Doctrinal Essays

When a government building or edifice is so important that it requires military protection, there is often a ceremonious changing of the guard that takes place. This procedure, like the one at Arlington National Cemetery, or Buckingham Palace, provides relief to the first crew as the next crew comes on duty.  The scriptures tell a story of a similar changing of the guard [i] . The full story is best realized by studying at least three books of scripture, which include Nephi's vision, the Savior's ministry among the Ancient Americans, and a sermon Joseph Smith gave to the early saints, now known as Section 45 of the Doctrine and Covenants. Applying the metaphor of the military guard to the scriptural example, the special edifice that requires protection is the gospel, or God's kingdom on the earth. The most ceremonious and formal guard to care for her was called to duty about the time of Moses. The manner of guardianship in the kingdom was given by him and others of...

In my profession as a GIS Analyst, I often take multiple datasets and overlay them on a map in order to extract meaning that would otherwise be unnoticed when looking at a single dataset. It recently occurred to me that I could do the same thing with many of the prophecies concerning the Last Days. I've done this research for my own benefit, but am posting it here with the hope that scriptural enthusiasts will benefit from it. My approach has been to set up a spreadsheet with six key prophetic accounts on the left, and significant repeated events along the top. Then, I just put a marker any time a prophecy mentioned one of those events. All scriptures are provided on the second page, and take the reader to LDS.org and highlight the respective verses. It creates an interesting way to observe who prophesied what. Looking at my final chart clearly indicated some interesting occurrences that would be practically impossible to spot without some sort of visual aid. As a quick caveat,...

I recently hit a climax in my research of the Last Days. Now I'm coming down the mountain in a state of marvel and wondering what the heck to do with the knowledge I just gained. The experience changed me. I feel like I've read the scriptures my entire life as if through binoculars, and now I've experienced many doctrines through a microscope. I now see myself on the pages, and understand that ancient prophets have literally seen me, and are speaking to me 'through the dust'. I now believe many of the abstract and difficult to understand prophecy's are not only literal, but will be experienced by me ... firsthand...in my lifetime. I'm awake now. I get it. I'm deeply touched that the Lord gave us these sacred writings containing prophetic words - for me and my family, and anyone who will read them. Along the journey I stumbled across a few precious truths that I've never had explained to me before - Even "Hidden Treasures of Knowledge" (...

I recently undertook an intense study of the Abrahamic Covenant. I learned a lot! It put nearly every doctrine and principle I've learned in a global context. I now see that everything in the gospel of Jesus Christ relates to the covenants the Father made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And I see that God is very interested in Abraham's posterity and in protecting them. Later I became curious how those covenants pertained to the Last days, and the Millennium. I have read and reread the books of Isaiah, 1st and 2nd Nephi, key Doctrine and Covenants chapters, and a bunch of general conference quotes. Not surprisingly, I realized the Abrahamic Covenant has everything to do with the Millennium. There were a few other significant lessons I learned along the way. Here are my takeaways from this interesting study: The difficult to understand scriptures are often most critical.  The chapters I have often skipped in scriptures due to their difficulty of interpretation, like Isaiah, ...