October 2023

Church members belong to a group of people who all try to place the Savior and their covenants at the center of their lives and to live the gospel joyfully. Hence, rather than seeing each other through the distorted lens of mortality, the gospel raises our sights and allows us to see each other through the flawless unchanging lens of our sacred covenants. -- Elder Christophe G. Giraud-Carrier, Sunday afternoon

What is Priesthood Power?

I think that we all look for things that we can do to more fully act in those responsibilities to which we have been called in the church, including those that are related to our homes. President Nelson addressed what priesthood power is, and how it can help in our search by showing how that power can be accessed, and at what price. The following is the last paragraphs of the talk he gave at the April 2016 conference. (The study note superscripts are active. The link to the full text of the talk is at the bottom.)

What is the price to develop such priesthood power? The Savior’s senior Apostle, Peter—that same Peter who with James and John conferred the Melchizedek Priesthood upon Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery8—declared qualities we should seek to “be partakers of the divine nature.”9

He named faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity, and diligence.10 And don’t forget humility!11 So I ask, how would our family members, friends, and coworkers say you and I are doing in developing these and other spiritual gifts?12 The more those attributes are developed, the greater will be our priesthood power.

How else can we increase our power in the priesthood? We need to pray from our hearts. Polite recitations of past and upcoming activities, punctuated with some requests for blessings, cannot constitute the kind of communing with God that brings enduring power. Are you willing to pray to know how to pray for more power? The Lord will teach you.

Are you willing to search the scriptures and feast on the words of Christ13—to study earnestly in order to have more power? If you want to see your wife’s heart melt, let her find you on the Internet studying the doctrine of Christ14 or reading your scriptures!

Are you willing to worship in the temple regularly? The Lord loves to do His own teaching in His holy house. Imagine how pleased He would be if you asked Him to teach you about priesthood keys, authority, and power as you experience the ordinances of the Melchizedek Priesthood in the holy temple.15 Imagine the increase in priesthood power that could be yours.

Are you willing to follow President Thomas S. Monson’s example of serving others? For decades he has taken the long way home, following promptings of the Spirit to arrive on someone’s doorstep and then hear words such as, “How did you know it was the anniversary of our daughter’s death?” or “How did you know it was my birthday?” And if you truly want more priesthood power, you will cherish and care for your wife, embracing both her and her counsel.

Now, if all of this sounds excessive, please consider how different our relationships with our wife, children, and associates at work would be if we were as concerned about gaining priesthood power as we are in progressing at work or increasing the balance in our bank account. If we will humbly present ourselves before the Lord and ask Him to teach us, He will show us how to increase our access to His power.

In these latter days, we know there will be earthquakes in diverse places.16 Perhaps one of those diverse places will be in our own homes, where emotional, financial, or spiritual “earthquakes” may occur. Priesthood power can calm the seas and heal fractures in the earth. Priesthood power can also calm the minds and heal fractures in the hearts of those we love.

Are we willing to pray, fast, study, seek, worship, and serve as men of God so we can have that kind of priesthood power?

My dear brethren, we have been given a sacred trust—the authority of God to bless others. May each one of us rise up as the man God foreordained us to be—ready to bear the priesthood of God bravely, eager to pay whatever price is required to increase his power in the priesthood. With that power, we can help prepare the world for the Second Coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2016/04/the-price-of-priesthood-power?lang=eng

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The Helena Montana Temple

The Helena Montana temple was announced in 2021. It was completed in 2023!

Because of a new modular construction technique, the normal time to construct a contemporoary temple was cut in half. 

The church has provided a description of the technique and what it means to the church in the immediate future. It continues to amaze me that the church can embrace new technologies in so many aspects of its operation. Remote video is another example. We have seen the scope and quality of that technology increase so much in just the last few years. It's a testimony to me that the Lord's hand expedites this work, and that he does in fact talk to his prophets. 

This piece in the Church News has more, including anecdotes, pictures, and additional information on the Blox company which is responsible for the construction of the 25 individual modules that were stitched together to form the new temple.

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October 2023 General Conference

The wonderful talks that we heard in these conference sessions all have the temple in mind. 

