Seven of Everything

It has been said that there are at least six different meanings for the use of saved and salvation among Latter-day Saints . While this is true, it is not scripturally accurate. This blog post will focus on the scriptural use of the words save, saved, saveth, and saving in understanding salvation. Future blog posts may study the use of other words such as salvation, kingdom of God, eternal life and so forth. Scripturally, there are three uses of the words save, saved, saveth, or saving. One is in reference to salvation, another is in reference to different kinds of temporal or physical saving, and the last is a different use of the words save and saving meaning except. This last meaning is very easy to decipher. The total number of instances of the words save, saved, saveth, and saving in all scripture are 740 (in 708 verses). Of these, 288 instances (in 279 verses) use the word to mean 'except.' The remaining 452 instances (in 436 verses) refer to either eternal salvatio...

After raising your child their whole life, it is expected that you will be able to attend their wedding. It is a moment of celebration and joy. It is a moment to be shared. You want to support your child in this big decision, watch them commit to the love of their life, and express congratulations. Then they come to you and tell you that they are getting married in the temple where only select people may enter and you are not one of them. This is hurtful, your own child telling you that you cannot see them make their wedding vows. It even sounds like they are saying they don't want you to be there, after all that you have done for them, they come to you and tell you that you are not invited to their wedding. This same hurt and pain is felt by God our Father when we say, 'after all You have done for me in raising me, teaching me, training me for the difficulties to be experienced on earth, and sending me down here to earth, I don't want You to be part of my life,' or,...

I heard an analogy the other day which essentially posed a question, why should I join your church? It went something like this, If I'm in a corvette and you are in a lamborghini and we are both on the same road to heaven why does it matter that I get in a lambourghini to drive the same road and get to the same destination? The point was, it doesn't matter what church you join to get to heaven. There are several weaknesses to this analogy and I will present some of them here and what could make it stronger. The first weakness is that a car with a single driver or single family of passengers is not a good representation of a church. A car must represent a single person or possibly a single family. The analogy could be modified to be an airplane, ship, train or bus. Also, types of cars cannot be well used in an analogy such as this because there is no example of a perfect car. The main weakness is that it does not take into account what happens when we drive up to our fina...

If you are familiar with the reference in the title you may know that the question actually states, "Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Luke 10:25 So why did I change the wording? It is because eternal life and salvation, or being saved, are synonymous terms. You cannot have one without the other and you cannot loose one without loosing the other. Another term also synonymous with these is to inherit or enter the kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven. Some people believe that to be saved the only thing that must be done is "confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and ... believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead" (Romans 10:9); that is enough, it is as good as done, the final judgement of salvation has been declared upon their soul, they are saved. Jesus was asked this question four times during his recorded earthly ministry; none of his answers give the impression that we can sit back and relax and still be saved. There are sever...

President Monson stated in April 2016, "Our goal is to obtain celestial glory . " Those who have been baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are in the kingdom of God. We are in a portion of the kingdom of God that is here on earth. We are in a portion of the kingdom of God where we can have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. But this is not our goal. We look forward to a millennial time when we will live in that portion of the kingdom of God where Christ will reign personally upon the earth. But this is not our goal. Our goal is to obtain celestial glory which is to live in that portion of the kingdom of God where the Father reigns personally.

There are several verses in the scriptures which refer to being born again or being reborn, but many of those are assumed to be talking about a second spiritual birth after the first mortal birth here on earth. However, the phrase to be reborn or born again in and of itself does not put a number on the times that we have been born or the types of birth. This allows for the question, if mortal birth wasn't our first birth, is there evidence in scripture that we were born before our mortal birth? The answer is yes and here is one example: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again ( 1 Peter 1:3 ) To beget means to procreate or generate offspring as the father. Our mortal birth by God was a creation not a begetting. God did not beget our mortal body, our earthly fathers did. In this verse Peter is saying that God the Father has begotten them again, which requires that He has begotten them before. God the ...

There are a few places that teach us that we lived before we were born as taught in the Holy Bible. One of those places is an obscure reference: As Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents. ( John 9:1-3 ) If life before birth did not exist then part of this scenario makes sense: Master, ... did ... his parents [sin], that he was born blind? Jesus answered, ... his parents [hath not sinned that he was born blind]. I am confident that the apostles knew that God does not administer judgments or punishments before the offenses occur. It is reasonable to assume that they did not know if God would punish the parents through an affliction on their child. In this case at least, we know that this did not happen. However, if we omit this portion of the dialogue, we read it as follows: Master, ....