Just_A_Guy

Two issues pointed out in the footnotes to this chapter in the NET Bible: 1). Middle eastern culture at the time had a strong element of reciprocity, and it was theoretically possible to sue a wedding guest who offered an unsuitable gift or a host who did not properly look after his guests. Thus, Jesus acts as a literal savior to those responsible for putting on the wedding. 2). The wine is created in stone water vessels used for Jewish purification rites. This is an omen that religious mores are about to be deeply shaken—as significant to people of Jesus’s day as if a temple president went into the temple one morning to find that the water in the baptismal font had turned into milk. We don’t know what’s coming, but we know something big is about to happen. Another thought: This sets the stage for Jesus’s encounter with the temple authorities when they ask him for a sign—we know Jesus could give them a sign, if He wants to; but He chooses not to and instead answers them in riddles. Another: the change from water to wine foreshadows the change Jesus is about to tell Nicodemus all humans must go through: spiritual rebirth. Another: water can symbolize life, and wine can symbolize abundance; prefiguring John 10:10.

So, I have a co-worker who worked at the Pentagon (technically Army Reserve, but did some Space Forcey stuff) on his last deployment. We chatted about this today (to the extent that he’s allowed to talk about what he did at all), and my basic takeaways from the conversation were: 1). This happens relatively frequency; there’s probably a political reason that this incident leaked now. 2). We do have the ability to do electronic jamming, spoofing, and take other measures against this kind of thing. 3). Contra other pieces I have read online, it apparently is technologically possible to somehow shoot down balloons even at very high altitudes above the theoretical operational ceiling of our fighter aircraft. 4). There’s a good chance we left the thing alone because we wanted the Chinese to think they were getting useful data.

I wonder, tactically, what a balloon in the stratosphere could do that a satellite in low-earth orbit couldn’t do.

I’m not trying to be a snot, and I’m sorry if that’s how I came across. FWIW I was responding to @LDSGator, not you. 🙂

I suspect older generations feared therapy for much the same reason newer generations look askance at clerical counseling: You’re giving a third party tremendously intimate access to a very personal and vulnerable part of you; and it’s not altogether certain whether the person so privileged is really deserving of the sort of trust they are being given.

I largely agree with NT, but I would point out that mechanically we know far more about how blood pressure medication works (and how it interacts with the broader cardiovascular system), than about how antidepressants (or any other medication used to address behavioral/psychological issues) work and how they interact with a particular person’s overall neurophysiology and psychology. Meds are a great tool, but they are not a cure-all and over reliance on them can sometimes backfire in catastrophic fashion. Careful mental health professionals and others in counseling roles (including religious leaders) will want to be careful to keep a nuanced approach.

Well, and the Skousen paradigm to which I’m responding to suggests that on an atomic (subatomic?) level, the elements themselves have a limited form of intelligence and agency; and that God’s power over the elements stems from the elements honoring God and choosing to obey His commands because of His willingness to perfectly balance the eternal principles of justice and mercy.

He ceases to be sovereign, to be sure. But there was something about the legalism and (for lack of a better word) communitarianism involved, that I found appealing.

I don’t doubt it. I see a lot of kvetching about it in uber-conservative venues. It ain’t just political progressives whose church membership sometimes puts them in uncomfortable situations . . .

That’s Cleon Skousen’s view, IIRC. I came across of a speech of his (translated into Portuguese) on my mission, where he lays it all out. I find it very attractive in a lot of ways; but one question it begs is: If God governs only by the consent of the governed, then by what power did He cast out out Satan and by what power does He hold Satan (and everything else) in subjection, and by what power does He reveal Himself to the eternally faithless/rebellious at the last day to sit in judgment of them? I’m inclined to think God and Christ are governed more by the eternal good and wise attributes of their own characters, than by some sort of social contract betwixt Them and the rest of creation.

Cost them the primary?

As much as I have been benefited from following Elder Bednar’s counsel and revere him as an apostle, I respectfully (and usually, quietly) disagree with his exegesis on this particular issue.

From what I gather, the stake president *did* tell him he had to confess to law enforcement; which he did. But then the kid’s parents, on the advice of a friend who happened to be a bishop (but not THEIR bishop) declined to press charges. But the story is still bizarre to me, because if you have the perp’s confession to police that should be *more* than enough for a conviction even if the victim doesn’t want to testify.

