The Gospel According to Jeffrey

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 b...

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...