What 1 Nephi 1 teaches about Christ

The Lord sees our abominations (1 Ne. 1:13)

His works are great and marvelous (1 Ne. 1:14)

The Lord’s power, and goodness, and mercy are over all the inhabitants of the earth (1 Ne. 1:14)

Because the Lord is merciful, He will not suffer those who come unto Him to perish (1 Ne. 1:14)

The Lord’s throne is high in the heavens. (1 Ne. 1:14)

The Lord shows marvelous things to the prophets in vision (1 Ne. 1:15, 18) also about coming destruction (1 Ne. 1:18).

Christ manifested His coming before He came (1 Ne. 1:19)

The tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom He has chosen to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance. (1 Ne. 1:20)

It's cool to me that the very first chapter of the Book of Mormon contains material about the mission of Christ, how He reveals that to the prophets, the necessity of repenting, and His great mercy to save and deliver those who will come to him.

This post is a part of a series that will sum up what can be learned about Christ from various chapters in the Book of Mormon in connection to President Nelson’s challenge to the women of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to read the Book of Mormon completely by the end of 2018.

That Good Part

Here we have some of Lehi’s last words to his sons:

I have spoken these few words unto you all, my sons, in the last days of my probation; and I have chosen the good part, according to the words of the prophet. And I have none other object save it be the everlasting welfare of your souls. (2 Ne. 2:30)

I like when Lehi says, “I have chosen the good part, according to the words of the prophet.” I don’t think we have the prophet’s words he was referring to, but it is interesting that we do have the words of Jesus to Martha as Mary heard him and Martha was cumbered with much serving—“ Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42). It could be that Jesus was quoting the same prophet Lehi was, and we just don’t have that source text anymore.

Beside those textual things, it also makes you think about choices. When we think about our choices and priorities in life, can we say that we are choosing that good part? Are there any good parts we leave on the table, or are there bad parts we could let go of to make room for more good parts? Are there useless things we could get rid of?

I’m grateful for the Atonement of Christ that changes me so that I can choose the good parts and let go of the bad parts. He makes us free to do that so we aren’t stuck. He makes it possible for us to fight the natural man or woman and win.

Ether on the old Jerusalem and the New Jerusalem

2 For behold, they rejected all the words of Ether; for he truly told them of all things, from the beginning of man; and that after the waters had receded from off the face of this land it became a choice land above all other lands, a chosen land of the Lord; wherefore the Lord would have that all men should serve him who dwell upon the face thereof;

3 And that it was the place of the New Jerusalem, which should come down out of heaven, and the holy sanctuary of the Lord.

4 Behold, Ether saw the days of Christ, and he spake concerning a New Jerusalem upon this land.

5 And he spake also concerning the house of Israel, and the Jerusalem from whence Lehi should come—after it should be destroyed it should be built up again, a holy city unto the Lord; wherefore, it could not be a new Jerusalem for it had been in a time of old; but it should be built up again, and become a holy city of the Lord; and it should be built unto the house of Israel—

6 And that a New Jerusalem should be built up upon this land, unto the remnant of the seed of Joseph, for which things there has been a type.

7 For as Joseph brought his father down into the land of Egypt, even so he died there; wherefore, the Lord brought a remnant of the seed of Joseph out of the land of Jerusalem, that he might be merciful unto the seed of Joseph that they should perish not, even as he was merciful unto the father of Joseph that he should perish not.

8 Wherefore, the remnant of the house of Joseph shall be built upon this land; and it shall be a land of their inheritance; and they shall build up a holy city unto the Lord, like unto the Jerusalem of old; and they shall no more be confounded, until the end come when the earth shall pass away.

9 And there shall be a new heaven and a new earth; and they shall be like unto the old save the old have passed away, and all things have become new.

10 And then cometh the New Jerusalem; and blessed are they who dwell therein, for it is they whose garments are white through the blood of the Lamb; and they are they who are numbered among the remnant of the seed of Joseph, who were of the house of Israel.

11 And then also cometh the Jerusalem of old; and the inhabitants thereof, blessed are they, for they have been washed in the blood of the Lamb; and they are they who were scattered and gathered in from the four quarters of the earth, and from the north countries, and are partakers of the fulfilling of the covenant which God made with their father, Abraham.

12 And when these things come, bringeth to pass the scripture which saith, there are they who were first, who shall be last; and there are they who were last, who shall be first.

13 And I was about to write more, but I am forbidden; but great and marvelous were the prophecies of Ether… (Ether 13:2-13, emphasis added)

As I read these verses, I can’t help but notice:

1)    There are two cities—the old Jerusalem and the New Jerusalem.

