Intro to Psalms
Ben and Shiloh discuss the parable of the wheat and the tares as found in Matthew 13 and D&C 86. A common interpretation of this parable is that the “wheat” and the “tares” are people, and in this interpretation, we typically include ourselves as wheat and those who we disagree with or who are not living our standards as tares. However, is this really the point of the parable? How often do our interpretations and assumptions of scripture serve to unnecessarily “otherize” us from our brothers and sisters? What if the point of this parable was not to “otherize” but to show how God leads, guides, and builds each of his children with compassion, patience, and watchful care? How can we learn from this parable of the universal and unconditional love of God that leads his children out of sin not through guilt, shame, or punishment but through charity, reconciliation, and unity? What would that even look like? ...
Shiloh joins with guest co-host Christopher Hurtado to discuss and question the nature of God. Is God as wrathful, vengeful, and angry as the scriptures say that God is? Why is God angry with and ready to destroy people in one area for one type of sin but seemingly more lax or merciful with others committing far more grievous errors? We know that we are only responsible for the truth and commandments that we know, but does this really explain the complexities of a God that is still so seemingly inconsistent? Is there room in these scriptures for us to learn to see God differently? Is there enough space for us to consider that perhaps God’s wrath, vengeance, and anger have more to do with our own perception(s) about God than it actually has to do with God’s true and eternal nature? Is God as transactional and as quid pro quo as scripture often makes God seem, or is God’s transactional nature more about a projection of the way that we already view ourselves? What do our views of God tell us about ourselves? Rather than seeing and experiencing a purely transactional God, what if we see and experience a universally transformational and unconditionally loving God that is not wrathful, vengeful, and angry in the way that we generally attribute to God in scripture, then what does that say about how we also are learning to see ourselves? ...
Shiloh and Ben discuss revelation. What is it? How did Joseph report receiving it? What is it like in our own lives? How we view revelation also influences how we view and experience the scriptures. It has been said that the scriptures are always true, and sometimes the scriptures are even historical. What does this mean? Is the truthfulness of scripture primarily held in their historical literalness, or is there a way to view scripture that makes them even more true for reasons beyond whether the stories literally happened as they are told? How scripture is made is a history in itself as we learn discussing the history of the “United Order/Firm.” ...
