Genesis 1:2-5

As I was saying on the previous study, the first two verses are a sum of this account that Moses is going to write. I think also, that when he says that God created the Heavens (and I mean Gods) he is referring to all of the creations that Moses witnessed with his spiritual eyes in the vision of all the creations of God. Think of the Heavens as everything the Hubble telescope could show us and more. Imagine something like that amazing scene in Contact when she sees the nebula and the galaxies, stars, planets, etc. I like to think of those things. I like to think that there are greater things up there waiting for us to discover and when we do all this is going to be very small indeed. All the problems that plague this earth will be nothing really. But then, when Moses start talking about the earth as he does not go into detail on the Universe and beyond, he talks about light. Maybe the most important thing was done first and that is what we should learn here.

I am pretty sure light already existed. God was not in darkness. He is full of light. Jesus is the light of this world. So, to think that when he said "Let there be light" was the first time light appeared in vast blob of darkness is infantile and silly. Light was everywhere but then he gets to this corner and he is organizing an amazing planet. It is very easy to discredit this report and I want all to know that unlike many religions today we do not discredit the Bible's first 11 chapters. We do believe that God created the earth.

To "create" here as we understand, is more like to "organize." God is organizing. Matter to us is eternal. According to the Prophet Joseph Smith, matter and spirit are of the same substance, one subject to corruption the other not. We don't understand much of matter anyway. There are different ways we find matter, as in solid, liquid, gas, plasma (I think that is how we say it but I am thinking in Portuguese) but how about spirit? It think that is a form of manifestation of matter that we don't understand much because we cannot capture and study. So, when the gods around in this corner of the Universe they are putting together a lot of matter into a form that is first spiritual then it will become corrupt and life will become corrupt too and we get to the state where we are now.

But before he even starts the process, he "turns on the light" because life cannot exist without it. He had to set up the proper environment. No wonder we get depressed with not much light. I read books that told me that to fix depressing modes I had to turn on the light on a lamp and stay close to it, or go outside and feel the sunlight on my face. We must be surrounded by light to have a communion with God. We feel scared in the dark. Dark is a work that denotes evil. We all know that. Dark loses all the time as when you open the door to a dark room, it is the light that enters the room and not the dark that goes toward the lightened area.

It says here that God saw that the light was good and we all can agree with that. But we need darkness to rest don't we? What if we were all like in those northern countries where there is practically no night? I would be tired! They have to block the light to make darkness so they can rest. So, the record does not say that darkness is bad because it is saying that light was good. What I mean with the connotation that dark has to do with evil is that Satan uses all that is dark because in the end he will abide in complete darkness. There cannot be light where Christ is and Christ is not where Satan is. If we want to have the influence of Christ in our life we must agree that light is good and cling to light. Every time we embrace darkness we alienate Christ from our life. So, it is always good to pray at night, I think. I think angels can tend for us at night and bad things don't happen and we don't know why but it is because the war between light and darkness is always going on although we are not listening to the blasts here and there.

Have you all seen the animation on Toy Story 3 about night and day? It shows that both must exist and some beautiful things of this world and beyond can only be appreciated with light and some can only be appreciated with darkness. It is the world making a point there but it is in some way a good point. Opposition is defined in the first day of creation. Day and night, light and darkness. As much as I dislike opposition's effects because it is simply too much (well, the Lord knows when I disagree with Him, I will do what he says, but I can disagree with the excess in opposition in this life so there) I know it is necessary and he will continue making separations between this and that until he starts creating things to populate the planet.

I think we should meditate on this, on how many things in our lives brings darkness to it, and how many things bring more light. Let's shun from dark thoughts and fill our minds with light. Let's buy more lamps. Let's open the windows, let's walk outside, work outside, play outside! Let's embrace light and see the effects of light in our life. Satan has beautiful things to offer to us that need darkness to be pretty but we can all live without them. I love Vegas because it is beautiful at night, but then a lot of evil comes from Sin City. I think I can live without Vegas and I can appreciate Temple Square. The problem with looking for light in places and things that come from darkness is that in the end darkness gets you. All churches have some light because they read from readings of people inspired by the Holy Ghost. All that is good comes from God. I believe the LDS church has access to the source of all light because Christ is directing the church through his prophets. Religious people of all faith do a lot of good (light) because they draw from God's influence to serve others, they are motivated by light.

So, in the first day God divided the light from the darkness. Maybe as we plan to achieve eternal goals, the first thing to do is make the distinction between the two, see what is darkness and what is light inside of us, separate the two and choose light always. It is not easy, I know, but that is what we must do because it makes us move forward. Let's separatre darkness from light too, in our lives, and choose the light.

Genesis 1:1

The idea is to read the verses that I point out is what I read and then read the comment and maybe comment about what you think of the same verses. I love the Old Testament and the New Testament. The main reason is because when I joined the church the only scriptures I had read for real was the Book of Mormon because the missionaries told me to read and pray about it. Reading scriptures was not a thing in my house growing up. We were Catholics and it was not a tradition to read it. Maybe it is to some Catholics out there but I remember that my mom used to leave the Bible open in the house because it was the "holy" Bible, it was holy as in it emanated some good vibes or something, and for that reason, having it open with a little cloth over it, it would bless the house. I think the house would have been blessed more if we were reading it and discussing it as a family at least weekly. But that was not the case with me so when I read the Old Testament for the first time I simply loved it!!! It was in Seminary (a study that Mormon teens participate for four years reading the holy books: Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price (every year focusing on a different one.) But my mom thought that if I read the Bible I would go go crazy. That is what she would tell me and she would point to images on TV and in the streets of men holding their Bibles in the air yelling at people that they had to repent.

