Year: 2008

Make Your Home a Temple

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President Thomas S. Monson

President Thomas S. Monson

President Monson spoke at a regional meeting in the Conference Center yesterday, as reported by the Deseret News.  The focus of his counsel was to put our homes in order.  This is wise counsel since the Dow dropped 500 points today, the biggest drop since 9/11.  We are living in troubled times, and I suspect that it will get worse sooner than it gets better.  The Lord’s prophets have been giving us this message for a couple decades now, to put our homes in order in a multitude of different ways.  Are we listening and doing?

Part of President Monson’s counsel was this, in words reminiscent of the temple (cf. D&C 88:119):

This, then, is your building project, brothers and sisters, to organize yourselves, prepare every needful thing, and to establish a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God.

Mormon Theology Seminar Conference: Reading Alma 32 on Sept. 19

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I will have the chance to attend the Mormon Theology Seminar’s conference entitled “An Experiment on the Word: Reading Alma 32” that is coming up next Friday, September 19th, 2008.  It is being held from 9am-4pm in room B192 in the Joseph F. Smith Building on BYU campus.  More details can be found on Mormon Theology Seminar’s website, or in their PDF flyer.  You can also learn more about it from a podcast with some of the organizers.  The conference will be the culmination of a several month online seminar that took place at alma32.wordpress.com.

Here is the schedule:

  • 9am • Julie M. Smith • So Shall My Word Be: Reading Alma 32 through Isaiah 55
  • 10am • James E. Faulconer • Desiring to Believe: Philo-Sophia and the Word of God
  • 11am • Adam Miller • You Must Needs Say that the Word is Good
  • 1pm • Jenny Webb • It is Well that Ye are Cast Out: Alma 32 and Eden
  • 2pm • Joseph M. Spencer • Faith, Hope, and Charity: Alma and Joseph Smith
  • 3pm • Robert Couch • “No Cause to Believe”: Knowledge and Other Signs of Dormant Faith

Since the FAIR Conference liveblogging seemed to work so well, I’m going to see if I can liveblog this event too (I hope they have WiFi in the JFSB).  If anyone else is also attending the conference and wants to collaborate on the liveblogging, contact me and maybe we can join our efforts.  We will be using the awesome CoverItLive service.

If you want to receive an email reminder of the liveblogging we will be doing here next Friday, see the right hand sidebar on TempleStudy.com to sign up for one.

The Rainbow – A Token of the Covenant

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Noah's Thanksoffering (c.1803) by Joseph Anton Koch. Noah builds an altar to the Lord after being delivered from the Flood; God sends the rainbow as a sign of his covenant (Genesis 8-9). (click for larger view)

Noah's Thanksoffering (c.1803) by Joseph Anton Koch. (click image for larger view)

This morning I was listening to the ABC News report on the incoming hurricane Ike, which is heading straight towards the Galveston/Houston area of Texas, and the forecast of widespread destruction that it is provoking.  The news anchor was reporting from Galveston Island, Texas, where the brunt of the storm is said to be bearing down quickly.  The reporter ended his news clip by saying that there was a rainbow directly over Galveston Island.

It is destructive times like these that cause us to reflect on God, and His place in our world.  It seems like cruel irony that the rainbow was placed as a sign of the covenant that God made with man that He would not flood the earth again.  But then again, that was surely a deliberate decision, that each time we witness these horrific natural events like hurricanes we remember God is still there, and that He knows our trials and tribulations (cf. Hel. 12:3).  Yes, even “if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good” (D&C 122:7).  Events like these turn us back to God, and remind us to worship Him who is the Creator of heaven and earth.  It is only by obeying God’s commandments and enduring trying times such as these that we can “triumph over all [our] foes” (D&C 121:7-8):  [Read more…]

The Seal of Melchizedek – Part 4

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Satellite Photo of the San Diego California Temple with the "Seal of Melchizedek" overlayed 13 times

Satellite photo of the San Diego California Temple with the “Seal of Melchizedek” overlayed 13 times.  I particularly like the symbol used in the skylight of the atrium in the center of the temple.

(Continued from Part 3)

To continue my research I wanted to know as accurately as possible the story about this symbol, the “seal of Melchizedek,” as it was used in the San Diego Temple.  I couldn’t find a good account online, so I decided to go to the source.  Who better would know than the design architect of the temple?  So I gave him a call.  [Read more…]

The Seal of Melchizedek – Part 3

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Seal of Melchizedek turned into LDS cufflinks, tie bars/clips, tie tacs

Seal of Melchizedek turned into LDS cufflinks, tie bars/clips, tie tacs

(Continued from Part 2)

Having found the mosaics from Ravenna, Italy, that displayed this symbol in connection with Melchizedek, I wanted to do some more research to see if I could find the symbol mentioned anywhere else.  And, of course, I went to the best tool for online research – Google.  The difficulty with using Google is that you can usually find someone saying something about pretty much anything.  So it’s not only a task of finding the correct information, but of determining its credibility.

One of the first results you come to is a blog called “Ernest Goes to Iraq” with a blog post “The Sign of Melchizedek.”  Ernest explains:

I heard directly from one of the architect team partners that designed the San Diego Temple, he explained that the designer saw this symbol in a dream and based the floor plan and décor of the temple on this design; namely two offset, intersecting squares. Much like the 6-point Star of David but with 8 points instead.  [Read more…]