2)    There also seem to be two versions of each of those two cities. There is old Jerusalem that is “built up again” (v5) and an old Jerusalem that “cometh” (v11).  There is also a New Jerusalem that is “built up” (v6) and a New Jerusalem that “cometh” (v10) “which should come down out of heaven” (v3).

3)    The order that these things happen seems a little muddled. It is unclear which—the old Jerusalem that is “built” or the New Jerusalem that is “built”—comes first, but it does seem clear that the “built” cities both happen before the cities that “cometh.”

4)    It seems unclear whether the old Jerusalem is built holy, or whether it is built and then becomes holy (v5) because both conditions seem to be described in verse 5.

5)    The first mention of building the New Jerusalem doesn’t mention holiness at all (v6), but the second mention of building the New Jerusalem says, “they shall build up a holy city unto the Lord” (v8).

What do you think about this?

“A delicate thing…to act in an organized capacity”

I was reading one of the neat talks in the new book At the Pulpit which is a compilation of different talks Latter-day Saint women have given in meetings throughout history. I ran across something that Eliza R. Snow said back in 1869. She said:

It is a delicate thing for us sisters to act in an organized capacity. Our brethren are accustomed to move in organized bodies—we are not, and we need a great deal of the Spirit and wisdom of God to direct us. Although we should meet with difficulties, let us never be discouraged, but move forward in the path of duty, and through the blessing of God and the encouragement of our brethren, we shall surmount every obstacle. (“Let Us Cultivate Ourselves”)

It is hard to imagine a day in the church when the brothers were more accustomed to act in an organized capacity than the sisters. But over time, with practice, through a variety of projects, that ability has come to the sisters as well, and each successive generation has learned from those that came before how to organize and work together in unity.

Why would Eliza R. Snow have called it “a delicate thing” to act in an organized capacity? Perhaps she saw so many ways that things could go wrong. People might step on each others’ toes, people might drop the ball, or try to take over, or criticize the one in charge or cause any number of problems.  She saw delicacy was needed to avoid those errors, errors which could turn potentially turn people off from continuing to organize.

I’m thankful to be part of the Relief Society and for the way it organizes to serve others.

Status update on counsel from general conference

I feel like I want to share some things I’ve been doing since general conference in October. For a long time I’ve felt that I needed to do something to get better at following the prophet. For years I have typed so many notes in conference, and then I have never looked at them again once conference is over. Yes, it is sad, but I'm being real here. I could remember the really general counsel...if it got repeated over and over by members around me.  But I lacked initiative and focus. 

This year I felt it was important to figure out a way to make sure that I captured a list of things they counsel us to do and then work that stuff into my task list so that I actually do it.  An urgent feeling has grown in me lately of how important it is to follow the prophet’s counsel. 

So after October conference,  I made the list, and I put them into my task app on my phone and decided on when I would complete them and how often. So far I feel pretty good about how that is working in my life. There are a few things that I haven’t been able to implement as completely as I would like, but I am still trying. 

One of the things President Nelson challenged the women of the church to do was read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year and mark all verses mentioning Christ as we read. At the time, I made a note of the reading, but not of the marking aspect. I started reading, but I was kind of mechanical about it, just trying to get through the 6.5 pages I needed to read for the day. (Eventually I started just reading 7 pages to be safe.)

 I think it was mechanical at the beginning for me because I already read my scriptures every day, so I started it wondering what this was going to do for me more than I was already doing. It forced me to push through more pages than I usually read, and I think I had a hard time continuing the movement when I usually like to ruminate over things that catch my attention. 

Then someone at church mentioned they were doing the marking as President Nelson had said. I went back to look at the talk to verify that's he’d said, and it was. So I decided I needed to do that too so that I could be complete in my obedience. I started just marking instances of “God” and “Lord” and “Christ” and the various pronouns used for God. The first day I did that, I felt something special from that. But then the next days afterward it went back to feeling like a mechanical exercise. But I persisted. And then I got the idea that I should mark everything that God did and said too (not just the whole verses; I wanted to be targeted with my marking). And that made it more special, but I still felt I was missing something. (It was also difficult because I was using a dying highlighter that barely showed much. Once I switched highlighters, marking got easier.)  Eventually I realized that after having read and marked the requisite number of pages, I also needed to look back over the pages to see what I could learn from those markings. That has made it even more special.

The fascinating thing is that this marking exercise is the same thing I would do if I were trying to revise a book to fix a particular problem. (When I was trying to revise some of my fiction (still unpublished), on one of my passes I marked all instances of scenery description to see if I had enough of that and then added when there wasn’t anything there.) 

What President Nelson’s marking exercise is doing is getting us to notice all instances of God’s dealings with the Book of Mormon peoples so that we can learn more about His character and what He can do for us. It is a prophetically-mandated scripture study program to help us notice principles that we might otherwise pass over. The principles we learn will help increase our faith in God.  We need that increased faith in this day and age.