I don’t know how I missed this; but apparently the three 2013-ish temple films were all directed by the same guy; and he was later convicted for doing bad things to kids. The Church pulled the films about a month before the story went public.

Agreed. Eve didn’t know what she was doing. She was “beguiled”. She admitted as much, and Paul affirms it. I recognize that a lot of terrible things have been done to women because of suppositions about “Eve’s weakness”, but the solution is not to turn the event into something that, scripturally, it clearly wasn’t. And for what it’s worth, I loved all three of the new temple films. Even the one with the stoner Satan who used zero inflection in his voice.

Given that three live-action films were produced in a 2-3 year period and that *all* of them were discontinued in favor of a slide show, I suspect that the cause wasn’t so much acting technique/production values as that the slide-show presentation makes it possible to do further changes in the future by simply re-dubbing the audio without having to do a whole new visual production.

I dunno. The slide-show-style presentations evoke those old film strips with audio tracks played via a separate cassette player that Primary teachers were still using well into the 1980s, and I half expect to hear a soft “beep” every time the scene changes.

I don’t understand. Where are the options for “your holiness/his holiness/his holiness’s”? As a self-proclaimed latter-day Saint, I demand inclusiveness; and I demand it now.

Back to the topic, I thought night’s episode really put an interesting (possible) perspective on Peter’s walking on water to Christ.

I (not necessarily the LDS Church, but *I*) think that Paul is riffing off of various phrases from Hebrew scripture, including Exodus 19:6. I doubt that he means “priesthood” in the sense of having been ordained to a formal order of God’s priesthood (ie Aaronic or Melchizedek); but rather primarily as a literary metaphor for a group of people who are called out for a sacred purpose from among a broader, “profane” population. In that sense I think he means the entire church, male and female.

1. Did He chemically alter the properties of the mud He made with His spittle and used to heal a blind man? I don’t now that it’s right to say that there was an element of theater in many of Jesus’s healings (or other actions); but . . . there were certainly elements whose value lay in their symbolism or ritual meaning rather than their mechanical effectiveness. And He meets people at their own level. What would the effect have been if He had said “young man, I hereby diagnose you with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder with dissociative symptoms, and accordingly change your brain structure and neurochemical levels to mirror what they would look like as though you had undergone a twelve-month course of EMDR therapy”? 2. Completely agree!

One thing perhaps worth bearing in mind is that at that point in time and in that particular culture, pretty much *any* unexplained illness might be colloquially explained as originating with some form of “demonic possession”. Actual demonic possession is certainly a thing—we have documented experiences with it in this dispensation (more on that below). But I don’t know that it’s fair of me to expect John Mark (or Peter, who was apparently his source) to know the etiological difference between demonic possession and an epileptic seizure. Yeah, Joseph still had “free will” during this encounter with Satan; whereas (for example) the Saints present during the 1831 prayer meeting at Father Morley’s home (recounted separately by Zebedee Coltrin and Levi Hancock) seem to have had their very agency swallowed up by whatever was possessing them.

I agree with @NeuroTypical, but would also invite you to consider: what do you believe you, as a woman, ought to expect of a husband who holds the Melchizedek Priesthood? Does it make a difference to you whether your children’s father holds the Melchizedek Priesthood? Or, if he does hold it, whether he honors it and fulfills the obligations inherent to that priesthood?

3 Nephi 22 is quoting Isaiah 54, and in the BoM the translator has made a decision to reflect the KJV. In other translations of Isaiah 54:12, the words the KJV renders as “windows”, “agates”, and “carbuncles” are commonly rendered “battlements” or “fortifications”, “rubies” or “gemstones”, and “jewels” or “shining gems” or “beryl” or “crystal”. Basically, Isaiah is poetically saying that it’s gonna be beautiful. By the way - there is precedent for the Book of Mormon’s translator relying on the KJV even though a more accurate English rendering could have been rendered. Compare Malachi 3-4, 3 Nephi 24-25, and Joseph Smith-History 1:36-39.

James and John’s father, at least, was wealthy enough to have multiple fishing boats and hired servants. And I remember a BYU prof of mine saying that Galilean fish were sold as far away as Rome itself. So yeah; the four fishermen apostles were probably about as solidly “middle class” as one could be in first-century Judea.