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Leading Saints Podcast

T10 The Misunderstanding of Repentance | An Interview with David Durfey

Leading Saints Podcast

Leading Saints

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.81.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2022

⏱️ 74 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

David Durfey's 39-year career with Seminaries and Institutes has included serving as a teacher for 12 years, as a region and area director, and director of the Institute at Utah Valley University. In the Church he has served as branch president of the Missionary Training Center in Provo, bishop, counselor in multiple stake presidencies, and as a patriarch. Highlights 02:00 Introduction to David Durfey 06:00 David designed an institute course on repentance and forgiveness. He tells the story of working with Elder Andersen to write the book, The Divine Gift of Forgiveness. 11:50 Repentance is NOT punishment, penalty, or payment for sin. David talks about how the meaning and translation of the word repent got misinterpreted. 13:50 While there can be pain in repentance, that pain is not repentance. The cause of the pain is the sin not the repentance. Repentance is not the suffering; it relieves the suffering. 15:50 Jesus Christ has already suffered for the sin but you will suffer because of the sin. 16:30 Repentance is not a checklist or a change of behavior. An atheist can change their behavior but that’s not repentance. Repentance has to be through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. 18:30 Repentance and forgiveness is not through the Church. The Church can guide us through the process but repentance and forgiveness come solely through Jesus Christ. 19:15 Confession is not repentance. 20:10 David explains why repentance is not through the Church. 21:40 Repentance is a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance is not turning from sin but turning to Jesus Christ and beginning to live a Christlike life. 22:45 Sin hurts, not repentance. How do we shift the shame of repentance to a more hopeful outlook? It all starts with understanding the power of the Atonement. 25:00 Stopping the behavior is not going to heal the past. It has to be through Jesus Christ. 25:55 The key to repentance is first understanding the fall of Adam and Eve and that we are all sinners. 28:10 David paraphrases the words of Boyd K. Packer. The root of Christian doctrine is the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Any other doctrine or teaching in the Church that does not touch that root is dead. We deal a lot with the leaves and branches in the Church but we aren’t getting down to the root. 29:30 Any time we see the word "doctrines" in the scriptures it's always negative. For example, the doctrines of men. There is only ONE doctrine. That is the doctrine of Jesus Christ. 30:15 David tells about one of the most impactful experiences of his life. He was a young father serving as branch president at the missionary training center and President Packer came to speak. The main points of the talk were: You won’t be judged on how many baptisms you get. Your success will be determined by what kind of parents and grandparents you are. Focus less on teaching commandments and more on teaching the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Every teaching has to be focused on Jesus Christ. 33:00 The story of Mary and Martha. The one needful thing is to know Jesus Christ. 36:30 How can we be better at focusing on Christ in our Sunday meetings and in our daily lives? David Shares D&C 6:34-37 and explains how. 43:20 Learning to forgive ourselves. If Jesus isn’t going to condemn me then who am I to condemn me? We can’t condemn anyone, even ourselves. 45:30 D&C 19. This scripture says that we will suffer but not for our sins. We are not capable of suffering for our own sins. 47:30 Quoting Elder Andersen’s book, “If we worry whether we have paid back or suffered enough for our sins it will impede our ability to repent and feel forgiven, bringing painful discouragement with it.” 48:00 Advice to a bishop helping someone through repentance. A bishop’s number one priority should be helping that individual come unto Christ and accessing the Atonement. 52:20 Not being able to participate in ordinances,

Transcript

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0:00.0

When someone begins to question their faith, the last thing church leaders want to do

0:08.9

is say the wrong thing or handle it in a way that will further push them away.

0:13.9

With so many historical concerns or doctrinal questions, what is the leader supposed to do?

0:19.5

I'm happy to report that Leading Saints is here to help with the questioning Saints library.

0:24.2

This is a full library of 20 plus presentations related to how to minister to an individual

0:29.4

who is questioning their faith.

0:31.2

We cover topics like how to answer tough questions, maintaining

0:34.3

a relationship when someone leaves the church, and how to embrace doctrinal

0:38.3

ambiguity. If you want to review all the sessions from the questioning Saints library at no cost for 14 days,

0:45.5

simply go to leading Saints.org.14. That's leading Saints.org.

0:50.6

slash one four. While you're at it, it will give you access to all of our virtual

0:55.2

libraries that cover several leadership related topics so click the link in the

0:59.2

show notes or simply visit leading saints.org. 14.

1:04.0

Before we jump into the content of this episode, I kind of feel it's important that I introduce myself now many

1:13.6

of you've been around a long time you're well familiar with my voice and with

1:18.9

leading Saints as an organization but if you're not well my is Kurt Frankam, and I am the executive director of

1:24.9

leading saints and the podcast host.

1:27.1

Now, leading saints is a non-profit organization dedicated helping Latter-day Saints be better prepared to lead.

1:33.4

And we do that through, well, content creation, like this podcast and many other resources at

1:37.8

leading Saints.org, and we don't act like we have all the answers or know exactly what a leader should do or not do,

1:45.6

but we like to explore the concepts of leadership, the science of leadership,

1:49.8

what people are researching about leadership and see how we can apply them to a

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