What have you learned from that challenge?

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By the Power of His Word

  Here Alma reminds the people of Zarahemla of what the Lord did for their fathers:

And behold, after that, they were brought into bondage by the hands of the Lamanites in the wilderness; yea, I say unto you, they were in captivity, and again the Lord did deliver them out of bondage by the power of his word; and we were brought into this land, and here we began to establish the church of God throughout this land also. (Alma 5:5)

What strikes me as neat in this verse is this—“the Lord did deliver them out of bondage by the power of his word” (emphasis added). It was simply by telling them “tomorrow you will be delivered” that the Lord was able to save them. The spent the whole night gathering their flocks together to prepare for this (and may have completely worn out their taskmasters who couldn’t keep going) and then when their taskmasters went into a deep sleep, they left and kept going as far and as fast as they could. Because they prepared for the Lord’s promise, they were ready to go. If they hadn’t prepared, they would have had to stay there.

It seems to me that so many of the Lord’s commandments deliver us out of bondage by the power of His word. Tithing delivers us from a bondage to our goods. Chastity delivers us from bondage to our carnal desires. Repentance delivers us from bondage to all sin. Fasting delivers us from bondage to our appetites for food. Service, charity, and families deliver us from bondage to selfishness and self-centeredness. Prayer delivers us from a bondage of emotional separation from God. Are there any commandments that don’t in some way deliver us from some sort of bondage?

I’m so thankful for the freedom that comes from the Lord’s words.

Isaiah 44:1-5 – As Willows by the Water Courses

1 Yet now hear, O Jacob my servant;

and Israel, whom I have chosen:

2          Thus saith the Lord that made thee,

and formed thee from the womb,

which will help thee;

Fear not,

O Jacob, my servant;

and thou, Jesurun, whom I have chosen.

3                                  For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty,

and floods upon the dry ground:

I will pour my spirit upon thy seed,

and my blessing upon thine offspring:

4                                              And they shall spring up as among the grass,

as willows by the water courses.

5 One shall say, I am the Lord’s;

and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob;

and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord,

and surname himself by the name of Israel. (Isaiah 44:1-5)

I like these verses and how easy it is to see the parallelism of repeated thoughts and themes. (I indented at various levels to make it a little more easy to see what things I think go together.)

In verse 1, the Lord is trying to get covenant Israel to listen and is reminding Israel they are chosen and they are His servants. He chose them from the beginning to be His servants. We recognize this because one is not born into the house of Israel by accident, but by design.

Covenant Israel has a tendency to think the job of blessing the entire world is overwhelmingly big, but the Lord tells Israel in v2, “[I] will help thee; Fear not.”

Covenant Israel also recognizes that blessing the whole world is hard work and there are moments when we feel like it would be nice to relax and have others do the teaching for a change. And while we are being examples to the rest of the world, where will we get our examples?  In verse 3, the Lord promises to pour out water (spiritual water) upon those that are thirsty—thirsting after righteousness. “I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring.” It is the Spirit that teaches our children, and often they end up teaching us.

Then there is some beautiful imagery: “they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses.”  To understand this, we only need to remember how grass doesn’t grow unless there is plenty of water.  Similarly, willows grow best when very near some sort of river or lake. This is teaching us that with all the spiritual water the Lord pours out through the Holy Ghost, we and our children will grow easily, just like those plants that grow best when there is plenty of water around.

With that kind of spiritual environment, covenant Israel will know for sure they are the Lord’s people. They will be so certain, they will want to take on a new name, perhaps calling themselves Jacob, or Israel, or perhaps consecrating themselves completely to God.

What do I learn from these verses? They tell us to FEAR NOT.  If we draw near to the Lord, He will draw near to us and satisfy our spiritual hunger and yearnings.

Mysteries of God

A question I had recently was, "What do the scriptures call mysteries? When the scriptures talk about the mysteries of God, what topics are discussed in that context?" I felt like if I did a survey of the scriptures that referred to "mysteries of God" I might get an idea of what those things are and also how to obtain them.

What follows are notes I made from investigating the scriptures. I think you'll find them illuminating.

