- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I understand how a lot of people can have serious issues with Joseph Smith. After literally YEARS of studying and praying about this point, I have come to accept him as a very imperfect human but a prophet nonetheless. In fact if you look in the Old Testament and even the BoM, all the prophets are flawed in some way or another. A prophet simply has a mission from God to fulfill, he is only a vehicle for a message and a mission. That said, a prophet can also serve as a gateway for you to go deeper into gospel understanding, even with his imperfections. Actually, I think the imperfections make Joseph more relatable in my own life than he otherwise would be. I find the tendency to put a halo on the prophets (even if they are Saints, lol) takes away from that reality.
That is how I feel as well, Limhah. It seems to make his trials and mistakes more meaningful to me because I constantly make mistakes I must deal with, and despite making good choices sometimes, there are still trials to deal with also. These are great questions. Personally, I find JS more appealing than others who followed. I’m not such a BY fan, for example. Your question for me can’t be answered without two of my own: 1 –
What’s a prophet?I like the Uchtdorf explanation given above. We are all able to have the “spirit of prophecy.” I think a prophet is someone who speaks for God and is in the role to do that with a large stewardship. But each of us can be a prophet over our own stewardship, even if that’s only our own life. To me, that’s more important and relevant than what it means for TSM and others to be “prophets.” Basically, the way it works in effect is that a prophet interprets the religion for others, which is supposed to be done through spiritual revelation. A prophet has to become really skilled at discerning revelation and differentiating it from personal opinion. I’m not sure they shoot 100% on this one, and I’m going to go clear back to the OT in rendering that assessment. 2 –
What’s was restored?Simply put, the religions of the day in upstate NY were a cluster–. The BOM was the Windows of scripture for early church members. It allowed for a reboot and rebundling of all the conflicting software, all truth to be circumscribed into one great whole. Order was restored. To do so, we had to determine when it went astray. While that discredits all other Christian sects (they would have to have basically been operating without authority for about 1600 years) JS at least was very respectful of the truths they held. The other component to the restoration was authority. Without authority, we would be equally discredited and prone to error. Of course, that doesn’t mean Mormonism’s been perfect or 100% credible. Just that that was the groundwork laid by the restoration. Personally, I think all churches are inspired and all are prone to human error. Perhaps our system of regulation is better than others. Not sure, though. Quote:if the Book of Mormon contains the “fullness of the Gospel” why is there no mention of the temple ordinances and eternal families?
The “fullness of the gospel” to me means it gives enough information to explain how to obtain salvation and to paint a picture of how the gospel works. JS basically pointed out that the Bible wasn’t cutting it because it was so subject to interpretation: different churches had such radically different viewpoints and were outlining different paths to get there. But the BOM is not the CHI (conversely, I think the D&C is at least in part an early version of the CHI). The BOM doesn’t cover all aspects of doctrine or church practices.By the same token, I wonder if the temple is not simply another form of what the BOM is. JS seemed very keen to provide instruction on how to obtain salvation, and he felt that people had gotten it wrong in the other churches based on his own spiritual experiences. The BOM is one blueprint, and the temple is another. They aren’t contradictory, just different media for communicating the same things. The temple communicates the gospel as well: sacrifice, covenants, etc. So, you could say that the BOM doesn’t refer to the temple because the BOM is the same thing as the temple.
Years ago i did a “Church history” road trip … I visited JS’s birthplace in Vermont, the Sacred Grove in Palmyra (this was before the temple was there), Kirtland, Independence and Nauvoo where I stood at the purported grave site of Joseph. I was strongly inspired and gained a powerful testimony of the work of the restoration then. I drifted afterwards, maybe from lack of reinforcement, and went in different directions over the years. Lately I was somewhat startled to read that some people believe that Joseph may have been resurrected, perhaps around the time of John Taylor’s 1886 revelation. I don’t have a testimony of this yet however and I don’t know if I want or need to go that route at this point. Lots of people believe lots of things, lots of which is silly. I’m sure I’m no exception.
Some of them even believe in memes and dark matter even though there’s no evidence for them, whatsoever.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.