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Bruce R. McConkie

Portrait of Bruce R. McConkie
Portrait: Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

AUTHOR PROFILE

Bruce R. McConkie

Bruce R. McConkie is described in biographical records as an American LDS Church leader (1915–1985) (1915–1985). The selections gathered here touch on baptism, sacrament, becoming like god. This profile brings the attributed quotations together with their available source information.

FEATURED QUOTE
“All of those called to the ministry…are given the gifts needed to perform the work whereunto they are called. These gifts are always the ones needed for the particular work at hand.”
— Bruce R. McConkie

Biography at a glance

  • Profile: American LDS Church leader (1915–1985)
  • Life: 1915–1985
  • Quotes in this collection: 30

Life and work

Biographical records connect Bruce R. McConkie with University of Utah. This collection includes 30 quotations credited to Bruce R. McConkie. Each quotation page preserves its own citation, when supplied, so readers can follow the passage back to its stated context.

Reading the quotations

The selections gathered here touch on baptism, sacrament, becoming like god. These topic links make it easier to compare these words with other voices in the LDS Flow library. Citations are shown on the individual quotation pages where the source collection provided them.

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Sources and further reading

Quotes by Bruce R. McConkie

30 quotes

“Sins are remitted not in the waters of baptism, as we say in speaking figuratively, but when we receive the Holy Ghost. It is the Holy Spirit of God that erases carnality and brings us into a state of righteousness. We become clean when we actually receive the fellowship and companionship of the Holy Ghost. It is then that sin and dross and evil are burned out of our souls as though by fire.”

A New Witness for the Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985), 290

— Bruce R. McConkie

“A person may get converted in a moment, miraculously. But that is not the way it happens with most people. With most people, conversion [spiritual rebirth and the accompanying remission of sins] is a process; and it goes step by step, degree by degree, level by level, from a lower state to a higher, from grace to grace, until the time that the individual is wholly turned to the cause of righteousness. Now this means that an individual overcomes one sin today and another sin tomorrow. He perfects his life in one field now, and in another field later on. And the conversion process goes on until it is completed, until we become, literally, as the Book of Mormon says, saints of God instead of natural men.”

“Be Ye Converted” (address given at the BYU First Stake Quarterly Conference, 11 February 1968), 12.

— Bruce R. McConkie

“The tongue is the mirror of the soul. Spoken words reveal the intents, desires, and feelings of the heart. We shall give an account before the judgment bar for every spoken word, and shall be condemned for our idle, intemperate, profane, and false words. Implicit in this principle of judgment is the fact that we can control what we say. And what better test can there be of a godly self-control than the ability to tame the tongue!”

Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, Vol. 3: Colossians-Revelation (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994), 262.

— Bruce R. McConkie

“Choose the one hundred most basic doctrines of the gospel, and under each doctrine make two parallel columns, one headed Bible and the other Book of Mormon. Then place in these columns what each book of scripture says about each doctrine. The end result will show, without question, that in ninety-five of the one hundred cases, the Book of Mormon teaching is clearer, plainer, more expansive, and better than the biblical word. If there is any question in anyone’s mind about this, let him take the test—a personal test.”

"A New Witness for the Articles of Faith"

— Bruce R. McConkie

[A sacrament is] “a pledge and promise on man’s part to forsake personal sins, knowing that if he does so he will be blessed by the Lord. When the saints partake of the ordinance of the sacrament, they promise not simply to keep the commandments in general, but also to serve and conform and obey where they as individuals have fallen short in the past. Every man’s sacraments are thus his own; he alone knows his failures and sins, and he alone must overcome the world and the flesh so that he can have fellowship with the saints.”

A New Witness for the Articles of Faith

— Bruce R. McConkie

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