Have you ever seen an angel? I haven’t. In fact I’ve never met anyone who has claimed to have seen one. Yet I have met thousands of priesthood holders who hold “the keys of the ministering of angels.” Now I’ve read the statements by Wilford Woodruff and others that explain why God will only send us angels if the job at hand can be accomplished in no other way. But it has always seemed odd to me that there is so much emphasis on the restoration of the keys of the ministering of angels if we never get to use those keys. Well I have learned something new recently that has helped me better understand and now you get to learn it too… (more…)

Before I make those predictions on the timing of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ I promised you earlier, I thought I’d stir things up further by suggesting God probably has not even decided yet when the Second Coming will be. He is probably waiting to see when the time is right. But wait, you say, doesn’t God have perfect foreknowledge? As I have written before — not necessarily. I have been reading Blake Ostler’s marvelous book Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of God and in it he makes very compelling arguments that actual perfect foreknowledge requires a fixed future and a fixed future means we aren’t really freely choosing (even if we think we are). The good news is that, as has been discussed elsewhere in the Bloggernacle, perfect foreknowledge is pretty useless anyway. (more…)

If you were in my house tonight you would have heard my five-year-old daughter proclaiming at the top of her lungs “Daddy is awesome! He’s the coolest boy I know!” Awwwww Yeeeaaahhhh! Daddy is awesome tonight. What makes dad so awesome, you ask? I got skills — video game skills. (more…)

Have you ever had a revelatory dream? I have. In fact I had one last week. I won’t go into detail about it because it just doesn’t feel right yet… but maybe someday. It was the first one I have had in several years. The last one I remember was in 1999. The prophesies in that one came to pass just as the dream indicated. I had a few on my mission too. My current stake president recently had one that has been appropriately quoted as local scripture in many meetings since he shared it with us at stake conference. (more…)

Tonight for family scriptures I broke out the parable of the sower from Matthew 13 for my little children. It was slightly over their heads (I got questions like ?what is God?s special word?? ? as in singular) but as I read the parable and succeeding explanation out loud it dawned on me that this parable was further support for my theory on the Devil?s GPA!

The Devil?s GPA is the code name I use for what I think is the fundamental content of Satan?s playbook as explained in the scriptures. I introduced the concept in an earlier post, but here is the list temptations we?ll face in mortality from greatest to least:

G: Greed and Getting Gain (Plus the power wealth brings)
P: Popularity, Prominence, Praise of Men, Pride, Power (at least the influence part)
A: Appetites and Addictions

I have loved this idea since I read somewhere that President Mckay taught similar things. I hadn?t seen it in this parable until tonight. Here goes:

The seeds by the wayside = Appetites and Addictions

(more…)

As demonstrated by today’s Sunday School lesson (D&C Lesson 7) exaltation can be attained through 5 simple steps on our part — all the rest of the work is taken care of by the atonement of Jesus Christ. You know the steps already:
1.) Exercise faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
2.) Repent
3.) Be baptized
4.) Receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost
5.) Endure to the end.
(See references here, here, here, and here)

But the problem with this list is that we have a huge amount of scriptural detail on steps 1-4 and nearly no scriptural detail on step 5. To make things worse, one can accomplish steps 1-4 by the age of 8. We have been instructed that Step 5 generally includes keeping baptismal covenants and making and keeping of temple covenants, but why is there so little other specific instruction from God and the prophets on the step that will take the next 92 year of life to accomplish? Read on gentle friend, I think I’ve discovered the answer… (more…)

Naming a blog is a lot like naming a band. I’ve named a lot of bands in my day, but only one blog. It was pretty common in the past for me to do a couple of gigs under one band name and then change to a more appropriate name based on the sound and personality of the band. I’ve been thinking about changing the name of my blog now that it’s been live for about six weeks. So when I saw that Jonathan had mentioned that the name “New Cool Thang” was a little disturbing I knew the time had come… It’s time to seek advice and votes on the blog name! (more…)

I just got officially connected with the Mormon Archipelago – a group of top-notch Mormon blogs run by really cool and smart Mormons who I’ve never met but I like anyway. You’ll notice the fancy new logo and feed from my new sibling-blogs in the sidebar. I like it because I’m always visiting their blogs anyway so this saves me having to use that pesky bookmark dropdown. You’ll like it because their blogs rock. (more…)

The comments for my previous post on the tenuous relationship between worldly riches and righteousness really got me thinking. A rich (but apparently righteous) anonymous saint made some very insightful comments that brought new ideas to my mind. I’m now starting to wonder if the Lord really does “bless” us with riches sometimes in this life. Not so we can live it up, but to see if we’ll actually keep our covenants and let go of it. (more…)

A recent post related to the Second Coming over at T&S reminded me of an odd fact in the Church – Mormons do NOT appreciate it when other Mormons speculate in the timing of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. I don’t know if other Christian churches have the same bias, but it is prevalent among Mormons and I’m not sure it need be. (more…)

For some reason I cannot read that Shakespearean line in my own voice — it always is in Geddy Lee’s voice in my head. I doubt the illustrious Hugh Nibley has that problem. It is his marvelous essay from 1999 called Abraham’s Creation Drama that has spurred this post. I read it today at the provided link and was, as usual with Nibley, thoroughly impressed. I highly recommend it. (more…)