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Unlocking the Treasury of Heaven

June 20, 2010 in Priesthood by Greg | 1 comment

Recently, Boyd K. Packer spoke about the keys and power associated with the priesthood.1 Denver Snuffer also wrote an important post about the Keys and Assignments associated with the priesthood.

Mormon Priesthood Although much has been said and written about this important subject, in 1856 Brigham Young seemed to capture the purpose of the priesthood among the Latter-day Saints. In particular, he pointed out that the priesthood was given as a “means for trial” and suggested that if the people could understand the nature of the priesthood they could unlock the treasury of heaven:

If we could understand the nature of the Priesthood—could comprehend it fully, this people, as a community, the Elders, as Elders of Israel, quorums, as quorums, when they present themselves before the Lord, would possess keys to unlock the treasury of heaven, and we could receive as one person receives from another. To us, as a people, the keys of the rich storehouse of the Lord are committed, yet we do not fully know how to unlock and receive. We receive a little here and there, and the hearts of the people are comforted by the very Priesthood we are in possession of, which has been given to this people for the express purpose of their receiving that which God has given them, though not yet to possess it independently, but as means for trial.

This Priesthood is given to the people, and the keys thereof, and, when properly understood, they may actually unlock the treasury of the Lord, and receive to their fullest satisfaction. But through our own weaknesses, through the frailty of human nature, we are not yet capable of doing so.

We have to humble ourselves and become like little children in our feelings—to become humble and childlike in spirit, in order to receive the first illuminations of the spirit of the Gospel, then we have the privilege of growing, of increasing in knowledge, in wisdom, and in understanding. This is a great privilege, while the world, excepting this people who inhabit these valleys, and those that are associated with us in different parts of the earth, are destitute of this principle and privilege. Still, many of us, and I may say comparatively all of us, are upon the same ground, situated precisely like other professors of religion, in order that we may struggle, wrestle, and strive, until the Lord bursts the veil and suffers us to behold His glory, or a portion of it.

If we did fully understand the principles of the Gospel—the keys of the Priesthood, it would be familiar with us, and be easy to be understood and to act upon and perform, and be no more of a miracle to know how to receive the things of God by revelation, than it is now a miracle to cast seed into the ground, after it is prepared, and reap our crops.

Unlocking the Treasury of Heaven »»

  1. “The Power of the Priesthood”. April 2010. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.↩

What Jesus Taught About Leadership

May 6, 2010 in Jesus Christ by Greg | 2 comments

In answer to the question, what did Jesus teach about leadership, of course, the answer is a lot! Last year, Jimmy Smith at Mormon Mission Prep created a new blog “geared toward future missionaries and is designed to help them prepare physically and spiritually.” Recently, he started a series of posts on leadership starting with a post on Leadership: Jesus as the Perfect Leader.

In the article, he quoted Spencer W. Kimball who discussed seven skills and qualities for effective leadership as exemplified by the Savior during his mortal ministry. These include:

  1. Fixed Principles – He operated from a base of fixed principles.
  2. Understanding Others – He was a listening leader and loved others without being condescending.
  3. Selflessness – He made his own needs secondary to the needs of others.
  4. Shared Responsibility – He was not afraid to make demands of those He led.
  5. Eternal Potential – He believed in His followers and what they could become.
  6. Accountability – He was accountable to the Father and those who He leads.
  7. Wise Use of Time – He taught us how to make effective use of our time.

While there are many books on leadership available, there are perhaps no better patterns to follow than those contained in the scriptures. In fact, a number of years ago Hugh W. Nibley pointed out the growing rise of management at the expense of leadership in his now classic article on the state of leadership in Leaders to Managers: The Fatal Shift:

Leadership Challenge Leaders are movers and shakers, original, inventive, unpredictable, imaginative, full of surprises that discomfit the enemy in war and the main office in peace. For the managers are safe, conservative, predictable, conforming organization men and team players, dedicated to the establishment.

