Greg, this essay is excellent -- well reasoned and well written! You put muscular meat on the bones, making more sense of the truths of peacemaking. Thank you for that. -- Stuart
Enjoyed the distinctions you made, especially the comment that peace cannot be handed out like a sample at Costco!
As a frequent reader of the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, your quote from p 51 of that book does not line up totally:
As the Prophet Joseph Smith put it:
“The nearer man approaches perfection... his soul [is] filled with that peace and happiness that is born of God.” (TPJS, p. 51)
Please clarify because no where could I find that one's soul is "filled with that peace and happiness that is born of God". It's a nice quote, but it might be in another source perhaps?
Correct. Here is the full quotation from that page pulled from the BYU scripture citation index (link at bottom):
"We consider that God has created man with a mind capable of instruction, and a faculty which may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the light communicated from heaven to the intellect; and that the nearer man approaches perfection, the clearer are his views, and the greater his enjoyments, till he has overcome the evils of his life and lost every desire for sin; and like the ancients, arrives at that point of faith where he is wrapped in the power and glory of his Maker and is caught up to dwell with Him. But we consider that this is a station to which no man ever arrived in a moment: he must have been instructed in the government and laws of that kingdom by proper degrees, until his mind is capable in some measure of comprehending the propriety, justice, equality, and consistency of the same. For further instruction we refer you to Deut. 32, where the Lord says, that Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste, howling wilderness; He led him about, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye, etc.; which will show the force of the last item advanced, that it is necessary for men to receive an understanding concerning the laws of the heavenly kingdom, before they are permitted to enter it: we mean the celestial glory. So dissimilar are the governments of men, and so divers are their laws, from the government and laws of heaven, that a man, for instance, hearing that there was a country on this globe called the United States of North America, could take his journey to this place without first learning the laws of governments; but the conditions of God’s kingdom are such, that all who are made partakers of that glory, are under the necessity of learning something respecting it previous to their entering into it. But the foreigner can come to this country without knowing a syllable of its laws, or even subscribing to obey them after he arrives. Why? Because the government of the United States does not require it: it only requires an obedience to its laws after the individual has arrived within its jurisdiction."
No. I have a lot of notes from over the decades on specific topics. This is from the topic of "Peace." My guess is that it may come from a talk, and when I copied the quote, I included some of the talk with it, thinking it was part of the Joseph Smith quote.
It has been one of the most transformative experiences of my life and faith to realise just how deeply the ancients, and Jesus most of all, meant the words they used. The closer I’m able to get to the depth of their original meanings, and the more seriously I’ve taken them, the clearer my vision of the path of ascension becomes. The truth and beauty of the order and world the Lord is calling us into, is so much higher, so much holier, and so much more beautiful than any earthly imitation. Even just beginning to catch a glimpse of the heavenly order begins to make you shudder that the same word could ever be used to describe the base and profane versions of them that the world espouses. There is no glory by comparison!
To stand in truth without love is to become a Pharisee.
To speak of love without truth is to become a hippie and a deceiver. “Peace, man.”
This echoes the quote by Warren Wiersbe: "Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy."
I have seen that quote before and I think I’ve used it.
I probably heard it from you! 😊
Greg, this essay is excellent -- well reasoned and well written! You put muscular meat on the bones, making more sense of the truths of peacemaking. Thank you for that. -- Stuart
Thanks Stuart. Your writing sets a high bar.
Thank you for articulating beautifully.
The integrity we are all striving for
I love this! Thank you so much!
You’re welcome!
Greg,
Enjoyed the distinctions you made, especially the comment that peace cannot be handed out like a sample at Costco!
As a frequent reader of the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, your quote from p 51 of that book does not line up totally:
As the Prophet Joseph Smith put it:
“The nearer man approaches perfection... his soul [is] filled with that peace and happiness that is born of God.” (TPJS, p. 51)
Please clarify because no where could I find that one's soul is "filled with that peace and happiness that is born of God". It's a nice quote, but it might be in another source perhaps?
Thanks
Correct. Here is the full quotation from that page pulled from the BYU scripture citation index (link at bottom):
"We consider that God has created man with a mind capable of instruction, and a faculty which may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the light communicated from heaven to the intellect; and that the nearer man approaches perfection, the clearer are his views, and the greater his enjoyments, till he has overcome the evils of his life and lost every desire for sin; and like the ancients, arrives at that point of faith where he is wrapped in the power and glory of his Maker and is caught up to dwell with Him. But we consider that this is a station to which no man ever arrived in a moment: he must have been instructed in the government and laws of that kingdom by proper degrees, until his mind is capable in some measure of comprehending the propriety, justice, equality, and consistency of the same. For further instruction we refer you to Deut. 32, where the Lord says, that Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste, howling wilderness; He led him about, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye, etc.; which will show the force of the last item advanced, that it is necessary for men to receive an understanding concerning the laws of the heavenly kingdom, before they are permitted to enter it: we mean the celestial glory. So dissimilar are the governments of men, and so divers are their laws, from the government and laws of heaven, that a man, for instance, hearing that there was a country on this globe called the United States of North America, could take his journey to this place without first learning the laws of governments; but the conditions of God’s kingdom are such, that all who are made partakers of that glory, are under the necessity of learning something respecting it previous to their entering into it. But the foreigner can come to this country without knowing a syllable of its laws, or even subscribing to obey them after he arrives. Why? Because the government of the United States does not require it: it only requires an obedience to its laws after the individual has arrived within its jurisdiction."
https://scriptures.byu.edu/tpjs/STPJS.pdf
I’ll look it up.
I pulled this from my notes and am unable to find the source so I deleted it. I will keep searching. Thank you both for checking this.
Curious: did that quotation come from an LLM-generated source (ChatGPT, LDSBot, Scripture Notes, or similar?)
No. I have a lot of notes from over the decades on specific topics. This is from the topic of "Peace." My guess is that it may come from a talk, and when I copied the quote, I included some of the talk with it, thinking it was part of the Joseph Smith quote.
It has been one of the most transformative experiences of my life and faith to realise just how deeply the ancients, and Jesus most of all, meant the words they used. The closer I’m able to get to the depth of their original meanings, and the more seriously I’ve taken them, the clearer my vision of the path of ascension becomes. The truth and beauty of the order and world the Lord is calling us into, is so much higher, so much holier, and so much more beautiful than any earthly imitation. Even just beginning to catch a glimpse of the heavenly order begins to make you shudder that the same word could ever be used to describe the base and profane versions of them that the world espouses. There is no glory by comparison!
Thank you Greg, Shalom Shalom