Do I receive prophecies? Shouldn't I write them if I do? 1 Nephi 19:1

Do I receive prophecies? Shouldn't I write them if I do? 1 Nephi 19:1

Nephi describes how he made the golden plates as a place to write the record of his people, including the record of his father, their journey in the wilderness, his father's prophecies, and his own prophecies. 

My 2018 reading of the Book of Mormon I decided that I would write down my questions as they came to me but not worry about answering them until later. I was impressed several times with the thought that later, when I had time to try to find answers to these questions, I should also find a way to record and share what I am learning in a place where people will be able to read it. After a lot of thought and deliberation in my mind, weighing of various online options, and some (but probably not enough...) prayer, I decided that I would write my answers on this blog which you are reading and then cross post a weekly post with links to all of that week's posts. The day I decided this, I counted the number of questions. There were exactly the number necessary to take me from that day through the end of 2019 if I answered one/day (but I don't...I chunk my time differently; but that's immaterial). I took that as a friendly nudge that yes, I'm in the right direction. Certainly, there would be no harm in trying this, so long as I remember that it's always a bit vulnerable to post personal feelings of faith and testimony in a public place. 

But I felt this feeling so strongly so many times, over and over again in fact, that until I came up with this plan, I felt a bit restless and antsy.

So back to the question. 

I feel like a whole lot of this life is just parsing of semantics. Like, so much nit-picking. What does x word mean. Is a prophecy the same thing as a revelation? Is it a sub-category under a big fat umbrella called "personal revelation"? Or is it something that only a prophet can do? Does it necessarily mean foretelling events that have not yet happened? 

Because I know what I meant when I asked the question, I will answer that one instead. I was referring to personal revelation. Revelation is communication from God to humans, his children. Do I receive revelation? Well, yes! Of course. It's not angels or anything like that. More like this: 

Most revelations to leaders and members of the Church come through the whisperings of the Holy Ghost.

Quiet spiritual promptings may not seem as spectacular as visions or angelic visitations, but they are just as powerful and lasting and life changing. The witness of the Holy Ghost makes an impression on the soul that is more significant than anything we can see or hear. 

I firmly believe that personal revelation is real and members of the restored church definitely do not have a monopoly on it. Anybody can receive it. This is how you can qualify to receive revelation even if you are not a member of the church:

1. Pray for guidance. In other words, try to talk to God in the best way you know how.
2. Be reverent, not snarky.
3. Be humble. Humility is genuine and sincere. It is being honest with yourself.
4. Keep the commandments. Some of the very important ones that seem a bit difficult for the world to keep right now are the law of chastity (sexual abstinence before marriage, complete fidelity after) and perhaps also keeping clean language (avoiding profanity, swearing, taking the Lord's name in vain, etc.)
5. Study the scriptures every day. This is something anybody can do with a swipe of their finger and a few taps of their thumb. We have the most amazing library literally at our fingertips. 
6. Take time to ponder. <-- this is something I have been doing a lot more of with this quest to answer the questions. The pattern so far has been for me to read my questions at the beginning of the week, search for answers in many places (including secular places, asking people, using corpus linguistics tools, and definitely reading the scriptures), and spend some significant amount of time just thinking it over in my mind. Pondering can be fun, but it is also more frustrating than other routes of gaining empirical knowledge.
7. Patiently wait for answers. They will come in their own time. 

If I "pray oft" will the Lord show great things unto me? 1 Nephi 18:3

If I "pray oft" will the Lord show great things unto me? 1 Nephi 18:3

Nephi says that he went to the "mount" oft[en], and prayed oft[en] unto the Lord, which is why the Lord showed him many great things.

My question is, if I do the same thing, then will I get the same results?

I think it is probably important to include the stuff Nephi does besides just praying. When it says he goes to the mountain, what I understand that this to mean the best substitute that Nephi had for going to the temple. We know that Moses received the detailed instructions for how to construct the tabernacle (the traveling temple) while he was on mount Sinai. 

