The Gospel According to Jeffrey

Yesterday afternoon, I asked a few questions of my Facebook friends: specifically: If you believe that we (i.e. humans) were created for a purpose, what is that purpose? If you do not believe that we were created for a purpose, do you believe in some form of extramortal existence, i.e. that we exist in some form before and/or after our lifetime here on Earth? If you do not believe that we exist extramortally, what do you believe constitutes a person’s existence? For example, is one’s existence predicated on being alive? If so, what criteria dictate that someone has begun or ceased to be alive? etc. My friend Liana posted an amazing summary of her beliefs, one that matches the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ almost exactly. The crux of her response is as follows: I do believe we are here for a purpose. Each of us come with different lessons that we are working on while we are here. These are decided before we incarnate. Over multiple lifetimes, we work towards lear...

I just awoke from a dream. I was driving in the car with my wife, Anna, in the town where my grandparents lived. We were just about to the highway that would take us back to my parents’ house when the Spirit told me that the Christ was about to be born. Now, obviously in reality, I know that the Christ has already been born and at this point He doesn’t need to be born again (ironic though that statement be). But in the dream, He was finally coming, and the still, small voice of the Spirit was letting me know. But even beyond that knowledge, there was more: I saw Him in vision. I saw Him in that very moment, about to leave home and begin His calling on Earth, and I could see how He was feeling. We often talk about the Savior subserving His will to Father’s. We recognize that His suffering in Gethsemane and on the cross was so severe, He begged for deliverance if it be possible. The pain and agony that He suffered are beyond human comprehension, but He knew it would be that wa...

For the last couple of mornings, I’ve been studying Lesson 3 of the Gospel Principles manual. (Yes, I know; I’m behind. So what? I read almost the whole thing, last summer.) But before I tell you about that, I’ll have to explain something else: the way I study the scriptures. The first time I read the Old Testament all the way through was in Seminary . I was determined to get through the entire volume during the course of the school year, and I did—though partly because I couldn’t attend much of Seminary, I’m not sure I got much out of it. Then, during the summer between high school and college, I did the same with the Doctrine and Covenants of the Church —with similar results. During my freshman year at IU , I took a full-year Institute class on the New Testament . This marked a turning point in the way I studied scripture: my professor, Brother Robert Marrott, was a student of Hugh Nibley and acted like it. He taught me how to get the most out of the scriptures, how to actuall...