The leader, for example, has a passion for equality. We think of great generals from David and Alexander on down, sharing their beans or maza with their men, calling them by their first names, marching along with them in the heat, sleeping on the ground, and being first over the wall. A famous ode by a long-suffering Greek soldier, Archilochus, reminds us that the men in the ranks are not fooled for an instant by the executive type who thinks he is a leader.1

For the manager, on the other hand, the idea of equality is repugnant and even counterproductive. Where promotion, perks, privilege, and power are the name of the game, awe and reverence for rank is everything, the inspiration and motivation of all good men. Where would management be without the inflexible paper processing, dress standards, attention to proper social, political, and religious affiliation, vigilant watch over habits and attitudes, that gratify the stockholders and satisfy security?

“If you love me,” said the greatest of all leaders, “you will keep my commandments. “If you know what is good for you,” says the manager, “you will keep my commandments and not make waves.” That is why the rise of management always marks the decline, alas, of culture. If the management does not go for Bach, very well, there will be no Bach in the meeting. If the management favors vile sentimental doggerel verse extolling the qualities that make for success, young people everywhere will be spouting long trade-journal jingles from the stand. If the management’s taste in art is what will sell—trite, insipid, folksy kitsch—that is what we will get. If management finds maudlin, saccharine commercials appealing, that is what the public will get. If management must reflect the corporate image in tasteless, trendy new buildings, down come the fine old pioneer monuments.

While there should be some “manager in every leader . . . and some of the leader in every manager”,

The Lord insisted that both states of mind are necessary, and that is important: “These ought ye to have done [speaking of the bookkeeping], and not to leave the other undone.” But it is the blind leading the blind, he continues, who reverse priorities, who “strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel” (Matthew 23:23—24). So vast is the discrepancy between management and leadership that only a blind man would get them backwards. Yet that is what we do. In that same chapter of Matthew, the Lord tells the same men that they do not really take the temple seriously, while the business contracts registered in the temple they do take very seriously indeed (Matthew 23:16—18). I am told of a meeting of very big businessmen in a distant place, who happened also to be the heads of stakes, where they addressed the problem of “How to stay awake in the temple.” For them what is done in the house of the Lord is a mere quota-filling until they can get back to the real work of the world.

As evidence of the point that leadership is definitely not management, after describing the supreme “managerial skill” of Amalickiah he said,

Jesus and Leadership »»

  1. Archilocus, frag. 58.↩

Sacred Space

May 2, 2010 by Greg | 1 comment

In a recent video, David Larsen of Heavenly Ascents and David Tayman from Visions of the Kingdom, present a view of sacred space that was common among ancient temples. This is the first in a series of videos that seek to explore the nature, function, doctrine and ritual within these temples.

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Donald W. Parry discussed the difference between sacred and profane space. Sacred space is intimately connected with temple space, while profane space is chaos and means space that is outside the sanctuary or common. In “Demarcation between Sacred Space and Profane Space: The Temple of Herod Model” he wrote the following:

Sacred space is intimately connected with temple space—they are often one and the same. The very meaning of the term temple in the Hebrew language demonstrates this idea. In the Hebrew Bible1 one of the principal roots from which the English words sanctuary and temple originate is *QDS, which has the basic meaning of “separation” or “withdrawal” of sacred entities from profane things.2 Specifically, the Qal verbal form of *QDS denotes something that is “holy” or “withheld from profane use.” The Niphal form of the same root refers to showing or proving “oneself holy.” The Piel verbal form speaks of placing a thing or person “into the state of holiness” or declaring something holy. In the Hiphil verbal form, the root letters *QDS have reference to the dedication or sanctification of a person or thing to sacredness.3 In all instances, the meaning of the Hebrew root *QDS pertains to separation from the profane.

Definition of Profane Space: Sacred and profane are not conterminous but represent “two antithetical entities.”4 Sacred space is temple space, and profane space is chaos. However, as mentioned above, we can appreciate sacred space fully only when we understand its relationship to the profane. The Latin word profanum (English “profane”) literally means “before” or “outside” the temple, formed from pro (meaning “outside”) and fanum (meaning “temple”).5 The equivalent Hebrew word is hôl, which, according to Marcus Jastrow, has the meaning of “outside of the sanctuary, foreign, profane, common.”6 If the temple is the consecrated place created “by marking it out, by cutting it off from the profane space around it,”7 then the profane space represents unconsecrated space, the peripheral area that remains after the sacred has been removed… The Jews that belonged to the Second Temple period were well aware that sacred space was set amidst profane space.8