Throughout the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon, mountains are a symbol of a sacred place where the Lord teaches and reveals things to prophets. Here are some prophets who communed with God on a mountain: Nephi, Moses, the brother of Jared, Jesus Christ, etc. It's symbolism laced throughout the Psalms and Isaiah. 

There's nary a mountain in sight where I live.

Aaaaand the temple is a logistical puzzle with five kids (one who is breastfeeding) and a 2 1/2 hour drive each way. Yet, we have easy access to a temple compared to many millions of people, so I will not complain.

Back to the question. President Nelson answered this pretty clearly in his very first general conference address as the president of the church in April 2018. 

Answer: YES. 

The prophet also pleaded with us to increase our spiritual capacity to receive revelation by doing the spiritual work required to enjoy the gift of the Holy Ghost and hear the voice of the Spirit more frequently and more clearly. 

I urge you to stretch beyond your current spiritual ability to receive personal revelation, for the Lord has promised that “if thou shalt [seek], thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge, that thou mayest know the mysteries and peaceable things—that which bringeth joy, that which bringeth life eternal.”

Oh, there is so much more that your Father in Heaven wants you to know. As Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught, “To those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, it is clear that the Father and the Son are giving away the secrets of the universe!”

Nothing opens the heavens quite like the combination of increased purity, exact obedience, earnest seeking, daily feasting on the words of Christ in the Book of Mormon, and regular time committed to temple and family history work.

Qualifying to go to the temple, or in Nephi's case a mountain top (which might be even more beautiful and majestic than any other man-made place anyway), requires maintaining a temple recommend. This is not really something that can be done passively. It is daily living and walking by faith. I like that President Nelson also pointed out that we should be feasting on the words of Christ daily, especially the words in the Book of Mormon.

I think when I wrote this question, I was kind of thinking more along the lines of skepticism that I will ever get the opportunity to see a vision like what Nephi saw. But why not. If I do my part and earnestly seek, someday (maybe not someday very soon, but someday) I might get to see those things, too. I believe that "eternal progression" means a journey towards fulfilling this sincere desire I have within my soul to literally know everything that is knowable. Gotta start somewhere, and that place is righteous living including prayer and regular temple attendance.

Who is "I" in this verse? 1 Nephi 20:3

Who is "I" in this verse? 1 Nephi 20:3

Asking this question actually leads to another question: Who is "I" in this verse? Isaiah 48:3

Nephi is quoting the book of Isaiah, which would have been about as new to him as the writings of Joseph Smith are to me. That is to say, they were recent scripture for him. They were relevant and quite obviously precious to him. And we share the book of Isaiah with all the rest of Christianity as well as Judaism.

I asked the missionaries this question, and for the first time in several months I got an extremely satisfying answer that made sense to me.

This young missionary (who was not a scholar, it should be noted) told me about an experience he had with reading Moses 1:3-8 where he had the question, "who was speaking to Moses?"

He told me about how he read this in the institute manual, and it is worth quoting directly:

The personage who spoke to Moses was the premortal Jesus Christ, who is Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament. Being one with Heavenly Father, Jesus at times speaks as if He were God the Father (see Moses 1:6). This is known as divine investiture, whereby Christ is invested with authority to speak for and in behalf of the Father (see also D&C 29:1, 42, 46).

President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote: “All revelation since the fall has come through Jesus Christ, who is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. … He is the God of Israel, the Holy One of Israel; the one who led that nation out of Egyptian bondage, and who gave and fulfilled the Law of Moses. The Father has never dealt with man directly and personally since the fall, and he has never appeared except to introduce and bear record of the Son” (Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. [1954–56], 1:27).

It's not like my question about "roles" of who is talking is new. Here is another article written by H. Donl Peterson, a professor of ancient scripture at BYU, that I basically just have to quote because it's so clear.

