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The Grossest Form of Church Criticism

President Ezra Taft Benson (1899-1994)

President Ezra Taft Benson (1899-1994)

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, profanity, and filth.  You might think it is those who have become disaffected, have left the Church, and are now eager to tear it down or “expose” it for what they see as serious problems.  You might think it is the work of scholars who have been excommunicated, and now find intellectual haven in promoting arguments against the learned.  You might even think that it is those tribulations that come from the adversary himself.  But this is not the case.

There is a much more gross and pernicious form of criticism of the restored gospel and of the Lord’s restored Church.  It is that criticism which comes from within the Church.

I know that this runs in the same current as several of my latest posts, but I strongly believe that “it becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor” (D&C 88:81).  And it also has a direct relationship to the covenants we make to God in the temple.  [Read more…]

Service on Earth & Worship of God

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Planet Earth

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 placed in the garden of Eden, he was given a charge to take care of it:

And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. (Gen. 2:15)

The Hebrew word for “dress” is avad, which means to work, labor or serve.  Closely related is the word avodah, which means service.  Even at this early date man was given a stewardship over the earth, and to take good care of it, even while it was still paradisaical! When Adam and Eve transgressed the law of God and fell they were sent from the garden into the dreary world, but with the same charge of stewardship:  [Read more…]

Another Video Preview of the New Twin Falls Temple

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Here is another media preview of the new Twin Falls Temple that comes from Local News channel 8 in Idaho Falls and Pocatello Idaho. It gives more details concerning the murals in the garden room, painted by Rexburg artist Leon Parson. Parson skillfully included the Idaho Shoshone Falls in the depiction of the creation in these murals. Please forgive the commercial at the beginning of the clip.