Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

I've had an interesting last 24 hours because out of the blue, I've had 2 guys contact me that I haven't heard from in a long time. The first is a guy that I've known for probably 15+ years, we were in the same ward growing up, our families had kids the same age and so we knew their family very very well. But unfortunately, he knew me while I was a teenager and very unhappy and very aggressive. I left for the army and I hadn't seen him in several years when I ran into him at my brother's wedding reception. I don't remember if his wife and kids were there or not, but we were just talking and he said something like "hey do you remember when we were in high school and you got mad at me and beat me up?" Of course I don't remember that, oh I'm sure I did it, but I don't remember it. And that's the last time I saw him for a while. Anyway, so a few months ago, I posted on Facebook one of my posts from this blog, I don't know why but I ...

2:14-17 - In no uncertain terms Jacob makes it clear that the Lord "condemneth" those who "suppose that ye are better than they." He continues saying that the Almighty God can "with one glance of his eye he can smite you to the dust!" Here I believe that he is illustrating the power God has to punish those who "persist in these things" and that to the guilty "his judgements must speedily come unto you." And I absolutely see that he needs to do the stick more than the carrot right now, and making sure that the people know that not only is God not pleased with their attitudes, he has the power to instantly destroy them instantly and at will. But maybe another point that can be taken here is that the people are prideful over their riches, but if God has all power to destroy them at will, he also has all power to devastate them financially. And it's not just those who are disobedient, so I guess what I'm trying to say is Jacob demon...

I was hoping to get more done tonight, but I've been busy, so that's a bummer. 2:6-7 - I wonder why Jacob is personally feels "shame" before God for having to "testify unto (the people) concerning the wickedness of (their) hearts." Maybe it goes back to his humility, maybe he feels personally responsible for the down fall of the people. He is most upset that "I must use so much boldness of speech concerning you, before your wives and your children." There's a good chance that most of the women did not know that their husbands desired to commit adultery in their hearts, and surely most children had no clue that their fathers had such wicked intentions. It's like the ultimate Maury reveal, deep dark secrets uncovered in front of everyone. I can understand how that would be a responsibility that would be grievous to be born. But one of my main reasons that I love this chapter is because of the following phrase, "many of whose feelings a...

I’ve been feeling pretty pressured lately to step it up at home spiritually, and that’s mostly because we’ve been having kind of a rough time lately, the kids mostly. We moved and school started again and my divorce was finalized, which means that their dad has pretty much walked away, doesn’t really maintain contact at all, where as he was calling every couple of weeks before. So all that put together, and it makes for some insecure kids, and added onto that is unstable babysitting while I’m at work and my daughter getting a little bit older and starting with the attitude and she has not been treating her brother very well, in fact he said sadly the other day “nobody loves me.” It was heartbreaking. I work so hard to take care of my kids, I never go out, I’m either with them or at work, I try so hard to be patient and to speak their love language so they can feel how much I love them, and then to still hear my son say that was so awful. So what more can I do that I haven’t already don...

This is one of my favorite chapters in the whole Book of Mormon, I'm not sure why exactly, but I just love the way that Jacob stands up for women and makes it clear that they are important to God, very important. It's very validating for me. 1:1-3 - The IM teaches that Jacob comes to the temple to teach with "soberness... desire and anxiety for the welfare" of the souls of his people. Elder Jeffery R. Holland says "Jacob spends much of ten full verses apologizing, in effect, for the sins he must address and the language he must use in addressing them... Listen to the mournful tone of these passages-literally the grief of them- as he single-mindedly pursues what he has always been single-minded about- steadfast loyalty to God and His commandment... We are not even into the discourse per se before we sense that, quite literally, this bold and unyielding manner of preaching is almost as hard on Jacob as it is on the guilty ones in his audience. But perhaps that is...

1:11-15 - Verses 11-14 deal mostly with the naming of the peoples and the kings, etc. But what I really want to talk about it verse 15, where the IM talks about the difference between wives and concubines, which feeds into adultery and polygamy. Jacob says that after Nephi died the people "began to grow hard in their hearts, and indulge themselves somewhat in wicked practices, such as like unto David of old desiring many wives and concubines, and also Solomon, his son." The IM teaches that "concubines had full protection as wives and did not violate the law of chastity when the marriages were approved by the Lord," and then references D&C 132:34-43 . My understanding of the D&C verses are that the Lord gives examples of different prophets who had been commanded by him to take as multiple wives and concubines, through which to bear children. In verse 39, the Lord teaches that King David of the Old Testament had been given by the Lord wives and concubines sanc...

