User:Matthewfaulconer

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Revision as of 01:19, 14 October 2006 by Matthewfaulconer (Talk | contribs)

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Feel free to leave comments for me on the discussion page. Don't forget to sign and date your comments there. You can do that by typing ~~~~.

Content I want to work on next

  • on agency and the Lord's hand in all things. Here are some related scriptures:
    • D&C 59:21 confess the hand of the Lord in all things
    • Ex 7:3 God hardens pharoah's heart (but JST pharoah hardens his own heart.
    • Judg 14:19 Spirit of the Lord comes upon Samson and Samson kills 30 men to take their stuff so he could settle a wager.
    • 2 Ne 5:25 Lamanites will be a scourge to the Nephites to stir them up unto remembrance of the Lord
    • Jacob 3:3 Except the Nephites repent the Lamanites shall scourge you even unto destruction.
    • Hel 4:13 Because of their wickedness Nephites were left in their own strength; therefore they lost when fighting the Lamanites.
    • Mosiah 10:11-12 Nephites have strength of the Lord. Lamanites depended on their own strength. Nevertheless the Lamanites were a strong people as to the strength of men.
  • I'd like to study the scriptures about praising God. I get the idea that it means something we don't really do much of today--with song being the one exception.
  • How are we to understand cases where a scripture is given and in that scripture a word is used that has meaning in the language of the people to whom the scripture is given; but then, through revelation a different definition of the word is given later? (examples, endless (Moses 7:35), eternal (D&C 132:24, Moses 7:35) son of man, eternity, endless) (scriptures: Maybe the prophecy about Elijah coming is another example of this since the prophecy is fulfilled through the coming of John the Baptist. Also Christ redefines the law of Moses--that seems related. Also maybe Christ redefines the meaning of neighbor in the parable of the Good Samaritan. I assume that originally neighbor doesn't mean everyone. D&C 59:13-14 I believe provides a clue to what is going on in these cases. We can see from these verses how what isn't intended is for us to replace the new meaning with the old word, because if that was what the Lord wanted he could have done the replacement himself.
  • Look at those scriptures that suggest we shouldn't prepare ahead, that we should be dependent on the Lord. Compare those with scriptures that say or show we should work for the things we pray for. Also, the scripture in the D&C about how Christ learned grace upon grace might be helpful here. Also see Jacob 4:7.
  • Write up complete exegesis for Moroni 7. See the complete exegesis to date at Moroni 7 All
  • plainness. See 2 Ne 25:4, Alma 13:23, the scripture about the people in Jerusalem wanting things they couldn't understand, the scriptures about the Gentiles take away things plain and precisious from the scriptures
  • the concept of hell and salvation in the book of Mormon. They do not seem to me to be the same as the way we think of these things today. I wonder if the people of the Book of Mormon didn't have the more complete information we have about what happens after death and after judgement.

A little about me

M and Family.jpg
  • I am married with 2 kids.
  • I work at Wells Fargo. I manage a smattering of projects related to internal websites and transactional data.
  • I graduated with an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin in 2001
  • I graduated with a BA in Philosophy from BYU in 1997
  • I am an admin for this site.

Why I started this site

There are several reasons that came together at once.

  • Wikipedia was an inspiration. When I first learned about Wikipedia I figured that a site where anyone can edit anything would lead to total chaos. But as I played around with Wikipedia I found rather orderly encyclopedic articles. I was amazed at what Wikipedia had to offer. But, I quickly realized that though I was enamored with the concept of a Wiki, I wasn't as interested in the content wikipedia provides--a bunch of encyclopedia articles.
  • I thought a lot about (and read some about) the difference between blogs and wikis. The only blogs I read were LDS blogs. I found them to be often very interesting but they didn't provide exactly what I was looking for. So, partly I created this wiki hoping to provide something that I felt I wanted but didn't find anywhere. Particurly I want this site to be:
    • less focused on people's opinions
    • more focused on the gospel
    • less about day-to-day chit-chat
    • more about creating something lasting
    • less a tool to aid in analyzing the Church (e.g. leadership, members, beliefs, politics, habits.)
    • more a tool to aid in understanding the scriptures
    • less introspective
    • less controversial
    • less meta...(e.g. less of what this page is all about)
    • more of something like: Alma 13:1-5 & 1 Ne 11:1-5
  • I was heavily influenced by my father's thought questions he sent out as part of preparation for teaching his sunday school class. (See below.)

Special thanks to my dad

  • For helping me put some initial content on this site
  • For teaching me over the years to focus on what scripture says
  • For doing a mountain of preparation for his Sunday School lessons. The thought questions he sent out on a weekly basis were the basis for my thinking that something like this could work.

My subpages

Some content is not appropriate or just not yet ready for the commentary pages. A common way to add such content to the site is to use subpages. Here is a list of my subpages. (See Help:Contents for more info on what stuff should go where.)