The Two-Edged Sword

‘The first time they went there (the hill Cumorah) the sword of Laban hung upon the wall; but when they went again it had been taken down and laid upon the table across the gold plates; it was unsheathed, and on it was written these words: “This sword will never be sheathed again until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God and his Christ.”’
https://josephsmithfoundation.org/hill-cumorah-cave/

Detrumpification?

Zen: Great job of connecting the dots!

@ Zen,
My Institute teacher shared that last semester, as well as a bunch of eyewitness accounts of a heavenly battle over Cumorah the night Joseph Smith was given the plates at last. I love our church history – it’s more epic than any epic!

“replace the trumpet with a sword”

But what might that actually mean; in the current context of closed, inactive churches preaching obedience to (indeed active-support for) established secular power; and people forbidden to meet (and, mainly, asking for ever more such restrictions with no defined purpose, evaluation, or end-point)?

Ironically, people are not even allowed to blow trumpets in public – let alone wield swords.

In scriptural imagery, a sword represents truth, the word(s) of tbe Lord. Also used in Rev 1:16.

The action of the sword is that it penetrates and separates.

I think the change from trumpet to sword represents a change from an announcement of truth to a more active form. That is, spoken truth is going to do more penetrating and separating. People are not going to just hear the word, but be penetrated and affected by it.

I think the separating will not only be internal, but also external, separating one person from another as in sheep from goats.

I think that the image of Moroni with a sword is not about people going around with physical swords, but that they will speak truth in a manner that will penetrate to the soul and cause division and physical separation, including among church members.

BC – I hope this doesn’t come across as disrespect, as I too share some of what sounds like bitterness in your writing on the current situation. (it’s certainly not sweet!)

However, I feel if we embrace that attitude we end up denying a major aspect of Christ’s life. He was no zealot. He was not there to upset the political or military, or even to a degree the religious establishment.

He sought to change all of those organizations, as it were, by changing individual hearts one at a time. And then they would become the change sought for by the zealots.

So, on one hand, it’s correct to say that the church isn’t ready for the sword. But only in the way the natural man perceives a sword. Christ turned all of those conceptions on their head. His sword was of a different kind.

Christ’s example in the face of tyranny was not to start hacking off ears, but to teach until the end of his ministry and then submit. That example was far greater effect across the generations than any zealot uprising, be it by the sword or the ballot box.

I agree with you – but the consequence would be that Christian church leaders would suggest minimal physical compliance with evil, anti-Christian political compulsion; while making clear that what is being required is spiritually wrong, and this wrongness needs to be resisted and repented in the heart.

I hear ya, I just don’t see that in Christ’s example anywhere. It stood before the worldly authorities and didn’t have much to say. It could be argued, wearing a mask is less evil than paying tribute to Caesar. Especially, in an age where that nearly all of that tribute went into soldiers for oppression, or ornate palaces for orgies.

Covering one’s face from the sandstorm is not an affront — being required to always cover your face and your breathing treated as dangerous is. And being told you can’t work, go to school, travel, etc. are pretty heavy restrictions on liberty. They are all worthy of watering the tree of liberty from a Jefferson perspective.

But the Lord would have submitted. The uncomfortable truth is that it’s not Christ-like love in the sense we think it is when we dawn the mask (and to be clear, I rarely do in my neck of the woods and no one is getting sick fortunately). It’s Christ-like submission, which is motivated by his love of all mankind and willing to submit to all things.

Christ let nails be driven through his hands because he was a good global citizen and and loved God’s children. He must have known that was the best possible way to reach out to each of us and demonstrate how we can never be justified.

We rationalize, and I would like to assume, that Christ would have intervened if they took hold of Mary and started to nail her to the cross. But maybe not. Certainly, he allows such things to happen all too commonly across the world for thousands of years.

Truly his perspective is different when he knows what blessings are in store for those who endure.

This leads me to a pacifist approach as I grow older, which I don’t like as I am prepared for all things.

But to echo your last sentence, in private in most cases with ward and Stake leadership I’ve had they all acknowledge the great wrongs, but point to the higher apostolic authority.

