scriptures

Elder Holland Testifies Boldly of the Truth of The Book of Mormon!

18 Comments

I loved General Conference.  My absolute favorite talk was by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  He bore testimony of The Book of Mormon like I have never heard before.  Who can doubt, after hearing his address of that book of scripture, that he knows with absolute certainty that it is true, and that it is another testament of the Savior Jesus Christ?  Elder Holland bore solemn and soul-stirring witness of The Book of Mormon that was tangibly powerful in the declaration of its veracity.  His words will reverberate through eternity!

You can watch Elder Holland’s talk in the video embedded below.

Human Bodies Emit Visible Light

17 Comments
Very sensitive cameras capture light emitted from the body. Kyoto University, Tohoku Institute of Technology / Livescience.com

Very sensitive cameras capture light emitted from the body. Kyoto University, Tohoku Institute of Technology / Livescience.com

That’s right.  Our bodies actually emit a minuscule amount of real light.  This is not just radiation or infrared body heat, but actual photons are released from the surface of the skin:

Past research has shown that the body emits visible light, 1,000 times less intense than the levels to which our naked eyes are sensitive. In fact, virtually all living creatures emit very weak light, which is thought to be a byproduct of biochemical reactions involving free radicals. ((“Humans Glow in Visible Light,” Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience. http://news.aol.com/article/humans-glow/584160))

New research indicates that the amount of light varies throughout the day:  [Read more…]

Who’s on the Lord’s Side? Who?

4 Comments
Isaiah's Lips Anointed with Fire - Benjamin West (1738-1820)

Isaiah's Lips Anointed with Fire - Benjamin West (1738-1820)

I spoke in my ward’s sacrament meeting yesterday.  Here is a copy of my talk:

I’m grateful for this opportunity to speak to you today about a subject that is very important to me, and hopefully to you.  I pray that the Spirit might be with us so that we may both be edified by these things, and that we can apply what we learn (D&C 50:22).

The topic I’ve been given is twofold – first, the hymn “Who’s on the Lord’s Side?” and second, “following the prophet.”  While these two topics don’t seem to relate to each other on the surface, I think the point is that those who follow the teachings of the prophets are truly on the Lord’s side.

First a short story.  [Read more…]

The Christmas Story and the Temple

6 Comments

Recently I’ve been pondering the place of the temple in the Christmas story.  Last week my wife and I attended the Conference Center performance of Savior of the World which was very well done and depicted the birth and resurrection of Christ.  One of the first scenes involved the temple at Jerusalem.  As I have read through the Christmas story in the book of Luke I found that the temple holds a central theme in the account.  Here are some of my thoughts:  [Read more…]

Levi Rightmyer on “Kings and Priests of the order of Melchisedec”

5 Comments
Title Page

Title Page

I was doing some research this morning when I stumbled upon a very interesting passage from a book published in 1916 by Levi Rightmyer entitled, The Light of Truth as Revealed in the Holy Scriptures.  The entire text of the book is available for perusal on Google Books here.  The author is not LDS, although he appears to have known something of the Church (see page 482 for his reference to “Joseph Smith and the Mormons of Utah”).

What I found was a passage which discusses Christ, a priest after the order of Melchizedek, and that “all who are called to God’s kingdom and glory are called to fill the positions of Melchisedec kings and priests in the ages to come under the Lord Jesus Christ…” and if this truth is not so today it is because of apostasy:

…mankind have been deceived by false and ignorant teachers who in the early days of the church corrupted the way of the Lord as the antediluvian sons of God did before the flood, who walked after the vain imaginations of their own evil hearts even as it is now.  The world is full of religion, but nearly empty of the true knowledge of God. There are many great revivals in which are developed a high degree of religious feeling, but unfortunately they are attended with a very low degree of scriptural knowledge and true religious intelligence. (p. 740)

[Read more…]