The Gospel According to Jeffrey

First of all, if you’ve somehow missed the first four parts, I invite you to start at the beginning . Enjoy! At some point this morning, a friend wrote me to see if I had noticed the major differences between President Packer’s spoken Conference address. Curious, I decided to listen to the audio of the discourse while reading the official transcript. I didn’t have any trouble with the obvious verbal slips that anyone can make (misread words, etc.), but I thought it rather interesting that one of the paragraphs I cited in Part III —the one that had so many people up in arms—had, in fact, been slightly changed. Spoken version: “Some suppose that they were preset, and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and the unnatural. Not so. Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember, He is our Father.” Printed version: “Some suppose that they were preset, and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn temptations toward the impure and the unnatu

I’ve had quite a few people contact me about this post, both those few who took the time to comment on this blog and many others with whom I’ve discussed and debated on other sites. I think a fitting conclusion to this topic, however, comes not from me, but from a self-described “(Gay) Mormon Guy,” whose treatment of President Packer’s discourse is more powerful and poignant than anything I could ever hope to write. Please check out what he has to say about President Packer’s talk. You won’t be sorry. Update: I thought this was the end, but of course, people just can’t let it go. Check out The President Packer Postulate Revisited   for even more on this long-dead horse. ;-)

If you’re just coming in now, you may want to check out the first two parts of this discussion. As always, I’ll wait. ;-) So now we come back to President Packer’s discourse, and particularly the passages people are complaining most vocally about: “Some suppose that they were pre-set, and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and the unnatural. Not so. Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember, He is our Father. “Paul promised, ‘God… will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it’ ( 1 Corinthians 10:13 ). You can, if you will, break the habits and conquer the addiction, and come away from that which is not worthy of any member of the Church.” (President Boyd K. Packer, Cleansing the Inner Temple , 180th Semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.) Why are people so up in arms about this? He’s right

Missed Part I? Check it out here . In the last few decades, our society has grown increasingly tolerant of homosexuality. Despite the best efforts of various (primarily religious) organizations, none have been able to fully stem the tide of this acceptance. This failure stems partly from a lack of knowledge: since most religions don’t even know why homosexuality is wrong, their arguments against it are generally along the lines of “because God said so,” with no further explanation—in other words, fairly useless. Unfortunately, this is not the most significant problem with fighting this battle. In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four , the government—best known to the masses by the omnipresent “Big Brother”—takes control of the people using an extremely simple, yet amazingly effective, tool: the English language. By slowly removing words from the language, these words likewise retreat from the public consciousness. What few words remain, the government subtly changes to meet its ow

This past Sunday, President Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles gave an amazing discourse in General Conference, entitled Cleansing the Inner Temple . In this talk, President Packer had the audacity to state that—surprise!—sin is bad. A lot of people didn’t like it that he said that, and even many members of the Church are calling for President Packer to apologize for his comments, particularly with respect to homosexuality. Now, before I continue with this post, I want to emphasize something: I am not a “gay-basher.” I have friends and family who identify themselves as gay. Some of them are probably better people than I am! And while I don’t agree with their decision to live that way, I love them and treat just like I do anyone else. (As I told one such friend: if I stopped being friends with everyone who did something I don’t agree with, I’d be a very lonely man, wallowing in a pit of self-hatred.) ;-) Demonizing others is wrong. Persecuting others is wrong. Hurtin

“I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father….” Much has been said on the Internet regarding the definition of the word “goodly,” with the general consensus leaning toward “wealthy.” (Just Google “ goodly wealthy ,” and you’ll see what I mean.) If I might add my own humble opinion to the fray, I would indeed agree that this is the correct definition (despite its pop-culture alternative). So if this be the case, it helps us understand more about the culture in which Nephi is writing—not because his parents were wealthy, but because of the phrase which immediately follows. In our day and nation, education—at least basic education—is considered nothing less than a civil right. In this way we have greatly improved the situation of much of our society. Not so in Nephi’s time and place: the wealth of his parents was inexorably tied to Lehi’s learning, and both that wealth and the learning with which it is associated bear di

