All Is Well In Zion

[The Folk Prophet]

I am not sure if this was meant as rhetorical or if you truly think that I have never read the new testament or the BOM (I have both, many times).

 

I don't know what you've read or haven't. I've never gotten through all of the O.T., for example. But the question wasn't meant to imply anything...just a way of saying -- hey, look, it's right there in what Christ said. They were not obedient.

 

None of us truly know the intentions/hearts of others, but we make judgement calls EVERY day, and we base our actions on these calls.  In my experience, in my own judgement (which I am sure is faulty plenty of times), I believe that some members of the church start to believe that "all is well in zion" because they follow the strict letter of the law.  In my own thoughts, I believe the letter of the law is important, but that we shouldn't lose sight of the spirit of the law (as you also seem to agree on).  That is all I was trying to point out, not condemning others, not sayign we should ignore the letter of the law, or anything else.

 

It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine when others compare faithful, diligent, obedient Latter-day Saints to the sinful, disobedient Pharisees. Therefore I may have read more into what you were saying than you meant.

 

As far as home teaching, I am not even sure how you made that jump.  Once again, I don't believe I have ever claimed that you shouldn't follow the letter of the law.  But let me give you an example.  Home teacher A shows up, even after a hard day at work, tries to give an uplifting message hoping that in some way it will help that family out, and then leaves.  Home Teacher B shows up, lets you know that the only reason he is there is to make sure to cross off that list that he did his home teaching, chit chats about random things for a few minutes then leaves.   According to Teacher B, they both did the letter of the law, but I would say that teacher A, in my own judgement, also followed the spirit of the law.  I have great respect for BOTH teachers, taking the time out to stop by four your families once a month is a commitment and so I don't look down upon teacher B at all.  My point is that we as members of the church need to try to be more like teacher A, less like B.

 

I find this flawed. Example B is not following the letter of the law because the letter of the law clearly teaches us that we should not home teach that way.

[The Folk Prophet]

In my experience, obeying the spirit of the law is almost always much more difficult than obeying merely the letter.

 

In my experience it is a false dichotomy. As I mentioned with the home teaching example given, I find that whenever people talk about not obeying the spirit of the law, they're really not obeying the letter of the law. The letter of the law is fairly fully inclusive of pretty much anything one might mention. Serving without loving is not obeying the letter of the law to love your neighbor. I have yet to come across a solid theory where one was literally obeying the full letter of the law and yet was somehow short of what was asked of them.