The Joseph Smith manual had one of my favorite quotes in it this week:
“I say to all those who are disposed to set up stakes [limits] for the Almighty, You will come short of the glory of God. To become a joint heir of the heirship of the Son, one must put away all his false traditions.â€
This is from a talk given in August of 1843 and it’s easy to see how Joseph, especially at that point in his life, might be inclined to remind people that God’s ways are not man’s ways.
Feel free to note your favorite parts of the lesson.
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Technically, this is Priesthood/RS Redux, but you get the idea.
We had an instructor who got of onto a tangent about perfection. His point was that we could be perfect for one day. I strongly disagreed.
Maybe we can avoid doing anything stupid for one day (I’d have to probably stay in bed all day in a comatose state), but my idea of perfection involves more, it includes action. I gave as an example telling stories to teach moral principles as one form of action. The timelss parables of Jesus are one example. Shakespeare was a genius at telling stories, although the lessons are at times dubious. I can not tell stories as well as the parables or as Shakespeare even for one hour. Maybe close at my very best for one minute around a campfire, with my best bear stories. But even then the lesson is what? To be afraid and do what I tell you or bad things will get you; or maybe to not leave a lot of liter around the camp that attracts bears?
At another level doesn’t any orthodoxy do just that, set up stakes for the Almighty? Yet the alternative is the slippery slope of chaos. I have always wondered how Joseph Smith would view the church today in light of comments like this.
I think sometimes the idea of “false traditions” is pretty nebulous. Kind of like “the unwritten order of things.” We throw stuff we like on the latter pile and things we don’t like on the former.