If people can’t just walk in off the street, it’s secret.
I presume, therefore, that I could just walk off he street and be immediately baptised in a Catholic church? I wouldn’t need to go through all the classes and procedure (non-biblical I might add) of being a ‘catechumen’ first?
Given that I know the answer to be ‘no’ I can safely point out that your
services are open to all, just as are ours; but your
ordinances require some preparation and satisfaction of certain conditions first; as do ours. We do not hold any kind of services in our Temples, only ordinances.
It’s definitely not the same circumstance as someone visiting your own house, that’s for sure.
It is God’s house, and while that makes it a sacred place to be, we believe that the home compares in sacredness to the Temple, and therefore my analogy is very apt.
The solution to that problem would be to get yourself a real computer.
Indeed: but one of the ways I managed to persuade the wife to let me get the iPad was that she could use the laptop more… Which she does
Plus the iPad is much more convenient for use on the move or taking to work.
Those faithful individuals WERE His Church!! That’s the point you seem to be missing.
No, they were members of His church, they attended the services held by His church. That the spirit would abide with the individual’s is not in question, because it clearly did for the time the apostles spent racing around the various churches like headless chickens trying to keep them all on the straight and narrow… Still no indication of where Christ said that the church as He had thus established would never (be allowed to) apostasise…
Young, Kimball, Pratt all made similar statements, emphasizing the “natural” character of “begotten”. The comments go beyond emphasizing paternity and speak to the manner of conception.
I think you may have a slightly exaggerated definition of ‘beget’ in mind. All the word means is to create something, or to bring it about; the means by which this is done are not implied by the use of the word.
There are no ‘resurrected beings’, nor those with bodies in Heaven, except Jesus and Mary (possibly Elijah). They’re not angels, although they frequently visit people on the earth to give them messages. (The general resurrection won’t happen until the end of time. There are very few exceptions to that rule.) Angels are a totally separate kind of life form than either man, or God. They were created before man and are extremely intelligent. I’m not a ‘spirit child’ of God. But, I am an adopted daughter that He created, body & soul, spontaneously… out of His love.
When asked about the woman who’s husband had died, and so had all his brothers without providing her with a son to carry on the family, Jesus responded with an answer about angels. Why would He do this if what angels are and what they do, and what we are once in heaven and what we will be doing are completely unrelated?
How about McKonkie? How do you read his statement (see above)? I know how my children were begotten. What am I missing here?
As above: the actual meaning of the word ‘beget’.
‘As mortal men are’ could very simply indicate that He (His mortal body at least) grew from a foetus inside Mary, just as the rest of us did, and that God brought this about, just as (not necessarily by the same means: just meaning that both do it) other mortal fathers bring this about.
Considering we don’t have full time staff at our churches, I really question who he called
Not only this, but given that we have only a lay ministry; taught as they go just like the rest of us, how can a statement made like that be considered such a definitive doctrinal pledge.
Plus, it’s not unusual for the non-members using the genealogy libraries to answer the phones in my experience.
Find somewhere it is presented as official church doctrine (I note that Mormon Doctrine is now out of print and is not available to read on the church site so cannot be considered statement of definitive doctrine.) and then we may be able to help you. Your problem will be, of course and as we have already pointed out, that this is not, and never has been church doctrine.
Jesus Christ was physically begotten by God the Father in the sense that He did something to cause Mary to become pregnant with the boy Jesus. The scriptures (including the Book of Mormon) clearly state that Mary remained a virgin. We believe that God works entirely by natural means, and therefore whatever did actually occur is not something supernatural or mystical but some natural process, that we very possibly know nothing at all about; but, obviously, God does. This would be the ‘natural’ aspect of ‘begotten’ that is mentioned.
You have switched to a defense of virgin birth when I was asking about “begotten”.
Given that there was only one virgin birth, any further discussion of the matter could only be clarification of an earlier point.
Please don’t propose us to consider hypothetical scenes that a profound blasphemy
My point (quite clearly) was not that ‘maybe He did this, what then?’ but to point out that whatever God’s means and methods, we neither know nor understand them; and it is not for us to question them regardless if we were to discover them and find them odd or distasteful.
Either we believe in God as being all powerful and
perfect: therefore whatever He does is right, correct and acceptable; or we are only lying to ourselves to even claim to believe in Him at all.
