Job

In the August Liahona there is an article on Job that gets the story utterly and completely wrong. Not the first part, but the ending and what we should get out of Job. Job's material goods are not at all what we should learn from Job; that may be, according to some texts, a later addition to the book, and hides the true important message of what Job can teach us.

Job 32 points out that Job was righteous in his own eyes; He was right that his friends were wrong to accuse him, but he had no right to accuse the Most High. God though did plead His case to Job; first by sending a young man who the spirit of God rested on that he could no longer remain silent at any of what Job or Job's friends were saying, and he had to speak what God had inspired him to say. God did not count Job as an enemy, and would respond to Job and answer his words.  God sends us visions from on High and speaks to our hearts.

Elihu explains that God seeks to keep us from pride and from the Pit, to redeem our souls and bring us again into His presence (thus over coming the effects of the Fall); Our resurrection is already sure, but we in the darkest of times can find joy in the presence of God and see His light. God will not withhold judgement or reward, though the wicked prosper and the righteous may suffer in this life, in a brief moment we all die and the Just Judge has care over us. There is no hiding from God and no lying to Him about what we have done, just as there is not to ourselves; we and He will know all that we have done. In this life we will be tried to the limit and we should not add rebellion to our sins because of it, our rightness or our wickedness harms or helps only us and those around us; they can never harm God and God will repay bringing us wisdom and justice in the end.

As Elihu explains a great storm arises, and thunder is heard, rain falls, the sky is darkened and a whirlwind appears resting before them and shining in light; and God answers Job out of the whirlwind. God explains to Job about the nature of our life on earth, about the ordinances of heaven, about His plan for us. He shows how He rules with His arm of power and strength and the divisions that God makes which define the world.  God has Job gird himself in garments of glory and splendor, takes him by the right hand; and speaks of how the ox has strength in its loins, powerful muscles, and sinews, and strong bones as of bronze or iron; just as God can and will do for us in our resurrection, and explains of the covenant that God has made with the Leviathan so mighty that God had to slay its mate and have it eternally chase its own tail as a symbol of eternity, such is the strength of the Leviathan, such is the power of God.

And Job then responds that though he had a knowledge of God and a hope of the resurrection, his understanding had been limited, and having heard God, he then sees God entering into God's presence as Elihu had promised and satisfied in the knowledge, and joy, that God had given him. That is what we should get out of Job; as at that is the true end to the story, everything else is superfluous commentary that speaks to precisely what the entire episode addresses; more hiding in plain sight than countering the real message and take away that we should get out of Job.

On Missions and Tourism

When I was 19 I went on a two year mission for my church to Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil, paid for entirely by me.  I spent two months in Sao Paulo at the CTM that my church operates there primarily learning to speak Portuguese. On one day a week we were able to go outside of the CTM and send emails home to family, and visit anything within about a two block radius of the CTM; which included a supermarket, a juice stand, and not much else.  Our rooms were divided between Brazilians who stayed for just over two weeks, and primarily Americans. At the end of the two months I went to the airport, got on a plane, and got to Porto Alegre. There I was assigned a companion and a geographical area of the city, or surrounding southern half of the state, which geographical area I would stay in for at least three months. We lived in apartments in the area in which we were serving, except for my first companion I served uniformly with Brazilians. 

There was one day a week where we had “off” to do our own laundry, write emails home, go shopping, and occasionally go see a tourist site, if it was close enough by for us to see it and get back to work in the evenings.

While we did plenty of service, that wasn’t our primary responsibility or goal. We were there to bring others to Christ, via baptism into the LDS church.  So we taught people or tried to find people who were willing to listen to us. Some of those that we taught did join our church, and some of those did lose family ties, social support, and have to make drastic changes in their lifestyle because they choose to and believed and knew that what we were teaching is true.  I still have intermittent contact with some of the people I taught or that were already members in the areas I served, and I know that my service made lasting impressions on them and for some greatly improved their lives, despite me not giving them any money, or anything like that.

The services at my church were essentially the same there as here as in every other place in the world I have ever attended them, though obviously the language spoken was different.  I did attend many other churches services while there, if someone invited us to attend then I would go, because we were constantly inviting others to attend our church and so I thought that only fair, not the usual state of affairs as far as I know.

I saw dogs mating in the street, children selling oranges and other items on the street, had cockroaches in my shower, which the hot water came via an electric heater attached by us to the shower head and usually sparked, I was assured by my companions that was a normal state of affairs. The larger grocery stores and banks had AC, and we never spent much time in those.  

There were lots of things that were hard, difficult, or different and I grew a lot, but I did not go on a mission to grow myself, I didn’t go so that I could be converted, nor was I forced to go by family or anyone else. I choose to go and I would have been happy serving anywhere in the world, I did not choose Brasil but to serve a mission.  I choose because I know from my own experience that the LDS church is true and that the gospel does make people happier and better, besides allowing them to be forgiven of their sins and return to live with God again. I can’t say anything about all missionaries from every sect, but from speaking with other missionaries and people serving in other churches in Brasil, that is also why they do what they do: because they know that what they do can change someone life for the better, more than giving them a meal to eat ever could. Which isn’t to say that charity is not also good, I participated in plenty of that and donate regularly to charities.

