6 Comments

I finished listening to this. I have to admit that it has been a little hard to focus on your amazing discussion because as soon as I start listening my mind is filled with tons of thoughts connecting all sorts of Churchy stuff. I believe that is because the Spirit is speaking to me, so I guess that's a good endorsement of your podcast . . .

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Oh dear brother- this info is changing my life!!!

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(I shared more on IG but am not sure how much you are there.)

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Amen! Your love of the Savior brings tears to my eyes. Sorry I commented on ordinances prematurely in the last podcast/paper. I love how you brought us to the heart of it. The Second Comforter is hidden manna and a celestial heart is a seer stone. I believe that. The endowment happens spiritually first before physically, and can happen as Elder Bednar describes, light added to light like the rising of the sun, or like the sudden turning on of a lamp. Anyway, thank you! I gloried in the truths within your Twitter thread weeks ago and enjoyed your thorough thesis.

Alma 37

23 I will prepare unto my servant Gazelem, a stone, which shall shine forth in darkness unto light, that I may discover unto my people who serve me...

16 ... if ye keep the commandments of God, and do with these things which are sacred according to that which the Lord doth command you, (for you must appeal unto the Lord for all things whatsoever ye must do with them) behold, no power of earth or hell can take them from you, for God is powerful to the fulfilling of all his words.

17 For he will fulfil all his promises which he shall make unto you, for he has fulfilled his promises which he has made unto our fathers.

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I have been meaning to note, in support of your comments about buildings and plumb lines and compasses and squares being metaphors for heavenly principles, something about the square.

I am an architect, and we studied a fair bit about ancient architecture in school. One of the coolest parts of that architectural history was what is known about ancient building methods. I often wondered in my youth about how an ancient builder would be able to lay out a building with square corners. How do you start from nothing and be sure that you are at 90°?

They used the pythagorean theorem. A triangle made up of one side of 3 units, one side of 4 units, and one side of 5 units is perfectly square at the vertex between the sides with 3 and 4 units. It could be done at any scale - take a long rope, tie 11 knots in it equally spaced (or 11 marks) gives you 12 units of measurement. Make a 3 4 5 triangle, and that one vertex will always be perfectly 90°.

So, note something about the numbers:

How many units are in this guide? 12.

How many units are in the square part of this guide? 7.

When you recognize that anciently the number 7 represented both covenants, and perfection / completion, you can see that the square used for construction is actually representative that our potential future perfection / completion comes because of covenants.

And they are based on the total number 12, which represents priesthood authority.

Additionally, add one unit to the 3 side (taking off the hypotenuse) and you get two units of 4, which total to 8. 8 is the number of new beginnings, representing the new beginning of baptism and the new beginning of the Millennium. 8, a new beginning, is the next step we take as we enter into the covenant (7) of baptism. The new beginning of the Millennium is when all truth will be revealed, which is directly connected to the description of the symbol of the compass in the Temple.

I am of a practical mind, and am struggling to comprehend the cosmism portion of your essays. But these things come very clearly to me as I ponder them.

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This is amazing! I have listened to about 3/4 of your presentation on Facebook. I have a few items I would like to discuss, but I will have to go through it all and take some notes. Thank you for all of the work you put into this.

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