mfbukowski Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 I can.These folks don't understand tough love. We learn love by understanding what love is not. Opposition in all things.
Hamba Tuhan Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 (edited) He repented.μετανοέω = to change one's mind It's an interesting concept that Jesus has called us to... Edited November 12, 2015 by Hamba Tuhan 2
Hamba Tuhan Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 (edited) I also really like the Hebrew equivalent:שׁוּב = to turn back from the wrong way Edited November 12, 2015 by Hamba Tuhan 2
mfbukowski Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 Just about the best thing I believe you've ever contributed to this board, Mark... Profound and powerfully compelling.Wow!Thanks for those kind words!
mfbukowski Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 μετανοέω = to change one's mind It's an interesting concept that Jesus has called us to...In English from Old French, re-penser, to "re-think" 1
JLHPROF Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 In English from Old French, re-penser, to "re-think" My french is a bit rusty but that didn't sound right...it's actually: 1250-1300; Middle English repenten < Old French repentir, equivalent to re- re- + pentir to feel sorrow (< Latin paenitēre to regret, be sorry); see penitent 2
mfbukowski Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 My french is a bit rusty but that didn't sound right...it's actually: 1250-1300; Middle English repenten < Old French repentir, equivalent to re- re- + pentir to feel sorrow (< Latin paenitēre to regret, be sorry); see penitentLolYou are arguing about that?
mfbukowski Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 (edited) How can we have unconditional love for humanity if we don't even understand the half of humanity which is different than us?Anti-humanism then creates the false dogma that there is no difference.True religious humanism understands all of humanity, male and female. Edited November 12, 2015 by mfbukowski
Crypto Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 Galatians 5:14 14 For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:35-40 35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”idk...probably something to do with love. 1
Meadowchik Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 (edited) Core: "Love God with all thy heart, might, mind, and strength, and love thy neighbor as thyself." This, is much more descriptive than "unconditional love." In fact, by paying very special attention to the core, we learn how to love others as God would have us love them, as they most need us to love them. Disclaimer: the following is a recounting of a sad and disappointing time of my youth. Please tread lightly and mercifully! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- As a 20-year-old at BYU, I struggled with this. My boyfriend divided my loyalties, he even expressed jealousy over me working on my homework. For some reason, I think he had elevated our relationship to some height in his mind because he had not yet served a mission. "Taking care of you," as I see in my own clear hindsight, became his lofty reason for not embarking on the mission he'd been planning to do his entire life. As for me, I'd latched on to him in the midst of a depression. As sappy as it is, I wanted to feel like I was not alone. Yet very soon after we became a couple, I knew my regret. I faced the obstacle: If I loved him unconditionally, then that meant we could get through anything. I was unhappy and he was unhappy, but somehow our individual paradigms kept us together in a sense of obligation. It took more than two years of misery for both of us, but finally I relented to those first warnings about my own selfishness. I told God, "I want to get married, but I want to do what you want me to do more than that." Almost immediately, I experienced a clarity that had been absent from my life for years: I could see the landscape of my and my boyfriend's paths dividing, knowing it would be good and it would be okay. It was extremely hard for him to accept my choice. I wavered but followed through. I did marry, but more importantly I married someone I wanted to marry who I also believe God approved of me marrying. My ex-boyfriend served his mission and married his best friend, also a returned missionary, in the temple. My remaining sorrow is that I was selfish in the first place, and it took me so long to figure my way out. So what happened here was that I was so focused on loving my boyfriend unconditionally, on believing that this was the core of our beliefs. We both believed that "love" would automatically make us right for each other and that it would make our relationship right before God. Yet, I struggled constantly with the dilemma of do I hang out with him or go to school? Can I really "love" him if I put my academic