I would love to be able to go back to Brasil, to see all the sights and visit the places that I never did as a missionary.

I debate religion online because I enjoy it, and if someone did actually seek to know God via what I write then I would be thrilled. If I could convince everyone in the world to seek to know God, I would, but I have no idea if my commenting online has any sort of positive effect on anyone, other than the enjoyment and knowledge that I gain from doing so. I do not pretend to have a perfect knowledge of God, nor do I even know or believe that everything about the LDS church is perfect; since I am a part of the church and I know that I am not prefect then even in that most limited sense it must not be perfect, letting alone everything else.  What it does have is additional revelation, and the knowledge that everyone can seek to have their own revelations as well as the authority to receive more revelations from God via the prophets and priesthood, and most importantly certain ordinances which bind on heaven and on earth both ourselves and our families.

Proof of Faith.

In response to this comment from The Ubiquitous also in large part found on The Ubiquitous's blog, Prodigal No More: 

How do you know that you know, and how do you prove it? And if I prove it, how do I know that I know that I prove it, and how can I prove that I know that I know to others, and how do we know that we know that we prove it the same way? Or can we know that we know? This is why, at a certain point: Can we even know? 

 I know in the same way that Peter knew that Jesus was the Christ. You can know, as Christ said, by the fruits and by doing the will of the Father to see if it is true. Further you are able to follow the admonition found in Moroni 10:3-5 and follow the experiment found in Alma 32.

Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things, not a first. The proof comes only after the trial of faith and one must grow in knowledge and in truth not having the fullness a first and perhaps not until after this life. Being compelled through logic or reason to know the truth is certainly not the start of faith but it does bring knowledge and with knowledge comes greater responsibilities (see Alma 32:17-19).

Furthermore, the logical proofs of the Catholics depend on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, which further depend on the assumptions made by Aristotle.  Aristotle never had theophany (I might need to do another post on this one), he never talked with God, so his reasoning was the reasoning of a natural man. Paul both warns against such, stating that "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Corinthians 2:14. To me this certainly seems to mean that the mixing of the philosophies of men with scripture is not true theology but something else entirely. Of course if such a mixing were dependent on the plain meaning of the scriptures then maybe they would have an argument. However when "the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." is taken to mean that the Lord doesn't have a body or a face and isn't the form of a man then they are just being silly if they expect me to believe that their arguments are not primarily those of Aristotle but instead from the Apostles of Our Lord.  Indeed many of scriptures and many of the very early Church Fathers appear to warn very strongly against the marriage of scripture and philosophy, and then many of the Church Fathers and Doctors very obviously throw out things they were taught by believing Christians in favor of the philosophy of men (ie. they say they are doing so and ridicule the simple faith of those that brought them to the faith).

To me it certainly seems true that the Catholics have mastered the art of drawing near to God with their lips, but having their hearts far from him, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.  That is precisely what was stated in the post I am responding to; that the still small voice of the Spirit, the voice of God, is to be quashed under the reasoning's of the Catholic Magestarium. They do not respond like Moses: "would God that all the LORD'S people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!" but instead appear to be saying that there can be and are no prophets.   

There was an Apostasy, as the prophets and Apostles said.
There was a restoration, as the prophets and Apostles said.
Make sure to check out the more information and scriptural references and conference talks which will have more references including historic.

I invite the interested reader to research statistical studies on the subject of the fruits of the Chruch of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  For starters, one may wish to look at the recent Pew Study . 

Scriptural Evidence for Theomorphism

The idea of Theomorphism is that we are in the image of God, it turns anthropomorphism on its head. God is not lessened by being in our image, instead we are exalted by being in the image of God. Presented here is the Biblical scriptures that support the idea of Theomorphism.  

 Many of the prophets both saw and talked with God face to face (Exodus 24:9-11, Exodus 33. Isaiah 6, Job 42:5, Ezekiel 1). 

Man is created in the image (Gen 1:27, Gen 9:6, 1 Corinthians 11:7) and likeness (Gen 5:1, James 3:9) of God. We, being Man, are the offspring of God (Acts 17:29) or in other-words His children (Rom 8:16, Deut 14:1, Ps 82:6, Hosea 1:10, Mal. 2:10, Eph. 4:6, Heb. 12:9) as He is the Father of our spirits (same scriptures, though I could add more to this one). Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father in the flesh (I think this point is undisputed, but if you want scriptures I can provide them). He is in the express image of His Father (Rom. 8:29, 2 Cor. 4:4, Col 1:15, Heb. 1:3) and in the same form (Philip. 2:6, Philip. 3:21) to the point that Jesus said: “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). Jesus Christ rose from the dead  and retains a body (Luke 24:39, 1 Jn. 3:2, and others) which is like the body that we will receive in the Resurrection (1 Jn. 3:2, Philip. 3:21) and stands on the right hand of God (Acts 7:56 ). Further when Adam had eaten the fruit of knowledge of good and evil he was declared to be as god by God (Gen. 3:22), likewise as children of God if we keep the commandments and follow Jesus Christ then we will become joint-heirs with Christ( Rom. 8:17, Gal. 4:7) and become like Christ and God, become one with them, and participate in their glory (2 Cor 3:18, Eph 4:13, 1 Jn 3:2, Rev. 3:21, John 17:20-26).