The Good Don't Speak, And the Speakers Aren't Good.

From the Epistle of James:

"Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay aside all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness, the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass; for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the vices of the world."

Language

JST Genesis says,

"And the Lord came down, beholding the city and the tower which the children of men were building; And the Lord said, Behold, the people are the same, and they all have the same language; and this tower they begin to build, and now, nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined, except I, the Lord, confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So I, the Lord, will scatter them abroad from thence, upon all the face of the land, and unto every quarter of the earth."                

"And they were confounded, and left off to build the city, and they hearkened not unto the Lord, therefore, is the name of it called Babel, because the Lord was displeased with their works, and did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face thereof."      

Ether 1:34 says,

"And the brother of Jared being a large and mighty man, and a man highly favored of the Lord, Jared, his brother, said unto him: Cry unto the Lord, that he will not confound us that we may not understand our words."      

He says that if they were confounded, then they couldn't understand the language anymore. This sounds a lot like the politically correct culture we live in now. No one listens to the spirit of what a person is saying, they just require others to get all their words right. This is the day when a man is made and offender for a word. (2 Nephi 27:32) It is what Moroni was worried about in Ether 12:23-25(How is this applied today? Moroni was able to be confident in the words he spoke, but not the words he wrote. How do online discussions usually turn out in today's society if the reader and writer don't both have the Holy Ghost?)

If the speaking and listening parties both had the Spirit, then the language they both speak would be understood. This is also what is required to understand scripture. If scripture happens when a person speaks the words of God by the power of the Holy Ghost (D&C 68:4; Acts 4:31), then by what means are we to understand scripture? How did Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery begin to understand scripture in a way that they never before could?(Joseph Smith History, verses 73-74) 

D&C 50 says,

"Verily I say unto you, he that is ordained of me and sent forth to preach the word of truth by the comforter, the spirit of truth, doth he preach it by the spirit of truth, or some other way? And if by some other way, it be not of God. And again, he that receiveth the word of truth, doth he receive it by the spirit of truth, or some other way? If it be some other way, it be not of God; therefore, why is it that ye cannot understand and know that he that receiveth the word by the spirit of truth, receiveth it as it is preached by the spirit of truth? Wherefore, he that preacheth and he that receiveth, understandeth one another, and both are edified and rejoice together; and that which doth not edify, is not of God, and is darkness..."

Why is it easier to understand someone if you both have the Spirit? What does it mean to be of one Mind? Think about when you have "heard" God's voice in your life. How did you "hear" it? Why is it that when dreaming you can understand those who speak to you when there is no sound?

The Lord tells Oliver Cowdery that when he asks a question in faith, believing, He "will tell [him] in [his] mind and in [his] heart" the answer. (D&C 8:2)

What if everyone had this gift from God? Then would everyone be of one mind? Would we all understand one another regardless of what our vocabulary was or the way in which our words were arranged? What does the Fifth lecture on Faith say about these things?

Interesting things to consider.

Religious Freeedom Debate

I was watching this.

What I came up with is that a person may believe and act in any manner they wish if no one is physically imposing anything upon anyone else. There is no force. Only persuasion on everyone's part.

If force is used, then force may be required. What I mean is that if there is a rogue person killing others, then others may do what is needed to stop that.

Whatsoever Thing is Expedient in Me

1830 Book of Mormon p. 579:

“If you shall have faith in me, you shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me”

I remember a conversation I was having with a friend’s dad about faith. We talked of experiences we had where we were able to do extraordinary things by faith, but were unable to duplicate the experience. My friend’s dad seemed to struggle with the definition of faith because of that. I think a lot of people have no idea what faith is. It seems like faith is something that you should always have, but if you always had it, then wouldn’t you be able to duplicate experiences you had as a result of your faith? And if I can’t duplicate, then why don’t I have faith now?

It is a good question. I have wondered about it in times past.

If you look at Genesis 14 in the New Translation it shows the type of faith Melchizedek had and makes clear that the power of that kind of faith is only to be used when it is the will of the Lord. No freelancing. You can always have the faith within you, in Christ. You can’t always do whatever you think needs to happen. “If you shall have faith in me, you shall have power to do whatsoever thing IS EXPEDIENT IN ME.” You may have all the faith in the world. But if your actions are not according to that which is expedient in the Lord you may as well have no faith at all.

Now, I know this isn’t a perfect explanation. Moses still messed up by not following the exact commands of the Lord. When told to speak to the rock and it would bring forth water, he smote it with his staff instead. Because of this Moses was cursed and was not permitted by the Lord to enter the promised land.  Though he disobeyed, the rock still brought forth water. Perhaps it was close enough to the will of the Lord that the result was similar to what would have happened if he obeyed. Who knows what the result would have been if he obeyed perfectly though. Perhaps it would have strengthened the faith of someone who had faith that by speaking the word of God great things could happen. Who knows what we missed out on by Moses not entering into the promised land? Who knows? Nevertheless, if you have faith in Christ, you will have power to do anything that he wants you to do – but maybe only that which he wants you to do.

Something I have learned regarding these ideas is that you CAN NOT understand them fully without experience. Experience brings both success and failure, but it has to happen. So go get experience. Serve people, pray often, read the scriptures, and these things will guide you into other actions you can take, and experiences you can get.