“This is according to the account of Nephi; or in other words, I, Nephi, wrote this record.” Dr. Hugh Nibley, arguably the father of Latter-day Saint apologetics, points out that the First Book of Nephi “starts out with a colophon telling us whose hand wrote it, what his sources were, and what it is about” ( Since Cumorah , 170-171). This is far from unique in scripture ( e.g. the Jerusalem Colophon ), but the statement is important. Latter-day Saints understand that while the scriptures are indeed the word of God, they are the word of God filtered through the minds of His prophets. The level of perfection to which any scripture can attain is only to the extent that its author was willing and able to write His words in the way that He intended, and to the extent that the reader ( e.g. us) is willing and able to understand them in the way that He intended. By opening his record in this way, Nephi is stating, “This is scripture, but I’m totally responsible for the way it’s written. If

“Nephi’s brethren rebel against him. He confoundeth them, and buildeth a ship. They call the name of the place Bountiful. They cross the large waters into the promised land, and so forth.” So now we get to the next big conflict: the ship. So why is this significant enough to merit inclusion in the headnote? I believe the significance is twofold. First, we have the contrast that Nephi is working so hard to show us: that between himself and his brothers; and secondly, the necessary backstory for how they “cross[ed] the large waters.” But why in such proximity? I believe that, too, has a dual significance. The first significance of this arguable conjugate is the obvious one, that of temporal proximity. The “rebellion” Nephi here cites occurs in 1 Nephi 17 , immediately following the Lord’s commandment that he build a ship ( v.8 ). So of course, these two things go together. However, these is a greater significance of these two items, especially when coupled with the seemingly out of pla

“The course of their travels. They come to the large waters.” So once again we come to the question of “why.” If the headnote features the most important points of his book, why are “the course of their travels” and their arrival at “the large waters” so important to him, especially when, at least in our modern minds, the former is barely mentioned (see  1 Nephi 16:13 ) in the text itself? Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here: it’s important to him . Nephi was a living, breathing, very human human being. As a product of his time and society, the way he writes is as indicative of his life’s experience as the way you or I write, today. When he says, for example, that the Liahona led Lehi’s party “in the more fertile parts of the wilderness” ( 1 Nephi 16:16 ), it’s second nature to him. He knows where those “more fertile parts” are, so he doesn’t need to explain it to himself; and his audience—who, at this point, is still his own family and descendants—would either already know, sin

“Their sufferings and afflictions in the wilderness.” Nephi has already mentioned “sufferings” once in his headnote, with respect to his first trip back to Jerusalem (see 1 Nephi: Headnote, Part V ). The sufferings mentioned here are different, though: these are the sufferings of his entire extended family—wife and children, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, etc.—while “in the wilderness.” In fact, we know from 1 Nephi 17:4 that they spent “eight years in the wilderness,” so that’s a pretty good chunk of time for some pretty intense “sufferings” to occur. What happened to the families while in the wilderness? 1 Nephi 16 gives us some clue—hunger and even death were definitely part of their travails—but I suspect it was a lot more than that. Discomfort was probably the rule of the day, even in the city of Jerusalem. They didn’t have climate-controlled homes as do we, nor even electricity. They didn’t have running water in their homes. They didn’t have cars to hop over to Wal

“They take their families and depart into the wilderness.” So let’s think about this for a minute. We’ve already established that Nephi and his brothers are married. Those of us who have read the book previously realize that this happened as a result of their second return to the land of Jerusalem, so it would seem that none of them were married before they left. On the other hand, it would seem that at least some of them also had children by that time, else why the use of the word “families”? Everything between chapter 7 (the second journey) and chapter 16 (when they “[take] of the daughters of Ishmael to wife”) seems to have preceded the weddings, which is not tremendously surprising since those chapters consist almost exclusively of Lehi’s vision and Nephi’s reprise thereof, with only chapter 16 relating a different series of events. Thus, they probably spent much of their “sojourn for the space of many years, yea, even eight years in the wilderness” ( 1 Nephi 17:4 ) as married

