Senator

I get where you're coming from. When the description of "prophet, seer and revelator" is used, my mind is immediately drawn to Joseph Smith. For me, it actually makes answering the temple recommend question a bit less straight forward. I understand the concept, and I can certainly sustain them in the capacity to be such, and for the need of a "head" of the church, but I am uncertain as to what the nature of their divine connection is.

D&C 19 is a pesky little fissure in my belief system's foundation. And its curious that God would let us in on it. I'm letting you know the gig is up!

I had those for probably a decade after my mission. Horrifyingly depressing is the best way to describe them.

Good call. Won't miss it a bit.

Isn't that basically saying the same thing? I work obedience to prepare me to receive blessings or (I give him obedience, he gives me blessings). It's just that there is no specificity to the blessings?

I was going to say something. But now I can't. 🤐😁

Totally! Ugh, those unbelievers! They actually kind of smell too…

You keep that up you’ll have me convinced the narrative is a load of crock!😉

I’m not! And I don’t believe for one second that Christ wants me to be his slave. I understand Paul’s somewhat ironic use of the metaphor, but it is distasteful to me. I hate slavery.

Absolutely! The near entirety of your post demonstrated the error in his doctrinal interpretation. Then you took it personal.

Well, you absolutely smashed it.....until the end when you judged his discipleship. Then you failed.

"For some reason"? Is it a mystery? It's baked in to our cultural, religious vocabulary. I'm 59 yrs old. From the childhood repeated ingestion of "Follow the Prophet, Follow the Prophet, he knows the way", to the adult version of “God will never lead his prophets astray”, to, today's inferred "admittance" of past doctrinal error by way of disavowal; is it any wonder many have some form of faithful indigestion? I wouldn't say I'm upset, more amused than anything.

Why would anyone be forced to be less modest while wearing the new cut?

Yes, this all just feeds my growing cynicism towards religiosity in general and the trappings therein.

That is the revealed pattern? Color me skeptical

A thought (prediction) came to me a while back. Is the use of the vernacular "gathering Israel" going to become a liability for the success in mandate to take the gospel to "every nation, tongue and people"? Seeing that vast numbers of the worlds population is not to keen to anything relating to Israel, could we see a rebranding in the messaging from the church? Sorry, I just realized this is bit of a tangent....

Are missionaries encouraged to use “I believe “ language in their testifying?

I did. See my original post.

Actually it kind of does in my estimation

Our message is that everyone eventually must believe as we believe, if they wish to receive all that God has. “Should” is too soft

I hope they are prepared to alter their aim 180 degrees from where they are currently pointing

I would be interested in hearing you elaborate on this notion. But perhaps not fit for this thread

There you go. Obviously you have been paying more attention than I!!

I question the bolded above. Off my recollection I don't find leaders and lessons pointing out the imperfections of the men (prophets), their family disfunctions, mistake and pride. Repentance? Yes. But I could be totally mistaken. I think this hesitance is partially due, because doing so would grant permission for such critique on our contemporary leaders, which we have been counseled not to do.

If such a SS class were to ever exist, and you were to give these exact comments, I would book a flight just to sit in the corner to listen and observe.