No amount of cajoling by any party would be enough to convince me to pay tithing.

Ltbugaf’s comment was in response to your saying there was no source of canon defining when/how to pay tithing. It was in no way attempting to convince you to pay tithing. I’m really not too sure where your last few comments are coming from.

Physician, heal thyself.

“That being said, what does the quote you provided have to do with the topic at hand, rick?”

Upon sober second thought, nearly nothing. You can probably delete it, if you so choose. I was popped, as I am wont to do, between discussion boards and it seemed on point at the time.

“Would a public, official statement of the First Presidency of the Church do?”

To the point – no. No amount of cajoling by any party would be enough to convince me to pay tithing. But it would make the life of the average lay-member considerably less worrisome if they’d canonize a specific interpretation, in my opinion.

So First Presidency letters are now considered canon?

Actually, what he said in response to your statement about canon was whether a letter from the First Presidency would suffice, not that it was indeed canon.

That being said, what does the quote you provided have to do with the topic at hand, rick?

So First Presidency letters are now considered canon? Interesting.

Or perhaps it would be interesting if anyone here had ever said that.

Honestly, Rick, you often claim that you like a good debate, but every time I think you’re on the verge of debating with me, you go off to that straw man of yours to argue with him instead.

Why are you interested in a canonical statement of what constitutes income? Are you worried that Mormons might exercise some free thought or personal judgment?

I’m also curious why you quoted a First Presidency statement on an irrelevant topic in comment 70. (Of course, I’ll have to trust that this is actually a First Presidency statement, rather than some comment made by an individual member of the First Presidency–you see the difference, don’t you? I’ll also have to trust that you haven’t made it up out of thin air, as you’ve been wont to do of late.)

Here’s why I don’t think the quote above belongs here: First, it would be good to stay on topic, per the commenting policy. Second, it doesn’t support your point. Are you trying to pretend that the Church has reversed that position? The Church never said that it had always been wrong not to ordain blacks to the priesthood. What the Church said was that as of the time of the revelation given in 1978, it was now time to start ordaining them. Surely you can see the difference. So why ignore it and misrepresent the Church’s position?

What this has to do with the discussion at hand, though, I do not know.

You also don’t seem to understand the priesthood if you can equate that with my meaning.

That statement was not canon, nor is everything that is said. But you can’t pick little pieces out of what is said by different men and women and decide to judge conduct or actions on just those things, taken out of context.

“The position of the Church regarding the Negro may be understood when another doctrine of the Church is kept in mind, namely, that the conduct of spirits in the premortal existence has some determining effect upon the conditions and circumstances under which these spirits take on mortality and that while the details of this principle have not been made known, the mortality is a privilege that is given to those who maintain their first estate; and that the worth of the privilege is so great that spirits are willing to come to earth and take on bodies no matter what the handicap may be as to the kind of bodies they are to secure; and that among the handicaps, failure of the right to enjoy in mortality the blessings of the priesthood is a handicap which spirits are willing to assume in order that they might come to earth. Under this principle there is no injustice whatsoever involved in this deprivation as to the holding of the priesthood by the Negroes.”

~A Statement from the First Presidency, August 17, 1949