With His Stripes

A few weeks ago, I was teaching a lesson on repentance in Elders’ Quorum when one of the class members asked an interesting question: “What is the difference between sinning and repenting and not sinning at all.” In thirty-five years of learning and teaching about repentance, I don’t think I’d ever quite thought about that specific question before. As I stood in front of the class and pondered how to respond, thinking about what I knew and had just taught about the Atonement, I came to one inescapable conclusion: there is no difference. I was unprepared, though, for how controversial that statement would prove to be.

Rights and Obligations

When most of us think about contracts, we probably think about legalese, fine print, and language designed to give us less than we thought we were bargaining for. We have been taught, through hard experience, that contracts are something to be wary and suspicious of. So when we talk about covenants as contracts, as we often do in the Church, I wonder if some of our suspicion toward contracts doesn't sneak into those discussions. That is, we fear that despite our best efforts to live up to our covenants, when the time comes to reap our eternal reward, we will get less than what we thought—or hoped—we were bargaining for.