Episode 192: D&C 91 – Sections 118 to 120
MBoM has a motto now!!!
“Taken out of context it means nothing, which means it means anything you want it to.”
All three witnesses to the golden plates have been excommunicated! Thomas Marsh needs to stay in Missouri and work, all the other leaders in the church need to go out and get more followers. Don’t worry, God will provide for their families, just GFTO, leadership. In spring, go to Europe!!!
Tithing is giving all your excess to the church as an initial outlay, then give 10% for the rest of your life. Yes, that’s really what Joseph means to say.
Drink count – 7
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New historical information reveals original meaning of LDS tithing
by Daniel Woodruff
Tuesday, February 9th 2016
New historical information reveals original meaning of LDS tithing
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(KUTV) The LDS church is shedding more light on the faith’s longtime practice of tithing, answering a long-standing debate about how it is referred to in the faith’s scriptures and what it means today.
Tithing requires members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to pay one-tenth of their income to the church. That money is then used to fund church operations.
But while tithing has root in Mormon scripture, an LDS historian says the way it was calculated in the late 1830s was far different than what is practiced today.
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Steven Harper, a former BYU professor who now works at the LDS Church History Department, said tithing was originally based on net worth – not income.
In an article published on LDS.org, Harper said the practice took shape in July 1838 when the faith’s founder, Joseph Smith, said he received a revelation about it. This came as the church was looking to raise money to build a new temple, Harper said.
In the revelation as recorded in Mormon scripture, tithing was explained to mean members would give “all their surplus property” to the bishop at the time, Edward Partridge, and thereafter “pay one-tenth of all their interest annually.”
Current LDS leaders say interest is typically interpreted as “income.” But that’s not what it has always meant.
“Bishop Partridge understood ‘one tenth of all their interest’ annually to mean 10 percent of what Saints would earn in interest if they invested their net worth for a year,” Harper wrote. He cited an example from Partridge who was reportedly in the room when Smith received the revelation.
“If a man is worth a $1000, the interest on that would be $60, and one/10. of the interest will be of course $6. thus you see the plan,” Partridge wrote in a letter just days after the revelation was received.
According to Harper, six percent was a common interest rate at the time.
http://kutv.com/news/local/new-historical-information-reveals-original-meaning-of-lds-tithing
April 16, 2018 at 5:59 am
There’s a funny little story here that fell through the cracks, due to the no spoilers policy. D&C 118:5 commands the Twelve to leave on a mission, and specifically to “take leave of my saints in the city of Far West” on April 26, 1839, and to start from the building spot of the temple. Of course, Far West was empty by this time, but the Twelve felt they had to obey this commandment exactly as it was given, and returned all the way to Far West simply in order to depart from there. The group included Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Pratt, John E. Page, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and George A. Smith (which was less than twelve people, but seven out of twelve is enough to constitute a quorum.)
Now, they apparently thought that antagonistic Missourians were well aware of these commandments (or prophecies, take your pick), and would be there to try and stop them from being fulfilled, probably because they were Satan’s unwitting servants, and old Satan is always keen to put a wrench in the purposes of God, and all that jazz. So the Twelve made a special point of showing up in Far West right after midnight on April 26, to beat them to the punch, assuming any Missourians actually ever showed up, and there’s no reason to think they did (that I know of), other than the Twelve’s belief that they would.
In order to fully comply with the commandment, and make the spot they left from truly the “building-spot of my house, saith the Lord”, they brought along Elder Alpheus Cutler, the temple master workman, who “recommenced laying the foundation of the Lord’s House, agreeably to revelation, by rolling a large stone near the southeast corner.” (Take that, Satan!)
They also conducted some business on this occasion, specifically, the excommunication of thirty-one individuals. The most notable of these was Isaac Russell, a Mormon who had decided to remain in Missouri after claiming revelations that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet, and he was to now lead the church into the Indian Territory, where the Three Nephites would join them to convert the Lamanites. (I bet that went really well.)
One of the Twelve’s traveling companions, Theodore Turley, took a moment after the meeting broke up to stop in at Isaac Russell’s home to say good-bye, either to rub their success in the apostate’s face, or else to fully, FULLY fulfill prophecy by finding someone to take leave from (does a recently excommunicated saint really count, though?)
Russell was quite alarmed to see Turley, as he had left Far West two weeks before, but he asked him to sit down. Turley said, “I cannot, I shall lose my company.”
“Who is your company?” enquired Russell.
“The Twelve.”
“THE TWELVE!”
“Yes, don’t you know that this is the twenty-sixth, and the day the Twelve were to take leave of their friends on the foundation of the Lord’s House, to go to the islands of the sea? The revelation is now fulfilled, and I am going with them.”
Russell was speechless, and Turley bid him farewell.
April 16, 2018 at 3:01 pm
NO WAY. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in that conversation…..
April 16, 2018 at 4:20 pm
I think the funny part is that this account doesn’t even mention whether or not Turley informed Russell he had just been excommunicated that morning. Not an important detail, I guess.
April 16, 2018 at 5:33 pm
Excommunication isn’t that big a deal. OH WAIT.