"Freely ye have received, freely give." -Matthew 10:8
I’ve also been reflecting upon the latest talk from Amy Wright in October 2023 General Conference (which is not yet published) and a Friend article by President Thomas S. Monson.
Because of Jesus Christ, and the covenants of His gospel, there is hope beyond tears.
Moroni 10:26-30 (Moroni 10:26-30)
Cuando leo declaraciones fuertes como lo que dice Moroni en el versículo 26, me hace recordar que Dios no es negro y blanco en tales cosas. Pero es el hombre natural el que atenta ser incompatible, inflexible, y sin voluntad de cambiar y crecer. Es en el acto de negar el poder y los dones de Dios, en no reconocer el proceso de crecimiento que resulta por medio del arrepentimiento, que resultará en nuestra expulsión del reino de Dios.
Las notas de pie y resto de este grupo de versículos muestra un punto muy fascinante: que en los postrer días Dios mismo manifestará la veracidad de estas palabra.
The last verse of this section is an invitation that is coupled together, as with expectation: come unto Christ AND lay hold on every good gift. This is followed by an admonition to stay away from the evil gifts and unclean things.
These verses are resonating with me this morning. This is Moroni at the end of the book, accertaining the veracity of what he has recorded. So certain is his knowledge that he understands that this record will be used at the end of time, during the judgement as a means of measurement or assessment.
Prophets speak with knowledge, not mere hope or optimistic speculation. They know what will happen.
This seems like a bit of an incomplete study, but I’m ready to move on. I’ve added footnotes to the scriptures on these verses that are of significance. They are as follows:
These things are written with the knowledge that one from beyond mortality would have, as if they were already dead or passed over to the other side of the veil and all that is known there.
Footnote on verse 27
This isn’t an invitation to do anything. This is a statement of fact. That somehow and in some way, at some time, it will be God who shows you that the words written by Moroni are true.
Footnote on verse 29
Moroni 10:19-25 (Moroni 10:19-25)
This is scaffolding. The gifts of God or scaffolding, means by which faith is realized.
I am being drawn to consider that this conversation on Spiritual Gifts is in reality a witness of the gifts that come from Jesus Christ. So often the human condition causes me to pass over, to fail to understand that Jesus Christ, this Divine Being who intimately knows me, who has already walked many miles patiently with me, who has bridged many gaps in communication and many faults in action, who felt every difficult and painful thing that I have dealt within my own existence— I fail to understand that Jesus Christ transcends all this darkness and pulls me up into glorious realms of light and bestows upon me gifts of light, to the benefit of myself and others.
Verse 25, Moroni states that we cannot do good unless we operate under the power and by the gifts of God. We cannot do good otherwise.
Spiritual Gifts are never to be done away with, and will always be with us even until the end of the world (see vs. 19). This suggests, as we always have in Christ, a degree of stability and assurance and permanence. Their presence is only lessened by our lack of faith, or unbelief.
I’ve jumped back to the earlier part of this chapter and am reconsidering the spiritual gifts that come from Christ, and reflecting upon the “matrix” or array of manifestations that are in spiritual gifts. (I’ve added personal footnotes on verse 8.) It occurs to me that this can account for the dissonance between how Rachel and I work together spiritually, or that the same gift can operate differently in each of us, and still come from God! (This would have been profoundly helpful many years ago, but is still helpful today.)
This sparks the tendency or maybe even the temptation to say “If only I’d known what I know now!” But this is the great quest of life, to acquire knowledge so that we can make better, more informed decisions.
Returning to later verses, I’m wrestling with the bold statement that Moroni makes that “if there be one among you that doeth good, he shall work by the power and gifts of God.” (vs. 25) There is an interconnected-ness between faith, hope, and charity, and the gifts of the Spirit. Spiritual gifts are present among those who exercise faith.
