First principles of the gospel

This week I did the readings for lesson 7 in the D&C/Church History curriculum, which is dedicated to the theme, "The First Principles and Ordinances of the Gospel." The phrase, of course, refers to the Fourth Article of Faith, which lists the first principles and ordinances as faith, repentance, baptism, and laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.

I got to thinking this week about what it means to call those the "first" principles and ordinances. Generally speaking, I sense that Latter-day Saints today understand them to be "first" chronologically, i.e., they're the initiatory ordinances of the gospel (in a literal sense, not the temple sense), the first steps into Christian life. I remember using a visual aid to that effect during a presentation at a baptismal service when I was a missionary, with the first principles and ordinances represented as the first stages along a path that took us from our fallen state back toward the presence of God. (They were followed by a fifth stage, "endure to the end," which stood in generically for all the other ritual and moral requirements the Church has come to prescribe for exaltation.)

There's another way to read it, though. In calling these principles and ordinances "first," Joseph might conceivably have meant to say that they're preeminent, as when we speak of the "First Presidency" or when people speak of obedience as the "first law of heaven." He might, theoretically, have meant that these principles and ordinances are the core of the gospel—the heart from which everything else flows, the essence that everything boils down to.

My purpose in this post isn't to try to decide which reading Joseph had in mind when he wrote the Fourth Article of Faith. But this line of thought got me thinking about how I would articulate the "core" or "essence" of the gospel. What would I identify as its "first principles" in that sense? I can actually think of several different passages of scripture that could make a bid for articulating the first principles of the gospel. And sharing them will be my contribution to the blogosphere for today:

You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like it:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
(Matt. 22:37-39)

In all things do to others as you would want others to do to you;
this is the whole Torah and the Prophets.
(Matt. 7:12)

What does the Lord require of you
but to do justly,
and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God?
(Micah 6:8; compare D&C 11:12)

I was hungry, and you fed me;
I was thirsty, and you gave me drink.
I was a stranger, and you welcomed me;
naked, and you clothed me.
I was ill, and you took care of me;
in prison, and you came to me.
Every time you did this for the least of my sisters or brothers,
you did it for me.
(Matt. 25:35-36, 40)

There are, in the end, three things that last:
faith, hope, and charity.
But the greatest of these is charity.
(1 Cor. 13:13)

This is my gospel—
the works you have seen me do,
you shall also do.
Therefore, what kind of people should you be?
Even as I am.
(3 Ne. 27:21, 27)