No Pearl of Great Price until after gaining a testimony?

Homestar Runner · Senior Member

No Pearl of Great Price until after gaining a testimony?

Poncho29 · Senior Bucketkeeper

I'm still trying to figure out how that one scripture translates into not sharing the Pearl of Great Price with anyone.

What, was the women on drugs?

I'm sure it's been suggested somewhere, by someone at sometime, but darned if I know.

BTW, did you hide the evidence of your little feast?

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

Not a clue... my guess is this good sister banged her head against the pew in front of her one time too many over the years...

I once had an investigator on my mission (an elderly retired gentlemen who had been a captain in the Waffen SS during WWII) who was about as golden as you could expect. He read the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price, and even said he prayed about them and received a testimony they were correct. He even had a dream that we as the missionaries teaching him were able to interpret for him (referenced temple work for the dead), but unfortunately he was too strongly affiliated with the Seventh Day Adventists (plus having a totally hateful wife to anything having to do with religion) to commit to making the changes necessary and it was like the little flicker of testimony he had received about everything just was snuffed out like fingers snuffing out a candle.

-- Edited by Cat Herder at 20:34, 2007-07-29

Homestar Runner · Senior Member

Hey - check it out. The lady wasn't completely nutso insane - she just had the wrong verse. Moses 1:42 -
(These words were spoken unto Moses in the mount, the name of which shall not be known among the children of men. And now they are spoken unto you. Show them not unto any except them that believe. Even so. Amen.)
Well, if ya put it that way, her belief kinda makes perfect sense. At least about the book of Moses.

So I did a little more looking. One theory that makes sense - Such a demand was actually quite common for the preservation and transmission of sacred or apocalyptic writings. Consider - the book of Moses came from Moses, yes? We're talking sacred scrolls that contained sacred words. Made of leather, painstakingly written, maybe there were a couple of copies in existence at any one time - they were not exactly mass produced. Not something you want to show to the Egyptians or Assyrians or whoever your enemies happened to be.

Fast forward a few millenia. Paper has been invented, as has movable type. Joseph Smith writes down the old admonishon, but now we don't worry so much about the heathen trampling your sole copy of the sacred writings any more, because the technology now exists so everybody and their dog can have their own copy.

Dang. Now next week, I'll have to apologize to that lady for thinking her opinion was completely baselesss. I wonder if she'll buy the above theory, or hold to her belief...

HSR

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

Homestar Runner wrote:

Dang. Now next week, I'll have to apologize to that lady for thinking her opinion was completely baselesss. I wonder if she'll buy the above theory, or hold to her belief...

HSR

Well, don't just make it your theory, get some authoritative backing for it... like The Pearl of Great Price Student Manual for Religion 327 (Institute / BYU Religion / CES) http://www.ldsces.org/inst_manuals/PGPInst35852000/start_here.pdf

Note, CES does not make any comment on verse 42 of Moses chapter 1, so this prohibition seems to be nothing more than the equivalent of an FPR as the verse has no cross references within the scripture itself. I would think that the instruction was given to Joseph much the same way as the milk before meat counsel The Lord always gives.

Of course, rumor has it some folks hear some pretty interesting things in Institute classes depending on the instructor...

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

Sounds like you have a crazy. We have one in our ward. During the Gospel Doctrine lesson Sunday we were reading about the Apostles on the day of Pentacost speaking and everyone understanding them in their native language. This lady volunteers that when there was a terrible earthquake in Mexico years ago (she doesn't live in Mexico and is white), she woke up only able to speak Spanish. There was an awkward silence in the room. My sister's ward has a lady who talks to squirrels. So I guess every ward has one.

The scriptures are for all men. Otherwise, the church would lock them up in the temples.

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

salesortonscom wrote:

My sister's ward has a lady who talks to squirrels.

And you abide that?

That is like giving aide and comfort to the enemy... why she could possibly be the person that has provided valuable intel to the holdout die hard mutant squirrel cells in the area! evileye

Now, you just need to find their safe houses! wink

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

Yea, it's treasonous!!! Unfortunately, squirrel lady and her ilk live in a part of the People's Republic of California that lubs the little fur monsters. Deep in enemy territory.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Um, the Gospel Principles book is pretty much ALL written from the Pearl of Great Price. SO if you're teaching Gospel Essentials, you're teaching the Pearl of Great Price. The first few chapters teach the creation and premortal existence, etc... and they're all straight from the PoGP version.

SO um... Whatchya talkin' bout Homestar?

--Ray

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

Oh, man, I HATE situations like that. That's where I bust out with a SHYAH HAHA! that I totally tried to stifle but failed, thereby offending most people in the room.

Hoss Cartwright · Senior Member

A few months ago, our Gospel Essentials class seemed to frequently veer into the bar pit of weirdness doctrines. I think the instructor has got that handled lately, though.

It's hard, because new people ask all kinds of interesting theological questions.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Yes. Yes they do. And it isn't helped by the Senior Couple that memorized Bruce R's Mormon Doctrine First Edition...

arbilad · Head Chef

I've encountered a few wowzers in Sunday School in my time. One lady once claimed that, for most of his life, Nephi didn't teach baptism to his people. Another time I was barely old enough to go to Sunday School instead of primary. We had moved into a new ward. I didn't know anyone yet, and felt like sort of an outcast because the people had, in most cases, known each other for a very long time. So what does the SS teacher do? She decides to have me and a popular girl help in the lesson. She has two boxes. She takes me and the popular girl aside separately. She tells me that in one of the boxes is treats, and in the other is foul stuff. She wants me to convince the class to pick the box with the treats, while the popular girl will be trying to convince the class to take the box with the foul stuff. So I do my best to convince the class, but they choose the box that the popular girl tells them to pick. That turns out to actually be the box with the treats. So I am then derided for trying to make them pick the wrong box.
I like to think that the SS teacher didn't deliberately try to make me feel even more like an outsider, but in any case, it was a particularly stupid thing to do.