The names of Baalim

When I was younger, the Old Testament was often described to me as scripture describing a mostly wrathful and vengeful God. It always seemed inconsistent that God would change from one part of the Bible to another. It wasn't until I was older that I learned something of where the Bible came from. This lead to a better understanding of how the agendas of others have sometimes modified the reality of an unchanging God's revelation to His people.

Fortunately, there remain significant portions of the Old Testament that are filled with truth that can be discerned with sincere reading. I've had the opportunity to teach the Old Testament twice, and each time I have found the same God revealing himself as in other recorded scriptures. I especially love reading "the Prophets" who spoke with such beautiful imagery. When reading prophets like Isaiah, Hosea, and Ezekial, persistent study pays of in discerning deep meanings in the metaphorical and poetic ways of expressions they use.

This has happened enough times that it gives me hope that much treasure lies within the wisdom of the Old Testament that is waiting to be discerned. One such discovery I made over 2 years ago while reading Hosea Chapter 2. I recently re-read this portion of scripture and felt that I needed to describe my reaction to it.

Hosea uses graphic imagery in Chapter 2 to describe Israel's past apostasy from the Lord, their eventual loss of His guidance and protection, and His final remembrance of them and their return to him in the last day to build Zion. It is a beautiful, poetic piece even as I read it through the translations. At times like this, I wish I could read and understand in the original Hebrew because I believe it would be even more meaningful and heart-wrenching.

Naturally, as I read Hosea 2, I consider my own apostasy from the Lord and my continual struggle to go "after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink." (vs. 5). It is easy to get distracted from the guidance of the Holy Ghost and turn earning a living for my family into pursuit of the pleasure, pride, and power of providing.

Hosea describes how the Lord will "destroy her vines and her fig trees" (vs. 12) and allow a lot of misery for Israel's repeated worship of false gods and their forgetting of the Lord. However, starting at verse 14, the "door of hope" is opened even in their "valley of trouble" (Achor in Hebrew means trouble and the word rather than the place name should probably have been used here -- even though Hosea might have intended the play on words).

And then the promise of redemption is given and verse 16 delivers what I consider to be one of the most beautiful passages of scripture with rich meaning and powerful imagery:

And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali.

Both of the words Ishi and Baali can be translated from the Hebrew to refer to the male spouse. But, Ishi connotes the more intimate "my husband" while Baali connotes the more authoritarian, "my master". Here the Lord through His prophet Hosea is describing the sought for intimate relationship with us as covenant people even if we (perhaps unknowingly) seek for a less enobling master-servant relationship.

Reflecting on this passage and cross-referencing it with an understanding of how God wants to lift us to His presence to enjoy immortality and eternal life, I am awed again by the condescension of God. Perhaps more importantly, however, the next verse offers a hint as to how this intimate relationship may actually come about:

For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.

If the interpretation of "Baalim" as "my master" is considered in this verse, then could it be that the "names of Baalim" are all the master-servant relationships we erect in our lives. Perhaps we mis-understand them as mirrors of a mis-guided relationship with God. If God Himself does not demand this kind of master-servant structure, why do we insist on these kinds of relationships with others?

Think about the authoritarian and coercive systems that have been established throughout history, including the ones that exist in our present day. Their root justification is to deliver to us "civilization", or secular Zion, in one way or another.

It is interesting to me that these verses are given at the beginning of the section of Chapter 2 that promises the gathering of Israel and true establishment of Zion. It is as if we are being told that when we truly find God and understand how he views us, we will be filled with love and affection for Him. This affection will spill out so that we value all of His children and wish to elimimate any "master-servant" relationships that we may have mistakenly created or supported in our previous "Baal worship".

Only after we have correctly identified these "names of Baalim" and then allowed the Lord to supplant them in our hearts with more correct "Ishi-sytle" relationships, will we be able to enjoy the establishment of Zion.

Once we get our minds correctly aligned to worship the true God as manifest by the relationships we establish with others, Zion can emerge. The resulting promises are wonderful:

• Verse 18 talks about violence and conflict coming to an end.
• Verse 19 promises justice, and kindness, and tender mercies.
• Verses 20 and 21 talk about more direct interaction with the voice of God.
• Verse 22 talks about prosperity in the scarce resources of the earth and having our physical needs met.
  
• Verse 22 discusses the entire earth being brought into the fold of God.

