A Bite Size Study

"And it came to pass that when my father had read and seen may great and marvelous things, he did exclaim many things unto the Lord; such as: Great and marvelous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty! Thy throne is high in the heavens, and they power and goodness and mercy are over all the inhabitants of the earth; and, because thou are merciful thou wilt not suffer those who come unto thee that they shall perish!" Despite being long and fairly dense with things, I will be honest when I say I can't find a ton to pull our of this scripture besides what is on the surface so that is where I am really trying to be open to inspiration in case there is anything else that I am missing (there usually is). So Nephi is still writing this, which I appreciate that we get reminders every now and then because it is easy to forget and picture Lehi writing all of this down. Nephi says that not after, but when Lehi had seen a read these marvelous things he starts exclaiming things to the L...

"And it came to pass that as he read, he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord." I love that Spirit is capitalized in this verse. The uppercase letter denotes the proper noun which is really neat when you think about it. I also occasionally forget when I read this that he is still having a vision. Interestingly enough you can feel these kind of things during a vision. I know that it shouldn't surprise me because I can feel fear and joy and all sorts of emotions during a dream. I am also including the next verse in today's study because these go really well together. "And he read, saying: Wo, wo, unto Jerusalem, for I have seen thine abominations ! Yea, and many things did my father read concerning Jerusalem - that it should be destroyed, and the inhabitants thereof; many should perish by the sword, and many should be carried away captive into Babylon." Okay, so this is cool! Nephi quotes one line from the book (probably the only line that his dad re...

"And they came down and went forth upon the face of the earth; and the first came and stood before my father, and gave unto him a book, and bade him that he should read." What an exciting experience. I don't know about everyone else, but I usually dream in third person, where I am watching myself like I have a recorded movie of what is happening. Rarely if ever, do I dream in first person. So when I hear this I think of myself, as a fly on the wall watching this scene, but then "the first"comes up to not the one that I can see, but to the fly on the wall me that is watching and isn't aware that they know I am there. I don't know if that makes sense. Basically this made me think about one of them breaking the fourth wall, and addressing the viewer. I know that is super random but it is what I imagine from this one. And, correct me if I am wrong, but I don't believe Nephi and Lehi knew that the name of the Savior was to be Jesus. I remember there i...

I believe I have met my test with this one. There is one footnote and it is the word twelve...and it sends me to the topical guide on apostle. "And he also saw twelve others following him, and their brightness did exceed that of the stars in the firmament." So, if you read yesterday's post it is very interesting that it describes them with a different light word than they did Jesus. They have brightness, he has luster. It may not be anything like I am saying and a complete coincidence, but I think it is interesting to think about nonetheless. I thought it was interesting that it compares it to exceeding the stars in the firmament. This is where I start to think that the vision that Lehi saw was far less literal and more symbolic. If I saw something bright...bright at ALL, then I wouldn't compare it to the stars. The stars give off little to no light for us. They are beautiful, but a night without the moon is dark . The stars help a little but it is negligible. He ...

I tried something new this morning. At the beginning of my run I brought up the scripture and read it carefully a couple times and then started running. It was actually pretty successful. You know how when you run there is always something in your head that you cycle through over and over? Normally it is some stupid lyric from a song in High School, but the scripture stayed stuck in my head for most of my run which was nice. I was even able to use the "Hey Siri" function on my phone to define some interesting words. "And it came to pass that he saw One descending out of the midst of heaven, and he beheld that his luster was above the sun at noon-day." This verse is perfect. It is bite-sized and some really special things jumped out at me. The capitalized O on One didn't catch my eye until just now but how awesome is this? The word denotes that a single person stepped forward out of the multitude, but it also is Christ's title. Christ is the One. He dwell...

I'll be honest, I got a late start today so if this post seems rushed, I will try to make up for it on a different day. "And being thus overcome with the Spirit, he was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God." This verse is funny to me. Not funny as in ha ha lol, but rather different. Thus far in the Book of Mormon we have seen a lot of scriptures that are pretty straight forward. Yes there is a lot to read into but we haven't seen much evidence of antiquated speech, cultural differences, or anything like that. Here I would say there may be evidence of something going on that we are not sure of, whether it be on a long time ago level or on a spiritual/heavenly level. So we talked last time about him being transfigured and whatnot. Then he comes home and he is so exhausted from his spiritual encoun...

"And it came to pass that he returned to his own house at Jerusalem, and he cast himself upon his bed, being overcome with the Spirit and the things which he had seen." I will admit that there doesn't seem to be a lot to be mined from this scripture, but we mine nonetheless. I have to wonder where Lehi was going to or coming from. I always assumed that Lehi and his family lived outside Jerusalem, if only slightly. That could just be because they have left Jerusalem by the time Nephi and his brothers are sent back for the plates...so when I visualize them going to the city it is always from outside the city walls. The way this verse says at Jerusalem makes me wonder but it really isn't a huge deal in the end. Then Lehi casts himself upon his bed. I have always loved little demonstrations of great men's weakness. I think it makes them more relatable to me. Now I know that Lehi was definitely older than I am, but it is good to see Lehi get exhausted at things like ...