“They take the daughters of Ishmael to wife.” I suppose we’ll deal with this in more detail when I get to 1 Nephi 7, but I think it bears mentioning that Nephi found this tiny little detail—his marriage—important enough to mention in his headnote. With very few exceptions, women are never mentioned in the scriptures unless they are essential to the story or chronology. So by even mentioning it, we can see that Nephi views his marriage as a major event in his life and history. So what can we learn from this? Although Nephi’s parting commandment to his brother Jacob did allow him to “touch… lightly [upon] the history of this people” ( Jacob 1:2 ), the commandment that Nephi had himself received from God (ostensibly just before writing the headnote!) was that he “should make these plates, for the special purpose that there should be an account engraven of the ministry of [his] people” ( 1 Nephi 9:3 ). Furthermore, he states that: “the things which are pleasing unto the world I do not w

“Nephi taketh his brethren and returneth to the land of Jerusalem after the record of the Jews. The account of their sufferings.” I think this passage speaks a lot to the character of Nephi. Grant Hardy points out that Nephi, while not merely “a biased, self-aggrandizing character,” nonetheless “offers a didactic, one-side narrative that severely truncates events and flattens characters” (Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon , 44). I think this comes through quite clearly, in this passage. The events here summarized begin in 1 Nephi 3, when Lehi instructs his sons—on behalf of the Lord—to “go unto the house of Laban, and seek the records, and bring them down hither into the wilderness” ( 1 Nephi 3:4 ). While Nephi is certainly portrayed as the more obedient party, he never mentions “taking” his brethren with him; they simply “took [their] journey in the wilderness, with [their] tents, to go up to the land of Jerusalem” ( 1 Nephi 3:9 ). (Incidentally, the fact that that had to retu

“He taketh three days’ journey into the wilderness with his family.” It’s so funny that I would get to this sentence, this morning. Last night I was researching something related to the Bible and discovered a web site that mocks the Book of Mormon. Such sites are, of course, a dime a dozen, but this one was different: never before have I seen such inaccurate information as this. I mean, it’s one thing to take issue with the doctrines or even the historical narrative; it’s quite another to come up with such incredibly obvious straw man arguments. Such is the statement that is brought to mind by this passage: “It only took Nephi and his family three days to travel from Jerusalem to the Red Sea. (A distance of 250 miles)” Let’s ignore, for the moment, the fact that this author couldn’t even manage grammatical accuracy in his argument. Where on Earth did s/he get this idea? Lehi didn’t start from the city of Jerusalem; he started from “the land of Jerusalem” (see “ Headnote, Part II ”). J

“…because he prophesieth unto the people concerning their iniquity and they seek to destroy his life.” When the prophet Jeremiah—arguably the President of the Church in Lehi’s time—wrote of the impending destruction of Jerusalem, King Jehoiakim was, shall we say, not pleased. He burned the record and commanded that Jeremiah and his scribe, Baruch, suffer a similar fate ( i.e. imprisonment, if not death; see Jeremiah 36:21-26 , cf. 37:4 ). While Jeremiah was not there to hear the king’s words, the Lord gave him the sound-byte version: “Why hast thou written therein, saying, The king of Babylon shall certainly come and destroy this land, and shall cause to cease from thence man and beast?” ( Jeremiah 36:29 ). It didn’t take long for Jeremiah’s prophecy against Jehoiakim to come true, and Zedekiah was installed as his successor—and succeeded where his predecessor had failed ( Jeremiah 37:15 ). So when Nephi says that the people sought to destroy his father, he knew what he was talking ab

“The Lord warns Lehi to depart out of the land of Jerusalem….” Over the years, I’ve had plenty of run-ins with those who would seek to destroy the Church. Some call them “anti-Mormons”; others, avoiding that colloquialism, use “contra-LDS” (as in Michael Ash’s Shaken Faith Syndrome ) or simply “critics.” Regardless of what they be called, these people often come back to an argument that they think proves the falseness of the Book of Mormon: that Alma 7:10 states Jesus shall be born in or at Jerusalem. While we’re obviously a few thousand verses away from Alma 7:10, it occurs to me that right here in the headnote to the First Book of Nephi, we see just why Alma would reference “Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers”: that’s what Lehi did—and with good reason. The late Hugh Nibley points out that: Though he “dwelt at Jerusalem,” Lehi did not live in the city, for it was after they had failed to get the plates in Jerusalem that his sons decided to “go down to the land of ou

So today I’m returning to the world of scripture study. I’m not sure how regular it will be—I’d like to think daily—but I’ve got a goal, and I’m starting towards it. My goal is simple: one verse per day, with my insights and commentary posted here. If it goes really  well, I may break it off into a separate blog, but I’m not going to open that can of worms right now. So without any further ado, here we go!

