We just started our verse-by-verse book study in Idaho Falls, Idaho on Isaiah last night. Anticipatory feelings of great things charged my heart as I taught through the opening introductions. The truth of Isaiah is grand in its portrait of God.

From within southeastern Idaho’s borders, I love seeing the rugged, majestic mountains. They are awe-inspiring, towering signs of general revelation pointing me skyward. As a little creaturely spec I am lost in the grandeur and vastness. You wouldn’t have been able to even see me when I had at one time stood on top of the Grand Teton. But who cares about staring at me when you are enveloped in such beauty?

I like mountains because they make me feel very, very, very vulnerable and small. In fact, I have been on mountain crags and sheer cliff walls, overwhelmed by the feelings of utter helplessness, totally dependent on a rope, harness, or a climbing device. That is a good position to be. But also, I can hardly describe to you the accompanying emotions of pure thrill.

Isaiah paints a picture for us, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills: and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem” (Isaiah 2:2-3).

Here, we find Beauty that towers infinitely higher than any temple or the Tetons. No wonder peoples from everywhere, who desperately need Him, the One infinitely wiser then themselves, will be steadily flowing to Mount Zion.

Thinking of heart issues . . .

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Yesterday, for the second time, I read Blake Ostler’s article “Hermeneutical Assumptions and Open Theism” and felt that I should respond back.

Many years ago, there was a poetic ditty written to disseminate the concept of eternal progression to young hearers:

“If you could hie to Kolob,

In the twinkling of an eye, (more…)

As usual at “Mormon Inquiry”, Dave highlights relevant topics for the current thinker.  The stinker.  🙂  This time he beat me to the discussion.

Today, I read “Connor’s Conundrums“; and I must say, if I see anyone making a buffoonery of Christianity by waving undergarments or bellowing Scripture-out-of-context during the dedication time of the Rexburg temple, I will not keep my mouth shut.  Maybe, I will take them behind some woodshed and paddle their butts. (more…)

Andrew Greeley and Michael Hout write in their book, The Truth About Conservative Christians (The University of Chicago Press, 2006):

To be “saved” or (to “find the Lord” or to “find Jesus” or to be “born again” is an experience essential to the Conservative Christian creed. It is also often essential in relationships between Conservative Christians and others. To ask another whether she or he has been “saved” is to establish where one is in religious geography. The ranks of the saved will be rescued early in the end times. Others are, sadly perhaps, in the ranks of those who are destined for damnation. According to some Conservative Christian views, those not saved will be vaporized on the day of the Rapture. For Catholics at any rate the question of “finding the Lord” or “being saved” is a jarring experience. The words do not fit the Catholic’s religious vocabulary. Unless one has had frequent contact with Conservative Christians it’s not quite clear what they are talking about. (p. 16).

What do you think it means to be “born again” in John 3?

I have an interesting book on history written by the historically-notable oldest, living LDS leader. The book is What of the Mormons? Including a Short History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (by the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1947).

Inside the front cover is a two-page, black and white picture of “Historic Temple Square in Salt Lake City” with this verse “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it” (Isaiah 2:2).

Just inside the back cover is a two-page black and white picture of “The Once Barren Valley of the Great Salt Lake” with this verse “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose” (Isaiah 35:1).

Sixty years, Hinckley wrote, “It [the Church of Latter-day Saints] is an interesting anomaly in Christianity. Its adherents may be classed as modern in the extent and efficiency of their organization. Yet they maintain that there has been an apostasy from the church and principles of the New Testament to which we must return. In this they are fundamentalists” (12).

In light of Hinckley’s words and disregarding today’s baggage of polygamous fundamentalists, how many of you LDS friends would be comfortable in being labeled a Christian fundamentalist? I am curious.

My wife was on cloud nine last night, the first day of 2007. Do you remember how exciting just awhile ago it was for the entire BYU alumni in the triumph over Utah? Well, as a BSU alumnus, my wife morphed into a wild, screaming bronco last night.

Who would have ever thought Boise State would beat Oklahoma, 43-42, in overtime at the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona?

Unbelievable!

Perhaps part of the success can be attributed to all those spuds; I am sure BSU QB Jared Zabransky ate plenty while growing up as the son of a potato farmer.

I don’t know who dreamed up the idea of putting a falcon on our new Idaho state quarter. They should have put the Broncos on there!

Way to go, BSU! Idaho is celebrating today.

Corrections

[But with a disclaimer by Kent in the introduction of his book, Lost Tribes & Last Days (Deseret Book, 2005):  “But these chapters are interpretations, not the real thing, and I encourage readers to seek answers not here but in the revealed sources themselves” (3).]

Modern Israel’s non-fulfillment of ancient promises

Jackson quotes Bruce R. McConkie in The Millennial Messiah: 

“As all the world knows, many Jews are now gathering to Palestine, where they have their own nation and way of worship, all without reference to a belief in Christ or an acceptance of the laws and ordinances of his everlasting gospel.  Is this the latter-day gathering of the Jews of which the scriptures speak?  No! It is not; let there be no misunderstanding in any discerning mind on this point.  This gathering of the Jew to their homeland, and their organization into a nation and a kingdom, is not the gathering promised by the prophets.  It does not fulfill the ancient promises”(56).

My personal view:  As an oddball among the huge multitudes of American evangelical dispensationalists who would take issue with McConkie’s words, I agree. (more…)

“THIS is the YEAR . . . I will fully grasp the New Testament”

That is quite a New Year’s resolution listed in the catalog.  I don’t think I can do that in a lifetime of study.

But I will try to engage with you over two Biblical books in 2007.

1. The Gospel of John
2. Isaiah (just finishing the last chapter of Ezekiel this Wednesday)

Happy New Year!

(And I did appreciate some of the humor for “Top 10 Reasons for a new set of scriptures” on page 18.  You had me laughing in my office chair on this last day of 2006.)

I am back in I.F. 

Look here, to see my family.  I am thankful for my wife’s beauty.  Without her, my kids would be hopeless . . . considering my ugly mug.