Links to free resources for children, youth, and adults to enhance the Come, Follow Me reading of Doctrine and Covenants 133-134. Choose one thing a day to do with your children or choose a couple …
Links to free resources for children, youth, and adults to enhance the Come, Follow Me reading of Doctrine and Covenants 12-13; Joseph Smith History 1:66-75. All links are to church websites or web…
I can help the Lord do His work. Doctrine and Covenants 14:1–7 Doctrine and Covenants 14–16 Come, Follow Me—For Individuals and Families: Doctrine and Covenants 2021 “Doctrine and Covenants 1…
Each time I cross the threshold of His house, I experience deeper covenant relationship with Him. I am sanctified with His Spirit.
The Word of Wisdom (or WoW, as I’ll be calling it through out this post), a revelation found in D&C 89 of the Book of Mormon, ‘warns and forewarns’ the Sain…
A few years ago, computer science whiz Chris Harrison created a beautiful visualization linking up every cross reference in the Bible. So, for example, if a verse in the New Testament referred back to a verse in the Old Testament, there was an arc drawn between the two chapters they were in (the vertical lines at the bottom represent the number of verses in that chapter): Amazing! Turns out there are 63,779 cross references in the Bible (and that many arcs in the image)! If it's any indication of how complex this image is, the high-resolution version is more than 100MB large. ... Now, computer programmer Daniel G. Taylor has taken all that data and turned it into a visual masterpiece. [Click headline for more...]
When In Doubt, Always Consult With God Through Scripture...
Editor's note: "Start with a Smile" is a weekly Monday feature that starts the week off with family-friendly content. This article was originally published in November 2017.
(RNS) — While the Evangelical Covenant Church has been working on its resolution for the past five years, its action came the day after the Cowessess First Nation announced it had found indications of at least 751 unmarked graves near the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan.
Before its first publication in 1971, the three essays that comprise Jonathan Edwards' Treatise on Grace had never appeared in a collection. This book presents these three rare pieces and his Essay on the Trinity along with brief introductory sketches to their context and their relevance to his more widely known work. The concept of divine grace was a pivotal notion in the theology of Jonathan Edwards. He had inherited a 'covenant' theology from his Puritan forebears, which supposed that the Holy Spirit was the 'agency of application' through which the Father granted grace to the elect after the Son's sacrifice. In these essays, Edwards attempts to modify this inherited doctrine. Instead of being the 'agency of application' utilised by the Father, Edwards suggests that the Holy Spirit is the gift given itself. The Treatise on Grace is a classic work of American theology from one of the country's most important theologians.
In section 129 of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord provides “three grand keys” by which the Saints may know whether any angelic ministration is from God or from the devil. Verse 8 informs us that should the devil (or one of his hosts) appear attempting to deceive you into thinking he is a divine messenger sent from God, “when you ask him to shake hands he will offer you his hand, and you will not feel anything; you may therefore detect him.” For many this verse gives the impression that because Satan and his hosts lack mortal bodies, they are incapable of having physical contact with humans. In other words, the passage appears to focus on the nature of the bodies of Lucifer and his spirit followers, suggesting that their physical makeup is the reason their hands cannot be felt. However, a series of events that took place early in the Restoration suggest that this interpretation may not be accurate. In an effort to test the common exegesis of D&C 129:8, this paper will recount a handful of early Luciferian encounters, applying the implications of such to our understanding of the nature of Lucifer’s person. We should not be surprised to learn that the Prophet Joseph was not the only member of the early Church to be attacked by Lucifer (see Part 1). Indeed, Elder Kimball’s aforementioned conversation with Joseph regarding physical satanic attacks did not come up at random. Rather, the conversation was provoked by an encounter Heber had while serving a mission to the British Isles. Brother Kimball spoke of this experience on numerous occasions, each time sharing additional and different details. Because space will not allow us to provide each of Brother Kimball’s many descriptions, what follows is an amalgamation of the salient points of the experience. Heber C. Kimball In 1837, Elders