A few years ago a student in one of my graduate classes wished to write a paper clarifying the appearances of various celestial beings upon the earth. He proposed column headings such as “God the Father,” “Jesus Christ,” “Holy Ghost,” “Named Angels,” “Unnamed Angels,” etc. After a few weeks he came back very discouraged, concluding that “a person just can’t do that.”

I tend to agree with his conclusion. Trying to determine which heavenly messenger is speaking in a particular case is often extremely difficult. I do feel, however, that we can clarify the issue by keeping several things in mind.

He then goes on to talk about the nature of the members of the Godhead, their unique roles, their unity in purpose, etc. It is worth reading. But kind of long, so I will just add this last part:

This discussion of roles may help us decide which of the two is speaking at a particular time. However, because the Father and the Son are one in unity and purpose, and since Jesus is authorized to speak for the Father in the first person, distinguishing the two can on occasion be more complicated. “Lord God” is used to designate both the Father and the Son in the scriptures. (See Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2nd ed., p. 450.)
In fact, very few sacred titles are used exclusively for one or the other. We can ask, for example, “Who is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?” We may think first of Jesus since the Father delegated responsibility for this earth to him. (See 1 Ne. 19:10 and 1 Cor. 10:4.) We must keep in mind, however, that some other prophets have understood this and yet they have designated God the Father as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (See Acts 3:15; Acts 5:30; and Acts 22:14.)

So I didn’t wonder that my student reached the conclusion he did. He discovered that with “divine investiture” positive identification is sometimes difficult, if not impossible. As he put it, “Sometimes it seems as if God the Father is speaking and then it seems to be Christ. Even angels speak as if they were Christ.” (See Rev. 22:8–9, 12–16.)
The prophets themselves probably knew to whom they spoke, but the identity of the messengers may have become confused in translation or transcription.

It seems to me, however, that as long as we are persuaded by the Spirit that the message is divine, we should not be overly concerned about the identification of the messenger.

I have really enjoyed highlighting my scriptures to try to find passages with references to Jesus Christ. I will continue to do this because it is fun and interesting for me. However, I feel a lot more confidence now that I know that a. I'm not alone in wondering this, b. divine investiture is a thing, and c. it is certain that I will not be able to fully disambiguate God in the scriptures, and that is okay.

Who is the "Almighty God"? 1 Nephi 17:48

Who is the "Almighty God"? 1 Nephi 17:48

Laman and Lemuel are swift to do iniquity but slow to remember the Lord. This is depressing to Nephi, who tells them to repent. They are really angry at him, and are about to throw him off the boat, when Nephi says, "In the name of the Almighty God, I command you that ye touch me not, for I am filled with the power of God, even unto the consuming of my flesh; and whoso shall lay his hands upon me shall wither even as a dried reed; and he shall be as naught before the power of God, for God shall smite him."

I wanted to know if Nephi is referring to Jesus Christ or Heavenly Father in this verse.

'The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith' cites this verse, which is interesting to me. 

My hypothesis is that it is a reference to Jesus Christ because almost everything that we *do* is done in his name. Like, we address God the Father "in the name of Jesus Christ" in our prayers, for example. 

I think would have to study this more to be totally sure. It would be interesting to compare the instances of the use of the word "Almighty God" throughout the scriptures. I am still not sure if it would lead to any definitive answers. Since this is basically the exercise that I have been engaged in for the past 4 months (disambiguation of references to God in the Book of Mormon and now in the New and Old Testaments), I am going to wait to truly answer this question with the depth it deserves.

What should you do when you have questions?

1. Seek understanding through divinely appointed sources. What higher source can you have than that of God himself?

2. Act in faith. Trust that the Lord will reveal answers when the time is right. Live by what you already know. Adam and Eve offered sacrifices after they were cast out of the garden of Eden. They did not know why. Later, it was shown to them. This is a recurring pattern throughout the scriptures: God requires obedience and then later explains why. Consider when Abraham was required to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar in the same disgusting manner of the wicked people in the place where he grew up who frequently engaged in ritual human sacrifice of their children (!!! ughhh). Why is this the pattern? We are supposed to learn faith. Faith is an action verb.

