Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 1037

Two quotations from Dietrich Bonhoeffer

    “A god who let us prove his existence would be an idol.”   “The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children. Dietrich Bonhoeffer    

“Reflections on Book of Mormon Theology and the Sacraments”

    Ashby Boyle addresses a topic that is absolutely perfect for Sabbath reflections:   http://ldsmag.com/article-1-13493/    

New Testament 268

    John 12:9-11   Increased visibility brings increased hostility.   Latter-day Saints should know that, understand it, expect it, and be prepared to cope with it.   It won’t always come in the form of murder plots and violent persecution, either.  In fact, it rarely will.  Almost never.  Usually, it will come in more [Read More...]

A really bizarre Church-related story out of Indiana

    Unfortunately, the sound quality on the accompanying video is extremely poor.  It’s still (barely) comprehensible, though, and — it’s fairly brief — is probably still worth watching:   http://www.theindychannel.com/news/lo...   I’ve been seeing ads featuring this ex-Mormon, Lee Baker (he identifies himself as a former bishop, which may be true, for all I [Read More...]

New Testament 267

    John 12:1-8 Compare Matthew 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9; Luke 7:36-50   This story raises an issue that has occupied me for years, and for which I have no neat and clear answer.   The world is full of poor people, and many are malnourished and even starving.   I think that starvation and malnutrition [Read More...]

“Sodom and Gomorrah: The quest to find the biblical cities”

    An interesting article from the Independent of London:   http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sci...    

“Could All Really Come from Nothing?”

    A really interesting little article on one of the biggest of all Big Questions:   http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2015...   And the video with Tim Maudlin is quite good, too, and very clear.  It’s nearly six minutes long.    

New Testament 266

    Luke 19:11-27 Compare Matthew 25:14-30; Mark 13:14   This is a tough parable.  But one of its applications seems absolutely clear:  We’re to make use of the gifts that we’ve been given (whether financial, artistic, managerial, intellectual, musical, or whatever) to do good.  We’re not supposed to simply sit on them.   We [Read More...]

“I didn’t choose my Mormon faith, but slow and surely it has chosen me”

    Somehow, I missed this well-written little essay on the PBS website when it appeared back in late September.  (I think I was traveling.)   If you haven’t read it, take a look:   http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/f...    

Faith and its reward

    “Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.” St. Augustine (d. AD 430)