Heber C. Kimball, Willard Richards, Orson Hyde, and Isaac Russell were laboring as missionaries in Preston, England. They were sharing a three-story flat on Wilford Street when the unthinkable happened. On Sunday, July 30, sometime around daybreak, Elder Russell rushed into the room of Elders Kimball and Hyde, waking them, and claiming that he was so afflicted with evil spirits that he would not live long if someone did not cast them out. The two brethren administered to him, rebuking the devil and petitioning the Lord for relief from the enemy that held Isaac bound. Elder Kimball was voice during the blessing. Near the end of the administration, his voice began to falter, and then his tongue was bound so that he could no longer speak. Suddenly he began to tremble and reel back and forth. At that moment, some invisible force threw him forward onto the floor. As he hit the floor, he let out a deep groan and then lay prostrate as though he were a dead man. Elder Hyde, with the assistance of Elder Russell, immediately laid hands on Elder Kimball, blessing him and rebuking Satan—at which point Heber regained consciousness but had only partial strength. He noted that as he regained his senses, sweat began to roll from him so profusely that it was as though he had just stepped out of a river. Elders Hyde and Russell lifted Elder Kimball and placed him on his bed. However, his physical agony was so intense that he pulled himself back onto the floor. Reaching his knees, he began to plead with the Lord for intervention. At some point during these bizarre happenings, Elder Willard Richards awoke and made his way up to the third floor where the events were unfolding. Elder Kimball noted that, having finished his prayer, he sat on his bed, and, to the surprise of all present, they were wrapped in a vision of the “infernal world.” The four brethren said that they saw “legions” of evil spirits, company after company of them. According to Heber, these demonic hosts “struggled” to attack the elders and “exerted all their power and influence” to destroy them. These spirits were in the shape of men, with fully formed bodies, hands, eyes, hair, ears, and every other human feature—though some had hideous distortions in their face and body. With knives, they “rushed” upon the brethren “as an army going to battle.” Elders Kimball and Hyde testified that they saw them as plainly as one would see a person standing in front of them. These demonic assailants came toward them, foaming at the mouth and “gnashing their teeth upon” the elders. Orson Hyde noted that there were also numerous snakes accompanying the satanic hosts, hissing, writhing, and crawling over each other. Willard Richards, who had his watch on his person, noted that these “foul spirits” remained in the room threatening the brethren for an hour and a half. Elder Kimball indicated that the following day he was so weak from the physical attack that he could scarcely stand. Years later he spoke in detail of the encounter and then added, “I cannot even now look back on the scene without feelings of horror; yet, by it I learned the power of the adversary, his enmity against the servants of God, and got some understanding of the invisible world.” Similarly, nearly two decades after the experience, Elder Hyde wrote: “Every circumstance that occurred at that scene of devils is just as fresh in my recollection at this moment as it was at the moment of its occurrence, and will ever remain so.” Although much of the foregoing account was visionary, rather than tangible, Heber was quite clear that he was physically assaulted with a force that felt like being punched in the face by the fist of a strong man—to say nothing of the faltering voice, bound tongue, and physical weakness he encountered. By Alonzo L. Gaskill Read: Prophet Joseph Smith (Part 1)
Have you ever heard something and wondered, “Is that Church doctrine?” For example, suppose you were in a Church class studying the passage where God teaches Moses there are “worlds without number . . . and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten” (Moses 1:33). Someone asks, “If Jesus created multiple worlds, did Jesus’s infinite Atonement redeem God’s children on other earths?” What would you say? Is that true? Is it a sanctioned Church teaching? How would you know?
The Young Men and Young Women general presidencies have announced the 2024 youth theme, found in 3 Nephi 5:13.
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Area leadership assignments have been announced by the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The changes affect area presidencies and will become effective on August 1, 2023.
Jesus spoke to Peter in Matthew 16:18. Did Jesus make Peter the Rock upon whom the Christian church was founded? Did the pronouncement in Matthew 16 mean that Rome was to be the headquarters of the Christian church?
