A young man had remarkable spiritual experiences and was very happy. But one morning he woke up and found that he just didn’t believe. There may have been reasons for it–he thought of some himself–but he eventually decided that if ti was possible for a mood like to come on to you, everything you experienced was just moods, including the spiritual experiences.
Does the Garden of Eden story tell us anything about the types of social pressures that men and women are most vulnerable to? Eve was hit by general social pressure and an appeal to increase her status, whereas what got Adam was a pretty woman and/or domestic appeals.
Does that generalize? Dunno.
Yes, I know there are profound doctrinal truths and mythopoetic insights to be garnered from the Garden of Eden story, but I happened not to be thinking about any of those. I happened to be thinking about this instead. So sorry. Our normal insight suppliers have experienced 48% YoY cost increases, so we are offering these substitutes instead. ICantBelieveItsNotInsight!
Hebrews 10 contrasts Christ with the Judaic priests. They have to sacrifice every year, whereas Christ did it once. The argument is that Christ’s sacrifice was obviously more effective. Are you really sin free if you keep sinning and need a new atoning sacrifice every year?
The yearly atoning sacrifice makes sense from the childish view of sin that it’s a question of debits and credits with the sacrifice periodically topping off your account. This forensic view is not totally wrong but it is badly incomplete.
Hebrews 10 talks about how the Mosaic sacrifice was meant to compensate for violations of the law but Christ’s sacrifice makes you holy. The New Perspective on sin is that it is primarily a state of being. It is who you are. Sins are a reflection of your inward weakness and malice, and pay the price of your existing sins all you wish, if the inside of the vessel is not cleansed, you are still in sin.
Christ pays your debts, to be sure, but only incidentally. He spends freely to do something much more difficult and lasting–to make you the kind of person who is not a debtor. We might extend Elder Packer’s old (and good!) LDS parable of the debtor in this way:
Thereby have some entertained angels unawares.
For me, the best application of this scripture is to be open to reproofs from people who aren’t just echoing Great and Spacious Building propaganda.
All criticisms gratefully accepted.
On the sweetness…
In your unusually quiet family ward sacrament, one young fellow abruptly stands on the bench and gives just one bellow.
one does not drive sin out of his life; he crowds it out with love of God and neighbor. Our lives do not then depend on the principle of avoiding sin, which is a tiresome job, but on living constantly in the climate of Divine Love.
— Fulton Sheen
Amen. For me the principle discovery of our work with virtue sets was the difference between sin avoidance and holiness seeking. Not away from, but towards.
I noticed some interesting teaching in passing about the afterlife.
After a period in which the disobedient suffer for their sins, which suffering prepares them for what is to follow, all will be resurrected and proceed to the Final Judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In a word, purgatory. I had never heard this before. Spirit prison is a place of suffering? Check. But I hadn’t put it together that the suffering is preparatory
The Great and Spacious Building has no foundations because he stove them in.
We all know that a perfect love casts out all fear.
That fear is the opposite of love is one of those deep insights that has become a truism. So much so that I found it in a Steven Pressfield historical novel on Thermopylae. He attributed it to Greek rationality, at least in the book. Spartan men discussing the nature of things in a mini agora every night as they marched north. I’m sure he knows its actual source.
The Scripture does not say love though. It says a perfect love. (more…)
The father is the adult biological stage of the human male. You could say the same of the mother too, but there it’s more obvious. What we all know happens with women happens with men also. There are literally physiological changes and mental neurological developments that occur when you become a father to your first child.
As long as there is a primary program, the Church will not fall.
humans like AI hallucinate all the time, but have (sometimes rapid) iterative correxion by contact with reality
-an LDS friend
Once upon a time, a youth fell in with an older companion. Soon they came to a fork.
Where are you bound? The older man said. To heaven, the youth replied cheerfully. The Road to Heaven lies on your left said the old man. It is where I am going myself.
Surely not, the youth replied. I don’t believe you because the road to the right looks more pleasant and I will go there because I will go there and nothing you say can stop me. But the youth would not meet his companion’s eye.
So they parted ways. The roads ran parallel, and soon a crack between them became a crevice became a deep canyon. Although the two travelers could still see each other and even, if they shouted, converse.
After a time, the road that the youth was on turned away and bent down towards swamp and obscurity. I was a fool, the youth said. I knew. I knew better. I deliberately chose bad, the youth said, and he wept.
The older man across the way yelled. It will be difficult, he shouted, but I see a way down. Cross, then climb up this side! I will help you! I will shout out advice about handholds. And when you come up, I will reach down and pull you up.
The youth sat down in the road and, lamenting, poured dust over his head.
What are you doing? The older man said. Sorrowing for my sins and chastising myself, said the youth.
And yet, said the man on the other side , you are no closer to getting on the road to heaven.
Thoughts: What is repentance? I literally believe it to be desire. Repentance is deliberate change in the desired better direction. Everything else one can say about repentance is window dressing. That is why Elder Bednar says repentance is not a fix for the plan, repentance is the plan. Sorrow is godly sorrow if you change. Sorrow, no matter how genuine, is not repentance if you do not change. Godly sorrow is desiring something better and working toward it.
A young person of my acquaintance, who may or may not be headed in the marriage direction, asked me what things I wish I’d known before marriage. Interesting question. Tough question. Here is what I came up with.
My wife adds
6. Your spouse is crazy insecure. Everyone is. Much reassurance needed.
I don’t think this advice is for everyone. For some people, maybe the opposite of what I’m saying may be what they need. But this is what I wish *I* had known before marriage.
What about you?
