Hard-hearted yet keeping the Law of Moses

3 Behold, it is expedient that much should be done among this people, because of the hardness of their hearts, and the deafness of their ears, and the blindness of their minds, and the stiffness of their necks; nevertheless, God is exceedingly merciful unto them, and has not as yet swept them off from the face of the land.

4 And there are many among us who have many revelations, for they are not all stiffnecked. And as many as are not stiffnecked and have faith, have communion with the Holy Spirit, which maketh manifest unto the children of men, according to their faith.

5 And now, behold, two hundred years had passed away, and the people of Nephi had waxed strong in the land. They observed to keep the law of Moses and the sabbath day holy unto the Lord. And they profaned not; neither did they blaspheme. And the laws of the land were exceedingly strict. (Jarom 1:3-5)

These verses strike me as rather peculiar.  Jarom tells us how hard-hearted and stiff-necked his people are, and how much has to be done among them, yet two verses later he also says that they observed the Law of Moses, kept the Sabbath, and avoided profanity and blasphemy, and kept strict civil laws. 

Those conditions seem almost diametrically opposed to each other.

It seems that the people must have felt that keeping the laws was enough and did not allow the performance of their duty to change their hearts. 

Sometimes when you are so focused on keeping the commandments, you can develop a belief that everything is fine with you and you have no more improvement to make, when really there is a lot of refinement to do in our souls which can only be brought out through interpersonal relationships.

Sometimes it happens that I’ll be in the middle of doing something relating to one of my callings or keeping a commandment and I realize that I’m doing it with a spirit of apathy or impatience and annoyance.   When I notice that, I have to take a little time and ponder what my obedience means if done in the wrong spirit.  (Hint: It means the same as if I had been disobedient.)  But it is enough to at least give me the desire to do it in the right spirit.  And prayer is a good beginning for inviting a attitude adjustment.   I want to have the right spirit in my obedience.  I want to be joyful when I obey.  I want to find meaning in it and feel the Lord’s pleasure in it.

What do you do when you find yourself stuck in apathy or annoyance while obeying commandments?

What could I write more than my fathers have written?: A critique of Jarom and Omni

Between the Books of Jarom and Omni there is a regression that is detectible. Jarom says, “I shall not write the things of my prophesying, nor of my revelations. For what could I write more than my fathers have written? For have not they revealed the plan of salvation? I say unto you, Yea; and this sufficeth me.” (Jarom 1:2) So he occupies his time writing about how others preached. It is interesting that he says, “it is expedient that much should be done among this people, because of the hardness of their hearts” (v3) but I get the feeling that he is unwilling to get involved because it seems like such a big job. (Perhaps this was the same attitude that he had about writing his prophecies on the plates; there is so much to do that he is overwhelmed.) Throughout his account he speaks as if from the outside, looking in on the preaching and prophesying because he declines to share his own with us.

This suddenly seems like it applies to me. I sometimes hesitate to start writing insight down when I get one that is so hefty I know it will take an hour to get it out. (I am not saying this to boast; I bet you all get your own monster insights that you chew on for days.)

In the next generation, Jarom’s son Omni admits that he himself is a wicked man and has not kept the commandments as he should have. (This makes me wonder if Jarom took the same approach to teaching Omni as he had with keeping the record—there was so much to teach that it was paralyzing, so he did less than he knew he should.) And Omni writes even less than Jarom does and says next to nothing about spiritual things among his people.

Omni’s son Amaron says merely that the wicked were destroyed according to the word of God, then passes the record to his brother Chemish. Chemish only says he’s keeping the record like everybody else and then he passes on the record to his son Abinadom. (Chemish writes like the plates are some sort of guest book that he is signing.) Abinadom drops the chilling false doctrine of sufficiency: “I know of no revelation save that which has been written, neither prophecy; wherefore, that which is sufficient is written.” (Omni 1:11) This is a new low point and it indicates how far gone the Nephites are. If no one knows of any revelation except what has already been written, they are in a very bad way.

Happily, the Lord yanks the record out of this dark pit in a single generation with Amaleki. A mere two verses later, Amaleki tells us of a splinter group led out of the land of Nephi by the first Mosiah with the word of God, with preaching, prophesying, and the power of the Lord’s arm. The gifts of the Spirit are back and the record is living again as a spiritual reservoir, as Amaleki views history through the lens of the gospel. But his spiritual exhortation lasts only two verses as he entreats his readers to believe in spiritual gifts and come to Christ to be saved; afterward he returns to recounting history.

So in Jarom and Omni, we see some people who occupied the plates with things of less importance. Thank goodness it only lasts two pages out of the whole book. Compare the measly unabridged writings in the Books of Jarom and Omni to the vast abridged records of Mosiah, Alma, Helaman, and Nephi, about the same number of generations! Alma’s weighty collection of writing shows us that contrary to Jarom’s assertion, more can be written besides what one’s fathers have written.

I have observed that when I don’t write down what happens, it is really hard for me to remember any of it at the end of the month. My husband writes a monthly account for a family newsletter on his side, and if we didn’t look at our calendar (or if I didn’t look at my journal), I really don’t think we would remember anything enough to write.

I suspect the record keepers of Jarom and Omni had this problem; they weren’t writing down things on more perishable media as it happened, so when they got to the end of their lives and found that they had to write something most important on the plates for the benefit of future generations, they had a very hard time without a consistent record of their own to pick the best from.

It seems that we have to have made our large plates before we can distill it down to the small plates.

Update: I put this in cue to post and then the Lord started to show me some things from the Book of Jarom that are special, so it seems I may have posted prematurely.

1) Jarom is the first book to use the term "plan of salvation." Before it is called "the merciful plan" or the "plan of our God" or "the plan of redemption," but Jarom gets the credit for recording this term by which we usually identify it.
2) Jarom points out that those who are not stiffnecked and have faith have communion w/ the Holy Ghost. It seems so simple, but it is true. So if we have faith and we aren't having communion with the Holy Ghost, there is some stiffneckedness that needs to be rooted out of our lives. (Hmm, I'm thinking that self-identifying our characteristics of stiffneckedness is worth its own post..)

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