President Nelson said in his first address to the members of the church as a newly the newly ordained president of the church, that we should all begin with the end in mind. His subsequent teachings on the necessity of the "covenant path" brought to the forefront what that "end" includes - the temple! He continued that theme in his address in the final session of this conference, when he enjoined us all to "think celestial." Elder Christofferson and Elder Oaks spoke specifically to this as well in their talks in the Saturday morning session. I think that the temple is an important feature in each of the talks.

The older I get, the more interested I get in conference. I think that is due, at least in part, to the possibility that I may have begun to understand the gospel in its simplicity. The doctrine of Christ in 2 Nephi 31, the relationship between authority and power expressed above and in D&C: 121, and the powerful overarching concept of divine love, that seem from a distance to be disparate parts of a confusing doctrine, are in truth, from a greater (think eternal) distance, actually threads of a beautiful divine tapestry. Nephi rejoiced in plainness. I am beginning to see why. 

Maybe it's just me, but I have noticed a change in the way doctrinal message are presented in conference. From Elder Oaks first talk in the Saturday morning session, through President Nelson's concluding talk in the Sunday afternoon session, doctrine after doctrine was presented a in plainness and clarity, that matches, I think, the clarity achieved in the lessons presented in the temple ordinances. To be sure, they represent the commandments faithfully, but there is a new emphasis on relationships. We hear about covenantal relationships important for salvation and exaltation. The commandments are mandatory, but only for the outcomes that we desire - we choose the outcome that we can "abide." The relationships that we choose come when we choose to obey the commandments upon which they are based. President Nelson enjoined us to "think celestial" and thereby act accordingly. And that, I think, simplifies things greatly, overcoming misperceptions created over the last two millenia. I think a good example of such a Misperception is the "saved by grace" doctrine embraced by many of our Christian brothers and sisters. For a further explanation of this, regarding our "Come Follow Me" lesson on Ephesians, please see the section below.

The church has made study of the conference talks very accessible. 

First, we've all seen the links to the videos listed in the Gospel Library app, along with the full text and associated annotations. 

Next, there is a page on the church website that has summaries of each talk and also notable quotes from teh talk. On President Nelson's page, for example, we have this advice: When you make choices, I invite you to take the long view — an eternal view.

Finally (at least here - you will probably find lots more interesting things), again on President Nelson's page toward the bottom of the page, there is a list of related articles and conference talks, such this one - 115 quotes from President Nelson's general conference addresses.

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Saved by Grace

This is a fine discussion of the doctrine of salvation by grace. Contrary to the Reformation doctrine known as "justification by faith alone" or "sole fide," the original doctrine of grace is more nuanced and adheres with consistency to other doctrinal points concerned with the role of grace in salvation.  The text is taken from Kent S. Brown, The Epistle to the Ephesians (Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 2023), 140–141, 148–149, 191–193. 

[Note: the footnotes are active, but not for individual references - they link to the beginning of the chapter with wich they are associated, at the archive linked below, and reference the list of endnotes which concludes the chapter]

2:1–22. Salvation is available to all. For the spiritually conscious person, the old life, lived “in times past,” was besotted “in the lusts of the flesh,” specifically in “fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind” (Ephesians 2:3). Such a person captured by spiritual depravity, Jesus said, was His to deliver and set at liberty.11 In Paul’s experience, that is exactly what was happening. Through Christ, believers had become God’s spiritual workmanship and had been spiritually “created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (Ephesians 2:10). But before those good works could visibly manifest God’s blessings, shining out from believers to others, His grace arrived, free-flowing and generously bestowed.

Though the noun “grace” (χάρις, charis) appears twelve times in Ephesians,12 the two that carry the most vital significance for us occur in the expression “by grace are ye saved” (2:5, 8). The latter passage adds the phrase “through faith” so that it reads, “By grace are ye saved through faith.” One monumentally important point follows: “Not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (2:8). Nothing can be clearer—salvation that flows from Jesus’s atoning act, accessed through faith, “is the greatest of all the gifts of God; for there is no gift greater than the gift of salvation.”13

