The Articles of Faith

Yesterday was our last night of Institute class, with a Christmas party immediately following. The party was a complete blast (funniest White Elephant exchange I've seen), but I'll just be writing about what we studied: The Articles of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Joseph Smith wrote these in a letter to newspaper editor John Wentworth because of inquiries about the beliefs of the church, and as part of the Pearl of Great Price, they are included in the LDS scriptural canon.

One of my Institute Director's questions was, "Why do you think these particular doctrines were included in the Articles of Faith?" I mulled over that for a few minutes while reading through the articles. The one that impressed me first was the 4th one, about the first principles and ordinances. It's a map to salvation. We need to have faith in Jesus Christ and repent over and over, as many times as it takes (like every day). We also need the saving ordinances, the first of which is baptism and the laying on of hands.

The first few articles are straightforward, but the others seemed somewhat random to me. The gift of tongues? Why is that so important? I have thoughts on it, but I won't go into those tonight. I made a list of the 'topics' of each article. Here's what I came up with:

Nature of Godhead
Sin
Atonement
Principles and Ordinances
Callings
Organization
Spiritual Gifts
Scriptures
Revelation
Israel
Freedom of Worship
Law of the Land
Virtues

After the nature of God, the next three are about our nature and our path to salvation. After that, the next five focus on how the church works, we within it, and the Lord at the head of it. The next three are about the church within the greater world, and history of the world. Finally, the last article is about how members should conduct their lives. It's almost as if Joseph Smith wanted to say, "Take or leave our doctrines--you'll see what we believe in the lives of the members."

None of this is particularly groundbreaking, but I had never given much thought to the Articles of Faith beyond memorization when I was a kid. Now they really mean something to me personally. I love the Articles of Faith, and I'm so grateful for institute class.