3 Nephi 2

2:1- - The rising generation of both Nephites and Lamanites had many who had fallen away and joined the GR, and this negatively impacted the families of these dissenters. Despite all the signs and wonders shown them, the people “began to be less and less astonished at a sign or a wonder from heaven, insomuch that they began to be hard in their hearts, and blind in their minds, and began to disbelieve all which they had heard and seen.” HN commented “In the second chapter the signs and wonders began to be less and less astonishing because they got to see more and more- they became commonplace. People have short memories. The moon landing is a good example, isn’t it. All my life I heard that if man could land on the moon, it would be the greatest thing that ever happened. In fact, when it happened Nixon said, ‘This is the greatest event since the creation of the world.’ Yes the next day people were already complaining that their favorite soap operas had been cut off and they couldn’t see them because of the greatest event since the foundation of the world. That’s how long it lasts. That’s how long people’s memories excite them in these things… They started explaining and rationalizing these things away.” I’ve seen this happen many many times, even with myself. Discounting what should probably be important, rationalizing and “reasoning” things away, their importance, their meaning. The IM quotes Elder Neal A. Maxwell as teaching “How quickly (Satan) moves in even where people have had special spiritual experiences, seeking to get people who have seen signs ‘to disbelieve all which they had heard and seen.’ The adversary has a better chance to persuade us that what we believe is foolish if we worry about looking foolish in front of our fellowmen.” This is like those who have come to the tree of life and partaken of God’s love and because they heed the scorn of others, or care about looking foolish to others, they fall away. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had friends fall away from the church, not always because they care about what others think, not exactly that, but because they take the scorn of others and give it place in their hearts. Many are strong people able to withstand persecution but only if they decide to, so when they can’t for whatever reason reconcile themselves with what they are being persecuted for, instead of turning to God for answers and guidance, they turn to other sources or even themselves. This is coming from someone who did just that, so I can say that because I know. I don’t know what signs and wonders they saw, and I suppose that the specifics weren’t given to us for that reason, so that we wouldn’t be able to compare ourselves to them. For instance, if we had a record of hundreds of shooting stars every night, then we could say “well we don’t have a sign as great as that, so we don’t have to believe like the Nephites did.” But on the other hand if the signs were something really simple such as beautiful sunsets every now and then, then it would give us the chance to say “that’s not really a sign,” or “we have more signs then that so we should repent,” but that wouldn’t build our testimonies because the signs and comparing ourselves to the ancient peoples would be what caused us to change our ways, not true repentance. That type of conversion wouldn’t last the heat of the day. The IM continues by teaching “What is the lesson believers should learn concerning signs and salvation? Signs flow from faith and are a product of it. They strengthen the faithful and produce faith in the spiritually receptive. The chief purpose of signs, however, is not to produce faith but to reward it. Signs do not force faith upon anyone. Sadly, it is common to see both in scripture and in today’s world most marvelous signs and evidences of God’s power ignored or rationalized away by those without faith.” I think it’s interesting the phrase “Signs do not force faith upon anyone,” but if there were signs big enough, that’s essentially what it would be doing. For instance, we know that L&L had angelic visitations that they were able to rebel against, they were still able to exercise their agency in the light of that sign, whereas many people might have been able to take that as a step forward. However, if Jesus had appeared to them and commanded them to stop persecuting His church like he did with Saul, then that could have been a different story. Ok I’m really short on time, but there are a couple of things I want to bring up before I’m out, the first is that the GR had almost annihilated the Nephites and they were not granted God’s power and protection because they were wicked. The second thing is that in verse 15 we learn that when the Lamanites had repented and become numbered with the Nephites “Their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites.” My ex-husband is black, so my kids are mixed and so I struggle with verses like that and because I know Jesus and who he is, then I know that he loves all of us regardless of skin color, gender, etc. Going back to Nephi, and the “white skin” reference is only made by Nephi and once by his brother Jacob, after 600 years of records, I think it’s safe to assume that it was their writing style, but here we have again, the “white skin” subject. So did the Lamanites repent and suddenly their skin paled? And if so, at what point? After baptism? After their first confession? After they received the gift of the Holy Ghost? See it doesn’t make any sense, so I cross referenced the word “white” and I got Jacob 3:8 which says “O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, WHEN ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God.” I capitalized “WHEN” to emphasize the point that it says that the skins of the Lamanites would be whiter than the Nephites only “WHEN” everyone is brought “Before the throne of God.” The “skin” will be an addressed at the judgment day, and it’s also possible that in the original work that the word that translated into the English as “skin” could have had a second meaning that would vary depending on context. Plus if we think about it, when The Book of Mormon was being translated back in the 1830’s people were referred to by the color of their skin as “white” or “black,” the loaded connotation is a pretty recent phenomenon, so the questions wouldn’t have been asked then, today’s meaning wouldn’t have been apparent at that time. I guess what I’m saying is that the implications that “white is good and black is bad,” wouldn’t have been made until recently and considering that the Book of Mormon is a work spanning several thousand years, I would think that it might be safe to assume that perhaps the “skin” issue might have been meant as something else, perhaps something symbolic. I think it’s funny that people would think that the Book of Mormon is too complex and ancient to read and understand but the second that they see the terms “white” and “skin” together, that has to be taken literally and only in the context that we view it today. HN commented on this saying, “There’s a nice note on race again. If you were Lamanite who had joined the Nephites, you were now called a Nephite. “And their curse was taken from them.” Did they change their complexion and become white overnight? No, it’s a cultural thing. The same things go together all the time. And they were called Nephites; the same name was given to them. We can’t dwell on that now- we will later.” I’m pretty excited to hear his discussions on that topic, it will be most interesting and hopefully profitable.