3. Keep an eternal perspective. Look at things from a long-range eternal perspective, not a myopic what's-best-for-the-bottom-line perspective. Considering things from the point of view of Heavenly Father's plan of salvation, a whole lot more things make sense, like how ordinances that Christ requires of us (like baptism) can even work as the one way by which salvation can come when so many billions of people never had access to that ordinance. Cough cough temple work cough cough.

Was Nephi involved in being rude? 1 Nephi 18:10

Was Nephi involved in being rude? 1 Nephi 18:10

Nephi's family is on a boat. They are sailing to the promised land. Nephi's brothers and the sons of Ishmael and their wives are starting to be merry, dance, sing, and speak "with much rudeness." 

Nephi says that he, "began to fear exceedingly lest the Lord should be angry with us, and smite us because of our iniquity, that we should be swallowed up in the depths of the sea." 

I noticed that the pronouns here seemed to include Nephi in the rudeness. However, in the previous verse, he did not explicitly say that he himself was rude. He also does not mention rudeness of his wife, his brother Sam and his wife, his parents Lehi and Sariah, and probably Nephi's sisters - I am sure he had them, even though they are obnoxiously not mentioned by name.

We had the missionaries over for dinner and I let them look at my questions ("Wow, we would be so overjoyed if some investigator came and asked us these questions because it would mean they are really thinking about the scriptures!"). They were not able to answer all of my questions, but they both agreed that they think that the answer to this is no. 

No, Nephi was probably not involved in the rudeness, at least very much. It would be totally out of his character.

I wonder how this idea ties into that of "innocent bystanders." Like, if people are being generally wicked in an area, and the Lord decides to send a plague or a famine or a war (or whatever) to smite the wicked, does it include the righteous who are there? My intuition tells me yes, it does. That doesn't bode very well for my country, and the prophecies that state that we will be blessed inasmuch as we as a people are righteous. Actually, it's downright scary. 

Why does Nephi use the exodus of the Jews to prove to his brothers why they should follow the Lord? 1 Nephi 17:23

Why does Nephi use the exodus of the Jews to prove to his brothers why they should follow the Lord? 1 Nephi 17:23

Nephi's brothers Laman and Lemuel are complaining (as usual). They say that the people in Jerusalem were righteous because they were good Jews who followed the law of Moses. They are complaining about their father Lehi being too judge-y. Nephi then retells the story of the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt. 

My daughter Jane thinks the reason why Nephi, himself a devout Jew, used this story to persuade his brothers to soften their hearts, is because it was something they already believed and understood. It was a familiar story for them. Moses was already a prophet who they revered and respected. Nephi is using a story that they already know and perhaps casting it into new light. 

Nephi explains that Moses followed the Lord's commandments by the help and power of the Lord. He was witnessing to his brothers that the Lord is powerful, strong, and capable, and that he will prepare a way for us to accomplish anything that he commands us to do.

* * *

This is only marginally related, but I would like to point out the similarity in geographic problems with the Exodus story to the Book of Mormon story. Scholars, historians, archaeologists, etc. have apparently not been able to substantiate the story of Exodus through an appeal to existing artifacts, geography, etc. Critics of the Book of Mormon have long used the lack of evidence of precise geography of the Book of Mormon to persuade people that it is not true. 

I think the point in both of these examples is that the epistemology of faith is different from that of other aspects of our lives. You can use all kinds of totally secular tools (e.g. Wikipedia) to help you learn *about* faith. But in order to actually learn it *itself* requires "spiritual, mental, and physical exertion and not just passive reception." (see this talk) You have to do something.

That is why we are here.

What is the "mighty nation"? 1 Nephi 22:7

What is the "mighty nation"? 1 Nephi 22:7

Answer: unequivocally, without room for doubt, the "mighty nation" is the United States of America.

"...the time cometh that after all the house of Israel have been scattered and confounded, that the Lord God will raise up a mighty nation among the Gentiles, yea, even upon the face of this land; and by them shall our seed be scattered."

