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A Bible! A Bible!

I once asked my father why more people did not join our Church. Clearly, we have the most pure gospel. We have a living prophet to guide us. We have more testimonies of the divinity of Christ. We teach that we can have a personal relationship with God and that He will speak to/with us. We are given opportunities to lead and serve. We are given blessings that are available no where else, and we extend these blessings and opportunities to everyone, including our ancestors. We have a Church that encompasses ALL truth, not just what we know now or may know in the future. And we are given the chance to enter covenants that will seal our families together for the eternities in the Celestial Kingdom of our Father.

If our religion, our gospel represents such an amazing path to joy in this life and exaltation in the life to come, why don't people flock to our Church now?

My dad said that I should think about it this way: imagine you like to eat hot dogs. They are good. They fill you up. They are all you have ever eaten and all you have ever wanted to eat. They are satisfying to your immediate hunger and you have no knowledge of any other food, anyway...

Then one day a couple of guys show up on your door step. They are dressed in suits and wear black name badges. They come offering a food called "steak". You have never known steak before. How could you? They offer enticing aromas and promise a culinary delight. But their requirement is that you abandon hot dogs forever... Could you do it? You cannot taste steak before you decide to abandon hot dogs forever. What if it's horrible? What if they're lying and there is no steak? They've promised you it's better and more satisfying than anything you've ever known, but how can you be sure?

I began to see the reluctance of some on abandoning their comfortable and reliable source of sustenance, lacking as it may be, in an effort to not get duped or taken in to trying something that is untried and unsure.

Part of this resistance seems centered on the existence of the Book of Mormon. I am comfortable with my Bible, one may say, and I do not want to try something new. God has spoken and His word I can see and quantify and understand. If I say that there is no more of the word of God then I can remove myself from responsibility and everything else associated with knowing that further knowledge. I do not want to abandon my comfortable and traditional church for something I do not know. Besides, the Mormon Church would make me give up my beer, my money, my time, etc. And for what?

More on the "for what" later...

Comments

Jeanette said…
That is such a great analogy! Makes perfect sense to me.
December 16, 2009 at 7:26 AM
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