Times of Faith Blog

A few weeks ago I had a chance to attend a Jewish Shabbat at an Episcopalian Church. It was a true interfaith gathering. Rabbi Joe Charnes, a great friend of the Church of the Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, conducted the service. Rabbi Joe has spent his life exploring the comparative study of Christian and Judaism. If you’d like to read his thoughts on attending his first General Conference, click here . Rabbi Joe explained the meaning of the word Shabbat as three letters that mean stop , return , and restore . He said that our Sabbath day should be one where take the time to stop what we are doing, consider what we need to return to, and use the day to restore us. In the last LDS General Conference (October 2024), Bishop L. Todd Budge taught a similar concept. To read his full talk, click here . He taught a Japanese word mui (無為)which means “non doing” or as Bishop Budge explains, “a reminder to slow down and to live with greater spiritual awareness.” As I tho...

Mary and Elizabeth: Two Unlikely Mothers

As we learn about the birth of the Messiah, we are introduced to two women: Mary and Elizabeth. Mary is the mother of the Christ child and Elizabeth is the mother of John the Baptist. These women were cousins, but at first glance they don't seem to have too much in common. One is old, the other is young. One is married, the other is a virgin. Yet as I study their lives, they actually have quite a bit in common. They also have some powerful lessons to teach us. First let's look at the mother of Jesus. MARY When the angel Gabriel (Noah) appears to the virgin Mary, she was betrothed to Joseph. A betrothal in ancient Biblical times is not like an engagement today. Here are a few key differences: The betrothal occurs when the woman (usually between the ages of 12 and 15) partakes of broken bread and wine in front of witnesses. Only the woman can accept or reject the arrang...

Jesus Never Asked You to Obey the Commandments

Pop Quiz! How times does the phrase “obey the commandments” appear in the New Testament? If you read the email subject line, you probably already guessed the answer, which is zero. Okay, how about “obey my commandments”? Still zero. Are you surprised? Doesn’t it seem like at some point Jesus said, “If ye love me, obey my commandments?” He didn’t. What he said was... “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” (see John 14:15, emphasis added) Note: I think there is a difference between obeying commandments and keeping commandments. After a year of pondering and studying what it means to “keep the commandments,” I wrote a blog article about my thoughts. I’ll include it at the end of this newsletter. If Jesus never asked us to obey the commandments, was Jesus obedient? I would say most definitely. When I brought this concept up in class recently, one of my students made this comment. “When my father was raising us, he would tell us, ‘We don’t obey commandments, we obey the Comman...

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