Come, Follow Me D&C: 2021 January

[Anonymous]

January 25-31: D&C 6-9

D&C 8:2 wrote:

Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart.

I’ve interpreted this to mean that god speaks to our mind (intellect) and heart (feelings). It’s a verse I’ve bought up in lessons over the years because it feels like church culture has placed more emphasis on our feelings, so much so that it’s come at the expense of intellect.

When feelings are in tune with intellect there’s little debate, but when one contradicts the other I’ve found that people are quick to dismiss intellectual revelations. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

If we want to be humble it’s important to recognize that we don’t know everything but at the same time I think we’re conditioned to only question the intellect. How often do we question our emotions? Does questioning our emotions factor into a desire to be humble?

As a side note, emotions could be a byproduct of evolution, creating an instinct that helps us survive. It may not be best practice to doubt emotion, but it may be healthier to question emotion when we’re in an environment where it’s safe to do so.

Going back to DJ’s last comment…

I wonder how people interpreted “mind” and “heart” at the time the revelation was given. How do we interpret it now for that matter.

[Anonymous]

D&C 6:26 wrote:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, that there are records which contain much of my gospel, which have been kept back because of the wickedness of the people;

I singled out this verse because it touches on something that’s woven into the fabric of the Mormon psyche (or maybe just human psyche), this idea that god holds things back from us because of the wickedness of the people.

We have to be more obedient to qualify for that calling. We have to be more obedient to meet that goal for baptisms. When will we get the sealed portion of the BoM? We don’t get new revelations during general conference because we’re not obedient enough to the things that have already been revealed.

There are pros and cons to everything; a pro is that it serves as a catalyst for continuous improvement, a con is that we often attribute unfavorable outcomes to personal failures in cases where the outcome had nothing to do with us. The ward not meeting its yearly baptism goals for instance; the decision to be baptized is more dependent on other people’s agency, not on whether everyone in a ward was able to attain perfection.

D&C 6:29 wrote:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, if they reject my words, and this part of my gospel and ministry, blessed are ye, for they can do no more unto you than unto me.

And verse 35, “Behold, I do not condemn you;”

Verses that go against my example of not meeting the ward’s yearly baptism goals. It sounds like god blesses more on the attempt than on the outcome of the attempt.

[Anonymous]

I know you are already moving on, but I want to weigh in on ‘generation’. If you are talking about a family, parents are one generation, kids another, grandkids a third. But, usually, when we talk about generation outside of that narrow context, we mean something a little broader. Something like “sharing a characteristic that didn’t exist in the same way before, and didn’t exist in the same way later.” But the time-boundedness is loose. My my own take, I would consider JS and his followers as of March, 1829, to have been part of what I would call the early-advent-industrialization America which I would say began with the end of the Revolutionary War and ended with the post-Civil-War mass-scale industrialization (1870s?). Unsurprisingly, that roughly coincides with JS saying that if he lived to be 85 (1890) he would see the second coming.

I also note that JS was a jealous guardian of his sole ownership of the gift of revealing the word and will of God to his followers. And that appears to have been from the very beginning, according to D&C 5.

[Anonymous]

On Own Now wrote:

I also note that JS was a jealous guardian of his sole ownership of the gift of revealing the word and will of God to his followers. And that appears to have been from the very beginning, according to D&C 5.

And D&C section 28 where the competition from someone else receiving revelations from a stone are addressed.

On Own Now wrote:

I know you are already moving on…

We never move on. 🙂

I just decided to make one thread per month as opposed to one thread per lesson. Both to cut down on the number of threads and because there’s not much chatter to keep 52 threads going.

[Author]

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