Mormons: When did the Great Apostasy occur?

[TheExorcist]

Elders, endowed or not, have to answer through the Stake High Council, at least they used to years ago. However, these councils will likely be more lenient to one unendowed (not having been through the temple).

And that could very well be true “by the book” but it also depends on how the strict president works things in the stake. And NOW who knows even with the new version of the handbook of instructions just released a few months ago.

 

[catholic-rcia]

Just the act of freely walking into the confessional is amazing in itself. Nobody may know the sin or sins committed yet one will walk in and tell the sin to Jesus while the priest is in the Sacramental mode. It’s not about being caught then going in, in many instances it’s about not being caught and still going in. This is out of love for God. The door to the confessional is as tall as the Cross, it reaches heaven from earth. This is what was given to the Apostles by Jesus. The joy of setting the prisoners free, no strings attached. Another clear cut authentic 2000 year old reason to know this Apostasy brought forth by a 14 year old boy never occurred. He did not understand the forgiveness of Catholic sins. The same sins of the world. the same sin the 12 Apostles had. The same sin that every Mormon has as well. Yes, even you Parker.
But especially me.

In Christ
Rich

 

[ParkerD]

Hi Parker, don’t get me wrong I AGREE with giving to the Church. But my question is what if you can’t truly give. Say that at the end of the day you had to feed your mother, help pay her bills, and your own. And there is just not much left to give the full amount.

What does you Church do in that situation?

Hi, Rinnie,

I was not advocating that anyone change how they view donating to their church.

Latter-day Saints are familiar with both the law of tithing and the law of the fast, which is another covenant law that brings blessings as promised by Isaiah in Isaiah 58:6-14–a beautiful set of promises for those who keep the law of the fast which includes donating to help the poor and widows and orphans, as taught throughout the Bible as part of God’s law for taking care of the poor.

So the situation you described sounds to me like it would be the kind of situation where help is administered for a widow if she didn’t have sufficient retirement benefits in our modern world, through what the Latter-day Saints refer to as the “fast offering fund” and the “cannery program” that assists in helping the poor and needy and some humanitarian aid.

As far as the impact of the law of tithing on a family where the father had died, my wife was a teenager in that exact situation where her father had died from cancer when she was fifteen, and he didn’t have life insurance. Her mom continued to pay tithing and trust in the Lord’s blessings to their family, plus lived very conservatively and budget-wise. Their home was paid for, so that helped, and she obtained a good job at the university after the youngest child was in high school; they made ends meet, and now she actually helps some of the family financially from time to time having saved well and lived frugally and been blessed from living the law of tithing. We learn from her careful budgeting skill and her generous spirit of giving.

P.S. I didn’t understand your other post about repentance. It sounds like you may not have understood my comment, at all. So I think I’ll pass trying to answer that one.

 

[SteveVH]

Hi, Rinnie,

I was not advocating that anyone change how they view donating to their church.

Latter-day Saints are familiar with both the law of tithing and the law of the fast, which is another covenant law that brings blessings as promised by Isaiah in Isaiah 58:6-14–a beautiful set of promises for those who keep the law of the fast which includes donating to help the poor and widows and orphans, as taught throughout the Bible as part of God’s law for taking care of the poor.

So the situation you described sounds to me like it would be the kind of situation where help is administered for a widow if she didn’t have sufficient retirement benefits in our modern world, through what the Latter-day Saints refer to as the “fast offering fund” and the “cannery program” that assists in helping the poor and needy and some humanitarian aid.

As far as the impact of the law of tithing on a family where the father had died, my wife was a teenager in that exact situation where her father had died from cancer when she was fifteen, and he didn’t have life insurance. Her mom continued to pay tithing and trust in the Lord’s blessings to their family, plus lived very conservatively and budget-wise. Their home was paid for, so that helped, and she obtained a good job at the university after the youngest child was in high school; they made ends meet, and now she actually helps some of the family financially from time to time having saved well and lived frugally and been blessed from living the law of tithing. We learn from her careful budgeting skill and her generous spirit of giving.

P.S. I didn’t understand your other post about repentance. It sounds like you may not have understood my comment, at all. So I think I’ll pass trying to answer that one.

I have to say that I actually admire the Mormon’s tithing and wish it was more prominant in our Church. We are asked to tithe 10% as well, though there is no “penalty”, so to speak, for not doing so and, unfortunately, many of our smaller parishes suffer from the lack of tithing. The Church keeps track of our tithing for tax purposes only, with which I also agree. Tithing should be completely voluntary or it is useless from a spiritual standpoint. To tithe in order to gain any standing within the Church would seem to negate the spirtual benefits, kind of like praying on the street corner in order to be seen.

 

[ParkerD]

I have to say that I actually admire the Mormon’s tithing and wish it was more prominant in our Church. We are asked to tithe 10% as well, though there is no “penalty”, so to speak, for not doing so and, unfortunately, many of our smaller parishes suffer from the lack of tithing. The Church keeps track of our tithing for tax purposes only, with which I also agree. Tithing should be completely voluntary or it is useless from a spiritual standpoint. To tithe in order to gain any standing within the Church would seem to negate the spirtual benefits, kind of like praying on the street corner in order to be seen.

SteveVH,

“Standing within the church” as compared with “worthiness through the keeping of sacred covenants made directly with God” ought to be viewed as very distinct things. Those who are doing things out of a feeling of having “standing within the church” at some point sooner or later lose interest, drop out, or have a difficulty happen in their life where their heart and its motives become more evident to themselves and they either repent of that or they pull themselves out of activity or become only marginally active.

Being able to be honest with God about where one is coming from in why they do things, becomes a real thing in this kind of case because financial and moral honesty are some of the areas where the adversary “works overtime”–hence the need for encouragement rather than just leaving the subject alone so that the adversary doesn’t win in the attempts made to deceive or to tempt people through their having self-serving motives.