Tag: Jacob
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Grosser crimes
How painful was it for Jacob to have to publicly address the issue of some of their men beginning to take concubines or plural wives? We don’t actually know exactly what was going on, just that Jacob referenced the examples of David and Solomon who had both and then he explicitly forbade both practices. I’m…
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Answering the sins of the people upon our own heads
As a parent there is naturally a certain amount of answering the sins of the children upon our own heads if we do not teach them what is right. The challenge is to keep in perspective when they choose wrong because they have not been sufficiently taught vs when they choose wrong even when they…
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In sheep’s clothing
It really struck me how Sharem makes sure to sound reasonable and learned and earnest in his beliefs. Not only that but he laboured diligently—we should never assume that those doing evil work will put in less effort than those doing the Lord’s work. It’s also incredible how rapidly Sharem contradicts himself: Sharem: “No man…
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All about the fruit
The Lord of the vineyard talks about the take olive tree and the wild olive trees but those descriptions aren’t of different species of trees not aware they arbitrary, as if he just selected a favorite tree. The good tree was the tree that brought forth good fruit. When it stopped producing good fruit he…
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Redundancy
Nephi was commanded to make a second set of plates for reasons known to the Lord and he wisely separated the care of those two records between two lines of caretakers—one the political and social caretakers being the line of Kings and the other the spiritual caretakers being the line of the family of his…
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Lacking understanding
The arguments that Shared made against Jacob teaching the doctrine of Christ, calling it a perversion of the law of Moses, telling me of the arguments of various Christian thinkers who argue that Mormons aren’t Christian because they don’t subscribe to the particulars of the Nicene Creed.
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The season and the end
This who labor with the Lord of the vineyard will see the fruits of the labor and have joy in the harvest.
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Back to work
After lamenting that the vineyard was failing despite all his prior work, the Lord of the vineyard rallied himself again with a new plan to recover the trees of his vineyard. That’s what I have to keep doing with raising my family.
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Uneven results
The the olive vineyard reminds us that even for God there is no 1:1 correlation between His efforts and the fruits of His efforts (obviously this is a result of the agency of man which He guards so jealously). It would be a poor way of training us if He designed a system where our…
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Making room for growth
I have often focused on shuffling the olive branches, putting the natural branches in other parts of the vineyard and grafting in wild branches for their strength. I’ve never paid attention to removal of natural branches to be cast into the fire in order to make room for growth and change. Sometimes we just need…