goals of graduating ahead of his desire for my company? I speculate that he, too, was struggling with the dogma of unconditional love. He felt that somehow it would be a magic bullet that could override what was otherwise God's will for him in his life. We were both wrong. To really love with Christlike love, we love God with all we have, and no one else. Our love for our fellow beings is still very big, we are to love them as ourselves. I am to accept the infinite love God has for me. This is my core, this is my identity, my relationship as daughter of God. And I am to channel this infinite love I've accepted from God to me to everyone else. This, yet I am to love God more. We are to love God more. Once I let go of the lousy magical paradigm that "loving" my boyfriend would cover all sins, I actually learned how to really love him. I had a bishop at the time who counseled me that "true" love will bring a loved one back to us when we allow them to go. And I think this proved to be accurate. If we were really a good match for each other, if we really wanted to be with each other, and if God approved, then we would have found each other again. Now, our relationship is as one of healthy distance, but one where I will be most joyous to greet him in the hereafter, knowing that I made it and he made it and we're both where we need to be. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think about this and I know that in loving, I was a flapping, veering, uncontrolled, and immature debutante. Now, twenty years later, I am slightly better at it, I hope. I see this ability to love as God would have me love as a direct result of loving God with all I have first, then loving another as myself. It means that first, I must turn to God and do what I know He wants me to do. Reconcile myself to Him, become humble before Him, to be honest before Him, to allow my humility before God and desire to be near God and honestly before God permeate every other aspect of my life. That is my love for God. As it turns out, this helps me and tells me how to be a wife and a mother and a friend, and do anything else, more like God would want me to do. That energy from God, the love He has for me, when I allow myself to accept it, when I allow it to branch out into my whole life...I am often overwhelmed by the worth and beauty of every person I encounter. I taught a Relief Society lesson once that focused on the love of God and there was a moment that seemed to me to be a moment of perfect stillness and holiness when I testified that what we had was sacred: we were brushing shoulders with each other. Each encounter with another child of God, though there are many, cannot be insignificant by virtue of its commonality. It is a gift, and simple things like courtesy and kindness allow us to feel God's love in the most common of circumstances. It is because of our love for God, for all that in Him is True and Right and Good, that we can do this. Thus, I've learned that we cannot love others with that infinite love God has for us and for them unless we love God first with all we have. These steps are really indispensable, making, at least to me, the order in which Christ gave the First and Second Great Commandments essential. They cannot simply be paraphrased with "unconditional love." Edited November 12, 2015 by Meadowchik 1
Storm Rider Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 Galatians 5:14 Matthew 22:35-40 idk...probably something to do with love. This is the law. Is the law the Good News?
CV75 Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 Here's another way of expressing the core teaching Joseph Smith put forth: “Old things are done away, and all things have become new. Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.”(3 Nephi 12:47, 48) That covers everything! 1
DJBrown Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 Is it unconditional love? Unconditional obedience to people higher on the institutional org chart than you? Or something else? I have to go with unconditional love. According to Jesus, the first and second greatest commandments are very similar - love God, love your neighbor. You're even supposed to love your enemies. Love with no conditions, no matter what. That is the core teaching behind Christianity, and I believe that is also the core teaching of Mormonism, at heart. No particular doctrine or policy should ever get in the way of those fundamental principles. That's how I've always viewed the gospel. I'm sure some of you have other ideas to share. ETA: please let's not discuss the new policy specifically. Obviously that inspired this thread, but we've had thousands of posts about that already. I would say the core of the gospel is to be found in the Garden of Gethsemane. It is submission to God out of love. It is only in the process of submitting to God that our love for others becomes anything close to "unconditional."
