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Talking Covenants at church


Fether

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The more I study and attend the temple, the lord I find how central covenants are to the gospel.

We certainly talk about covenants a lot, but why don’t we ever list them off and talk about specific covenants? Why don’t we quote the covenants as worded in the temple and discuss how we can more fully live them?

We had talks today about covenants, but no covenant was actually mentioned. Just the ceremonies that go along with them. 

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29 minutes ago, Fether said:

The more I study and attend the temple, the lord I find how central covenants are to the gospel.

We certainly talk about covenants a lot, but why don’t we ever list them off and talk about specific covenants? Why don’t we quote the covenants as worded in the temple and discuss how we can more fully live them?

We had talks today about covenants, but no covenant was actually mentioned. Just the ceremonies that go along with them. 

Having talks / 5th Sundays about the specific covenants sounds like a good suggestion for ward council to consider.

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2 hours ago, Fether said:

The more I study and attend the temple, the lord I find how central covenants are to the gospel.

We certainly talk about covenants a lot, but why don’t we ever list them off and talk about specific covenants? Why don’t we quote the covenants as worded in the temple and discuss how we can more fully live them?

We had talks today about covenants, but no covenant was actually mentioned. Just the ceremonies that go along with them. 

You can find the specific covenants on the church website, openly discussed.

"During the endowment ordinance, you will be invited to make certain covenants with God. These covenants include:

  • Law of Obedience, which includes striving to keep God’s commandments.

  • Law of Sacrifice, which means doing all we can to support the Lord’s work and repenting with a broken heart and contrite spirit.

  • Law of the Gospel, which is the higher law that He taught while He was on the earth.

  • Law of Chastity, which means that we have sexual relations only with the person to whom we are legally and lawfully wedded according to God’s law.

  • Law of Consecration, which means dedicating our time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed us to building up Jesus Christ’s Church on the earth."

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19 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

You can find the specific covenants on the church website, openly discussed.

"During the endowment ordinance, you will be invited to make certain covenants with God. These covenants include:

  • Law of Obedience, which includes striving to keep God’s commandments.

  • Law of Sacrifice, which means doing all we can to support the Lord’s work and repenting with a broken heart and contrite spirit.

  • Law of the Gospel, which is the higher law that He taught while He was on the earth.

  • Law of Chastity, which means that we have sexual relations only with the person to whom we are legally and lawfully wedded according to God’s law.

  • Law of Consecration, which means dedicating our time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed us to building up Jesus Christ’s Church on the earth."

I saw that.  I wish it (and a lot of other pages on the internet) was dated as to when it came out.

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10 minutes ago, JustAnAustralian said:

Law of Chastity, which means that we have sexual relations only with the person to whom we are legally and lawfully wedded according to God’s law.

I’ve bolded the last part, because I think it an important proviso, though somewhat subtly worded here. Important, because in recent times, some have tried to practice lexical duplicity

and falsely contend that the temple ordinances allow for same-sex marriage. 

Edited by Scott Lloyd
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5 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I’ve bolded the last part, because I think it an important proviso, though somewhat subtly worded here. Important, because in recent times, some have tried to practice lexical duplicity and falsely contend that the temple ordinances allow for same-sex marriage. 

Was that added sort of recently?  

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12 minutes ago, Rain said:

Was that added sort of recently?  

I think it alludes  to wording in the ceremony that I do believe was added as part of somewhat recent changes. I won’t cite the wording explicitly, because I’m still unwilling to quote the ceremony verbatim outside of the temple. 

Edited by Scott Lloyd
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11 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I think it alludes  to wording in the ceremony that I do believe was added as part of somewhat recent changes. I won’t cite the wording explicitly, because I’m still unwilling to quote the ceremony verbatim outside of the temple. 

Thank you.  I hadn't remembered it, but it wouldn't surprise me if I were missing things.

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2 hours ago, Rain said:

Wasn't  it only recently that we were given the specific words to be used outside of the temple?  Like in the last 2-3 years?

