Scriptures | Sacred Symbolic

Lessons from Birth, On the 2nd Coming

Posted on: 07-04-2010

Category : 2nd Coming, Book of Mormon, Family, Jesus Christ, New Testament

I recently heard my wife have the following conversation. She was on the phone, so I heard only her side:

“No, she didn’t predict when he’d come.”

“Because she’s smarter than that. She’s been delivering babies long enough to know that any prediction is going to be wrong. But the chiropractor did, sorta.”

“No, he just said that everything’s lined up now, and he gave his permission.”

“Yeah, he said I could go into labor anytime now.”

Our Baby: Colter

As I heard this, a phrase from scripture came into my head: “of that day, and hour, no one knoweth; no, not the angels of God in heaven…” (JS-M 1:40). And I thought, ‘that’s a wise midwife.’

Nobody can predict when a baby will come no matter how long they’ve been in obstetrics. My wife’s good friend who had a baby about 5 months ago, was told by her OB that she wouldn’t have their baby until well after his due date, so he’d see her for a regular appointment in a week, a few days after the due date. The baby arrived 4 days later, on his due date.

Spiritual Cross Training (Scripture Study Tip)

Posted on: 18-01-2010

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Category : Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, New Testament, Old Testament, Scriptures

Cross training means training in a variety of sports in order to improve performance in each of them. Thus, improving in one sport makes you better at other sports. Closely linked is the idea of muscle confusion: When you work a muscle the same way every time, eventually you plateau. However, if you change the routine, working the same muscle but in different ways, you continually progress.

Spiritual cross training is a scripture-study program based on this principle. Instead of studying The Book of Mormon for a month (or a year), you mix it up daily–you cross train. This idea came to me when I was spending up to two hours a day studying the temple. I was very excited about it, but eventually I got burned out: I didn’t have the time or energy to study that much on a daily basis. The unfortunate result was me taking a break from scripture study for days on end.

Here’s my schedule (but the principle can be personalized to your interests and schedule):

Church as an Aaronic Priesthood Temple – Part 2: Crowning Ritual

Posted on: 02-12-2009

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Category : Ancient, Ceremony/Ordinances, Jesus Christ, Latter-Day, Sacrament, Sacrificial, Scriptures, Temple

The room is mostly quiet, except for the occasional whisper, and the children. Toddlers talk softly and babies cry or make other noises. A wave of coughs and throat-clearing passes through the congregation, a single hack jumping from one person to the next until it has run its course. The organist silently practices the next hymn by touching the keys, without depressing them. A husband whispers to his wife. A high priest falls asleep. A twenty-something woman is lost in thought about her job.

One middle-aged woman weeps quietly. She’s watching a sacred drama as it is played out around her. Symbolically, God the Father kneels beside an altar. He says a prayer, consecrating the offering covered in linen laying upon the altar. The words do not consecrate the body for burial, but for the sake of all mankind. Upon finishing, he rises, pulls back the covering, and gathers the collected blood from the ritually sacrificed offering, passing it to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit then goes about the room, offering the blood of the sacrifice to the whole church, just as it had done with pieces of the flesh moments before. He passes this token of the great sacrifice to each person, if they receive it.

Some accept it, others do not. Of those who accept, most are oblivious to their part in the drama. They partake mechanically, out of habit, and pass the sacred blood on to others, quickly returning to their whisperings, thoughts, and sleeping. Unlike the middle-aged woman, who fully realizes her part in the ritual drama, they see only a quiet opportunity to think, sleep, or practice the rest hymn. The flesh and blood offered them is only bread and water, an interruption.

Alma Chapter Two: in Modern Language

Posted on: 17-10-2009

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Category : Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, Scriptures

First ever guest post on Sacred Symbolic:
Travis Washburn is my brother and a great friend. He has a bachelor’s degree in English, and studied Spanish extensively both in school and on his own. He served an English-speaking mission in the Arizona, Phoenix Mission, then later spent six months in Chile as an exchange student, where he honed his Spanish skills, among other adventures. He is currently working as a graphic designer and technical writer for Xennsoft. He’s also in the process of applying for grad school.

He recently shared with me something he was doing to enhance his scripture study. Just reading the result changed the way I see Alma 2. I’m going to incorporate the method that follows in my own study, and hope you will too. He’s shared with me some other great study material, so you may see more from him in the future.

Alma Chapter Two: in Modern Language

By Travis Washburn

This is an experimental scripture study. I don’t mean this to be a replacement of the original; I just want to understand the language better. Translating something makes you weigh each word and really think about what is meant. This is especially interesting when you remember that The Book of Mormon wasn’t written in English—the copy we read is a translation.