Sacred space is demarcated in a variety of ways. For example,

The enclosure, wall, or circle of stones surrounding a sacred place – these are among the most ancient of known forms of man-made sanctuary. They existed as early as the early Indus civilization (at Mohenjo-Daro, for instance, cf. § 97) and the Ægean civilization. The enclosure does not only imply and indeed signify the continued presence of a kratophany or hierophany within its bounds; it also serves the purpose of preserving profane man from the danger to which he would expose himself by entering it without due care. The sacred is always dangerous to anyone who comes into contact with it unprepared, without having gone through the “gestures of approach” that every religious act demands. “Come not nigh higher,” said the Lord to Moses, “put off the shoes from thy feet: for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.”9 Hence the innumerable rites and prescriptions (bare feet, and so on) relative to entering the temple, of which we have plentiful evidence among the Semites and other Mediterranean peoples. The ritual importance of the thresholds of temple and house is also due to this same separating function of limits, though it may have taken on varying interpretations and values over the course of time.

The same is the case with city walls: long before they were military erections, they were a magic defence, for they marked out from the midst of  a “chaotic” space, peopled with demons and phantoms (see further on), an enclosure, a place that was organized, made cosmic, in other words, provided with a “centre”.10

Carrying on the temple motif, Margaret Barker began her seminal paper “Fragrance in the Making of Sacred Space – Jewish Temple Paradigms of Christian Worship” by stating:

Sacred Space Gold, frankincense and myrrh were the gifts brought to Jesus by the wise men. They were also the three symbols of worship in the original temple. The vessels and furnishings of the temple were made of gold; frankincense and myrrh were the main ingredients of the two perfumes used in the holy of holies. The specially blended incense – known as the incense of spices [qtrt smym]- was  based on frankincense, and the specially blended anointing oil [smn msht qds] was perfumed mainly with myrrh. . . .

A simple incense of pure frankincense was used in the outer part of the temple, set with the shewbread (Leviticus 24.7). The blended incense, however, was only used in the holy of holies (Exodus 31.11). Since the holy of holies was the place of the presence of God, the blended incense must have been associated with the presence of God. In fact, both the perfumed oil and the incense were entrusted only to the high priests (Numbers 4.16). The blended incense was ‘most holy’ (Exodus 30.36), which means that it imparted holiness. Anything touched by the incense became holy, consecrated.

The high priest took the blended incense into the holy of holies on the Day of Atonement, and the smoke from the incense covered the mercy seat above the ark. It was there, in the cloud of incense, that the Lord appeared to the high priest. The perfume of the incense summoned the presence of the Lord, and presumably that is why it was not to be used for other purposes.11

Sacred places are often characterized by sacrifice. In fact, the word sacrifice means literally “to make sacred” or “to render sacred.” Dennis B. Neuenschwander taught:

The words sacred and sacrifice come from the same root. One may not have the sacred without first sacrificing something for it. There can be no sacredness without personal sacrifice. Sacrifice sanctifies the sacred.12

Under this expanded definition, whole nations, cities, temples, sanctuaries, churches and even homes can become sacred space. Perhaps that is what Zechariah had in mind when he wrote:

In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD; and the pots in the Lord’s house shall be like the bowls before the altar. Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the Lord of hosts: and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and seethe therein: and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts. (Zechariah 14:20-21.)

Please leave your comments at New Article on Sacred and Profane Space.

Sources:

