicians blubbering how sorry they are for the DUI/nude hot-tubbing with underage girls/oral sex or drug use require me to then explain to my kids things I would rather defer until they are older. What good is it to not buy HBO when the evening news features Republicans and Democrats confessing sins as sordid as anything we get in R-rated movies?
Central America or North America?
Abinadi’s message
His only credential was his message. He came to announce warnings, was rejected, and ultimately killed. He had no success with the people, and made only one convert.
Abinadi is a hinge character around whom the entire remainder of the Book of Mormon will center. His one convert, Alma, will become the spiritual leader of the Nephites, and that convert will become the leading writer of the Book of Mormon. Then his posterity will be the focus of the remaining history of the Book of Mormon.
Abinadi’s prophecies were cited from the time he delivered them to the end of the Book of Mormon. But measured by the events of his life, he failed. His one convert fled persecution and hid in the wilderness.
I think there’s a profound lesson in Abinadi’s appearance and legacy. If the Book of Mormon was edited by those who “saw our day,” and was edited to foreshadow our own history, then we ought to be cautious about discarding a message from someone like Abinadi.
The only meaningful credential is the content of the message. Trappings of office, genealogy, name, status, and standing were all irrelevant to Abinadi.
Truth
First principles of the Gospel
My answer:
I believe them to be “FIRST” in the sense of primacy, not a singular event which happens and then you can take them off the list of stuff to do. They are primary. They are foundational. They are required to be used constantly. Therefore, they are “FIRST.”
Repentance is required because even if we are doing what we should be doing we are always going to learn more. It is the nature of the Gospel that our light should increase. Whenever we learn more, we must change to reflect what we have just gained. Change is the heart of repentance.
Baptism is to have sins washed away. If you are already baptized, then the ordinance does not need to be done again, but the remission of sins and washing them away is required repeatedly. For those already baptized, this is done through the Sacrament. It is still required for us to have sins remitted.
These are the only means by which we can avoid the same dismal fate as all others of all prior dispensations. We must do this individually. It does not matter if it is done collectively. I’ve yet to see any reason in the scriptures to expect great collective success by the Gentiles who inherit the Gospel in our dispensation. There are individual promises to the few Gentiles who will repent, have faith, be baptized, enter into the covenant and remain faithful. But the collective outcome is not particularly rosy.
White stone and a new name
Since the white stone and new name mentioned in D&C 130: 10-11 are referring to the state of exaltation and inheritance, and since the promise which the Second Comforter (Christ) is working to obtain for those to whom He ministers is the promise of exaltation, that equivalency may also be made. The difference as I see it is that those described in the verses in D&C 130 are in a future state, in which they have actually inherited the condition of exaltation, have entered into the Celestial Kingdom to dwell there and possess the white stone on which their new name is written; whereas the promises Joseph speaks of in the quote above and the promises in D&C 88 are given to a mortal and are to be realized fully in the future.
Finally, since the mortal who receives these things is already in company with the Lord and the Father, they are already occasional visitors in a Celestial Kingdom although they are still here in mortality, required to endure to the end, suffer death and then await resurrection. Despite this, they are celestial and their lives are punctuated by contact with celestial beings from time to time, as the Lord determines is appropriate or necessary.
The education of all of us
PhD’s are generally so schooled in their discipline that they view the Gospel in the light of their educational training. A scholar studies economics and then everything looks to him like it can be explained in economic terms. Or a scholar studies philosophy and then everything looks like it can be fit into a paradigm matching their school of thought.
Joseph Smith’s early education was so limited that our children have a comparable education at the conclusion of fourth grade. But what he learned from on-high, by revelation, made him a towering pillar of light and truth.
Joseph once commented that if you could gaze into heaven for five minutes you would know more that if you read everything that had ever been written on the subject. Now imagine the libraries that are filled with material written by the world’s scholars and theologians about heaven. Those who have written include such luminaries as St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, Dante, Rabbi Bacharach and Buddha. Yet five minutes of “gazing” would supplant all they had to offer.
The wonder of it all is that so few are willing to trust a prophet’s advice. We read endlessly uninspired books written by the uninformed, and bypass the process commended to us by the scriptures.
A bad education (which is most educations) is worse than no education when it comes to the things of heaven. When men are learned they think they are wise, and therefore have little reason to trust in God or revelation from Him to correct their misunderstanding. I think the Book of Mormon had something to say about that. (See 2 Ne. 9: 28-29, 42.) I consider myself a fool. (That is the one advantage I have over those who also hold doctorates. I know it does not provide me with any advantages, but does impose considerable disadvantages because of its corrosion to my thinking.)
Heaven is an endless source of surprises. There’s nothing mundane going on there.