You might consider reading the actual verses alongside as you go (click here to open Alma Chapter 2 in a new window). I noticed a lot of things about the specific language. For example, although the enemies have “armies”, Alma doesn’t lead “armies”; he leads “his people”. And the Amlicites are fighting “their brethren”, a more serious offense than just fighting an enemy. Tev brought up the point that Joseph Smith must have had an extremely keen understanding of the text because of his translation efforts.

I also noticed Mormon’s role as historian—he copies details that don’t particularly drive the plot, and he repeats details one might initially think to be uninteresting or irrelevant. A careful look shows that the Nephites should have easily been defeated. Yet they miraculously conquer.

Old Testament Video Resources

Posted on: 12-10-2009

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Category : Images, Media & Internet, Misc, Old Testament, Video

Some of you probably know because you know me, or have noticed by my video and other media posts: I am kinda an amateur dabbler in video production and film making.

So I was excited when I noticed that the church announced a new DVD set as a resource for teaching Old Testament in the upcoming year. There are 56 videos in the set, many of which are new, or have never been available for purchase previously. There are also many, many other visual resources. From the preview video, they look like great quality reenactments of Old Testament stories. The reenactments either include, or other resources have, life-like renderings of the Tabernacle, Temple at Jerusalem and other stuff that can seem very distant until you see video that looks very real, as if peaking into the past. I’m excited to see all this new stuff, and see if it aides teachers in real Sunday School teaching situations.

You can watch the preview video they made here:

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

If you’re interested in how technology like this can help advance the purposes of the church, Bryce Haymond at TempleStudy.com posted, and started a Google Wave, about about using Google Wave to advance the purposes of the church.

Recommitment & the Washington Bible

Posted on: 06-08-2009

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Category : American, Ceremony/Ordinances, History, Old Testament, Video

Recommitment

This blog has seen far too few updates of recent. I’ve been extremely busy starting a couple small businesses, while working two other jobs, all while serving as an assistant stake clerk, a husband, and friend.

I recently stopped working on another blog, and expect to shuffle up the job situation in the near future (hopefully Heavenly Father agrees).

C S Lewis

On top of this, a friend I haven’t been in contact with for several years, asked me about a quote I used once in a lesson in church. I found it after a little searching and was surprised and intrigued to become reacquainted:

“Vice is a monster of so frightful face, as to be hated needs but to be seen; but seen too often, familiar with her face, we first endure, then tolerate, then embrace.” – Alexander Pope (An Essay on Man)

Then just the other day I ran across a related quote from C.S. Lewis:

New World DNA

Posted on: 10-06-2009

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Category : Book of Mormon, Images, Media & Internet, Misc, Scriptures, Video

Tevya at Monte Alban

This last weekend I was at my parents home. I ended up not feeling well for a day or so. I looked around for stuff to watch (they don’t have regular TV and I forgot my laptop’s power cord) and happened across the documentary Journey of Faith: The New World. Having spent five weeks traveling through Mesoamerica studying the peoples and history there, it was my first pick. I’d already watched the original Journey of Faith and was very impressed by it.

The Most Important Chapters in Scripture? (Part 3)

Posted on: 27-04-2009

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Category : Ancient, Book of Mormon, Ceremony/Ordinances, Divine Potential, Doctrine & Covenants, Latter-Day, New Testament, Old Testament, Scriptures, Temple

Tags: Book of Mormon, Christ, Divine Potential, endowment, god, heirs, keys, Malachi, orders, ordinances, priestesses, priests, queens, sacrificial offerings, temple

If you haven’t already, I strongly recommend you read Part 1 and Part 2 of this article before reading this.

The title of this series of articles suggests that there might be scriptures that are “most important.” I don’t pretend to be capable of knowing what, of all God’s revealed scripture is the most important. However, Malachi 3 must be of great importance because, like many chapters of Isaiah it is given to us twice, and was given to the ancient Nephites by Christ himself. Malachi 4, in turn, must also be hugely important to us, because we have it many different times in the Latter-Day cannon of scripture. Of all things that Moroni could have told Joseph that night in his bedroom, he repeated Malachi 4, something Joseph already had in his Old Testament, and Moroni knew he would translate those verses from the plates that Moroni was there to announce to Joseph. Yet he gave them again. Why?

The Return of the Prophet Elijah

Elijah rebukes Ahab for turning from worshiping Jehova to Baal.

Elijah rebukes Ahab for turning from worshiping Jehovah to Baal.

