LDS lessons

Where the Lord Annihilates all the Gays

February 17, 2010
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Where the Lord Annihilates all the Gays

OT SS Lesson #8 “The Genesis passage is very clear, that the sin of Sodom that brought on the destruction of the city was indeed linked to homosexuality.” (R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Seminary) “Saying that the last recorded acts of the Sodomites — the demands for same-gender sex — are proof that they were destroyed for homosexuality is like saying that a condemned man cursing his guards on the way to his execution is being executed for cursing the guards. Sodom was judged worthy of destruction before the incident with Lot and the angels.”...

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Sod, Seed, Salvation: Abrahamic Covenant and the Claim to Palestine

February 10, 2010
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Sod, Seed, Salvation: Abrahamic Covenant and the Claim to Palestine

OT SS Lesson #7 Sod, seed, and salvation — it’s how I like to describe the Abrahamic Covenant. There were three promises in the covenant. The first was a land promise, where the Lord gave Abraham and his descendants the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession. The second was the promise of a great and numerous posterity. And the third was the blessing of the everlasting Gospel: the priesthood and the promise of exaltation, to come to the world through Abraham’s lineage. (see Genesis 17)  But just look at how often the covenant was renewed!

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Joseph Smith Didn’t Believe in Watchers

February 6, 2010
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Joseph Smith Didn’t Believe in Watchers

OT SS Lesson #6 Hidden in our scripture reading for this week is a strange little passage which many modern Biblical scholars say was originally intended to explain the rise of the giant race of antiquity by the union of angelic beings with human wives.  These verses in Genesis stirred a lively debate among early Christian theologians as they struggled to explain why God felt it necessary to cleanse the Earth with a worldwide Flood.  It all starts with this odd passage inserted in the account before Noah built his vessel, the great ark.

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Why I want to Live the United Order

January 27, 2010
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Why I want to Live the United Order

OT SS Lesson #5 I have often thought that had I not joined the Church at age 19 I would have liked to have joined a kibbutz in Israel, or to have lived on “the Farm” in Tennessee (back when it was more hippie-like), or at least to have been a part of an intentional community. As I began investigating the LDS Church, and in particular reading the passages in Moses under consideration in our Sunday School Lesson #5, I was drawn to the strong emphasis on cooperative community which began under the direction of Joseph Smith and continued...

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Adam & Eve as UFOs (Unidentified Figurative Objects)

January 20, 2010
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Adam & Eve as UFOs (Unidentified Figurative Objects)

OT SS Lesson #4 Although our SS lesson for this week presents Adam and Eve as two literal, physical characters, the temple ceremony hints that we can benefit by viewing their story as figurative. I am often dismayed that symbolism, while given lip service, is so little understood in LDS circles. Since the majority of Mormons believe in a literal Adam who will return to the earth in his physical resurrected body and fulfill a major role at Adam-ondi-ahman, there is little reason to investigate the allegorical aspects of the Adam and Eve story. Thus, they have become “unidentified...

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Mormon Innovations: the Pre-Mortal Life

January 16, 2010
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I’m teaching the Gospel Principles lesson #2 tomorrow.  I’m going to attempt to utilize proper sources, only utilizing personal experiences and church magazines.  We’ll see if I bore everyone to tears or if we can have an enlightening conversation. The title of Lesson #2 is “Our Heavenly Family”, but I think it is mis-named.  Most of the lesson deals with the pre-Mortal life.  As I thought about this, I think this is one of the biggest theological innovations in Mormon theology.  I can remember teaching about the pre-mortal life as part of the plan of Salvation.  I also remember...

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This is my Work and my Game Plan

January 1, 2010
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This is my Work and my Game Plan

OT SS Lesson #1 With Jeff’s interesting introduction to the OT course of study, I’m sure many of you have peeked at the first OT lesson for the new year. Correlation really likes to start the year off with the Plan of Salvation, and OT year really lends itself to this if you start with the book of Moses. I hardly ever use the LAME attention-grabber suggestions in the manual, and the Plan of Salvation rather bores me after so many times through. But I was actually intrigued by the suggestion in this lesson: Select two class members and...

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