mapman Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 I think that there is more than one way to look at "core." If you mean "core" as in the conceptual basis for the doctrine, then the core would be the Atonement and Plan of Salvation. For me the core is the first principles of the Gospel, or the doctrine of Christ, since this is the core of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, and is the foundation for how I live my life and is the foundation upon which the church is built. The Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants repeatedly make it clear that the fulness of the Gospel (faith, repentance, baptism, Gift of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end) is the rock that we can depend completely on. I have a personal conviction that even if other things change, I can depend on these fundamental principles to ground my life and keep me connected to God. I believe that if people live those principles they will be saved. 1
VideoGameJunkie Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 I'll go with that it's all about love. Love for God and Jesus and unconditional love for our fellowman. If we can feel and show this love then we'll all be in good shape. 1
Russell C McGregor Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 Is it unconditional love? Unconditional obedience to people higher on the institutional org chart than you? Or something else? I have to go with unconditional love. According to Jesus, the first and second greatest commandments are very similar - love God, love your neighbor. You're even supposed to love your enemies. Love with no conditions, no matter what. That is the core teaching behind Christianity, and I believe that is also the core teaching of Mormonism, at heart. No particular doctrine or policy should ever get in the way of those fundamental principles. That's how I've always viewed the gospel. I'm sure some of you have other ideas to share. ETA: please let's not discuss the new policy specifically. Obviously that inspired this thread, but we've had thousands of posts about that already. As Elder Russell M. Nelson pointed out -- to howls of disapproval -- the expression "Unconditional love" doesn't occur anywhere in the scriptures.The core teaching of the Gospel is the Atonement of Jesus Christ. 3
HappyJackWagon Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 As Elder Russell M. Nelson pointed out -- to howls of disapproval -- the expression "Unconditional love" doesn't occur anywhere in the scriptures.The core teaching of the Gospel is the Atonement of Jesus Christ. How compelling is a gospel that calls us to love conditionally? That's easy. We all do it naturally. To love unconditionally requires greater effort and compassion. It challenges us to become more than we are. Conditional love isn't all that inspiring. 3
ksfisher Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 As Elder Russell M. Nelson pointed out -- to howls of disapproval -- the expression "Unconditional love" doesn't occur anywhere in the scriptures.The core teaching of the Gospel is the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Thank you for mentioning the atonement. In all this discussion I'd forgotten about it somehow. 1
Russell C McGregor Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 How compelling is a gospel that calls us to love conditionally? That's easy. We all do it naturally. To love unconditionally requires greater effort and compassion. It challenges us to become more than we are. Conditional love isn't all that inspiring. So, how unconditionally do you love the Church, its leaders and defenders? 2
JLHPROF Posted November 12, 2015 Posted November 12, 2015 How compelling is a gospel that calls us to love conditionally? That's easy. We all do it naturally. To love unconditionally requires greater effort and compassion. It challenges us to become more than we are. Conditional love isn't all that inspiring. It's the definition of "conditional/unconditional" that seems to be the issue. 1
Meadowchik Posted November 13, 2015 Posted November 13, 2015 (edited) I would say the core of the gospel is to be found in the Garden of Gethsemane. It is submission to God out of love. It is only in the process of submitting to God that our love for others becomes anything close to "unconditional." And what made that possible? Christ said that His "meat" was to do the will of the Father. He loved His Father with all He had and in doing so loved every one of us, too. Edited November 13, 2015 by Meadowchik
Rivers Posted November 13, 2015 Posted November 13, 2015 (edited) The core of the gospel is love shown by sacrifice.God's love for us was manifested through the atonement. We in turn show love through sacrifice by giving up our time and energy to others and to God. Edited November 13, 2015 by Rivers
Tacenda Posted November 13, 2015 Posted November 13, 2015 I'll go with that it's all about love. Love for God and Jesus and unconditional love for our fellowman. If we can feel and show this love then we'll all be in good shape.Where is that church? I think individuals are churches. The church I belong to, or ward/stake, seems to have sidestepped one of these.
Tacenda Posted November 13, 2015 Posted November 13, 2015 (edited) So, how unconditionally do you love the Church, its leaders and defenders?Oh brother...that is a good question. Edited November 13, 2015 by Tacenda 1
Storm Rider Posted November 13, 2015 Posted November 13, 2015 Where is that church? I think individuals are churches. The church I belong to, or ward/stake, seems to have sidestepped one of these. Which one? seriously. I have always enjoyed the story of the woman caught in adultery. Woman, where are those thine accusers? ....neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. That very last sentence is what seems forgotten. Go, stop sinning. So many people think that loving someone means never telling them to repent or to stop sinning. They think that we need to accept their sin without ever counseling them to stop. How does one get to the point that sin has no value. It is eat, drink, and be merry time for tomorrow we die. 2
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