God himself becomes angry because of wickedness, so it seems that anger itself can’t be a sin. D&C 5:8, “Oh, this unbelieving and stiffnecked generation–mine anger is kindled against them.”

Regarding the concept of perfection and whether it can include sin is an irrelevant discussion when using Jesus as an example, IMO. There are a number of scriptures which indicate that Jesus was without sin. 2 Cor. 5:21, “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Heb. 4:15, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Heb. 7:26, “For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.” 1 Peter 2:21-22, “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.” 1 John 3:5, “And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.” D&C 45:4, “Saying: Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be purified.” He was perfect and he was without sin, so to debate, based on the life of Jesus, whether one must be sinless to be perfect seems pointless. Maybe I’m missing your point MH.

In addition, breaking the law (of the land) is different than breaking the laws of God. We certainly believe in obeying the law, but to break the law is not a sin, unless that law is also a law of God, such as murder or theft. The vendors in the temple may have been acting legally according to the law as set forth by men, but that doesn’t mean they were obeying the laws of God, or that they were not respecting the spirit of the law itself.

And finally, regarding the topic of foreordination and foreknowledge (not predestination), God most certainly knows what choices we will make and he knows precisely what our final outcome will be. It isn’t a matter of having a general idea based on statistics. He KNOWS. The past, present, and future are all before him. This knowledge is different from predestination. It does not rob us of our agency. The fact that God knows the choices we will make, does not take away our ability to make them freely. There is an excellent talk by Neal A. Maxwell which addresses this subject. It is titled, “A More Determined Discipleship”

However, I rather doubt he lost control of himself.

What kind of person who’s completely lost control and in the midst of a rampage, thoughtfully refrains from assaulting the helpless birds trapped in their cages and instead orders them removed? Doesn’t really mesh to me.

I just don’t like the fact that a modern American culture where people have been raised and programmed not to feel things deeply, or care too much about things, is whining that Jesus was “too intense” for their liking.

I’m sure to a culture that has essentially been emotionally neutered, he certainly comes off that way.

Fertel constantly says that it’s ok to have differences, but it’s important to build connections. I don’t know if you remember that quiz about knowing your spouse’s favorite book, color, movie, etc, but Fertel says that we should know our spouse so well, that we know these things.

I must say that when I thought about “what are we going to talk about every Friday night?” that I was somewhat concerned, because it seems like we’ve talked about everything. But I did really poor on that quiz, so I guess, maybe I’ll bring that quiz again–I think I’ve already forgotten most of her answers.

The funny thing is that we went out every Friday night while dating, and never ran out of things to say….

As a statistician, I would say God is the ultimate statistician. He knows the models, can predict how many of us will succeed, but probably not necessarily how each of us individually will do. Sure, he might have some people like Moses, Abraham, Joseph Smith, who he can see have great attributes to be good leaders, but I don’t think God is necessarily involved in every single person’s daily life. God has a good idea how we’ll turn out, but I think predestination or foreordination is going too far.

Spektator,

Let me explain my logic a bit better regarding perfect/complete/sinless. In mormon culture, we all think that perfect means sinless. As you mentioned, a different translation of this word might mean “complete.” I find both words have problems.

Every Christian claims that Christ was sinless, and therefore the only one capable of paying for our sins. Mormons often believe that we need to be perfect or sinless. Well, if we change this definition of perfect to be complete rather than sinless, then it seems to take off the pressure to be sinless. I think mormons tend to overemphas ize the sinless part of perfection.

So now let’s look at the scripture again, this time using the definition of complete. If Jesus is telling us to be complete, rather than sinless, then is sin really important? After all, I think it is relatively easy to be complete. Many of us are well-rounded individuals.

