Often, when we speak about matters of religion, we discuss belief. “I know the Church is true. I have received a witness for myself that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I have had these experiences and share them in Sunday school and other venues. For me, though, faith also takes place in the fleshy here-and-now. My religion is taking the sacrament on Sunday with all the ties poking out of shirt collars, special trays for those who can’t have gluten, and the silent nod of a bishop signaling that the sacramental prayer has been offered correctly. It’s laying grass for a service project or the smell of campfire from youth conferences past. I suspect that as you’ve been listening to this that you, too, have been able to think of the physical, earthy stuff of Latter-day Saint belief, practice, and culture. 

Today we are going to explore the “stuff” of religion, what scholars call material culture. Through an exploration of the mundane, what some might call the ordinary, we discover God’s presence and the faith of ancient Israel. I suspect that we also learn something about our own modern faith, too.

The post Abide: Exodus 24; 31-34 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

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President Spencer W. Kimball said in 1976 that “Few men have ever knowingly and deliberately chosen to reject God and his blessings. Rather, we learn from the scriptures that because the exercise of faith has always appeared to be more difficult than relying on things more immediately at hand, carnal man has tended to transfer his trust in God to material things. Therefore, in all ages when men have fallen under the power of Satan and lost the faith, they have put in its place a hope in the “arm of flesh” and in “gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know” (Dan. 5:23)—that is, in idols. This I find to be a dominant theme in the Old Testament. Whatever thing a man sets his heart and his trust in most is his god; and if his god doesn’t also happen to be the true and living God of Israel, that man is laboring in idolatry.” What can we learn from the Old Testament about worshiping God and rejecting idols? We’ll explore that, and much more, in today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.”

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Easter. A time for Christians to consider the life, atoning sacrifice, and miraculous resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. How can we use our knowledge of the Old Testament to deepen our Easter experiences? And how can understanding how other religions approach Easter help us commit to being better Christians and Latter-day Saints.

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“When we begin to see ourselves as the prodigal in that famed biblical parable, we are better able to minister to that prodigal daughter or that prodigal father. When we see them as in process and recognize the same in ourselves, we can forgive their wandering because we know we must.”

The post Maxwell Institute Podcast #140: Prodigals All, with Spencer Fluhman appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

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In some ways, Israel has to be feeling pretty great in Exodus 14-17. They’re finally escaping enslavement and have been delivered by God through His prophet. On the other hand, they are also between Pharaoh’s army and the Red Sea. Spoilers: they escape. But they didn’t know that until the moment of deliverance–they had to have faith that the Lord would provide a way for them. What can we learn from the ancient Israelites living, figuratively and literally, on the water’s edge? We’ll discuss that and more on today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.”

The post Abide: Exodus 14-17 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

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