On February 16, 1832, Joseph Smith, Jr. and Sidney Rigdon were studying John 5, and while they “meditated upon these things, the Lord touched the eyes of our understandings and they were opened, and the glory of the Lord shone round about” (D&C 76:19). This vision and the way of understanding Heaven it revealed, and which we now refer to as “the three degrees of glory,” was the result of Joseph and Sidney’s experience of Lectio Divina (Divine Reading) of John 5. In this episode Riley and Christopher approach John 5 and Doctrine and Covenants 76 from a present-moment perspective and use them as guides for ascent out of the spiritual malaise referred to as “death” or “hell” into an awareness and embracing of the “everlasting life” that comes from hearing and believing in Christ.
Latter-day prophet David O. McKay described meditation as the “most secret, most sacred door through which we pass into the presence of the Lord”...
Shiloh and Riley talk about the Sermon on the Mount from a variety of perspectives. When we take a primary or solely rationalist approach...
In a church with global proselytizing reach, which must outgrow its geographic origins theologically and practically, the Great Apostasy, as historically understood in LDS...