Breaking the Rules (part one)

How many rules are so firm that we cannot make exceptions for them? Every rule seems to have an exception. Nephi slaying Laban, or that women should cover their heads and keep silent in church. Even the word of wisdom is “adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of saints,” (D+C 89:3) and is not an immutable law but a guiding rule for our time. Rules are put in place to direct us from where we stand towards god and heaven. As Paul states “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak” (Romans 14:21). If rules fail to point us to God then they are useless and we become as the Sadducees and Pharisees during the time of Christ. Sure they kept the law but the law no longer pointed towards God and therefore lacked the powers of salvation.

But what is salvation and, by extension, what is exaltation. How do we distinguish between the two? And most importantly how do we achieve them? I was arguing with the idea of how the church teaches its members to become exalted. The church has a role to bring the gospel to mankind. And so is focused on teaching the basics of truth and salvation. I have at times past optioned the idea that we should create an advanced Sunday school where we can explore greater depths and move beyond salvation into exaltation. This however may be a false presumption and may not lead where I wish it to go.

And so over the course of an as yet undetermined number of posts I will explore this idea.