My last thought is, if we fight over masks and government overreach, we aren’t preaching Christ. As long as we can do that, I feel that’s what the church leadership sees as the best path. A mere statement on overreach (as was hinted at by Elder Bednar) stoked the fire on both sides. We don’t need more bravado from our stalwart members.

I am sure the brethren are frustrated that if they called on the priesthood to march on the capitol, so many would. But if called to invite their neighbor to zoom church (let alone show up themselves) most do not.

That shows where our heart is more than anything, does it not? And why should a people like that get more preaching on government excess when the issue is they themselves have given into the excess of the world?

sad sarcastic irony in the global citizen bit if you couldn’t read it…

@sute – “if called to invite their neighbor to zoom church (let alone show up themselves) most do not.”

A poor example, IMO. But it makes my point.

‘Zoom Church’ just is Not *church* (that ZC *is* church strikes me as calculatedly, starkly dishonest) – and if ZC is not to do permanent net-harm; that fact must be acknowledged up-front and explicitly.

(ZC is *at best* a temporary gross reduction of church, leaving out its most important elements; but in deeper reality ZC is a transitional phase en route to no (real) church at all – i.e. a System-monitored/controlled pseudo-church. That is indeed the obvious destination of All social media ‘content’ – more obviously so by each passing week.)

@BC: I find it rather …. prophetic… that a year before the pandemic, the prophet directed us to switch from a chapel-centric church that is supported by the home, to a home-centered church that is supported by the chapel.

Post-Nicene ideas of “Church,” … they are a-changin’.

This “new” concept of home-centered church, is actually closer to First Century church.

I’ve been reading about swords, specifically two-edged vs. single-edged. One advantage of a two-edged sword is that an enemy cannot grab the blade without getting cut, especially if both edges are razor shape. In any event, swords are for battles, and we are definitely in a battle, and the tide may turn soon.

Most temples are in some state of partial reopening. (Zoom was neither appropriate nor applicable.) Four temples are essentially open, i.e. open for all ordinances, but by appointment. Another four will join that list in two weeks. All are in islands in the Pacific or in Australia. Some temples are closed for architectural or seismic retrofits, quite independent of government restrictions. Those that are closed due to pandemic restrictions, are termed “paused” by the Church, indicating the temporary nature of the closure.

Elder Bednar recently gave a powerful talk at BYU on a temple operating around the clock for three days, 72 hours straight, during a window of opportunity. Now is the time to prepare for the reopening of the temples.

Read “sharp” instead of “shape.”

Leo,
thanks for that comment.

@ Bruce Charlton,
You’re right that Zoom church is *not* church. But one advantage of having a lay ministry is that every worthy member has access to the sacrament, with permission given to perform that most sacred of weekly ordinances in the home. Though we may miss the chance to meet physically, it is not as deathly a blow to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as it has been to many other Christian churches. Indeed, it’s become an opportunity for more of our male members to step up and perform their duties as ministers and priests to their own families and those under their care.

@ Leo,
Yes. I’m looking forward to returning to our local temple. Never again will I take the privilege of temple attendance for granted.

@Books and EC – I certainly believe that Mormon theology (as described and explored by McMurrin, Ostler and Givens for example) uniquely has the resources to develop and support a bottom-up and home-based religious life – *largely* autonomous from organizational and hierarchical elements.

Yet there was, from March 2020, an urgent need for guidance on these matters, and great need for discernment between the political and worldly-expedient; and the religious and Heaven-orientated aspects of the events of 2020.

I feel that this has been grievously lacking; and actual guidance has left too many people deeply confused and uncertain about what is – in truth – a world more clearly and more distinctly divided between good and evil than ever before.

In particular, I think it is necessary (and difficult) for Western Christians to recognize that the most powerful and influential of global institutions (including those that were once respected, and used to be trusted and mostly deserved that trust) are now operating according to an evil – precisely Satanic – agenda and strategy; and should be interpreted as such.

The individual Christian (and family) are, in essence, up-against the global bureaucracy and mass media, in its multiple manifestations (including once-apolitical institutions such as education, science and medicine).

This is such a profound change of attitude for many Western Christians that it requires to be explicitly and repeatedly articulated.