Seven of Everything

Alma 36 amazes me yet again. Not only does it show the process of repentance, it's literary genre is of the chiastic style, also called chiasmus, which in and of itself is pretty amazing. But I recently discovered a parallel with Alma 36 and the plan of salvation which I'm going to share here. I propose that Alma 36 not only represents and symbolizes the steps of the process of repentance, but also at the same time, outlines God's plan of salvation. The structure for this plan of salvation outline is a seven structure, which I've talked about in previous blog posts ( Basic , Kingdom ) and will not go into here; but I created this visual aid to match the seven structure I have repeatedly found in scripture. Alma 36 is no exception; and when I map it to the plan of salvation, it maps quite nicely. For those who haven't read my blog posts in the past, here's the visual aid. The division of verses that map Alma 36 to the plan of salvation are as follows:...

A few months ago, I responded to an ad that seemed to have sound principles related to hair regrowth. A little of my history: I'm 43 now (July 2024), when I was in college, in my young 20s, I would go home for Christmas and each year my mom would point out that my hairline was receding. Her dad was completely bald on top and she has had thin and thinning hair most of my life. This first picture, on the left, is where my hairline was at the end of college when I was 27. I had the same hairstyle then and cut my hair myself, and I still do, so my hair was roughly the same length as it is now. The hairline has continued to recede and the top has started thinning to a noticeable degree, as seen in the second picture, on the right, which was taken April 16th, 2024, two days after a haircut. My daughter took this picture of me and was likely the trigger to wanting to do something about the progressing hair loss. Here is my journey: These first images belo...

On Mother's Day, I was asked to substitute in Primary. I always have a default lesson prepared for whenever I am asked to sub in Primary, which is the basic plan of salvation (using my basic five piece visual aid  and sometimes the other  two pieces ) and then I prepare to bring the lesson of the week into the plan of salvation. This time, I did not use my visual aid because, as I was preparing the lesson, I found a diagram in a seminary manual related to the scriptures of the week that stuck out to me as being very similar to the plan of salvation. The more I thought about it, I realized that the diagram of the journeys in Mosiah was a much better visual aid for this setting because it was a near perfect match to the plan of salvation and mapped it out very well, better than I expected when I started thinking about all the parallels. Although I think this could be redrawn better to look like a better parallel, I'm going to use the one I found online and explain how similar it...

In Isaiah 11:10-12 , it talks about 2 kinds of ensigns, an ensign of the people and an ensign for the nations.  There are two correct ways to pronounce ensign: ɛnsaɪn and ɛnsən. According to several websites, the first, with the strong I sound, is the pronunciation in England and the second is the pronunciation in America. However, I am American and I never pronounced it the second way. The root word is 'sign' and the original roots of the word come from the 1400s and have the same roots as the words signal and insignia. It came to be related to a flag, banner, or standard, specifically, one that would be carried by an officer in an army. In effect, when the ensign, or flag, of the officer would be raised, all of the warriors under that officer would gather to the ensign to be counted and organized. The general, or higher ranking officer, would look out and see the ensigns and know that everyone was organized and ready. Then when the call came for the battle, they would proceed...

The New Testament has very little direct reference to understanding the organization of the Kingdom of God the way that it has since been revealed to Joseph Smith. But now that we know more about how the Kingdom of God is organized, we can look back and understand more clearly what was meant by Jesus. In Luke 15, it is instructive to note that it is one parable with three sections. This becomes clear when we look at verse 3 where it says, "he spake this parable [singular] unto them." There is also a very clear single theme of saving that which is lost throughout the whole parable. It is clear that this parable is talking about heaven because it has direct reference to heaven in three verses (7, 18, 21) and talks about "in the presence of the angels of God" which is understood to also be in heaven. (10) The first part represents the highest kingdom in God's kingdom (celestial kingdom) where many are compared to sheep and are righteous; and, the chosen who go astr...

  Degrees of glory This is a modified version of the Wikipedia page of the same title taken on February 16th, 2024. This is the way I would modify the article to be more doctrinally accurate and correct. In the  theology and cosmology  of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in heaven there are three degrees of glory (alternatively, kingdoms of glory ) which are the ultimate, eternal dwelling places for nearly all who will have lived on earth after they are resurrected from the spirit world . A depiction of the Plan of Salvation , as illustrated by me. Members of the largest denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement , The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) believe that the apostle Paul briefly described the degrees of glory in heaven in 1 Corinthians 15:40-42, and in 2 Corinthians 12:2. Joseph Smith received a vision with Sidney Rigdon in 1832 which enhances the understanding of heaven and recorded it in Doc...

I was asked to teach a lesson on Jonah to children and I wanted to tie it into what they already know about God's Plan of Salvation . In my searching, I was not able to find any writings, in or out of the church [ the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ], about how Jonah's story parallels the plan of salvation. It seemed to me to have the basic elements of going away from God and then returning to God; but I could not detail out which aspects of the story paralleled the plan of salvation. In my searching and reading, my mind was recalled to a class I took at BYU Campus Education Week back in 2007. The first 6 elements below I learned from Patrick D Degn . The rest I discovered and saw parallels that I will outline below. 7 Downs Down to Joppa ( 1:3 ) Down into a Ship ( 1:3 ) Down into the Sides of the ship ( 1:5 ) [Down] into the Sea ( 1:15 ) [Down] in the Belly of the [great] fish ( 1:17 ) Down to the Bottoms of the mountains ( 2:6 , Roots ) [Down into] the Earth w...