Some of them still follow a similar course of ridicule and active antagonism. It is a fact, however, that Joseph Smith was roughly handled by the members and ministers of various prominent religions, who tarred and feathered him, took up arms against him and his people, imprisoned him, and finally instigated his murder and martyrdom. Some of them who carried the Christian attitude of tolerance did not join the Church. Pratt, and others in America and England. Quite a few of them joined the Church: Sidney Rigdon, John Taylor, Parley P. Joseph Smith evidently had many warm and friendly contacts with ministers of other religions. It is clearly apparent that there have been and now are many choice, honorable, and devoted men and women going in the direction of their eternal salvation who give righteous and conscientious leadership to their congregations in other churches. They were drawing (the Savior said it, not Joseph Smith) “near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof” ( JS-H 1:19). By reading the passage carefully, we find that the Lord Jesus Christ was referring to those ministers who were quarreling and arguing about which church was true-that is, the particular group with which Joseph Smith was involved. Joseph Smith certainly did not intend that. President Hinckley responded that he did not say that.Īs I have pondered the same question, I wonder: Do we believe that all ministers of other churches are corrupt? Of course not. Central to their criticism was a demand for President Hinckley to justify the declaration mentioned in Joseph Smith’s testimony, as he beheld the Father and the Son, that those professors of religion were all corrupt. Two or three in the group, forgetting their manners as guests in a warm and friendly situation, asked some cutting and antagonistic questions. After he had welcomed them as our guests and expressed the appreciation we have for their service in bringing their people to righteousness, he invited their questions. I had a few reflections as President Hinckley was greeting a group of ministers during the open house in the Jordan River Temple several years ago. Elder William Grant Bangerter (formerly of the Presidency of the Seventy): The first glorious visions which the Lord gave him were not authority sufficient for the establishment of Christ’s church in the earth that authority came later with the restoration of the priesthood but they were all preliminary and preparatory moves which were necessary in the great plan of human redemption which the Lord was about to establish in this dispensation. This view may, or may not be correct, it is just what I always have assumed this phrase meant. He came to himself after the vision was over. In the case of the First Vision Joseph, presumably, was in a trance that is, he was unconscious. That is, it is the kind of communion that Joseph Smith had in the Kirtland Temple when the Lord appeared to accept the building. I may be wrong, but I always assumed that this kind of communication meant that a man talked to God face to face with all his faculties. You indicate that Joseph Smith communed with the Father and the Son “as one man speaketh with his friend.” This, or course, is what the record says that Moses did in talking to the God of Israel. The others contain further doctrinal insights: The third is self-explanatory and is Elder Bangerter using President Hinckley’s comments to illustrate his own views. McConkie, then a member of the First Council of the Seventy, about some wording in relation to the first vision, found in a book written by a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. The first is a comment (from a memo) from Elder Bruce R. Occasionally, when the first vision is reviewed by church leaders, they may state some doctrinal insights, interpretations, defenses, or positions about various particulars. Complexities in the English Language of the Book of Mormon - 2015.Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon.Robert Cundick: A Sacred Service of Music.
0 kommentar(er)
