Category: Scripture Notes

The darkness that covered the earth (at least in the Americas) while Christ was in the tomb should have reminded the righteous of their entombed Savior and helped them feel a connection to Him.

Even though Samuel was calling the people to repentance he was still offering a message of hope. He warns then to repent but then gives a sign of the birth of Christ and tells them why he gave the sign – so that they could know of his coming and have an opportunity to exercise…

As I read this warning from Samuel I am struck that we as a nation have set out hearts upon riches. Since pay lip service to helping the poor in one way and others in another way but few truly seek to learn how to effectively support the well-being of all people and pursue that.…

I never realized before that the curses Mormon warns about in Helaman 12 are the same curses that Samuel field to the people of Zerahemla in Helaman 13. Mormon was preparing the readers for the story he was about to record.

I notice that as Mormon enumerates potential cursed he sticks to those he has observed in his time and he goes from the lightest to the most impactful. All the curses relative to wealth or fortune fall below the curse to be cut off from the presence of the Lord. Others might have considered the…

Nephi was known to be righteous and to have spoken out against wickedness so that the people sought him out to end the famine even though few if any knew that he had called down the famine in the first place. I’m sure Nephi pled privately with the Lord for famine to replace war. Few…

When the Lord have Nephi the sealing power and explicitly told him that he had power to call down destruction on the people he must have known that avoiding the destruction of his brethren was the greatest motivation Nephi could have. That was why Nephi would be uniquely passionate about inviting the people to repent…

The five who went to see about the judge weren’t believers, they were opportunists. They ran to the judgement seat expecting to prove Nephi wrong but confident that they would know one way or another of he was a prophet. They are the type of people who would have believed Jeremiah as soon as they…

I just realized why Nephi was given to prophesy about the murder of the chief judge – it was an immediately verifiable prophecy to reinforce the prophecy concerning the Messiah that couldn’t be immediately verified. This was a parallel to the prophecies of Jeremiah about the fall of Jerusalem and the coming Messiah. I also…

I imagine that Nephi felt the great stories that he did because of things he learned as he was returning from the land in the north. He likely heard stories about how the government was being run and about the price of Zerahemla (and probably other places too). His stories didn’t come simply because he…