The Admonitions of the Lord

Shortly before Lehi's death, he speaks with the children of Laman and Lemuel. He leaves a blessing with them that if they are cursed because of their parents, the curse will be answered upon the heads of their parents. After years of warning¹ Laman and Lemuel that they should repent, the forebodings² he had felt about them were almost sure to be realized at this point.

Joseph Truly Saw Our Day

It doesn't seem that the Book of Mormon makes very much mention of Joseph, son of Lehi, but 2 Nephi 3 is prophecy given by Lehi specifically to Joseph. I have wondered before why it is that this chapter is directed at him. The most obvious answer is that he shares a name with Joseph of Egypt and Joseph Smith. It is also true that his seed will be blessed¹ through the tribe of Ephraim, but so will the descendants of Laman and Lemuel. Perhaps what was shared by Lehi, though directed to Joseph, was meant to be heard by all of Lehi's children (and all of us too).

Free To Choose

The Fall of Adam gave all men (who kept their first estate) the chance to experience mortal life, and to know good and evil, virtue and vice, and happiness and misery. But as I mentioned in my last post, all of these things would have eventually led to an unhappy ending if it were not for the Atonement. The Fall without the Atonement is akin to skydiving without a parachute.

That They Might Have Joy

In the garden of Eden, God commanded Adam and Eve that they should not partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In my last post, I posed the question of whether Adam and Eve made the right decision in eating the fruit. The obvious answer is yes, but why? Why would God give them a commandment that He wanted them to disobey?

That He Should Act For Himself

One of God's greatest gifts to us is the gift of agency. God has created things to act, and things to be acted upon. We fall into the category of "things to act." We have the ability choose our own actions and to shape our own destiny. It is our agency which allows us to learn, grow, and become like God.

An Opposition in All Things (Part 4)

In my last post I talked about the power of the atonement and resurrection to bring us back before God to be judged. Continuing in 2 Nephi 2:

An Opposition in All Things (Part 3)

In yesterday's post  I talked about the need for a Messiah to save us from the consequences of our sins. But the atonement saves us from more than just spiritual death as a consequence of sin, it also made possible the resurrection of the dead. Picking up where I left off in 2 Nephi 2:

An Opposition in All Things (Part 2)

In yesterday's post, I painted a somewhat bleak picture of the consequences of sin for all men. Today, I continue in 2 Nephi 2 to see how we can be saved from those consequences:

An Opposition in All Things (Part 1)

For the last few weeks, I have been studying 2 Nephi 2 and related scriptures. This is not the first time that I have taken to an in-depth study of this chapter, and it has been every bit as rewarding this time as it has in the past. Something new that I have been trying is to make a list of vocabulary words from the chapter, and then find a suitable definition for each one. The list turned out to be quite long. For verses 4 through 11 alone, I came up with a list of twenty-eight words.