Placing ourselves entirely in the hands of God, being "willing to submit to all things which [He] seeth fit to inflict upon [us]" (Mosiah 3:19) is not so much an honorable thing as it is an obvious thing. It is an exercise of our God-given agency, to be sure, and it is a gift to... Continue Reading →
“I Uttered That I Understood Not”
We often think of the book of Job as a dialog between Job his friends, but perhaps the more important conversation is between Job and God. Elder D. Todd Christofferson highlighted this exchange, beginning with Job questioning why God allowed these terrible things to happen to him. For clarity, Elder Christofferson quoted from several different... Continue Reading →
Joshua and the Book of Mormon
This week, I reviewed the book of Joshua, summarizing the content of each chapter and identifying related Book of Mormon passages. The book can be divided into four parts: The children of Israel prepare to enter the promised land (chapters 1-5)With divine intervention, they conquer various cities in the land of Canaan (chapters 6-12)Land is... Continue Reading →
Glory
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory.Psalm 24:9-10 What is glory? The word appears 225 times in the King James Version of the Old Testament,... Continue Reading →
The Living Christ and the Book of Mormon
The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles is a proclamation published by leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 1 January 2000. The document speaks of the Savior's mission before birth, during His mortal ministry, and after His death and resurrection, including in our day. It also testifies that He... Continue Reading →
Receive Counsel
In Zenos's Allegory of the Olive Tree, there is a scene in which one of the servants questions a decision made by the Lord of the Vineyard. "How comest thou hither to plant this tree, or this branch of the tree?" he asks. "For behold, it was the poorest spot in all the land of... Continue Reading →
Truth
"What is truth?"' asked Pontius Pilate. The Savior had just declared that His purpose was "to bear witness unto the truth" (John 18:37-38). Pilate's rhetorical question suggests a deep cynicism. Can anyone know the truth? Does it even exist? Perhaps he had lived in a political world so long, where powerful people manufacture their own... Continue Reading →
Record-keeping
The first sentence in the Book of Mormon is about the importance of keeping records. Nephi tells us that, because the Lord had blessed him with "goodly parents," who taught him, and because he had been "highly favored of the Lord" in spite of enduring many afflictions, "therefore I make a record of my proceedings... Continue Reading →
Truth
Our relationship with the truth is a fundamental part of our moral character. The prophet Jacob defined "truth" as "things as they really are, and...things as they really will be"(Jacob 4:13). (See also Doctrine and Covenants 93:24.) The Lord revealed to the prophet Joseph Smith that "All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed... Continue Reading →
“Go Ye Forth of Babylon” – 1 Nephi 20:20
"The world is too much with us," wrote the poet William Wordsworth. He meant that our lives are influenced more than we realize by the society in which we live, leaving us unable to properly perceive "things as they really are" (Jacob 4:13). As Elder David R. Stone explained: Our culture tends to determine what... Continue Reading →
Book of Mormon Study Notes 