Section 107 was given (at least in part) when the 12 "met in council, confessing their individual weaknesses and shortcomings. expressing repentance, and seeking further guidance of the Lord." Here's an interesting thing that we don't do much in the church any more: public confession of personal sins. It used to be the major portion of Fast & Testimony meeting. The testimony portion used to contain public confession of sins and pleas for forgiveness from God. It's moved away from that and I wonder how much is because people were doing it wrong, and how much was because it was making others sin through anger and resentment, and how much is for some other reason entirely.
People, being what they are, I could see this escalating from humble acknowledgement of personal guilt to a contest of who could come closest to the line of church discipline without crossing it, demonstrating the greatest repentance?
Also, I could see it being a problem if you people constantly got up there and said, "Brothers and sisters, I have sinned. Every time I look at Betsy, I am filled up with lust and my own wife looks like a fat cow in comparison." That can't be good for my friendships or Betsy's.
And, of course, there could be a different reason entirely, that is not coming to my mind right now. Perhaps they just wanted to focus the meeting more on our faith and trust in Christ's atonement, rather than on our remorse and guilt. (Although, the first fruits of our faith in Christ are those acts of repentance.)
Our Heritage Pages 66-71
Joshua 1:1-5
God starts off by saying, "Moses my servant is dead". But Moses was translated. Or so I thought. Deuteronomy 34 makes it quite clear that he died except for one casually thrown in "no man knoweth of his sepulchre," with a footnote referencing "translated beings." So where do we get that Moses was translated? Alma 45:19, speaking of Alma Sr. says that Alma was taken of God, "as was Moses," and Bruce McKonkie says that Moses' appearance on the mount of transfiguration indicates that he was a translated being, otherwise, he would not have been able to participate in an ordinance of laying on of hands to pass Priesthood Keys to Peter, James, and John.
It does seem like he would have had a hard time getting there if he hadn't been either resurrected (unlikely, considering it hadn't started yet) or translated, since people don't get to leave the Spirit World once they go there.
2 Kings 2:8-15
Elisha picked up the physical mantle of Elijah. Israel seems to have had a pretty relaxed attitude about prophetic appointments. Or, rather, they seem to have based a prophet's calling on his actions. If a fellow shows up, wearing some camel-hair and does a miracle and tells them they need to repent, then they agree (sometimes not until later) that he was a prophet. What if we judged our prophets that way? Who would qualify? Ezra and Nehemiah didn't do much in the way of the miraculous, they just rebuilt the temple, so I would say that President Hinckley would qualify in that sense. Obviously Brigham Young and Joseph Smith would count. I think Lorenzo Snow was the one who went around preaching tithing during the depression, so I'd count him too. Am I just missing events in the lives of the other prophets that would help me feel like they would meet the Old Testament requirements?
Jacob 1:12, 18-19
Nephi died, Jacob and Joseph took on the responsibility of teaching the people.
No comments:
Post a Comment