The funny thing in Seminary when I was 17 years old and going to the LDS Church to see what it was, is that when we were studying Genesis, there was a question that I had to read from Moses 1:5 I think. I looked for the Book of Moses in the Bible, and I looked, and then I looked again! I could not find it! I knew Moses was in the Bible but I could not find his book!!! Did I buy the wrong Bible? Well, the teacher told me the next Sunday that it was in Pearl of Great Price but that was one week after I was all disappointed... hehe. I learned that really fast. I loved every single study book. Oh well. Here is my impression of this first verse under the light of the restored Gospel:

When they say "the beginning" they are talking of a point in the fabric of time and not the beginning of God. That word needs to be understood as the beginning of the story that Moses is about to tell. Besides, the first verse here is a sum of the whole story that will unfold: God created the heaven and the earth means stuff in the other side of the veil and in this one.

I also want to point that "God" here is our Heavenly Father, but we all know that the god of the Old Testament is Jesus Christ and that creation was not done by God the Father alone. He would command, Jesus would do it, and then report back. The Gods created the heavens and the earth because it was the creation of our Father through the hands of Jesus Christ. That fact is very important to me because when I see something beautiful in this earth I have to remember that it was a creation of God: a person, the sunset, the sunrise, flowers, etc. we have to remember that they were created by Gods and pay respect for those creations. Can we do that? Isn't that seeing the hand of God in everything? There is a lot that I could say about this, but it is too late and I will send t his after midnight now. But i will send it because I am happy that I am reading all this again.

There many amazing stories here. Sometimes let me know you enjoy this. I know I write too much. Sorry. Have a great first day of this study and make sure you look at something beautiful today.

Scriptures: ancient and modern

After a period of 6 years reading the Book of Mormon from cover to cover but stopping when prompted to write a comment, I have a huge collection of commentaries on the scriptures that I have shared with my wife and children over the years via email. I am not going to post everything in this blog, but I would like to share my LDS mind with others.

These are my opinions of course. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints I can only speak for myself. The church has its positions on doctrine very well spelled out in the Church's website and you can go there to learn more. The Mormon Church or LDS Church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) is an amazing church and I believe the key to its success is that it is a practical religion. We believe in prayer, but above all we believe in service. You cannot be LDS and just sit during service and go home and be good. We must be engaged in a good cause. We must serve in callings in the Church and not expect a pastor do be paid to preach to us. We are the pastors and we give talks in church when our times comes to give a talk (during service - we call them meetings.) Every man must have the priesthood and bless his wife and children and when called serve as a Bishop (which you may call pastor) but the merits of the Bishop is his integrity and his capacity to be inspired by God to help us out... not a diploma on his wall and he does not get paid to do that. My Bishop works full time and helps the people in our neighborhood during his free time besides spending time with family and friends as much as he can.

We believe in living prophets and we have more scriptures than just the Bible. The Bible we use is the King James version. I am studying the Old Testament after finishing a 6 year study of The Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon from where the nickname of the church comes, does not replace the Bible. To us it is more scripture, another Testament of Jesus Christ. It is weird to some that there should be more scriptures besides the Bible, but it is better understood if you think that the original Christians, who were called Saints (the Bible says "saints") did not have a Bible. The Bible came up about 300 years after the death of the original apostles and when there was no prophets around. Until then, scriptures was the writings of the Jews - The Old Testament (as Jesus was a Jew himself.) When the people that made the Bible decided to put one together, they chose which letters from the original apostles they would include there and we have the additions to the original Bible called the New Testament. But even before the first Bible was put together and after for a long time, people did not walk around with Bibles either, that is a thing of after the Dark Ages, when the powerful church that ruled who could have scriptures and who could not did not stop people from printing it and distributing it to the populus (many people died to make that possible because the church of the time would kill people who had Bibles in their houses.) Until then, a person had to know about God from what they heard but not really read about His dealings with men through prophets.

These are different times and people forget that the Bible is a collection of books and the fact that there is a collection is because God talked to prophets back in the days. When a prophet came and started talking in the name of God people would kill them based on the fact that they had scriptures. Scriptures have been used to discredit the power of God for a long time. People like dead prophets for some reason. But God would not stop, and they would kill one, and He would call another one. So, we have many books in the Old Testament due to that fact: that God was active in the lives of his children through his representatives. When Christ came they used scriptures to kill him. They would not accept prophets because there is always "the last one" that spoke. But killing Christ was a big mistake. Christ still appeared to Paul in the way to Damascus, and talked to Peter to let the Gospel be preached to the Gentiles (a big change from His ministry that was only to the Jews) and to say that circumcision was not necessary and other things that were additions to what God had said to the prophets of old. He was not called Rabbi because they wanted to flatter him, but because he followed the law of Moses and preached the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel (the one who said circumcision was a must.) But you see? Things got added and it was OK.

Unfortunately Christianity adopted the Jewish model of denying that any more prophets can be sent by God and they will tell anything to make any prophet look bad. God looks down and thinks: "What is going on? Don't they read the Bible? Can't they see how I work?" and wonders why people did not like His model of a church with Apostles and Prophets and with Him telling prophets what He wants to say today. They will tell you that God is mute, that those days are gone, that all you can do now is read about Him. Not in the LDS Church. We have more scriptures because we believe God is alive and He cares about us. We know He works through prophets and modern man are not less deserving of revelation than the ancient ones.

So, my comments are on the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price and the words spoken by the living prophets. Imagine that you live in 15 a.D. and you are in a church and Peter, James, John or Paul just walked in. You either believe that your contemporary can be a prophet like ancient Moses or you don't. Same thing when you go to the LDS Church. I hope you like my comments and I hope the explanation helped.