Mysteries of the kingdom (Matt 13:11) (given to the disciples to know these)
Mysteries of God (1 Cor 4:1)
Mysteries of God (1 Nephi 2:16 (in context of Nephi wanting to know his father was right or not)
Mysteries of God (1 Nephi 10:19) in context of Nephi asking about Lehi’s dream of the tree of life
Mysteries of God (Mosiah 1:3) associated with the things already written in the scriptures
Mysteries of God (Mosiah 2:9) associated with the vision Mosiah had of an angel that gave him a message about the Messiah
Mysteries of God (Alma 10:5) associated with preserving the lives of the Nephites
Mysteries of God (Alma 12:9) about the resurrection from the dead and the judgment
Mysteries of God (Alma 26:22) associated with revealing new things and bringing people to repentance
Mysteries (Alma 37:4) in the scriptures
Mysteries (Alma 37:11) about how the hardened Nephites will be brought to repentance
Mysteries (of God) and secret works of darkness (Alma 37:21) associated with the 24 Jaredite plates
Mysteries  (Alma 40:3) concerning what happens to the soul between death and resurrection
Mysteries of God (D&C 6:7) that will make rich and give eternal life
Mysteries (D&C 6:11) great and marvelous, to bring many to know the truth, to convince others of their error.
Mysteries (D&C 28:7) given to the prophet
Mysteries (D&C 42:61 peaceable things, which bring joy, which bring life eternal
Mysteries (D&C 43:13) to be given because of charitable giving
Mysteries of my kingdom (D&C 63:23) as a well of living water, spring up unto everlasting life
Mysteries out of the scriptures (D&C 71:1)
Hidden mysteries of my will (D&C 76:7-10) from days of old, for ages to come, good pleasure of my will concerning all things pertaining to my kingdom. Wonders of eternity. Things to come. Things of many generations. Understanding reach to heaven. Secrets of my will. Things eye has not see, nor ear heard, nor yet entered into the heart of man.
Mysteries (D&C 77:6) associated with the book sealed with 7 seals. Revealed will, mysteries, works of god. Hidden things of his economy.
Mysteries of the kingdom (D&C 84:19) key of the knowledge of God, associated with the power of godliness in the ordinances of the church.
Mysteries of the kingdom (D&C 107:19) of heaven, having the heavens opened to them. Enjoying the presence of the Father and Jesus.
God revealeth secrets (Dan 2:28) in association with Daniel telling the dream of the king and interpreting it.  What shall come to pass (v29)
Secrets (Amos 3:7) revealed to the prophets before they happen.

Fascinating, huh?

7 different perspectives on sin from Isaiah

This verse caught my attention recently:

Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. (Isaiah 1:4)

I count seven different perspectives on the cause and problem of sin in this verse.

1)    “sinful nation” – The nation was full of sin, like a cup full of water.

2)    “a people laden with iniquity” – No one likes to carry a load they don’t have to, but these people were loaded down with iniquity like a donkey carrying an oversized load of sticks.

3)    “a seed of evildoers” – They learned how to sin from their parents, and they hadn’t learned to be critical of those bad traditions and escape them.

4)    “children that are corrupters” – Children are supposed to be innocent, but these children weren’t. They corrupted those who came in contact with them, spreading wickedness like a disease.

5)    “they have forsaken the Lord” – This gives the sense of the runaway or the unfaithful spouse who doesn’t care anymore. They were with Him, and then all of a sudden, they left.

6)    “they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger” – This gives the sense of one who sins in spite of knowing the truth. They do it deliberately to irritate, just to thumb their nose at spiritual authority. (This type tends to glorify their rebellion.)

7)    “they are gone away backward” – This is the person who stays facing the Lord the whole time, but slowly backs away, getting farther and farther with every step and every choice they make. They claim they are faithful, but other things incessantly take higher priority.

It’s useful to think about these different types with reference to our own lives and determine if there is something we’re doing that matches this. And then repent.

We could also extrapolate from Isaiah’s words what we want to be instead.

--A nation full of righteousness

--A people buoyed up by goodness

--A seed of do-gooders

--Children that are sanctifiers

--who have come to the Lord

--who have pleased the Holy One and gained His favor

--who are pressing forward

Looking for the Lord to Come

There’s a scripture I’ve run across that in the past I’ve interpreted as referring to the second coming of Christ, but now I see also fits into the context of missionary work

And the poor and the meek shall have the gospel preached unto them, and they shall be looking forth for the time of my coming, for it is nigh at hand— (D&C 35:15)

This perfectly describes those situations and stories we’ve heard about people who have had religious questions and they reach out to God, pleading for the truth, pleading for something more in their lives. And then, in a few days (or hours, or even minutes) they are visited by the missionaries and are ready to receive the gospel. These people are looking for God to come and bring them greater light, and they see the missionaries as messengers from God. They see God has answered them, and they see the coming of the gospel was so close. All those things are encapsulated in this verse.

How does it help us? It shows us that there are people who are prepared to hear the gospel, and we just need to talk to them and invite them. If they are ready, they will respond. We don’t know what is going on in their lives to prepare people, but there are people who are prepared to hear.

It also tells us that if we are going to help find them, we need to be meek as well. We need to be humble and ready to follow the impressions of the Spirit, even if they seem to not make sense. (If they made sense, why would we need the Spirit?)