I've pondered on this passage several times now over the past several years. Each time, "I stand all amazed at the Love Jesus offers me" and by extension offers the entire world. Truly He provides the light of understanding as we keep our eye "single to the Glory of God"

In the ordinances thereof the power of godliness is manifest

I love talking to each of my brothers. It seems that as we talk together our understanding increases and we each learn something new or see more clearly something about our relationship with God. In truth can we say that "both are edified and rejoice together." I just finished one of those discussions with one of my brothers, and I want to record and expand on some of what we discussed.

In our discussion the subject of ordinances in the gospel and their importance came up. In my ward, we had just finished talking about this in Sunday School while discussing the missionary labors of Paul and why certain members in Ephesus were re-baptized even after they had previously received the baptism of John (see Acts 19:1-7).

The instructor brought up the scripture in D&C 84:20-21:

20 Therefore, in the ^aordinances thereof, the power of ^bgodliness is manifest.

21 And without the ordinances thereof, and the ^aauthority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is ^bnot manifest unto men in the flesh;

This scripture became the jumping off point for discussing how important it was to perform certain ordinances exactly correct. I remember being unsatisfied by that part of the class, like we really hadn't identified any truth out of these scriptures.

Perhaps I was sensitive because a friend of mine who does not share my faith had recently commented that he does not like "orthodoxy" in religion because it separates people and causes division. Often this division becomes the seed that is nurtured into hatred and killing usually by those who would gain power over others. This seems similar to the problem of dogmatic belief that Sam Harris saw and discussed in his book which he mis-labeled as "The End of Faith."

The nugget of truth that seemed to become clear as we spoke is that we often mentally substitute the word "ritual" for ordinance and in so doing focus only on the physical expression of what ultimately must be a spiritual act if it is to have any effect. D&C 132:7 makes this point rather clearly:

... All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, ^boaths, ^cvows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations, that are not made and entered into and ^dsealed by the Holy Spirit of promise ... are of no efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection from the dead; for all contracts that are not made unto this end have an end when men are dead.

If we view the ordinance of baptism as merely making sure we are getting fully wet and don't pay the same amount of attention to the spiritual symbolism in the gesture of drowning our old life and being brought up again a new person by the arms of God, then the physical act will have "no effect" in the life to come.

Perhaps ignorance of the essential "sealing" portion of the ordinances is the essential part of what is meant by "unworthiness" which is warned against in Mormon 9:29

See that ye are not baptized ^aunworthily; see that ye partake not of the sacrament of Christ ^bunworthily; but see that ye do all things in ^cworthiness, and do it in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God; and if ye do this, and endure to the end, ye will in nowise be cast out.

With respect to partaking of the sacrament, Jesus is particularly clear in 3 Ne 18:29:

For whoso eateth and drinketh my flesh and ^ablood ^bunworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to his soul;

As I pondered this statement, I felt a strong confirmation from the Holy Ghost that only participating in the ritual of the sacrament without the spiritual renewal that accompanies partaking with a sincere desire to repent stops the progress of sanctification which is supposed to be the ordinance of the sacrament.

A few weeks after the initial conversation, another brother shared a powerful insight that he had learned through the Spirit that the power of godliness is the power to lift others. This enlightened my understanding even further, because indeed the purpose of all of the ordinances is to lift us up to God so that we "may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall ^cbe like him, for we shall see him as he is" (Moroni 7:48).

Thus, without the full ordinances (the complete "sealed" ordinances not just the physical rituals), the power of godliness (to lift us up to be like Him) would not be available to us in the flesh. We should celebrate as Saints, the corollary of that statement: through the full "sealed" ordinances, the power of godliness which can lift us back into His presence and which we can use to lift others is available to us today.

While I have focused on the importance of the "sealing," or spiritual portion of the ordinances, I do not wish to downplay the importance of rituals. It has personally taken me a long time to understand anything as to why we do them, but one of the books by Brother Snuffer taught me that without ritual to remind us of the spiritual connection, we would soon lose any purely mental connection to God in the demanding physicalness of every-day life.

In conclusion, to answer the question of why we are fastidious about performing certain ordinances correctly, I would say that detailed attention to the precise physical manifestation of the ordinance is symbolic and should remind us of the attention we should also be paying to ensuring that the ritual is sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise --- thus completing the ordinance that will sanctify us and bring us back into the presence of God.

An eye "Single to the Glory of God"

There is an oft quoted verse in the Doctrine and Covenants: D&C 88:67

And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you; and that body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things.

