I once heard about a Bishop who wouldn't sign off on the application to serve a mission until the applicant could explain to him what the Abrahamic Covenant was. After that, and because I hear it mentioned so often in church, I got the impression that this covenant was important.
Some background (kind of watered down)! Abraham was a guy who was the only person of his religion in town (aka, not worshiping idols). After almost getting sacrificed to these idols himself, he and some of his family ditched town. While he was out there, God made a covenant with him that his descendants would be numerous and that all the Earth would be blessed through his descendants - specifically all the FAMILIES of the Earth will be blessed (Genesis 12:3).
As I was reading through this, these are the questions that were going through my head: It seems so basic, what's the catch? What made Abraham's family so special that they got to be God's chosen people? Why is it important to learn about this? How does this relate to me and my journey back to Heaven?
What I came up with is that the Abrahamic Covenant is all about choosing God as your god, and everything that actually means. Abraham was alone in his convictions until he left his home city, and he was pretty much all his life. He had to make a choice, and then live that choice for the rest of his life. Back then choosing a god to be devoted to meant being willing to kill your son (Abraham's dad and Abraham himself), not todays definition of religion that is more of a "well, it makes me feel good and I agree with most of what it teaches."
I guess the follow up to this is that an LDS belief is that if a couple have been married or Sealed in the Temple, then all of their children who were born after that time are said to be "born under the Covenant" and don't need to be sealed to their parents in a ceremony because they are already sealed to them. I always thought that meant the covenant that the parents made when they were married - but now I wonder if it also could mean under the Abrahamic Covenant. Back in old Jewish times when a male was born, the parents would make a sacrifice at the temple in Jerusalem that had, among its purposes I believe (I could be wrong), the purpose of dedicating that son's life to God. Maybe when someone is born under the covenant it means that when their parents were sealed, they promised to God their offspring in sort of the same way. Note, this is NOT doctrine, this is just musing of Marinda and I could be completely wrong AND I don't know anything about the marriage/sealing ceremony - I'm just assuming that covenants are made because I've been taught all my life that the Temple is a place to make them. But this is such a deep and dense doctrine that unless we take a little time to muse and a lot more time to study and pray, I don't think we'll learn anything. Asking questions is important, but like G.I. Joe says - It's only half the battle!
No comments:
Post a Comment