  1. See Yehoshua M. Grintz, “Bet ha-Miqdas” (in Hebrew), Encyclopedia Hebraica, ed. B. Natanyahu, 20 vols. (Jerusalem: Encyclopaedia Printing, 1957), 8:555, where the different names of the temple as they appear in the Hebrew Bible are listed: bet Yhwh, bet E’lôhîm, hekal qôdes (Jonah 2:5[4]); hekal Yhwh (2 Kings 24:13); and miqdas. The usual name in the Mishnah and related literature, i.e., the Tosephta, is Bet ha-Miqdas. Of this name the encyclopedia states, “this name is found only one time in the Bible” (555). The Targum of Jeremiah calls the temple the “house of the Shekinah” (2:7; 3:17; 7:15; 14:10; 15:1).↩
  2. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977), 871.↩
  3. See Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, eds., Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros (Leiden: Brill, 1953), 825-26.↩
  4. Davies, “Architecture,” 1:384.↩
  5. Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, 372.↩
  6. Marcus Jastrow, Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature (New York: Judaica, 1975), 433.↩
  7. Mircea Eliade, Patterns of Comparative Religion (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1958), 368; hereafter Patterns.↩
  8. Temples of the Ancient World: Ritual and Symbolism. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1994. 416-417.↩
  9. Exodus 3:5.↩
  10. Patterns. 370-371.↩
  11. This paper was read at the conference on Sacred Spaces convened by the Research Centre for Eastern Christian Culture, Moscow, 2004.↩
  12. “Holy Place, Sacred Space”. May 2003. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 2 May 2010.↩

Southeast Cornerstone and the Apostleship

April 26, 2010 in Cosmology by Greg | No comments

The following quote about the southeast cornerstone and the apostleship comes from Brigham Young at the groundbreaking ceremony of the Salt Lake Temple on April 6, 1853. The temple site had been dedicated in February earlier in the year.

Salt Lake Temple foundation stone contents The First Presidency proceeded to the south-east corner, to lay the first stone, though it is customary to commence at the north-east corner–that is the beginning point most generally, I believe, in the world. At this side of the equator we commence at the south-east corner. We sometimes look for light, you know, brethren. You old men that have been through the mill pretty well, have been inquiring after light–which way do you go? You will tell me you go to the east for light? So we commence by laying the stone on the south-east corner, because there is the most light…

We will now commence with the Apostleship, where Joseph commenced. Joseph was ordained an Apostle–that you can read and understand. After he was ordained to this office, then he had the right to organize and build up the kingdom of God, for he had committed unto him the keys of the Priesthood, which is after the order of Melchizedek–the High Priesthood, which is after the order of the Son of God. And this, remember, by being ordained an Apostle.

Could he have built up the Kingdom of God, without first being an Apostle? No, he never could. The keys of the eternal Priesthood, which is after the order of the Son of God, are comprehended by being an Apostle. All the Priesthood, all the keys, all the gifts, all the endowments, and everything preparatory to entering into the presence of the Father and of the Son, are in, composed of, circumscribed by, or I might say incorporated within the circumference of, the Apostleship.

Now who do we set, in the first place, to lay the Chief, the South East, Corner Stone–the corner from whence light emanates to illuminate the whole fabric that is to be lighted? We begin with the First Presidency, with the Apostleship, for Joseph commenced, always, with the keys of the Apostleship, and he, by the voice of the people, presiding over the whole community of Latter-day Saints, officiated in the Apostleship, as the first president.1

President Young’s comments concerning the southeast cornerstone also fit nicely within the framework of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians in which he wrote:

Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22.)

Anciently, the four corners of the altar represented the four corners of the Earth while the southeast cornerstones of modern LDS temples represent the Apostleship, “because there is the most light.”

Sources:

  1. Journal of Discourses, 1:133-135.↩

Article on Solemn Proclamation

April 9, 2010 in Second Coming by Greg | No comments

Last night an article containing the Solemn Proclamation to All Nations was posted. This proclamation was written in 1845 by the Quorum of Twelve Apostles to the kings of the world, the president-elect, governors of the land, and all nations of the earth in fulfillment of D&C 124:1-11.

It was first printed in a sixteen-page pamphlet in New York City on April 6, 1845, and again in Liverpool, England, October 22, 1845. It was addressed to the rulers and people of all nations. This document was an announcement that God had spoken from the heavens and had restored the gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth. It spoke of blessings and of punishments to come, issued a warning voice, and invited all who were interested to assist in the building of the kingdom of God on the earth in preparation for the Savior’s second coming.1

The proclamation stands as a bold testimony and witness of the restoration of the gospel. Please leave your comments to this article below.

  1. Matthews, Robert J. “Proclamations of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.” 1992. Encyclopedia of Mormonism. 10 Apr 2010.↩

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