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I don’t have time to read the thread right now. I really enjoyed the other one although I didn’t comment on it. The pictures alone are definitely worth the thread click though. You’ve got some skills nibbler.
😆 :clap: So, going back to my earlier question… Does it really make any sense to have urgency to temple work? I mean, what do you think people are thinking about when they express how important it is to get the work done now and not put it off? I’m curious.
Anyone got a list of ideas why?
I repeat myself but… If there is a resurrection and there is a millennium and the ordinances are required for salvation I’m of the opinion that people would likely get more benefit from resurrecting and booking an appointment with the nearest temple to take care of their ordinance firsthand. A vicarious ordinance would almost be like someone handing you a picture of a selfie they took of themselves at the grand canyon and then you’re all, “Cool, I always wanted to see the grand canyon and now I don’t have to go.” Some believe that the spirits we do the work for are present so they do experience it first hand. I have no idea.
Some people believe that people that have yet to receive their endowments/baptism are in a prison of sorts and the longer we delay in carrying out the ordinances the longer they are in prison. I don’t put much stock in that, at least not in a literal sense. The “prison” may be a state of mind, maybe one of perpetual anxiety over whether someone will get around to doing your necessary ordinances. It might make sense from the perspective of a traditional believer. I tend to hope that they would teach about the millennium in the afterlife and point out how that’s a lot of time to kill.
There’s also this angle. I’m an active member with lots of deceased ancestors that haven’t received their ordinances. What if I postpone everything and die before I had a chance to do the ordinances for people? What if my posterity that I pass the buck to goes inactive? My ancestors will have to depend on the kindness of strangers to get their work done, and who knows when people that don’t know me or my family from Adam will get around to it?
These are all guesses from the perspective of the deceased receiving a tangible benefit from the ordinances but I believe it’s the living that receive the benefit.
The last time I went to the temple (referenced in another thread today, it was a strange day at the temple) I noticed a few things that were important. Some people brought in family names and those names were set aside so we could make sure the family could witness the ordinances. If it’s really all about checking a box, making sure that something that has to get done does indeed get done, then people might be content just knowing that their mother, their father, or other close family member has received an ordinance at some point in a temple… but they want to be there to witness it. It can be like one last Christmas morning to share with a deceased family member and the ordinance is the present you give them. It can bring personal closure.
I guess this goes back to the thing earlier where the lesson talks about missing out on blessings by failing to do the research for your own family.
So where does temple work for random strangers from long ago and in far off places fit in? I’ll be honest… there have been a few times in the past where I viewed doing an endowment session as a “hall pass” just so I could get to the celestial room. I was making the experience all about me, forgetting that there was a service component. I think we’re supposed to lose ourselves.
It seems to me we are just falling behind more each year and the MBA in me makes me stop and say, “ok, this isn’t working”. But I realize for some it gives their lives meaning. Even though I can honestly say that, I still wonder if they get to the hereafter and find that they didn’t have to do all that – are they going to be upset? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
LookingHard wrote:It seems to me we are just falling behind more each year and the MBA in me makes me stop and say, “ok, this isn’t working”. But I realize for some it gives their lives meaning. Even though I can honestly say that, I still wonder if they get to the hereafter and find that they didn’t have to do all that – are they going to be upset?
I haven’t gone back and read this to see how presumptuous I come off
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5083&p=69318 ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5083&p=69318 LookingHard wrote:I still wonder if they get to the hereafter and find that they didn’t have to do all that – are they going to be upset?
I wonder that too. I wonder if it is like an Amish person who had no cars or technology, or the strict vegetarian that never ate any meat, living their whole life with a belief that it mattered. Then to go to the next life and find out it didn’t really matter, so then look for some meaning to draw from it…like…”Well, it gave us a purpose to believe in that helped us become who we are, even if the thing itself didn’t matter”.Perhaps we’ll learn in the next life there are many ways it could be accomplished, but at least we had something rather than nothing. And with that…the nauvoo temple ceremony that morphed into what we have today on family history work and temples had meaning, and God blessed it.
This reminds me of a joke. The Pope dies and gets to the pearly gates. He is immediately brought to the front of the line and is told they are excited for him to be there. They tell him they have been told to offer him whatever he wants. So they ask him what he would like to do and he replies he would like to read the bible for a bit. The angles tell him there is a room just for that with perfect scriptures. He is excited to go and read. After about 30 minutes they hear an anguished loud moan. They rush in to find what is causing the Pope distress. He turns to them and says, “it was supposed to say ‘celebrate’ not ‘celibate’!!!!”
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
There is great urgency for those who gain solace, peace, meaning, strength, connectedness, etc. from great urgency. That same statement is true of general urgency, serious interest without urgency, participation without urgency, apathy, and complete disregard. It all depends on the person, and I have no beef whatsoever with those who see and value great urgency.
I see much more meaning for those who participate and symbolically turn their hearts to their kindred dead than I do for the dead, since our teachings say their work will get done at some point no matter what (and even that assumes a literal nature I don’t believe).
We skipped ahead a couple lessons yesterday to get more caught up with where we should be (apparently after a complaint in ward council that the quorums and RS were not at the same place). The lesson focused on the urgency and absolute necessity of doing our family history work and we spent way too much time on the single quote
Quote:The Prophet Joseph Smith stated, “The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead” [Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith (2007), 475]. He also stated: … “Those Saints who neglect it in behalf of their deceased relatives, do it at the peril of their own salvation” [Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, 471–72].
with lots of discussion about how we can’t be saved without our dead. Lots of fire and brimstone stuff. Since I was the sole less orthodox guy in the room (our attendance was low) I kept my mouth shut and occupied myself on my tablet composing an email to my missionary son (although I did read through this thread when I realized it was a different lesson than I expected). There was one other person I realized didn’t say anything during the entire lesson (besides the old guy who sleeps in the corner) and it did cause me to wonder if his views on this particular subject might be more liberal than I thought.Never fear, the Jedi mind trick of guilt and shame for not doing my family history and taking their names to the temple did not work on me. I knew this lesson would be a tough one and had I known it was coming yesterday I would have found somewhere else to be during the third hour.
This is the lesson we had as well. It was entirely focused on the logic behind baptisms for the dead. The dead can’t be baptized, what do they do to meet the requirements? Something about vicackorus work, vicodin work, viagra work? Something. I was half asleep so I may be misremembering things.
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