On 31 August, 1991—nineteen years ago today–I stepped into the waters of baptism and witnessed unto my Savior that I was willing to follow Him. It’s been a long road since then, and I’m constantly falling short of that lofty goal. Still, I really am trying to become more like Him, and I guess today is a great day to recommit to that attempt. Back when I was a full-time missionary in Spain (1995-1996), my life was very much devoted to God’s work. I didn’t watch television; the only music I listened to was hymns and classical works; and I spent somewhere between 1-2 hours per day, studying the word of God. It was as a missionary that I finally made it through the Book of Mormon for the first time (though I started it long before my mission, studying it probably too intently to be worthwhile), and as a missionary that I learned so much about the practical application of Christ’s teachings. In two years of service, I never once had the blessing of a baptism in the area I was serving in,

First of all, this post is best read if you’re familiar with the concepts in my recent Primer on Family History . If you’re not familiar with my love for the pastime, or are just wondering how I got into it in the first place, check out that post. I hope you’ll find it informative. So now, let’s deal with my personal history in family history programs. Back in 1991, when I first became a Christian, I was encouraged (like all members of the Church of Jesus Christ) to begin researching my family history. (Wonder why? You must not have read the Book of Jeffrey entry. Seriously, check it out!) ;-) I don’t remember how long it was before I learned of Personal Ancestral File 2.1 (or “PAF,” for short), but I immediately knew it would be a wise investment. You see, Personal Ancestral File was an application developed by the Church, designed to help people track their family history. It was quite crude, by today’s standards, but it was a great program at the time. When I arrived home from my

Those of you who follow me on Facebook may have seen my status update, some 36 hours ago, in which I stated that I think I’ve finally decided on a new family history program. This status led to a rather humorous discussion of what I meant by that, but the point is that I’m finally ready to move into the 21st century, when it comes to tracking my genealogy and family history. So here’s a little background, so you can understand just where I’m coming from. Back in 1991, I accepted Christ as my Savior and became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . One of the basic tenets of the Church of Jesus Christ is that God loves all of His children, not just those that are lucky enough to learn His plan during their short time on Earth. However, we also know that Christ taught that baptism is essential for entrance into the kingdom of God (see John 3:1-5 ). So what about all those that died without ever having the chance to be baptized, or even to accept Christ as Savior

One of the things that has always fascinated me about the First Book of Nephi is the first phrase of the headnote: “An account of Lehi and his wife Sariah and his four sons, being called, (beginning at the eldest) Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi.” The Small Plates of Nephi were written long after most of the events therein, indeed some 30-40 years after the family left Jerusalem (see 2 Nephi 5:28-34 ). So realizing that Nephi is now an older man, why does he only speak of Lehi’s “four sons”? Why not “six sons”? Nephi obviously wasn’t trying to hide his 30ish-year-old brothers, Jacob and Joseph; heck, in the same chapter as he makes the plates, he “consecrate[s them] that they should be priests and teachers over the land of [his] people”! ( 2 Nephi 5:26 ). So what gives? A couple of weeks ago, this concern was brought to mind as I was reading Understanding the Book of Mormon . In his section on Nephi, Grant Hardy deals with Nephi’s characterization of others. As he points out: “Aside f

I’m finally getting around to starting to read the Book of Mormon again, which is ironic, because I hadn’t even gotten to 1 Nephi 1 before getting sidetracked and having a month or so of downtime. I suppose that’s to be expected, really; the easiest time to break a habit (be it for good or for bad) is when the habit is relatively new. In fact, I’ve heard it said that it takes three weeks to ingrain a good habit, but only three days to undo that ingraining. Hopefully this will be day one of those first 21 days. :-) Before I begin my study of the Book of Mormon, I’d like to introduce my readers to a book I recently purchased:  Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide , by Grant Hardy. I’ve been reading this book for about a week now, and I must say it is absolutely amazing: as I follow Hardy into the minds of the three most significant authors of the Book of Mormon, my understanding of their lives and their writings is being enhanced like I never imagined. What makes this b

