A Case for Sexual Morality

Kirk Durston

Why Sexual Morality May be Far More Important than You Ever Thought

The Principle of Abeyance

Exciting New Book of Abraham Discovery Published: Shinehah
By Book of Mormon Central · October 30, 2019

...In addition to reinforcing the credibility of the Book of Abraham, this new, previously-unpublished evidence reminds us that the process of reliable scholarly inquiry into Joseph Smith’s scriptural translations and revelations takes time, but increasingly yields positive signs of their authenticity. As is true with the Book of Mormon, the trend for the Book of Abraham is to find confirmation for its claims slowly over time. The evidence surveyed in the new Insight on Shinehah was unavailable in Joseph Smith’s day, not understood well until the middle of the twentieth century, and not noticed by Latter-day Saint researchers until the twenty-first century.

As Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles counseled in a BYU–Idaho devotional on September 24, 2013, when confronting questions or doubts about Joseph Smith’s scriptural texts, patience is an important virtue to exercise. “In counseling patience,” Elder Christofferson said on that occasion, “I simply mean that while some answers come quickly or with little effort, others are simply not available for the moment because information or evidence is lacking. Don’t suppose, however, that a lack of evidence about something today means that evidence doesn’t exist or that it will not be forthcoming in the future. The absence of evidence is not proof.”

Many questions remain about the translation and historicity of the Book of Abraham, and some of its claims do not at the moment find immediate confirmation from external evidence. In situations like this, instead of succumbing to paralyzing doubt, the Lord instructs his Saints to “doubt not, fear not” (Doctrine and Covenants 6:36) and instead to “seek . . . out of the best books words of wisdom,” and to “seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118).

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Satan's First Commandment

Meghan Decker, Meridian Magazine 22 Oct 2019

We know which of the Lord’s commandment of greatest importance: to love the Lord our God with our whole heart and mind and soul. But what is Satan’s first commandment? It is to hide. When we feel we have made a mistake, when we fear we have offended God, the adversary is quick to encourage us to turn away in shame. He wants us to separate ourselves from God and isolate ourselves from others. God unites. Satan divides. God creates. Satan destroys. Knowing that, why is it so hard to defy that seductive, insidious voice that urges us to run away?

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Shame disconnects us from others, the very opposite of God’s desire. He asks us to join a community of believers, to covenant to bear one another’s burdens, and to share our emotional and physical resources with one another (e.g., Mosiah 18:8, Luke 3:11). He invites us to turn to Him and unite with others, until at last we are all united as one. In opposition, Satan wants to pull us away from each another through feelings of unworthiness. Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught that “He who was thrust down in the first estate delights to have us put ourselves down. Self-contempt is of Satan; there is none of it in heaven” (“Notwithstanding My Weakness,” Oct 1976).

Atonement - Unity

Understanding the Atonement through the Unity of the Godhead
By Craig R. Frogley - Meridian Magazine 21 Oct 2019

...Without desiring to enthrone “tolerance-at-any-cost,”  and remembering that Zion’s unities for us, personally, in our family, socially, and even nationally, include one heart, one mind, one standard of righteousness, and one economy,[vii] it must be said that sometimes we are so concerned about being right that we forget that being one is as important, and in fact, the means to at-one-ment’s eternal end.

Satan's Plan is not what You Think - Agency

Mark A. Mathews - Meridian Magazine 10 Oct 2019

More Atonement

Hugh Nibley in the Ensign 1990, four parts:

Jul 1990
Aug 1990
Sep 1990
Oct 1990

Atonement

Brad Wilcox

8 Things the Atonement Is Not

Gospel Doctrine and Policy

How to Distinguish Doctrine from Policy + Why There Is More Than One Type of Church Doctrine

The Good Samaritan: Forgotten Symbols By John W. Welch

I soon discovered the answer.³ The roots of this allegorical interpretation reach deep into early Christianity. In the second century A.D., Irenaeus in France and Clement of Alexandria both saw the good Samaritan as symbolizing Christ Himself saving the fallen victim, wounded with sin. A few years later, Clement’s pupil Origen stated that this interpretation came down to him from earlier Christians, who had described the allegory as follows:

“The man who was going down is Adam. Jerusalem is paradise, and Jericho is the world. The robbers are hostile powers. The priest is the Law, the Levite is the prophets, and the Samaritan is Christ. The wounds are disobedience, the beast is the Lord’s body, the [inn], which accepts all who wish to enter, is the Church. … The manager of the [inn] is the head of the Church, to whom its care has been entrusted. And the fact that the Samaritan promises he will return represents the Savior’s second coming.”⁴

Good Explanation of a Puzzling Passage - Whose Wife Will She Be of the Seven? Eternal Marriage

Does Jesus's statement that in the resurrection they "neither marry nor given in marriage" a refutation of the Mormon concept of eternal marriage?

Chieko Okazaki on the Atonement

“Well, my dear sisters, the gospel is the good news that can free us from guilt. We know that Jesus experienced the totality of mortal existence in Gethsemane. It’s our faith that he experienced everything- absolutely everything. Sometimes we don’t think through the implications of that belief. We talk in great generalities about the sins of all humankind, about the suffering of the entire human family. But we don’t experience pain in generalities. We experience it individually. That means he knows what it felt like when your mother died of cancer- how it was for your mother, how it still is for you. He knows what it felt like to lose the student body election. He knows that moment when the brakes locked and the car started to skid. He experienced the slave ship sailing from Ghana toward Virginia. He experienced the gas chambers at Dachau. He experienced Napalm in Vietnam. He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism.

Let me go further. There is nothing you have experienced as a woman that he does not also know and recognize. On a profound level, he understands the hunger to hold your baby that sustains you through pregnancy. He understands both the physical pain of giving birth and the immense joy. He knows about PMS and cramps and menopause. He understands about rape and infertility and abortion. His last recorded words to his disciples were, “And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” (Matthew 28:20) He understands your mother-pain when your five-year-old leaves for kindergarten, when a bully picks on your fifth-grader, when your daughter calls to say that the new baby has Down syndrome. He knows your mother-rage when a trusted babysitter sexually abuses your two-year-old, when someone gives your thirteen-year-old drugs, when someone seduces your seventeen-year-old. He knows the pain you live with when you come home to a quiet apartment where the only children are visitors, when you hear that your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple last week, when your fiftieth wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband has been dead for two years. He knows all that. He’s been there. He’s been lower than all that. He’s not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people don’t need a Savior. He came to save his people in their imperfections. He is the Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He’s not embarrassed by us, angry at us, or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness, in our guilt and our grief.  (from her book, Lighten Up)

Plain and Precious Parts of the Book of Mormon

Plain and precious parts of the Book of Mormon notes.

Alma (36-42) Speaking to His Sons Coincides with an Ancient Passover Tradition

Book of Mormon Central

Helaman is the wise son. Corianton is the wicked son. And Shiblon, poor Shiblon, is the uninformed son.

Interesting Concise view of the formation of our Solar System

Astronomy.com