The Gospel is for Comfort?
The gospel is for comfort? Yes, but not just for comfort. Not by half.
Our chorister is enchanted with the new Primary song hymn Sing a Sacred Song. We’ve had it on the program 3 times since it came out.
So I’ve thought a lot more about this song than I normally would.
It’s message is simple. Singing songs helps the Holy Ghost comfort us when we are down.
Years ago Elder Uchtdorf talked about the gospel as a piano and warned against fixating on one note. Of course he did not not say that a single sermon or a single scripture or a single song shouldn’t focus on just one note. That’s totally fine. It’s only a problem when that note becomes more and more to be the focus always.
So, yes, songs and the Holy Ghost can bring us comfort, and that is a truth that tastes good, that is a truth worth singing about. What we should avoid though is the thought I see subconsciously creeping in among us from other churches which is that comfort is the point. (In other churches, this belief is sometimes called Moral Therapeutic Deism). We sometimes fall into thinking or acting as if there were a normal level of righteousness and a normal level of happiness and the point is getting us back to that normal level. Not so. We all fall short of that level at times, sometimes quite badly, and getting us back is something Christ and his Church can thankfully do for us. But that is far from the point.
Ultimately, the only acceptable baseline is divinity.
Anything short of everything is not enough.
C Nielsen
August 29, 2024
If we are to build that Zion of which the prophets have spoken and of which the Lord has given mighty promise, we must set aside our consuming selfishness. We must rise above our love for comfort and ease, and in the very process of effort and struggle, even in our extremity, we shall become better acquainted with our God.” — Gordon B. Hinckley
Michael
August 30, 2024
what a quote from Hinckley!
Robert S.
August 31, 2024
Prior to ~1650, comfort meant “to strengthen, support, console” or the corresponding noun senses. The KJV was translated before the meanings of ease, prosperity, et c. became common.
“Garnish” has suffered a similar corruption of meaning: It used to mean “to arm, equip, prepare, fortify.”
Isaiah 40:1-2
[Strengthen] ye, [console] ye my people, saith your God.
Speak ye [consolingly] to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
D&C 121:45-46
45 Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue [strengthen, prepare, and fortify] thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.
46 The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever.
Eric
September 5, 2024
“Sing a Sacred Song” was written by my mom’s best friend. I never knew she had any interest in writing songs, but I’m pleased to see it.
Regarding comfort, one of my favorite openers to a conference talk is this one from Joe J. Christensen (April 1999):
“They say the gospel is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comforted. My purpose today is to speak to the comforted.”