Tag Archives: priesthood

Many More Ordinances Including Resurrection

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I came across a talk from President Brigham Young that was deeply insightful, and I want to share a portion.  It is from an address he gave on August 24, 1872 in Farmington, [...]

The Grossest Form of Church Criticism

In recent weeks I have encountered what I consider to be one of the most damaging forms of criticism of the Church.  You might think that it is from all the anti-Mormon literature or propaganda.  Or perhaps it is those who are so vocal as to picket the curbs at our General Conferences with signs, [...]

Oh Say, What Is Truth?

What is Truth? I hope this will help shed some light.  The living prophets of this dispensation have spoken the word of the Lord.
From the “Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson” (pgs. 115-121):
Truth is a glorious thing. We sing about it. “Oh say, what is truth?/’Tis the fairest gem/That the riches of worlds can produce.” [...]

Keys of Authority in the Book of Mormon

Note:  This is a comment I made on my last post, but I thought it was pertinent enough to make it into a post of itself.
The concept of “keys” is not absent from the Book of Mormon. Whenever God has chosen to give authority to man to perform ordinances in His name, it has been [...]

The One True Church

It seems to me that there is an undercurrent among the more liberal “new order” Mormon bloggers in the Bloggernacle lately that try to refute or dilute the concept that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the “one true church.” While I do believe that there is much truth that is found [...]

Early Christian Face Veiling

I came across some references to early Christian ritual vestments this morning in Matthew Brown’s The Gate of Heaven.  He cited The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation by Edward Yarnold, and The Archæology of Baptism by Wolfred N. Cote.  I looked up these references and they were intriguing in describing an early Christian practice of face [...]

Promises of Calling & Election in JS Lesson 13

Live in strict obedience to the commandments of God, and walk humbly before Him, and He will exalt thee in His own due time. -Joseph Smith 
Last week was the Joseph Smith manual chapter 13 lesson for Priesthood and Relief Society entitled, “Obedience: ‘When the Lord Commands, Do It.’”  This was an excellent lesson, and I [...]

Service on Earth & Worship of God

The account of the garden of Eden in Genesis is a very interesting story indeed.  We learn much about the experiences of our first parents and their interactions with God.  It was a very intimate relationship, one in which God walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the garden (Gen. 3:8).
When Adam was first [...]

The Egyptian Ankh, “Life! Health! Strength!” - Part 3

(Continued from Part 2)
The ankh symbol appears frequently with several other hieroglyphics in certain formulas and invocations that immediately call our attention.  These are wedja, seneb, djed, & was.
This table summarizes the different possible explanations for these hieroglyphics that I have been able to find: 

The Egyptian Ankh, “Life! Health! Strength!” - Part 1

Egypt figures a central role in the religion of the ancient Near East, where much of our canon of scripture owes its narrative and existence to this locale.  Even the Book of Mormon tells us it was written in “reformed Egyptian” (Mormon 9:32).  The most interesting aspect, to me, is the adoption into Egypt of [...]

The 1978 Temple Revelation of the Extension of Priesthood

Video created by the LDS Church to commemorate and celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ action in June 1978 to extend its lay priesthood to men of all races - entitled “He Inviteth Us All.”  The revelation from God came quite clear from heaven to prophets and apostles [...]

Casting out Satan

I was driving in my car on Saturday listening to a radio program called “The Other Side” with Steve Godfrey. Steve believes himself to be a psychic medium, someone through whom people can connect with loved ones who have passed on to the “other side.” I do not deny the possibility of communicating [...]

Baptism for the Dead: An Erroneous Practice? - Part 1

In a letter dated April 5th, and reported by the Catholic News Service on May 2nd, the Vatican issued an order to all Catholic dioceses throughout the world to not give genealogical information in parish registers to Latter-day Saints in an effort to “block posthumous rebaptisms” of LDS ancestors. The Vatican Congregation for the [...]

John Welch on Margaret Barker’s Temple Studies

There is an interesting post at The T&T Clark Blog with a transcription of an address that BYU’s John Welch gave on March 5th in London at a conference about Margaret Barker’s latest book, Temple Themes in Christian Worship, and her scholarly work on temple subjects in ancient Christianity and Judaism. FARMS lists Welch as [...]

Why Don’t we Find Our Modern Temple in the Old Testament?

I used to ask myself that question, and I believe that many others probably still do. We believe that our current temple ordinances as revealed by the prophet Joseph Smith are as old as the human race, and were first revealed to Adam, the Ancient of Days. So why don’t we read more [...]

Priestly Initiations in the Testament of Levi

The Testament of Levi is one of the books in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and is an apocryphal and pseudopigraphal work so we do not know its original author or source. The Testament of Levi, as we have it today, was composed in its final form in the second century B.C. [...]

Sacrifice Continues in the Temple

One of the criticisms leveled at the LDS (Mormon) practice of temple worship is the seemingly dissimilar forms of the ordinances when compared with those found practiced by ancient Israelites in the Bible. It is true that the forms of the ordinances and sacrifices are different, but their meaning and symbolism remain the same. [...]

The Premortal Heavenly Temple

The temples on earth are reflections of the temple in heaven. They mirror each other both in form and content. Consider the following points that I pull from Matthew Brown’s exceptional and classic book on the temple, The Gate of Heaven:

John saw “the temple which is in heaven” (Rev. 14:15, 17; Rev. 15:5-8).
Other [...]

The Culminating Sealing Ordinance of the Temple

No, it isn’t being sealed to your spouse on wedding day, although that is a prerequisite (preparatory and required) to receive this highest and most sacred sealing ordinance. The priesthood sealing powers of Elijah, as restored in this last dispensation (D&C 110:13-16) and vested in the presiding high priest of the Church (D&C 132:7), [...]

Iconostasis - An Eastern Orthodox Veil

On my tour through Ukraine a couple years ago I became familiar with what is known as the iconostasis (plural iconostases) that is found in almost every Eastern Orthodox Church. This is a thin wall or partition that separates the nave, where the lay worshipers reside, from the sanctuary in the church, where the [...]