Data and Church Retention

[Navidad]

I am uncertain what is meant by a spiritual witness, truth, or truthfulness in this regard. Certainly the Book of Mormon contains truth, but truth is not a possession it exclusively owns. A. W. Tozer's powerful book, "The Pursuit of God" contains powerful spiritual truth as well. Ditto for a hundred other books I could name. Tozer was an important early leader in the Christian and Missionary Alliance. My uncle was president of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. However, I never had a desire to join that church. I love the works of St. John of the Cross. Wonderful truths therein, but I have never desired to become Catholic. I think a witness of the truth is not the same as a desire to join. 

[The Nehor]

On 5/24/2026 at 7:58 PM, longview said:

The Lord is sifting the wheat and Lucifer is sifting the tares.

What? So Lucifer is finding usable wheat/foodstuff in the tares? I mean……what?

[longview]

14 hours ago, The Nehor said:

What? So Lucifer is finding usable wheat/foodstuff in the tares? I mean……what?

Wheat are seed bearing. Tares are seed bearing. Seeds of any kind can be sifted. Whuh? 😧

[Calm]

45 minutes ago, longview said:

Wheat are seed bearing. Tares are seed bearing. Seeds of any kind can be sifted. Whuh? 😧

Why would he need or want to?  Why not just use them all?  Seems like the more tares out there, the better it is for him.

Edited Thursday at 12:30 AM by Calm

[The Nehor]

6 hours ago, longview said:

Wheat are seed bearing. Tares are seed bearing. Seeds of any kind can be sifted. Whuh? 😧

The tares are supposed to be bound in bundles and burned. Why would you sift it? The metaphor is getting very mixed here.

[longview]

16 hours ago, Calm said:

Why would he need or want to?  Why not just use them all?  Seems like the more tares out there, the better it is for him.

The Wheats are willing to be "yoked" with Christ and accept transformations ever upward. The Tares are NOT willing but will fall into Satan's hellish grasp till eventually being horribly BOUND to vices, addictions, agonies (either in mortality or the "place of torment" in the spirit world).

10 hours ago, The Nehor said:

The tares are supposed to be bound in bundles and burned. Why would you sift it? The metaphor is getting very mixed here.

The evil sifting process involves the use of flaxen cords which are few in the beginning and easily broken. But over time sins accumulate and become powerfully burdensome to the point of being unbreakably strong. 2 Nephi 26:22.And there are also secret combinations, even as in times of old, according to the combinations of the devil, for he is the founder of all these things; yea, the founder of murder, and works of darkness; yea, and he leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever.

[Calm]

5 hours ago, longview said:

The Wheats are willing to be "yoked" with Christ and accept transformations ever upward. The Tares are NOT willing but will fall into Satan's hellish grasp till eventually being horribly BOUND to vices, addictions, agonies (either in mortality or the "place of torment" in the spirit world).

The evil sifting process involves the use of flaxen cords which are few in the beginning and easily broken. But over time sins accumulate and become powerfully burdensome to the point of being unbreakably strong. 2 Nephi 26:22.And there are also secret combinations, even as in times of old, according to the combinations of the devil, for he is the founder of all these things; yea, the founder of murder, and works of darkness; yea, and he leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever.

There are two descriptions of sifting.  The usual biblical interpretation in my experience is the first step of threshing the wheat to remove the chaff and then sifting to remove debris.  

The technical description has sifting occurs after it’s milled, so I am wondering if the usual biblical interpretation is wrong or the meaning of sifting has changed over the years. (Checked with Chat, it says the modern version is due to change, sifting in the biblical sense is to remove impurities, which makes the idea of Satan sifting rather odd as even if somehow the good wheat got mixed n with chaff and dirt, why wouldn’t he try to corrupt that as well?)

The sifting of wheat divides the various parts of the milled wheat into bran, germ, and flour (larger particles get milled again until the right size).  
 

Either description refers to sorting….What that has to do with flaxen cords and binding…you have lost me.  Satan is binding everyone he can get, not sifting it seems to me in the scripture, even if he starts out gently and gradually ramps up his control.  Mixed metaphors are confusing.

Edited Thursday at 10:28 PM by Calm

[MrShorty]

8 hours ago, longview said:

The Wheats are willing to be "yoked" with Christ and accept transformations ever upward. The Tares are NOT willing but will fall into Satan's hellish grasp till eventually being horribly BOUND to vices, addictions, agonies (either in mortality or the "place of torment" in the spirit world).

In a thread that started on the topic of LDS specific disaffiliation, I want to make one observation. Not everyone who disaffiliates from the church is unwilling to be yoked to Christ. Not everyone who remains active in the church is avoiding Satan's hellish grasp. Perhaps it is just an axe I grind, but all too often we in the church conflate church and Christ as if to leave one is to leave the other. I recognize that, statistically, a majority of those who disaffiliate from the LDS church lose belief in God and Christ, but a minority continue to believe in God and Christ and some other variation on Christianity. And many who never join the LDS church (like @Navidad) are strongly yoked to Christ even if they actively choose to stay officially unaffiliated with the church.

I fear that all too often we invoke the separating of the wheat and tares as if that is clearly what is happening when we talk about affiliation/disaffiliation. I'm not convinced that people who disaffiliate or never affiliate with the LDS church are officially tares/weeds.