Yes, but I have taught temple prep for years, and the readings in the short booklet given to participants mentioned each of those covenants as well, though never listing them out like that.

Some quotes:

Quote

The ordinances of the endowment embody certain obligations on the part of the individual, such as covenant and promise to observe the law of strict virtue and chastity, to be charitable, benevolent, tolerant and pure; to devote both talent and material means to the spread of truth and the uplifting of the race; to maintain devotion to the cause of truth; and to seek in every way to contribute to the great preparation that the earth may be made ready to receive her King,—the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Quote

We covenant with the Lord to devote our time, talents, and means to His kingdom.

We are a covenant people. We covenant to give of our resources in time and money and talent—all we are and all we possess—to the interest of the kingdom of God upon the earth.

 

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8 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Yes, but I have taught temple prep for years, and the readings in the short booklet given to participants mentioned each of those covenants as well, though never listing them out like that.

Some quotes:

 

 

Yes, I knew they mentioned them. 

Is the first quote from a recent copy?  I'm just wondering what this means, "the uplifting of the race".  I'm assuming human race?

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5 minutes ago, Rain said:

Thank you.  I hadn't remembered it, but it wouldn't surprise me if I were missing things.

I’m keenly aware of it because I listened expressly for it after SCOTUS permitted same-sex marriage and I became aware of the inclination on the part of some to wrest the wording in our doctrine in a way they apparently feel makes same-sex marriage acceptable in the eyes of God. 
 

Next time you are in the temple, listen carefully to the portion of the ceremony pertaining to the law of chastity, and you might notice content that wasn’t there before some of the more recent adjustments to the wording. 

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3 minutes ago, Rain said:

Is the first quote from a recent copy?  I'm just wondering what this means, "the uplifting of the race".  I'm assuming human race?

It's a quote from Elder Talmage, so about 100 years old, but yes, 'race' is human race.

I also just found this cool page on the Church's site. It gives quotes from prophets on a number of temple topics, including each covenant.

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7 hours ago, Fether said:

The more I study and attend the temple, the lord I find how central covenants are to the gospel. 

Agreed

We certainly talk about covenants a lot, but why don’t we ever list them off and talk about specific covenants?

I have no idea.  We definitely should. 
 

Why don’t we quote the covenants as worded in the temple and discuss how we can more fully live them? 

It is a tragedy that we don’t.  We should discuss MUCH more than we do about the temple.

We had talks today about covenants, but no covenant was actually mentioned. Just the ceremonies that go along with them. 

Too bad.  That’s an Opportunity wasted.

 

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8 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Covenants associated with the temple are not the only ones we make in the Church. There are covenants implied with baptism, though these are not explicitly stated in the very brief ordinance itself. The sacrament prayers do name some of them, though. 

I remember teaching the promises made with baptism in Primary when I taught the 7 turning 8 years olds over 25 years ago. I don’t remember if I used the term covenant as well, but the lessons provided details iirc. 
 

This is the newer version, but my memory says it was pretty much the same in content, except perhaps using promises instead of covenants. 
 

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/bc/content/shared/content/images/gospel-library/manual/34594_000_014_02-covenants.pdf

Edited by Calm
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8 hours ago, Rain said:

Was that added sort of recently?  

Yes, specifically in teaching the law of Chastity we are taught that all must conform to "God's law" as opposed to simply being " legally and lawfully wed".

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12 hours ago, Rain said:

I saw that.  I wish it (and a lot of other pages on the internet) was dated as to when it came out.

Date of upload is not usually relevant, so web developers typically don't bother including it. It used to be that web pages included a count of times a page was accessed, but that also no longer occurs, because who cares? 