Were strings attached? Of course, and they took the form of the good works then expected from believers, framed like the patron-client arrangements of earlier eras (Ephesians 2:10). Such an agreement consisted of a reciprocal relationship formed between God and His children that was grounded in a covenant.14 For after converts had welcomed into their hearts the ineffable gift of Christ’s Atonement, their subsequent baptisms meant that these new believers were “buried with [Christ] by baptism into death . . . so [they] should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4; also 6:11). Notably, these baptisms brought “redemption through [Christ’s] blood, [and] the forgiveness of sins” (Ephesians 1:7). But the story does not end here. Paul pled with Church members to “walk honestly, . . . not in rioting and drunkenness, . . . not in strife and envying” (Romans 13:13). More briefly, “As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him” (Colossians 2:6; see 1 Corinthians 7:17). Hence, converts were expected to make earnest, permanent adjustments in their lives.

Ephesians 2:11–22 frames the high point of the letter and, as one might expect, shines a unified focus on Christ. In addition, these verses can be separated into three long paragraphs. The first concerns the gentile believers’ former circumstance of “being aliens” and “being far off” from Christ (2:11–13). The second centers Christ’s reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles by making the two of them into “one new man” (2:14–18). Within these lines some have detected a hymn, perhaps revised, about Christ’s sweet peace which He has effected even in the face of a divisive, fracturing “middle wall” between Gentiles and Jews whose existence has led to serious enmity. The third element introduces a welcoming notice to gentile Christians that, along with fellow Jewish Christian believers, their spiritual lives rest on Christ as their foundation stone, each one enjoying a fellowship with all Saints, including the apostles and prophets (2:19–22).

In the first section (2:11–13), it appears that Paul’s words to his gentile readers derived entirely from his Jewish viewpoint. How so? Because he specifically called them “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel” before their conversion. Moreover, they had lived as “strangers from the [Old Testament] covenants of promise.” These circumstances had left them adrift in their lives. Borrowing the language of scripture, Paul continued to paint a dark picture of Gentiles’ lives before they found the gospel, writing that they had “no hope, and [were] without God in the world” (2:12). Even though they were now “in Christ Jesus,” they had been “far off” from true spiritual life which had its beginnings inside “the commonwealth of Israel” (2:12–13). What is more strikingly Jewish, probably offering readers a glimpse into how his fellow Jews and even Paul himself commonly characterized gentile neighbors, is his comment that they had been “called Uncircumcision” by the Jews, by those “called Circumcision” (2:11). It was almost as though the best way to view Gentiles was through a Jewish lens. But he pulled back, for that was only part of the story.

At the end of this first segment, Paul wrote that now the Gentiles “are made nigh by the blood of Christ,” completely repairing everything in their previous lives (2:13). At this moment, Paul plunged into his discussion of reconciliation through Christ that makes up his second part (2:14–18). Fundamentally, Jews and Gentiles stand on the same ground. For the law of commandments from Moses did the Jews no lasting service (2:15). To their aid, and to the aid of the Gentiles, came Christ, a tower of peace, who through His atoning actions “made both [peoples] one” by knocking “down the middle wall of partition between [them],” wholesomely reconciling “both [peoples] unto God” by slaying with “the cross . . . the enmity” that had divided Gentiles and Jews (Ephesians 2:14, 16; see Acts 10:36). The result? Stunningly, it is “through [Christ that] we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (2:18). Both groups needed Christ to perch them at a place where the Father is accessible.

In the third part (Ephesians 2:19–22), Paul addressed Gentiles directly. Rather than sitting “far off” (2:13), doing the bidding of “the prince of the power of the air” (2:2), they were now fellow citizens. But they were not citizens of the Jewish synagogue and certainly not under obligation to follow the Mosaic law. Instead, they were fellow members with the Saints, residing completely within “the household of God.” Their lives as “strangers and foreigners” to the gospel message lay in the past (2:19). They could rejoice that they were structural stones in “the building fitly framed together [as the] . . . habitation of God.” All this was made possible, of course, through the Spirit (2:19, 21–22). Almost beyond belief, within God’s dwelling place, they could savor fellowship with the apostles and prophets as well as Jesus Christ Himself (2:20).

Adapted from S. Kent Brown, The Epistle to the Ephesians (Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 2023), 140–141, 148–149, 191–193. 

As seen in the website https://www.archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/ephesians

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