[longview]

4 hours ago, Calm said:

Either description refers to sorting….What that has to do with flaxen cords and binding…you have lost me.  Satan is binding everyone he can get, not sifting it seems to me in the scripture, even if he starts out gently and gradually ramps up his control.  Mixed metaphors are confusing.

Sifting can also reference the process of separation. The wheats and the tares are mingled together. Not only are God and Satan testing and trying all of us but we are exerting our influences on each other.

The sifting process among the "dim bulbs" is a progression of increasing depravity for some and for others a sudden or growing realization of agony of sin(s) with consequent attempts at repentance (spiritual warfare).

JST / Matt 3:39 And it is he of whom I shall bear record, whose fan shall be in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but in the fullness of his own time will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

From Elder Talmage's Jesus the Christ Ch. 21: "41.Many deserted Him, and from that time sought Him no more. The occasion was crucial; the effect was that of sifting and separation. The portentous prediction of the Baptist-prophet had entered upon the stage of fulfilment: "One mightier than I cometh ... Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." [734] The fan was in operation, and much chaff was blown aside."

1 hour ago, MrShorty said:

I fear that all too often we invoke the separating of the wheat and tares as if that is clearly what is happening when we talk about affiliation/disaffiliation. I'm not convinced that people who disaffiliate or never affiliate with the LDS church are officially tares/weeds.

From Putting on Christ Ch. 4: "8.Brigham Young said: “The spirit which inhabits these tabernacles naturally loves truth, it naturally loves light and intelligence, it naturally loves virtue, God and godliness; but being so closely united with the flesh their sympathies are blended… the spirit is indeed subject to be influenced by the sin that is in the mortal body, and to be overcome by it and by the power of the Devil, unless it is constantly enlightened by that spirit which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world [i.e., the Light of Christ given to all men], and by the [amplified] power of the Holy Ghost [through the Comforter when we are born again] which is imparted through the Gospel”

Those born into the world receive the light of Christ will still be subjected to the sifting process even IF they do NOT join a christian church or even reject any kind of affiliations.

[The Nehor]

17 hours ago, longview said:

The Wheats are willing to be "yoked" with Christ and accept transformations ever upward. The Tares are NOT willing but will fall into Satan's hellish grasp till eventually being horribly BOUND to vices, addictions, agonies (either in mortality or the "place of torment" in the spirit world).

The evil sifting process involves the use of flaxen cords which are few in the beginning and easily broken. But over time sins accumulate and become powerfully burdensome to the point of being unbreakably strong. 2 Nephi 26:22.And there are also secret combinations, even as in times of old, according to the combinations of the devil, for he is the founder of all these things; yea, the founder of murder, and works of darkness; yea, and he leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever.

Okay, now you’re just mixing all the metaphors together and pretending they all fit together somehow. The wheat are now the yoked oxen and the bundles are somehow tied to another metaphor about the bond of hell.

[longview]

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Okay, now you’re just mixing all the metaphors together and pretending they all fit together somehow. The wheat are now the yoked oxen and the bundles are somehow tied to another metaphor about the bond of hell.

Makes for a thoughtful mosaic, don't ja think? 

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, longview said:

Makes for a thoughtful mosaic, don't ja think? 

I think it is more looking beyond the mark but I am a cynical guy so probably a bad judge.

[manol]

15 hours ago, MrShorty said:

all too often we in the church conflate church and Christ as if to leave one is to leave the other.

Agreed.

Neither the LDS Church nor any other individual, group, or religion is appointed gatekeeper.  Christ employs no gatekeeper (2 Nephi 9:41).

 

15 hours ago, MrShorty said:

I fear that all too often we invoke the separating of the wheat and tares as if that is clearly what is happening when we talk about affiliation/disaffiliation. I'm not convinced that people who disaffiliate or never affiliate with the LDS church are officially tares/weeds.

Nor is it the job of those who consider themselves wheat to decide who is wheat and who is tare. 

That is not our job, and ime our spirits rise a bit when we let it go. 

We are here to be lights, not judges.

In my opinion.

Edited Friday at 04:25 PM by manol

[Calm]

7 hours ago, longview said:

Makes for a thoughtful mosaic, don't ja think? 

Since you asked for opinions, it comes across as a chaotic and confusing mosaic like puzzle pieces from different puzzles being stuck together, but if you enjoy it, I guess as long as you are not offended by people going ‘huh?’, that’s not a problem.

Edited Friday at 08:40 PM by Calm

[longview]

19 hours ago, Calm said:

Since you asked for opinions, it comes across as a chaotic and confusing mosaic like puzzle pieces from different puzzles being stuck together, but if you enjoy it, I guess as long as you are not offended by people going ‘huh?’, that’s not a problem.

Nah. I am very happy with my original "quip" :  "The Lord is sifting the wheat and Lucifer is sifting the tares." And I have expanded on BOTH clauses in a very meaningful and comprehensive manner. While I am quipping, you and Nehor are wisecracking.   

My quote and bolding of Talmage's observation: "The occasion was crucial; the effect was that of sifting and separation"  was a nice finishing touch on our discussion. The process of sifting dovetails with the concept of separation. The "binding" of the Tares also fits with the gradual process of the sinner going deeper into slavery until his ultimate destruction. There is a whole lotta of sifting going on here! The very purpose of experiencing mortality in a fallen world.