The Tree of Life

Scripture Sources: Revelation 22, 1 Nephi 8, 11, and 15

Aaron Schade Essay - footnotes 17 and 20 are interesting

Richard Draper's Opening the Seven Seals - pg 241 and 242

The Two Trees by Valerie Hudson

Discussion:

With the tokens and signs, we walk past angels but have never thought of them as protecting the Tree of Life. Is that a possibility?

The dreams of the Tree of Life in the Book of Mormon seem to reflect the following concept: ordinances, covenants, and living the gospel of Jesus Christ constitute the life of discipleship leading along the strait and narrow path to the Tree of Life. Aaron Shade

Read aloud the abstract of Schade’s paper

The tokens and signs show that we have accepted and taken the covenants -

Tokens and signs also show that we recognize the language of the temple and the specific language of the covenants

Neal A. Maxwell's quote about deeds, not words that matter

Recognizing covenantal language in our temple worship

Covenantal language: His people, My people (relationship with God), Posterity, Land, Protection, Commandments, Prosperity, Blessings, Gathering, Temple, Exaltation

We could say that the iron rod represents the covenant between us and God

The iron rod is like a rope on a tough hike

“In a moment of being down on myself, my brother told me, “The iron rod is there to stabilize us; it’s not a stick to beat ourselves up with.” Jalynne Geddes, posted on Sunday on Monday.

Genesis 3:22, 24

Are angels surrounding the Tree of Life?

To partake of the fruit is to ingest, consume, (not to eat), accept an idea

Are we partaking of the fruit right now through our actions?

Additional Sources:

Seven Gospels - Adam Miller and Rosalynde Welch

Faith Matters Podcast with Miller and Welch

James L. Farrell’s Falling to Heaven book

Rosalynde Welch, Ether, pg. 67:

“But we should view as a gift, not a liability, scripture’s high-maintenance demand that we grapple for its meaning over and over. There is paradoxical value in scripture aging out of its original language and context. It is only in the wrestle to clothe an ancient text in a different language, to reframe its potential meanings for a new time or place, that the book grabs hold of the reader and gets under the skin. That our religious community’s interpretation of scripture changes over time is a sign of spiritual vitality, not decline. That we trudge through the same books of scripture on a never-ending four-year curriculum cycle should be, paradoxically, an opportunity for new vision, not tedium. Among the several channels of continuing revelation streaming between God and his people, we should include scripture itself—not as a glassed-in repository of original truth, but as a hands-on site of emergent intention. Our interpretive practice should attend to “translations” both conceptual and linguistic, as well as to originals. Scripture’s center of gravity lies in the present, not in the past.”