We ended the last article with the indication that there were further ordinances that allow us to experience the things of Godliness. Clearly these ordinances are very important, perhaps most important. I personally believe that this is the reason we are given Malachi 4, several different times. Moroni even gives us different wording in the latter-day reciting. There are probably many reasons for this but I think two are very important: first, to help us better understand a scripture we may have become too familiar with, and therefore have stopped trying to extract deeper meaning from; and second, to help us take notice of it and ask the questions that will help us delve beyond the surface meaning.

Lets go to the scriptures. In. 3 Nephi 25 we read:

5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord;
6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Our Divine Potential

Posted on: 20-04-2009

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Category : Ceremony/Ordinances, Divine Potential, Latter-Day, Literature, Pop-culture, Scriptures, Temple

Tags: birthright, Christ, Divine Potential, downloading music, god, heirs, kings, narnia, orders, ordinances, priestesses, priests, queens, temple, the world

I’ve been working on a couple different posts for this blog for the past week. The third article in the “Most Important Chapters in Scripture?” series needs special attention due to the power and sacredness of the subject. Because of the time required to give that attention, I haven’t been able to get it completed. The following is a talk I gave several years ago in as a student in a student ward. Its one of the few talks that I ever wrote completely before giving. It is also a great preparation for the third article in the “Most Important Chapters in Scripture” series.

I have chosen to speak on Our Divine Potential. I pray that the Spirit will permit me to deliver this message in accordance with God’s will, and that everyone here will be able to feel of that Spirit and receive the message by the Spirit who is the ultimate teacher. I also hope you understand that this message is taken from the scriptures and the words of our church leaders. It is not my message, and I need to hear and understand it as much as any of you.

Kings and Queens

I hope everyone here has seen the new movie The Chronicles of Narnia. If you haven’t, I highly recommend it, and here’s why: This movie (and the book it is based on) is a great Christian allegory of our divine potential. Throughout the movie various characters keep telling the three children–who are the protagonists of the story–that they were meant to be Kings and Queens, leaders in the fight against evil. Every time someone tells them this, they say essentially “no, you must be mistaken, there is nothing special about us, we’re from some place in England, we’re not important or great.” They can’t see their potential. They don’t know that they really were meant to become Kings and Queens.

I love this theme of Kings and Queens because it is the same one Heavenly Father uses to teach and remind us of our potential. Psalms 82:6 reads: “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.” And D&C 76:56, 58, 62 says: “They are they who are priests and kings, who have received of his fullness and his glory…. Wherefore, as it is written, they are gods, even the sons of God…. These shall dwell in the presence of God and his Christ forever and ever.”

Too often I think we take the same attitude as the children in the Chronicles of Narnia. We say “who am I to shine, to lead out, to be righteous and deserve blessings?” “What makes me so special that I should discover the mysteries of God, or perform great acts of service, or become pure and spotless before God?” We doubt ourselves, we doubt our God. This is what Satan wants us to do. If he can get us to forget who we are, and what our purpose is, then we will never achieve it. We can’t work toward what we don’t know. The Prophet John Taylor said it this way:

“Have you forgotten who you are, and what your object is? Have you forgotten that you profess to be Saints of the Most High God, clothed upon with the holy priesthood? Have you forgotten that you are aiming to become kings and priests to the Lord, and queens and priestesses to him? Have you forgotten that you are associated with the Saints of God in Zion, where the oracles of truth are revealed, and the truths of God are made manifest, and clearly developed; where you and your posterity after you can learn the ways of life and salvation; where you are placed in a position that you can obtain blessings from the great Elohim, that will rest upon you and your posterity worlds without end?” (The Gospel Kingdom, p.229-230)

The Most Important Chapters in Scripture? (Part 2)

Posted on: 22-12-2008

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Category : Ancient, Book of Mormon, Ceremony/Ordinances, Latter-Day, Old Testament, Sacrificial, Scriptures

Tags: Add new tag, Book of Mormon, Christ in America, Malachi, ordinances, sacrificial offerings

A lot has happened in mine and my wife’s life since I wrote Part 1 of this article. I believe some of it has helped me have a deeper appreciation for the truths contained in these chapters. I hope I can convey them well here, and show their importance.

First we need to go back and look a little more deeply into 3 Nephi 24 which is the same as Malachi 3. 3 Nephi 7 states “Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them.” While we previously discussed the idea that both ancient Israel, and us, “are gone away from” certain ordinances that the Lord calls His own, we didn’t address what these were.

What “ordinances” are we “gone away from?”

The Doctrine & Covenants is often a great place to find clarification on other scripture. Especially the Old & New Testaments, since they weren’t written for us, like the Book of Mormon was. D&C 84 was designated as “a revelation on priesthood” by the Prophet Joseph.