25.4.13

Are we like Latter-Day Jews, looking beyond the mark?


What do I mean by that--"looking beyond the mark"?  And, how could Latter-Day Saints be guilty of something that the Savior condemned the Jews for doing?

Well, if we can imagine a path or a destination and we imagine somebody looking along the path, then looking "beyond the mark" might be anyone looking beyond the here&now or not focusing on the importance of the trail right in front of you.  Looking beyond the mark might be trying to focus on parts of the plan of salvation or the doctrine of the LDS church that is nothing that we can work on or contribute to right now.  LDS members might be guilty of this if we are:

  • reading about things that are scriptural and something that we, as the church, will do in the future, but not right now (having spirit children, creating worlds, etc.);
  • worried about the Second Coming of Christ and the minutia surrounding it that we, as the church, can't know;
  • focusing on the Law of Consecration, Plural Marriage, the United Order, etc., and trying to implement them now, without any direction from the First Presidency of the church;
  • looking at certain words or phrases in the scriptures and attributing to them certain meanings or interpretations that lead to other conclusions;
  • taking a certain principle or idea and either focusing on one aspect of it, until the principle loses significance, or blowing the idea up until it envelopes other doctrine that it shouldn't;
  • concluding that because a general authority has said, at some point, it means or supports some idea or doctrine that is strictly personal; or
  • focused on "space doctrine" (what some may call "doctrine" but that doesn't concern us now in this life and is nothing that you hear from over the pulpit in General Conference--although maybe someone said something that hinted of it not in this lifetime or one may have blown the Savior's words out of context...).
If the answer is "yes" to any of these possible scenarios, then "YES," we are looking beyond the mark.

Can you think of any more ways to be "looking beyond the mark" that you want added to this list?

JPS

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