This past Sunday was my first time attending an entire elders quorum meeting in weeks. Between taking photos for the upcoming issue of the Elders Journal , helping a friend in the Family History Center ® , subbing in Primary and Nursery, and our annual stake Priesthood meeting (which requires each ward in our building to have only Sacrament Meeting), it had been seven weeks since I last attended an entire meeting with my quorum. What’s most amazing is how much I missed it, and how little I realized how much I missed it. My hearing isn’t the best, so I always sit in the front row to keep the gym’s (sorry, Cultural Hall’s) less-than-ideal acoustics from drowning out the instructor. The front row was unusually full, this week, and it was great to be back where I belong, in the company of my brethren. Furthermore, we’ve been blessed with a really great quorum—unlike most wards and quorums, I can’t think of a single person that can regularly be counted on, to bring up some ridiculous pet

In my early days as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, I was constantly hearing people talk about the Prophet Ezra Taft Benson ’s landmark discourse  The Book of Mormon—Keystone of Our Religion ( Ensign 26:11:4 ). This discourse, which was less than five years old at the time of my baptism, began President Benson’s recurring theme of calling the Church to repentance for its members’ treatment of the Book of Mormon. In this discourse, President Benson spoke of “some early missionaries [whom] the Lord reproved… for treating the Book of Mormon lightly,” then quoted Doctrine and Covenants 84:57 as follows: And they shall remain under this condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon. He then went on to explain that: If the early Saints were rebuked for treating the Book of Mormon lightly, are we under any less condemnation if we do the same? The Lord Himself bears testimony that it is of eternal significance. Can a small number of us bring

As any knowledgeable Latter-day Saint knows, the title page of the Book of Mormon is a translation of the last page of the unsealed portion of the golden plates, written by the hand of Moroni, presumably right before hiding up said plates unto the Lord. I’ve read it many times, but as with any good scripture reading, I noticed something new, last night. In the first paragraph of Moroni’s inspired explanation, he states that the Book of Mormon is “To come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof,” which “interpretation thereof [comes] by the gift of God.” I’d like to focus, right now, on the word “interpretation” and what it means to us as Latter-day Saints. I suspect that this word was chosen very specifically, that this prophecy might have a dual fulfillment: not only in Joseph Smith Jr’s life, but also in the life of every person on this planet. When we speak of the Book of Mormon, we often speak of it being “translated.” Indeed, even the title page of

As many of my closer readers know, I suffered a trial of my faith, about 16 months ago. That was when my son Daniel came too early, my perfectly formed little boy born dead. While Daniel’s death itself did not cause me to doubt my testimony of the Lord and His gospel, the events surrounding this horrible experience had a particularly negative impact on that sure knowledge. In February 2007, I was literally able to call down the powers of Heaven by the authority of the Holy Priesthood. In June 2010, I am still unable to do this, at least to the extent that I did at that time. Yesterday morning, I was praying for help in returning to that point. I don’t expect it to happen in an instant; I have to learn and grow, to “work out [my] salvation” as Paul instructed the Philippians (Phil. 2:13). To this end, I asked Heavenly Father what I needed to do and was blessed with one of the greatest revelations I’ve had in a while. In 2010, the First Presidency has started a kind of “back to basic

(This is part two of my explanation of the Book of Abraham. Of course,  part one  is also available.) As discussed previously, the most significant problem with the Book of Abraham is that each of the three Facsimiles found therewith have been translated by Egyptologists—both Latter-day–Saint and otherwise—and the result has been unanimous: Joseph Smith’s interpretation of these writings have absolutely nothing to do with their actual translation. When these hieroglyphs were first authored by our ancient Egyptian cousins, they had nothing whatsoever to do with Abraham or even Judeo-Christianity; they dealt with Egyptian mythology and beliefs, and that’s all there is to it. End of story. The problem with this thinking is that it overlooks an important, even essential issue: when Joseph Smith Jr. set forth the meaning of these texts, what, exactly, was he interpreting? Let’s return to the Book itself. The Book of Abraham is a not an Egyptian document. Everyone agrees that the extan