Category: Scripture Notes
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Everything is relative
While traveling in the wilderness the people of Lehi grew strong and able to beat their burdens. After they had been settled in the land of Bountiful for a while they considered the with that Nephi undertook tô be too much of an imposition.
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John’s pre-ministry life
I wonder if John had been largely cut off from society, possibly even alone (with his parents potentially having died well before his ministry). If so, such a separation from society could have molded him into the image of what people expected from a prophet.
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Not as the scribes
The people noted that Jesus spoke as if he had authority, unlike how the scribes spoke. They spoke as if they had knowledge but they constantly leaned in the authority of others—”so and so said this.” Jesus didn’t appeal to the of others. He spoke and let the soundness of His doctrine carry is own…
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I have need to be baptized of thee
Somehow I never connected the fact that John had been preaching the Jesus would baptize with the Holy Ghost. That changes my thoughts about him saying he had need of being baptized by Jesus. It indicated “I need the cleansing and purifying of the baptism You offer.”
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All things in order
I wonder if Lehi would have been receptive to bringing Ishmael with him before Zoramite had joined them. I’m confident that Lehi knew Ishmael and might have wondered about Ishmael having more daughters to marry than Lehi had sons. Once Ishmael came back when the boys retrieved the records Lego might have recognized Ishmael as…
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A receptive audience
It sounds like the brothers of Nephi we’re open to learning from him after he came back from his vision of the tree of life. They asked follow-up questions and do not seem to have challenged what he taught them at that time.
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Two churches only
Everyone who is not striving to be in the church of the lamb is, by default a part of the great and abominable church.
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Through the hands of the great and abominable church
The great and abominable church is not confined to a single organization or even to religious organizations. It can operate through any entity which serves its purposes. It was certainly making use of the various councils that were held in the years before the structures of catholicism were solidified. That is when plain and precious…
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Reinforcing the message
I never considered before how the visions regarding the future if his people also served to reinforce the symbolic imagery from the vision of the tree of life. That must have been powerful for Nephi.
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The vision of Nephi
It occurred to me that the angel was more involved with explaining things to neighbor than the record here states. Nephi probably only wore down the most important interactions with the angel but he might well have been answering questions that Nephi had as he sought to understand what he was seeing. For example, did…