This scripture has inspired me for a long time, but recently it gained new importance in my struggle to understand. What caught my attention was what it means to have an eye that is "single to [God's] glory". I suppose like most people I just vaguely understood that concept as being "focused" on God and the commandments. In other words, if I rigidly conformed to a set of behavioral standards and focused on becoming more "righteous" as defined by my primary-understanding of the "Thou shalt nots," then I would be filled with this mysterious "light."

In retrospect, it is understandable that I would have such a view because in the very next verse is the charge to "sanctify yourself" in order to achieve this singleness of mind. But, the concept of sanctifying myself is not explained in those versus. As in most scripture versus, understanding what the words mean is critical. Sometimes, we think we understand what the words mean because we lean not on whisperings of the Holy Ghost as we pray and study scripture, but on the worn-out cliches we've developed in our minds from years of hearing words over the pulpit. As I've come to understand the scriptures better, it seems that the biggest difficulty in keeping an eye "single to the glory of God" is understanding what that concept even means.

As I've pondered the concept of our "eye" referred to in this scripture, some additional words that come to mind which might explain the concept more fully are "world-view" and "mindset." What does it mean to have our "mindset" single to the glory of God? If our way of looking at and perceiving the world is to be "single to the glory of God" then it sounds like we had better understand what is the "glory of God."

There are several scriptures that discuss the "glory of God" as being celestial glory which is compared to the light of the sun (e.g. D&C 76:70, Matt 13:43). This radiating light is clearly a manifestation of the glory of God. These scriptures also make clear that receiving the glory of God in the celestial kingdom is part of what it means to be "filled with light." While these scriptures help us understand that celestial glory is available to the "righteous," they provide little insight on how to obtain it, other than the concept that we must "be as God is" to live in his presence.

I suppose that it is this concept of "becoming like God" that led to my somewhat self-centered view that being "single" to the glory of God is a self-focused enterprise. I now believe that nothing could be further from the truth.

Turning to Moses 1:39 we read:

For behold, this is my work and my glory — to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

So, the glory of God is found in his work of lifting His children to a celestial state. God's glory radiates from his devoted love for us, His children and His desire to see us achieve our full potential.

Keeping my "eye" single to the glory of God is keeping my mindset devoted in love to others and their potential. I must see each person as a child of God, worthy of respect and consideration. Other scriptures support this concept. Consider Mormon 8:15 where Moroni discusses how the Book of Mormon will be brought to light in the latter days:

For none can have power to bring it to light save it be given him of God; for God wills that it shall be done with an eye single to his glory, or the welfare of the ancient and long dispersed covenant people of the Lord.

Notice how the "eye single to his glory" is rephrased as concern for the "welfare" of the "convenant people of the Lord." Or notice how in D&C 4:5, the qualifications of those who would assist in the missionary work are described:

And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.

Keeping an eye single to the glory of God is here associated with being filled with faith, hope, charity, and love. These specific attributes are essential to lifting others to their full potential.

Thus a mindset that is single to the glory of God is one that is full of sincere and true love for others. Contemplating what it means to truly love others, I'm reminded of Kant's moral imperative wherein he defines ethical behavior in that we do not treat others as "means-only" but as "ends." In other words, we respect others as children of God with divine potential.

In particular, I think this means that we must respect the agency of each person. For "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" to suffer the consequences of the wrong choices that would follow from preserving to us our agency. If God's glory is accomplished by preserving our agency, then keeping our eye single to the glory of God must certainly include respecting the agency and rights of others.

My experience is that as I've truly sought to value the agency of others, I have been led to knowledge and understanding of how such thinking leads actually leads to a successful society. To me, this has been part of the light that is promised to those who keep their eye single to the glory of God. One aspect of this understanding has come from the writings of Ludwig von Mises and his colleagues of the Austrian school for economics. For example, see many of the writings at http://www.mises.org for more details on how respecting the agency of others leads to economic prosperity.

In his work "Human Action," von Mises begins with the premise that humans act (i.e. that we have agency) and constructs the logical consequences of that premise to show that a free-society based on voluntary transactions (as opposed to coercively regulated) is the only way to maximize prosperity.

This idea has led to an awareness of how such simple principles are not being followed in the world today and it is causing great suffering. This idea of agency and those who would undermine it, has also led to a greater understanding of the prophecies regarding our day, especially the words of Isaiah who constantly speaks of "justice." Perhaps future posts will explore some of these ideas.