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satan

Store Owner Commands Robber to Leave in the Name of Jesus

January 27, 2010 by Bryce Haymond 4 Comments

I received an email today of this interesting video clip.  It is a news story from earlier this month of store owner Marian Chadwick from Frisco, Texas, who encountered a hooded robber that entered her store with a gun.  The gunman walked up to the store counter and demanded money.  The store owner pointed at him and commanded him, in the name of Jesus, to leave the store immediately.  The gunman took a step back and told a customer to drop to the floor.  The store owner repeated the commands.  The robber slowly backed up and fled the store.

In an interview the store owner said that when the robber was leaving he started cussing at them, “as if Satan was walking out the door.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2YEO-_-Yhw

Posted in: Practices, Tidbits Tagged: casting out, jesus christ, money, name, news, priesthood, satan, video, youtube

Can You Accidentally Worship the Devil?

June 18, 2009 by Bryce Haymond 7 Comments

Now that is an odd thing to say, and sounds silly, yet it is precisely what some of our critics claim members of the Church are doing, especially in the design and function of our temples.  This is the premise of a great new blog post by James Carroll at Amateur Scriptorians called “The Language of Symbolism.”

Carroll notes the common reaction of our critics to our temple symbols.  They usually say something like:

…you are actually worshiping the Devil, you don’t know it, but you are doing it on accident, if you only knew what your own symbols meant, then you would understand that you are worshiping the Devil. I know YOU don’t think that the symbols are about the Devil, but they are, and by using them you are actually accidentally worshiping the Devil.

Well, to them the symbols might mean that, and to someone in sometime and someplace, it might have.  But symbols don’t stand alone, isolated from the environment in which they are found.  They are not static figures which can only be interpreted in one way.  They are dynamic representations.

In Carroll’s article he addresses why you cannot say that a symbol means something to someone unless you ask that person.  Symbols are flexible, and change over time, and often mean different things to different people.  It is the meaning assigned to a symbol by a people that gives it significance, otherwise it remains an empty shape.  This is something that many people don’t seem to understand about symbols.

Click the link below to read the article:

The Language of Symbolism

Update: James Carroll has written a continuation of his post that complements nicely the first – The Language of Symbolism Continued

Posted in: Artifacts, Temples Today Tagged: church, critics, design, devils, evil, representation, satan, satanic, symbolism, symbols, worship

The Temple is a Fortress of the Lord

March 28, 2009 by Bryce Haymond 4 Comments

Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone

Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone

Note: Below is an excerpt from a book entitled “The Incomparable Christ: Our Master and Model” by Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone, an emeritus member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, that he entitled “Holiness to the Lord.”  The book was published in 1995.  It is powerful in its vision of the future need of temples as a refuge from a wicked world.  After being released from the Seventy, Elder Featherstone served as the president of the Logan Utah Temple. (The emphasis below is my own.)

The season of the world before us will be like no other in the history of mankind. Satan will unleash every evil scheme, every vile perversion ever known to man in any generation. Just as this dispensation of the fulness of times brought the restoration of all that is good and holy, so also did it bring the fulness of evil. As parents, spouses, children, and members of Christ’s church, we must find safety. Unfortunately, many will struggle mightily before recognizing this bitter truth: there is no safety in this world—wealth cannot provide it, enforcement agencies cannot ensure it, even membership in the Church will not guarantee it.  [Read more…]

Posted in: General Authorities, Temples Today Tagged: attendance, christ, covenant, election, ensign, evil, faithfulness, garments, protection, purpose, satan, second coming, seventy, trials, visit

The Fall of Adam and Eve in the Armenian Aprocrypha

October 7, 2008 by Bryce Haymond 23 Comments
Detail from The Temptation by William Strang. 1899. Oil on canvas. Tate Gallery.

Detail from The Temptation by William Strang. 1899. Oil on canvas. Tate Gallery.

The account of the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Bible is relatively succinct, particularly in the vocal exchanges between the serpent, Eve, and Adam (bolded below).  What details we know of the Fall come primarily from chapter 3 of Genesis:

1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. (Gen. 3:1-7)

Some Armenian Apocrypha manuscripts have been translated into English in recent decades which expand on the Fall narrative substantially, and which are enlightening to compare and contrast with the Genesis account and the account as presented in the temple ((As suggested by Dr. Tvedtnes in his FAIR presentation below)).  [Read more…]

Posted in: Scholarship, Texts Tagged: adam and eve, bible, conversation, fair, fall, glory, john tvedtnes, light, literature, satan, scholar, translation

Job’s Covenant: Hebrew Tav and “Behold my sign!” in Job 31

August 16, 2008 by Bryce Haymond 17 Comments

A few days ago I wrote about a post I read over at Lehi’s Library which quoted a paper by Kevin Christensen in which he referenced Margaret Barker.  The subject was the use of the Hebrew word/letter tau or tav, translated as “mark” in Ezekiel 9:4-6, and what it meant in Ezekiel’s day, and what it may have meant to the Nephites who also referenced it (Jacob 4:14).  The conclusion was that it may have referred to an anointing that the high priests received on their foreheads, having literally taken upon themselves the name of God.  I was curious to investigate the Hebrew word/letter tav more, which I did, and I want to share some of the intriguing things I discovered.

A small disclaimer.  I am most definitely an amateur when it comes to Hebrew, so any insights I might gather should be taken with a grain of salt.  Perhaps someone with greater expertise can make a greater inquiry into this particular subject.  These are just some of my observations as I’m learning. [Read more…]

Posted in: Church History, Favorites, Scholarship, Texts Tagged: anointing, bible, BYU, calling, covenant, crown, faithfulness, greek, hands, hebrew, imagery, job, names, oath, pattern, prophet, psalms, satan, scriptures, stephen ricks, symbols, translation, veil
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