The Long and Winding Road (To Ruin) or Eight Days a Week (Of Woe): Mormon Apostle Blames the Beatles for Society's Ills

[huckelberry]

So what is meant by the fullness of the gospel? One book is not going to contain all possible knowledge and explanation of the meaning and application. It will not contain all relevant considerations. Would a Christian say the Bible contains the fullness? It certainly has not precluded a lot of follow up. A library with early church fathers has many feet of volumes on the shelves. They may even so fall short of fullness. They do not even include Newton or Copernicus.

On the other hand I may think the fullness is in The Lord's Prayer and the message of Jesus's death and resurrection.

[I Have Questions]

I'm not saying that there is a direct connection verbatim. It's correlated. It's just another one of those things that Joseph got right...and the origins (pun intended) go back to the Origen-al ( ) Church Fathers.

I think I'd like to do a 'wait see' until we hear from Bill. He seems to be anxious to share as long as he knows people are listening. I think he may have an audience now.

Regards,
MG

That was my second prediction: “Joseph got the feel right.”

We went from: “They taught multiple heavens based on worthiness” to “Okay, not literally. But it’s correlated.”

“Correlation” is doing a lot of work here. If something is “correlated,” it should at least share the same category.

Prediction for Bill’s response—some variation of:

1) Correlation isn’t causation
2) Correlation isn’t meaningful if the categories differ
3) “Similar vibes” is not historical continuity

Yes. This is MG’s pattern. Make a big bold unsupported assertion, and then when shown to be wrong, move the goalposts. Reframe the initial assertion, add caveats, backtrack etc. MG doesn’t research what he asserts, before he asserts it. But let me be clear, that has nothing to say about him as a person in his own right.

[Limnor]

So what is meant by the fullness of the gospel? One book is not going to contain all possible knowledge and explanation of the meaning and application. It will not contain all relevant considerations. Would a Christian say the Bible contains the fullness? It certainly has not precluded a lot of follow up. A library with early church fathers has many feet of volumes on the shelves. They may even so fall short of fullness. They do not even include Newton or Copernicus.

On the other hand I may think the fullness is in The Lord's Prayer and the message of Jesus's death and resurrection.

“No single book has everything” doesn’t quite work—because the book itself claims it has the fullness. And it goes even further by having Jesus say that “whoso declares more or less cometh of evil.”

Yes, a Christian would say the Bible contains the fullness, whether or not that precluded a lot of follow-up.

[I Have Questions]

So what is meant by the fullness of the gospel?

It obviously means the fullness of the gospel. Totality. Everything. All of it.

One book is not going to contain all possible knowledge and explanation of the meaning and application.

Why not?

It will not contain all relevant considerations.

Can you explain why you are so certain?

Would a Christian say the Bible contains the fullness?

Maybe. Maybe not. How is that relevant?

It certainly has not precluded a lot of follow up.

You mean speculation and embellishment, right?

A library with early church fathers has many feet of volumes on the shelves. They may even so fall short of fullness. They do not even include Newton or Copernicus.

That doesn’t rule out the notion that one volume could contain the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That gospel could be very simple, uncomplicated, bullet points of principles.

On the other hand I may think the fullness is in The Lord's Prayer and the message of Jesus's death and resurrection.

You may. Do you?

[I Have Questions]

Despite the KJV translators, (They did the best they knew how at the time), Koine μονή simply means "a place to reside", "a place to make your living space." A bedroom qualifies. In the first century individual rooms in a house were called μονή.

In the very same chapter of John, version 23, "Jesus" uses μονή again, "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our μονή with him."

There is no implication whatsoever of separate "heavens" implied.


No he didn't. He used the the bodies of men, animals, birds and fish, sun, moon and stars as an examples of how things differ in "glory" (doxa), but when it comes to the point with regard to resurrected bodies, there are only two kinds of bodies for humans: the earthly and the heavenly. Those with the heavenly have the image of heavenly. Coupled with other teachings of Paul (e.g., Galatians 3, Collosians 2, Ephesian 2), it is clear that Paul had nothing in mind such as separate heavens or "degrees of glory." The "sons of God" are all equal, fully exalted and co-equal with Christ.

Joe and Sydney just didn't understand New Testament theology all that well.

https://scripturecentral.org/knowhy/wha ... s-of-glory

It's not cut and dried.

Regards,
MG

I reported this link and run. It seems to have received no punishment despite it being a repeat offence and despite Dr Shades promising to take action on such things. I guess that means that the board rule governing link and runs is no longer valid and we can now all do it.

[malkie]

So what is meant by the fullness of the gospel? One book is not going to contain all possible knowledge and explanation of the meaning and application. It will not contain all relevant considerations. Would a Christian say the Bible contains the fullness? It certainly has not precluded a lot of follow up. A library with early church fathers has many feet of volumes on the shelves. They may even so fall short of fullness. They do not even include Newton or Copernicus.

On the other hand I may think the fullness is in The Lord's Prayer and the message of Jesus's death and resurrection.

Jesus reputedly made it very simple: Love God with all one's heart, soul, and mind, and love one's neighbor as oneself. He even clarifed that on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

[huckelberry]

So what is meant by the fullness of the gospel? One book is not going to contain all possible knowledge and explanation of the meaning and application. It will not contain all relevant considerations. Would a Christian say the Bible contains the fullness? It certainly has not precluded a lot of follow up. A library with early church fathers has many feet of volumes on the shelves. They may even so fall short of fullness. They do not even include Newton or Copernicus.