The Wayback Machine says this page was first recorded on April 14, 2019. That isn't the date it was first uploaded, but the date Wayback first saved it. The page was not originally as detailed as it is now. The relevant quote from above in 2019 is:

"During the endowment ordinance, you will be invited to make certain covenants with God. These covenants include:

  1. Law of Obedience
  2. Law of Sacrifice
  3. Law of the Gospel
  4. Law of Chastity
  5. Law of Consecration"

The explanatory details seen now were added later. I didn't check to see when that happened. Note that I checked for the specific web address "https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/temples/what-is-temple-endowment?lang=eng". The material may already have been available on a page with a different address.

Why is it important to you to know when the page came out?

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2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Date of upload is not usually relevant, so web developers typically don't bother including it. It used to be that web pages included a count of times a page was accessed, but that also no longer occurs, because who cares? 

 

There have been a number of things I cared about.  This most recently. Other times there is a story I am researching and start to find that similar things have happened before and I want to keep them straight.  Other times I'm looking for a sale or a coupon or frequent flier related things and I want the info current and not from 3 years ago.  Just so many instances that the date makes a difference.

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

The Wayback Machine says this page was first recorded on April 14, 2019. That isn't the date it was first uploaded, but the date Wayback first saved it. The page was not originally as detailed as it is now. The relevant quote from above in 2019 is:

"During the endowment ordinance, you will be invited to make certain covenants with God. These covenants include:

  1. Law of Obedience
  2. Law of Sacrifice
  3. Law of the Gospel
  4. Law of Chastity
  5. Law of Consecration"

The explanatory details seen now were added later. I didn't check to see when that happened. Note that I checked for the specific web address "https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/temples/what-is-temple-endowment?lang=eng". The material may already have been available on a page with a different address.

Why is it important to you to know when the page came out?

Because I was trying to find out when the church started being more specific about it. If that was from 10 years ago my memory was not correct. If from 1 year ago it might be correct and good to search further.

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2 hours ago, Rain said:

 

There have been a number of things I cared about.  This most recently. Other times there is a story I am researching and start to find that similar things have happened before and I want to keep them straight.  Other times I'm looking for a sale or a coupon or frequent flier related things and I want the info current and not from 3 years ago.  Just so many instances that the date makes a difference.

Because I was trying to find out when the church started being more specific about it. If that was from 10 years ago my memory was not correct. If from 1 year ago it might be correct and good to search further.

I believe the changes to chastity were within a year or 18 months.

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9 hours ago, Calm said:

I remember teaching the promises made with baptism in Primary when I taught the 7 turning 8 years olds over 25 years ago. I don’t remember if I used the term covenant as well, but the lessons provided details iirc. 
 

This is the newer version, but my memory says it was pretty much the same in content, except perhaps using promises instead of covenants. 
 

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/bc/content/shared/content/images/gospel-library/manual/34594_000_014_02-covenants.pdf

As a single adult living in one of my prior wards about 30 years ago, I was asked to pinch hit at a stake baptism service by preparing and giving a talk. 
 

I was kind of hard-pressed in the moment to come up with a list of covenants we make at baptism. This was in the days long before we had the Gospel Library app, or perhaps even before the Church website as we know it, so I didn’t have that ready resource. 
 

I got the talk prepared by remembering the wording of the missionary discussion on baptism I had taught to my investigators in Sweden. I also recalled the words of the sacrament prayers. 
 

What I came up with pretty much matches what you have linked to here in this wonderfully succinct resource. 

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6 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Why is it important to you to know when the page came out?

When the Church has discussed something publicly has been relevant in a number of discussions I have had; for example, accusations that the Church is just responding to a current issue can be rebutted by showing content posted before the latest controversy.

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3 hours ago, Rain said:

 

There have been a number of things I cared about.  This most recently. Other times there is a story I am researching and start to find that similar things have happened before and I want to keep them straight.  Other times I'm looking for a sale or a coupon or frequent flier related things and I want the info current and not from 3 years ago.  Just so many instances that the date makes a difference.

Because I was trying to find out when the church started being more specific about it. If that was from 10 years ago my memory was not correct. If from 1 year ago it might be correct and good to search further.

It is so frustrating when an article does not list when it was published. Hard to know if research or data provided is current or not. 

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