Do the Scriptures contain commandments?

Ray,

I’m not sure how I feel about what you said.. So, we just do these things even if we don’t believe in them just to make others happy?

Ray, I really like these particular points you made:

If a rule helps me feel closer to God and my fellow mortals, I “obey” it. If it actually makes me feel further from God and my fellow mortals, I don’t.

…

Life’s too short and precious to waste time fighting about the inconsequential. I love people too much to cause them to suffer over what is important to them.

Very well said.

This is how I approached my bishop’s challenge for me to attend the temple…in fact, instead of just doing it because I thought my wife and bishop would be happier if I tried to go…I actually put my heart into hoping I could learn something and get something out of it. There can be a difference between just going through the motions and doing something out of respect or love for others but whole-heartedly doing it. While it may be inconsequential to me, or something that I believe is just man-made rules that people in stage 3 take more literally than I do, it doesn’t mean there still isn’t something that I can learn and benefit from, even if I view it more diagonally (as Rix would say). The commandment can still be beneficial because I choose to make it so, not necessarily because the commandment itself is really eternally critical.

And that is how I reconcile how commandments can change over time, or how the scriptures I quotes above become interpreted literally, while other scriptures are interpreted more broadly (or sometimes even ignored all together).

I think this question has two levels of answer:

1. Yes. There are commandments in the scriptures, both explicit and implicit.

The writers of scripture included concepts of moral behavior in their works. There are all kinds of prescribed and proscribed behaviors in LDS scripture, everything from WofW to beliefs we must hold.

2. Sort of Yes and also maybe No — a more nuanced answer.

We are all here in this community because we ran into problems with #1 above. I am not saying we are/were all horrible sinners, but let’s face it, a lot of stuff just plain contradicts itself and doesn’t always make sense in our lives. I hate to make it sound like we graduated from #1, like we can do whatever we want without consequences, because that is not true. I will still suffer the natural consequences of my actions, both good and bad.

At our level of talking about the commandments, we start to realize that the writers of scripture were presenting their personal ideas and their personal interactions with the divine (God, etc.). We have sort of entered a level of being peers with those writers, because we are trying to figure this out first-hand through our own experience and interactions. What worked for the Apostle Paul might not always work for me. But WE are now responsible for ourselves. When we do this, there’s no more Apostle Paul to blame (just picking an example).

What are the vital commandments that we MUST follow? Easy — all of the ones that are revealed to us as “true.” Easy peasy … or is it?

Thanks Ray,

Sorry, I tend to react emotionally without reading the whole thing carefully.

Thanks Just me, I want to get to the point where I am following my inner compass. I tend to want someone to tell me what to do. I need to learn to trust in myself, which is hard for me for some reason.

When I was quite young in the church I paused at the scripture saying that it was “not meet to be commanded in all things” in a book with a lot of commands inside of it. Lots of commands, but we really didn’t need or shouldn’t have a lot of commands. Huh?

When faced with such a dichotomy, one usually takes the easier path. Okay, so I don’t really need to be commanded all that much. So, I focus on the ones that seem important to me (or is it the ones that are easy for me?) and don’t worry so much about the ones that don’t seem so important. It became obvious to me early on that some commands were mostly seen as “suggestions” and essentially ignored by many members (e.g., eat meat sparingly). Therefore, I sort of got the idea that not everything commanded was necessarily all that important. But, I noticed that there sure were a lot of commands or directives or “ways we do things” that were treated as if they were commandments.

There was a time in my life that these little jots and tittles annoyed the heck out of me, but now I mostly smile or laugh at them.

I really like Ray’s and Brian’s thoughts on this subject, but I did think of something else. What about commandments as faith testers or faith builders? Abraham was “commanded” or “told” to sacrafice his son (I’m not assuming this story is literal, but we have it as an example of obedience nonetheless). Obviously killing his son was not a good or right thing to do. Yet, Abraham complied until the angel stopped him at the last minute. Today, Abraham would be arrested, but the scriptural story is meant to teach what? Obedience? Following a directive from the Lord results in huge blessings even if we don’t understand the whys and hows? “I know not, save the Lord commanded me.” Do it cuz I said so, and then I will bless you.

Sometimes we tell our little kids similar things, right? Our little ones just can’t understand all the ins and outs and wheretofores of a particular directive; we just need them to obey for their sakes and safety and happiness. We know better than they do. We don’t ask that they “study it out in their minds”, we just ask that they do it… and do it now… Now… I SAID NOW!! Did Abraham ponder and pray on this directive and receive spiritual confirmation that the idea was from the Lord and not just because he himself was irritated at the little turd? Did he need to receive spirtitual confirmation? Would he if he tried? I don’t know. But… Adam’s words, “I know not, save the Lord commanded me” have to be considered, I think, in any LDS conversation about commandments.

Ray said this (I don’t know how to make the cool quote boxes): “In the end, for me, it all boils down to the commandments on which all others hang. If a rule helps me feel closer to God and my fellow mortals, I “obey” it. If it actually makes me feel further from God and my fellow mortals, I don’t.” I wondered what were some of the rules or commandments that made Ray feel further from God and his fellow mortals?

Are there rules or commands that we need to obey that do not (for the time anyway) make us feel closer to God or our fellow mortals? I don’t know. Would our faith, charity, and love for God and fellow mortals increase by obeying a command we did not completely agree with or understand? I don’t know.

But, as LDS members we get a huge amount of this cause-effect teaching, indicating that every commandment has a blessing attached, so obedience to any and every commandment brings a particular blessing. It then follows that every command, no matter how small, is geared to bring us blessings. So, here are some more commandments or directives or “challenges” from our leaders with promises of blessings. Are they good for us?

Did Abraham ponder and pray on this directive and receive spiritual confirmation that the idea was from the Lord and not just because he himself was irritated at the little turd? Did he need to receive spirtitual confirmation? Would he if he tried? I don’t know. But… Adam’s words, “I know not, save the Lord commanded me” have to be considered, I think, in any LDS conversation about commandments.

Abraham’s story is a good one to look at, whether it literally happened (and whether it happened as we read it in the scriptures) or if it is all allegory, it can teach a good lesson about commandments.

It is possible in my mind, that Abraham was commanded to sacrifice his son. I think in the book of Hebrews we see he pretty much had the faith that God would raise him up again, so it was not just sacrificing him, even still, and almost impossible task to ask a Father to do, but the lessons on the Atonement and other applications live on to teach us all a lesson, and therefore the commandment has value to Abraham, and to us.

But to take that literally and ask we all sacrifice our sons would be wrong. That commandment was given in one time to one person and we learn from it. I think the WoW was similar…there were problems of priesthood holders not being clean. Very situational. Today there are so many things of more importance than alcohol, coffee, and tea, IMO.

Many commandments in the scriptures are this way…very situational, and not very universal. Except the 2 Greatest commandments which are universal.

Have you noticed any tendency for well-meaning church members and leaders to connect nearly every command, directive, or assignment to one or the other of these two great commandments, either directly or indirectly?

Absolutely – since the hedges about the law still are touching the law – or touching other hedges that are touching the law – or touching other hedges that are touching hedges that are touching the law . . .

It is human nature for some to play with fire or at the edge of a cliff, and it is human nature for others to build safety nets as far away from fire and cliff edges as possible. Either extreme might work for each type of person, but there are both good and bad consequences of both.