I am enthused about our course of study for Priethood/RS next year... Teachings of Joseph Smith.
On the 11th I'll be teaching Lesson 21 from the Spencer Kimball manual.
Any testimonies you'd like to share about the prophet of the restoration would be nice on this thread.
A number of years ago while giving a TR interview, I asked about a testimony of the restoration and I followed it up with, "Tell me how you feel about the Prophet Joseph Smith".... to that inquiry the friend across the desk answered, "President, He is one of my very best friends". I know the gentleman to be as honest as the day is long, but I didn't ask him how he came to know the Prophet. Truly the words of William Phelps have come to pass... "Millions shall know Brother Joseph again"...
I have come to believe that we will never come to know Our Savior unless we have come to know the Prophet Joseph.
Perhaps I'll be able to help clarify the next week.
Lesson 22 is on Revelation...
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no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing... the truth of God will go forth till it has penetrated every website, sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done
Here's something I've studied before, and it came up again in a conversation after Priesthood today.
In ancient Israel, rhetoricians used chiasmus, a poetic literary structure, to emphasize the main points in their orations and writings. Chiasmus places the principle point in the middle, with support in poetic language building in to the main point and then repetition in reverse order going out.
In contrast, rhetoricians in the Western tradition used the form established by Cicero with which we are familiar: Place the main idea first, provide a body of support, and restate the idea at the end.
Joseph Smith would not have known about chiasmus. However, he would have been very familiar with Cicero's structure of argument and oratory--that's what the trained ministers of the 1800s used.
And yet, we have Alma 36--Alma teaching his son Helaman of his conversion. It is a chiasm of rich and profound beauty. And in the middle, at the point of greatest emphasis, we hear, "O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death." Christ is the center.
Joseph Smith didn't know. He could not have known. The Book of Mormon is exactly what it claims to be. And Joseph is the prophet who translated it.
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The ability to qualify for, receive, and act on personal revelation is the single most important skill that can be acquired in this life. - Julie Beck
I find the ceremonies of the temple remarkable. Every blessing we can obtain in this life in mortality from God, are available to every man woman and child who ever lived, as long as we can find them--and the wording of such ceremonies reflect that equity with an almost exhaustive exactness. The relationship between God and man has never been so clear. Repeatedly I've found myself thinking that one man was the instrument in restoring these blessed truths, and I am in awe at how "righteous" such ordinances are.
We are not just a few lucky souls that will have a chance at passing through the veil into the presence of God, but thanks to God's gracious endowment of revelations to Joseph Smith Jr. everyone who ever lived may benefit from the ordinances we are all able to give back to our ancestors who came before...
--Ray
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I'm not slow; I'm special. (Don't take it personally, everyone finds me offensive. Yet somehow I manage to live with myself.)
The last sealing I went to the sealer kept talking about the POWERUL reality and the amazing nature of promises of that ceremony... He said the same thing about 10 times in about 10 slightly different ways over 20 minutes... It really made an impression on ME! I have been studying about the blessings of the temple over the last 4 months and I too am VERY impressed.
Something that may be of interest. Note that as Nephi wrote of their coming and going to and from Jerusalem he uses the expressions "up to", "down to", "down unto", "up...unto", etc. in several places in 1 Nephi 2-4. While working in Israel years ago, I took a class in the Hebrew language and the teacher explained that when speaking or writing about coming and going to and from Jerusalem the proper verbs is ascend and descend. This does not apply to other cities, but it does apply to the land of Israel. Most Israelis today probably don't use those verbs, but the teacher made a point of explaining this to the class. It is done out of respect for the sacredness of Jerusalem more than because Jerusalem is one of the highest elevations in Israel. It's not likely Joseph Smith would have known this, but it appears he translated this correctly. Interestingly, translations into other languages, at least German, Norwegian and Danish, do not convey this in all cases.
9 And I, Nephi, and my brethren took our journey in the wilderness, with our tents, to go up to the land of Jerusalem. 10 And it came to pass that when we had gone up to the land of Jerusalem, I and my brethren did consult one with another.
15 But behold I said unto them that: aAs the Lord liveth, and as we live, we will not go down unto our father in the wilderness until we have baccomplished the thing which the Lord hath commanded us. 16 Wherefore, let us be faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord; therefore let us go down to the land of our fathers ainheritance, for behold he left gold and silver, and all manner of riches. And all this he hath done because of the bcommandments of the Lord.
22 And it came to pass that we went down to the land of our inheritance, and we did gather together our agold, and our silver, and our precious things. 23 And after we had gathered these things together, we went up again unto the house of Laban.
1 And it came to pass that I spake unto my brethren, saying: Let us go up again unto Jerusalem, and let us be afaithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord; for behold he is mightier than all the earth, then why not bmightier than Laban and his fifty, yea, or even than his tens of thousands? 2 Therefore let us go up; let us be astrong like unto Moses; for he truly spake unto the waters of the Red bSea and they divided hither and thither, and our fathers came through, out of captivity, on dry ground, and the armies of Pharaoh did follow and were drowned in the waters of the Red Sea.
34 And I also spake unto him, saying: Surely the Lord hath acommanded us to do this thing; and shall we not be diligent in keeping the commandments of the Lord? Therefore, if thou wilt go down into the wilderness to my father thou shalt have place with us. 35 And it came to pass that aZoram did take courage at the words which I spake. Now Zoram was the name of the servant; and he promised that he would go down into the wilderness unto our father. Yea, and he also made an oath unto us that he would tarry with us from that time forth.
For me there is a chain of truth. If one reads the BOM and finds it to be the word of God using Moroni's promise then Joseph Smith is indeed a prophet of God. My grandmother who is not a member loves the church and believes in many of our tenents but cannot bring herself to accept that he was a prophet of God. She has defended the church to her friends and is proud of her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren who enjoy the blessings of the gospel but cannot get past Joseph Smith. It is an interesting paradox that I have seen in others as well. It should be an interesting year in Elder's quorum.