On the other hand I may think the fullness is in The Lord's Prayer and the message of Jesus's death and resurrection.

“No single book has everything” doesn’t quite work—because the book itself claims it has the fullness. And it goes even further by having Jesus say that “whoso declares more or less cometh of evil.”

Yes, a Christian would say the Bible contains the fullness, whether or not that precluded a lot of follow-up.

Well as a Christian I would say yes the Bible contains the fullness. I would happy to include much more than my minimal suggestion.

I can see a tension created by the Book of Mormon claims. There is tension in the matter of development of Mormon understanding and practice after the book. Believers see ongoing revelation. Believers are glad for the ongoing revelstion.

[huckelberry]

So what is meant by the fullness of the gospel?

It obviously means the fullness of the gospel. Totality. Everything. All of it.

One book is not going to contain all possible knowledge and explanation of the meaning and application.

Why not?

It will not contain all relevant considerations.

Can you explain why you are so certain?

Would a Christian say the Bible contains the fullness?

Maybe. Maybe not. How is that relevant?

It certainly has not precluded a lot of follow up.

You mean speculation and embellishment, right?

A library with early church fathers has many feet of volumes on the shelves. They may even so fall short of fullness. They do not even include Newton or Copernicus.

That doesn’t rule out the notion that one volume could contain the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That gospel could be very simple, uncomplicated, bullet points of principles.

On the other hand I may think the fullness is in The Lord's Prayer and the message of Jesus's death and resurrection.

You may. Do you?

Question, I think we agree on the meaning of fullness. I agree with your thought that the fullness of the gospel could be simple. Yes I think the Lord's Prayer and his death and resurrection contains the fullness. I admit that is the smallest container I could think of. I am happy that there are more larger containers.

[Limnor]

Dale Broadhurst presented the below information several years ago here. I probably won’t be able to do it the justice it deserves or as well as Dale did it, but it stuck with me.

Regarding the “fullness of the gospel” and doctrinal views, the Book of Mormon follows Jesus and Paul relatively closely, but introduces two Restoration-era distinctions: 1) It merges Jesus’ “baptism of fire and the Holy Spirit” with water baptism; and 2) It introduces a category for the “not baptized,” which Paul never uses and Jesus only implies.

Jesus implies a “not baptized” category in Luke 7 when He contrasts people who accepted John’s baptism with those who rejected it, but He never turns it into doctrine—Paul never uses the category at all, while the Book of Mormon turns it into a central principle.

The Book of Mormon adds the category “not baptized” In 3 Nephi 11 and 27, by including the statement “he that is not baptized” (3 Nephi 11:34).

Jesus in the Gospels doesn’t specify this as a doctrinal category, and Paul explicitly avoids mandating baptism as a requirement.

In the New Testament, there is John’s baptism and Jesus’ baptism. Paul distinguishes them, but the Book of Mormon fuses them. Water baptism plus Holy Ghost equals the doctrine of Christ (2 Nephi 31).

But this theological construct directly reflects 19th-century Protestant revivalism (Alexander Campbell’s movement and Rigdon’s preaching).

In the late 1820s, Walter Scott (in the same Restorationist circle as Sidney Rigdon) took Acts 2:38 and turned it into a rigid five-step “ancient gospel”: faith, repentance, baptism, remission of sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Instead of the older Protestant idea that the Spirit regenerates you and baptism is just a symbol, Scott explained that if you moved through those human steps, God was bound to give you both forgiveness and the Spirit through water baptism.

That exact linear pattern—faith; repentance; baptism; Holy Ghost as a single conversion event—shows up in the Book of Mormon’s “doctrine of Christ” passages, which is why some see 1828 Western Reserve theology oddly showing up directly into a supposedly ancient Nephite record.

In Pittsburgh in the early 1820s, Rigdon and Scott were working in the same Baptist arena, including a union of congregations where Scott was one of the key leaders. Scott presented his innovation as the “gospel restored”—the true ancient apostolic order modern churches had lost.

So while the Book of Mormon introduces those subtle doctrinal twists, they actually expose, along with other examples, the book’s 19th-century origins.

[Limnor]

the fullness of the gospel could be simple. Yes I think the Lord's Prayer and his death and resurrection contains the fullness. I admit that is the smallest container I could think of. I am happy that there are more larger containers.

I think we might agree on the basic idea of “fullness,” but maybe not on what counts as the core container.

If we go by Jesus and Paul, the “fullness of the gospel” really is very small—almost shockingly so: Jesus reduces the law and prophets to two commands. He gives the Lord’s Prayer as the model of Christian life. Paul defines “the gospel” very specifically as Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection and then spends the rest of his letters essentially explaining how that one event reconciles us to God.

That’s the tiny container: Christ’s self-giving love, death, and resurrection—received by faith. Everything else flows from that. Where things get interesting is when people expand the container.

So I suppose the issue is whether that smallest container is already enough—and everything beyond that is interpretation, tradition, or (in the case of Mormonism) later innovation added onto a very small original gospel.