So, does being sinless really matter anymore? FD brought up the story of Jesus cleansing the temple. One could look at that and say that Jesus is no different than Bobby Knight. After all, Bobby threw a chair on the basketball court, and Jesus overturned tables of money changers. One could argue (especially if one was jewish) that Jesus was not sinless, and in fact guilty of many things: blasphemy, vandalism, drunkenness. As Hawkgrrrl mentions, Jesus was just some apostate like the Laffertys, the FLDS, or some other group.

So, Seth, are you saying that losing one’s temper is not a sin? I guess Bobby shouldn’t have been suspended for his actions. The money changers at the temple were providing a service–by providing animals to offer sacrifice for out of town travelers. Yes perhaps, it was a bit too commercial, but is this materially different than the shopping malls today at Christmas? Would we be sinless if we suddenly overturned a small vendor’s cart selling Christmas presents? Is civil disobedience a sin? It is breaking the law….

It is quite obvious to me that the vendors at the temple were acting legally, or else the Pharisees and Sadducees would have outlawed the vendors. Yes perhaps the vendors were overdoing it, but Jesus cleansing the temple has been argued to be an instigating incident into his own execution. It could be argued that Jesus contempt for Pharisaic authority meant that he got the ultimate punishment, and from a jewish perspective, an appropriate punishment for disrespecting God’s temple.

Seth, I’m not trying to be PC here, but I am trying to understand your comments in the case of Jesus. It seems he was certainly disrespectful to the “elites.” Are you saying we can be equally disrespectful, especially if we happen to be debating/arguing religious subjects? Is that what Jesus would do?

Our current, PC, boring, sterilized, anal-retentive culture. That’s who.

I am not sure how you jumped from ‘complete’ to Jesus being a sinner. I would suggest that Christ accepted an assignment to come to mortality and become the lamb without blemish. He did fully ‘complete’ the assignment given to him by His Father. We have not been given that same cup to drink, but we have been given an assignment here in mortality. I believe it is best expressed in the following scripture:

“…this is the word which he hath given unto the children of men. And for this cause he fulfilleth the words which he hath given, and he lieth not, but fulfilleth all his words.
And no unclean thing can enter into his kingdom; therefore nothing entereth into his rest save it be those who have washed their garments in my blood, because of their faith, and the repentance of all their sins, and their faithfulness unto the end.
Now this is the commandment: Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day.” (3 Nephi 27:18-20)

Implicit in this statement is the idea that we will sin. To ‘complete’ our assignment, we must apply the gospel as defined here in our lives. We become perfect/sanctified through completing this assignment; washing our garments in the blood of Christ.

As to the question about losing one’s temper. Was Christ angry or fulfilling prophecy when he cleared the temple? We have been told that the doctrine of Christ is to become as a little child. I can separate the ‘assignment’ Christ received to fulfill prophecy from our ‘assignment’ to humble ourselves as little children.

I find this to be a fundamental denial of free-agency. It basically posits a predestined universe where everyone is either on a perfection track or not - but in either case, it has nothing to do with their own choices. If you aren’t tempted, you have no choice but to become perfect. If you are tempted, it’s not your fault.

You sound like a Calvinist.

So we talked about this date thing and we’re intrigued by the idea. We live in a small town and so it’s pretty limited as to what we can do and where we can go outside of home. Especially in the winter! But we’ve decided to try to put aside even just an hour every weekend to talk. Like you and your wife, we both like to read, but I’m more interested in religion and he’s more interested in war history. But we’ve found some books listed at the local library that will probably interest us both, and so we’ve decided to read on our own and then discuss a chapter or two each week together. We actually sort of did this a while back when we both read “A Thousand Splendid Suns” and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Another idea I had was to make a box and anytime we get an idea for a topic that could make for interesting discussion, we write it on a slip of paper and drop it into the box. This makes it easier for me since I’m not very good at thinking on demand.

I can’t find the exact picture that I remember seeing, but I do distinctly remember seeing a whip. As a child, I remember feeling sorry for the moneychangers. I realize that the whip may have been the artist’s interpretation, but here is another similar picture to the one I remember.