I love Jacob, he is one of my absolute favorite Book of Mormon writers. The IM puts into wonderful words, why I feel that he is so unique and special, quoting Elder Jeffery R. Holland, “No prophet in the Book of Mormon, by temperament or personal testimony, seems to have gone about that work of persuasion any more faithfully than did Jacob. He scorned the praise of the world, he taught straight, solid, even painful doctrine, and he knew the Lord personally. His is a classic Book of Mormon example of a young man’s suffering the cross and bear the shame of the world in defense of the name of Christ. Life, including those difficult early years when he say the wickedness of Laman and Lemuel bring his father and mother down to their graves in grief, was never easy for this firstborn in the wilderness.” I love that he said “he knew the Lord personally.” What does it mean to know the Lord personally? Nephi had an interesting transition from boy to prophet, being called of the Lord because of ...

Today's sacrament meeting was somewhat of a missionary homecoming of sorts, you know how the church did away with official missionary farewells and homecomings, but they still give a talk sometimes when they get home. I'm new to the ward, so I don't know the kids who came home but he was pretty interesting. He served in the Wisconsin, Milwaukee mission. His story is pretty interesting, apparently he was baptized with his family as converts when he was 13, so he was the first missionary in his family. Usually when guys come home they are like "oh I was so excited to go, and now that I'm back I'm going to convert the rest of the world!" But he wasn't like that. First off, the girl who killed herself last week was his girlfriend/best friend before he left, and he deeply cared for her, he said "all my companions knew about her." So she killed herself a week before he got home, and that was really hard for him. We had a high councilman from the st...

33:5 - When I first read verse 5 I was a little bit confused, I don't understand how people could be mad at what Nephi had said. But I guess looking at it from his perspective where his brothers had taken his words to be hard, and hated him for it, verse 5 is appropriately worded. But of course I cross referenced it with the CI and came across an April 1995 general conference address by Elder Robert D. Hales called " Hear the Prophet's Voice and Obey ." What caught my eye was the story of King Jehoshaphat and King Ahab, and I love love love the Old Testament so of course I read the article. He started off by talking about when faced with an enormous incoming enemy that he could not defend against, he ordered a kingdom wide fast and prayed "O our God,... we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee. " Then came the prophet's voice to him "Fear not, nor be dismayed;... for t...

Oh my goodness, I can't believe that I'm at the end of Nephi! It's only taken me 4 months, but it has been amazing. I'm so grateful that the Lord has given me this opportunity, that he has led me and taught me, even if it was sometimes kicking and screaming. I only have a little bit of time tonight, I stayed over chatting for too long, so this might be a two night endeavor. 33:1-4 - It's interesting to me that Nephi says that he is mighty in speaking but not mighty in writing because he speaks by the power of the Holy Ghost, because sometimes when I'm writing, I feel more the Holy Ghost, so it's just interesting that we all have different ways and means that God uses to move his work along. I'm not trying to imply that I'm moving his work along for anyone other than myself, I'm just saying that there are different methods. In verse 1 Nephi says that the Holy Ghost "carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men" similar to the r...

This chapter is very short, only 9 verses, but there is a lot of content in here, so I'm not exactly sure how this is going to go. 32:1-2 - I can understand how some people could think that baptism is the end all be all of salvation, that's what is taught by some other religions, and really, it's what the natural man wants to believe. This way we're saved, but we can also do whatever we want. There's not really too much effort required after that, so getting there and saying "ok, what do I do now?" makes sense. It's interesting to me though that Nephi's answer to "what do we do now" is "speak with the tongue of Angels." I thought, "what does that mean? I can speak with the tongue of angels? Like what? Speak another language that I have never learned?" Oh Nephi, how amazing you are, and how difficult you are for me to read. Concerning "speak with the tongue of angeles," the IM teaches that it "does not ...

I want to start off by taking a few minutes to discuss something that has been weighing heavily on my mind for the last few days. A 17 year old girl in our ward committed suicide last week. Now I just moved into the ward only a month ago so I had no idea who she was, but it has been very disturbing to me. I grew up pretty crappy, and I was deeply depressed for the vast majority of my youth, and I know what it's like to be so deep in darkness and despair that death seems like the only way for rest. I lived that philosophy for many, many years. Now that I'm on this side of it, I haven't dealt with that for over a decade, the pain is still very vivid to me, and so when I heard that that's what had happened, I felt like it was a little piece of me too, just because I had been there, that could have been me. And I finally saw what suicide looks like from a parent's eyes. I had always only considered what the actual person had been feeling, but to finally consider the eff...

I spent a lot of the day thinking about what “baptism by fire” meant. It’s really something new and different for me, but truly it answers so many questions. I couldn’t help but find the metaphor of our hearts being bags of broken glass and the Holy Ghost burning within us to cleanse us of impurities and also to melt us back together to be healed. So I thought “what does it mean to have the Holy Ghost burn within us?” Well, remember when I talked about the Lord wanting to teach us through many different means, well driving to work today I was listening to the Ensign, and I haven’t listened to it for a couple of weeks because the data on my phone was hanging on for dear life, but today it reset and I could listen again. Well I started at my last bookmark, even though I had heard all the articles before twice, I listened to them again, and sure enough, here the Lord was trying to expand my understanding. Last night I talked about keeping the commandments as a part of the “cleansing” proc...