The Gospel According to Jeffrey

It’s time again for everyone’s favorite game show, Respond to Michael ! Seriously, though, I want to begin this entry by explaining that I really do respect Michael Crook. We’ve disagreed before , and I’m sure we will again. However, the guy’s got a good head on his shoulders and makes a lot of good points. My issue is generally not with his positions so much as the abrasion with which they tend to be presented. That being said, Michael’s latest post, entitled No Victims They , has made a rather interesting claim: that homosexuality cannot be innate because “our Heavenly Father would force such a sick, foul, and obscene desire on any of his children.” While I recognize that Brother Crook is mostly paraphrasing and expanding upon President Boyd K. Packer ’s instructions regarding pornography in the Church’s 180th Semiannual General Conference (which I commented on , at the time), I think he’s taking things a little farther than even President Packer intended. So for th...

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve started wandering back to Answerbag again. In so doing, I have once again gotten sucked into some interesting Gospel discussions. I thought I’d share my response to a particular question, posed by a friend of mine that’s somewhat antagonistic toward the Church of Jesus Christ. His question: Matt 5:48: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Heb 10:14: “by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” Doesn’t that mean that Heavenly Father sees us as perfect despite our flaws & sins? My response was as follows: Not at all. Each of these passages must be looked at in context. Matthew 5:48 is the last verse of the paragraph begun in v.43 , which is itself the last paragraph of the entire chapter. Throughout this section, the Lord is comparing the Mosaic priests and their teachings to the Christian disciples and His own, greater teachings. Thus we find v.13 referring to Christ’s d...