Nephi is unfolding the meaning of the scriptures to his brothers. He also has the advantage of having already seen these things happen in a vision.

We know they are on the American continent ("the face of this land" = the American continent). We know the "marvelous work" that is "of great worth...unto all the house of Israel" referred to in verses 8-9 is the restoration of the gospel. 

At a general conference sometime in the past 5 years there was a really great talk given which I cannot for the life of my find. It was given by a Brazilian general authority who talked about his sincere feelings of frustration that the restoration of the gospel did not occur in Brazil. If I remember right, he was incredulous about why it had to happen in the United States. I think this was the first time I had really thought about that idea before. After that talk, I read in several other places (which I don't remember now! arghh) and had some long discussions with Danny and Danny's parents about this idea. 

The hill where Joseph Smith unearthed the golden plates is in upstate New York. Joseph's family had been pushed to migrate there by the year without a summer. But, surely, not only could the golden plates have been given directly to an earnest seeker of knowledge, but also no way (!!) was Joseph Smith the first such seeker. So why him, why then, and more to the point of the original question, why there?

Religious freedom is a relatively new reality, if not concept. The Book of Mormon also testifies of the founding father's being inspired men, of the Constitution of the United States being inspired, of this being a promised land, "that there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord." (2 Nephi 1:6) This includes my Mayflower pilgrim ancestors from the 1600's as well as my 1880's Moravian ancestors. 

In a 1963 General Conference, Delbert L. Stapley gave a long talk about this topic. 

Thus, from ancient American prophets, we learn that this United States of America was established by God for a divine purpose, and that great blessings, which all must admit, as we review the history of this nation, have so far been literally fulfilled; yet the fulfillment of future promise of blessings is conditional upon the continued righteousness of its people. A great challenge is presented to the citizens of this land if God is to be on our side and give us power as a nation to overcome our enemies and not be brought down into captivity.

This nation did not come into being by chance. God declared that the gentiles who came here were to be brought out of captivity by his hand. The prophecies previously quoted concerning the establishment of this nation have been fulfilled to the letter. The people coming here in the beginning did so to find religious freedom. Nevertheless, they were subjected to tyrannical rule, unjust demands, and no representation. They had lost the opportunities, the privileges, the religious freedom and liberty which impelled them to settle in this new land. The colonists became an aroused group because of oppression; therefore, the time had arrived in the economy of God for the people to break off the yoke of domination which subjected them to these unjust and intolerable conditions. The Lord, knowing beforehand the events which would set the pattern for independence, raised up strong and valiant men to meet this hour of crisis and challenge. The Declaration of Independence came from a determined people. The successful Revolutionary War which followed united the colonies; and the gentile nation of destiny and of divine purpose, as foretold by the prophets, was born. A Constitution was needed to set forth the purposes, obligations, and the guide lines for the new nation. God was prepared and ready and did not neglect this newborn nation which he had ordained to be established thousands of years previously.

The restored church is for the entire world; we are not an "American" church. God's love and his blessings extend to all people of all languages everywhere and throughout all time. 

At the same time, the restoration of the gospel was meant to begin in the United States. Can you even imagine an alternate reality of Joseph Smith's first vision happening in the Austrian Empire of 1830? I really can't. Regular people, my ancestors, were literally still living under a feudal-type system there. 

I love my country. It is pretty chilling to think that the prophecy of the restoration beginning here came true, so the additional warning will also be true; that if we as a nation forget God and start to become wicked (ha! Start? Yeah. I'd say we've definitely started), then my country will be cursed. From the same talk: 

If wickedness prevails and wicked men rule, then we will be as other nations. We will stand alone without the guiding influence and power of God to sustain us in time of trouble and in meeting the challenge and threat of internal and external Satanic ideologies, also the evil designs and intrigues of men and nations.

Pretty chilling indeed, considering the personal morality of the person who is currently standing at the head of my government :-(