I think what’s really sitting with me is that Moroni knows this is the end for him. These are his final words. And no where else in the Book of Mormon is there this list of spiritual gifts really discussed. They are featured in the New Testament and the Doctrine & Covenants, but the timing an placement here at the end of the Book of Mormon really has me pondering their significance. And for Moroni to make such bold statements as “you can only do good, if you work by the power and gifts of God,” why would I waste my time doing anything else?
I have concluded this study by reflecting further upon the power of God. I jumped back to verse 7, “deny not the power of God; for he worketh by power, according to the faith of the children of men…” I also reviewed the Topical Guide entry for Power of God.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0012
This letter is key, because it details a visit of Jefferson’s to Annapolis, “This Metropolis”, where he accounts for his first visit to the government proceedings in the two different houses.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0016
Counsel to a friend who sought Jefferson as a mentor apprenticeship for his son in law. He declined on grounds of not having sufficient space and time, but also offered practical recommendation on a course of study of the law and suggested that law students don’t need mentorship as much as time to study their books.
Editors Note: A letter remarkable for its sweeping and penetrating criticism of the apprentice system of legal training, in which TJ was himself schooled and which was universal in eighteenth-century America.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0017
The Spirit of the Lord bade me consider the proceedings of this letter, which had to do with surveying in a land dispute. Such are the dealings of government surveyors.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0018
This document presents a peculiar and distinct approach to government in the British Colonial era preceding the Revolution. From a government/legal perspective, I had no idea that such an allegiance to the crown of England was an open stated expression in the 1700’s. If I am reading this correctly, there is even talk of the King of England relocating his residence to the American territory.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0019
The conditions for which this document (resolution) was drafted was on the premise of oppression through taxation. But the deeper injury was that the restrictions that this taxation caused was a shift:
…Dreading the Evils which threaten the Ruin of ourselves and our Posterity, by reducing us from a free and happy People to a wretched and miserable State of Slavery;
…That the Debt due to Great-Britain for Goods imported from thence is very great… in particular, that the late unconstitutional Act, imposing Duties on Tea, Paper, Glass, &c. for the sole Purpose of raising a Revenue in America, is injurious to Property, and destructive to Liberty… and is, of Consequence, ruinous to Trade;First… promote and encourage Industry and Frugality, and discourage all Manner of Luxury and Extravagance.
Secondly, That they will not at any Time hereafter, directly or indirectly import, or cause to be imported, any Manner of Goods, Merchandize, or Manufactures, which are, or shall hereafter be taxed by Act of Parliament, for the Purpose of raising a Revenue in America.
The colonialists not only proposed to boycott the taxation of the 4 or so basic commodities coming out of Great Britain, they boycotted almost every commodity and good being exported by Great Britain. There were 5 other points in this document that the subscribers of this document agreed to, essentially cutting off the ability of the British to collect income of any form from the American colony of Virginia.
Furthermore, I find this curious that this statement was drafted to protest the conditions of commerce that were encroaching on their liberties and pursuit of happiness. They also saw the actions taken as injurious to trade.
This line, already mentioned above, though seems universal:
Dreading the Evils which threaten the Ruin of ourselves and our Posterity, by reducing us from a free and happy People to a wretched and miserable State of Slavery;
Virginia Nonimportation Resolutions, 17 May 1769
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0022
An invoice for a list of books obtained by Jefferson in the same year that he began service in the House of Burgesses.
A quick search for some of the books that Thomas Jefferson secured that year, led me to the discovery of these websites:
(Letters 1 – 11)
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0001
A brief letter at age 16 where Thomas Jefferson makes a very wise decision to go off to school to reduce on social calls to his present residence, and also decrease on the cost of attending to such guests. He seeks the council of one of his guardians, John Harvie, with regards to educational objectives.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0002
A Christmas letter to a close friend, John Page, who seems to live back at Jefferson’s home town. He would have been 19 years old when he wrote this letter. Some series of misfortune had befallen him the night before for which he compared his lot to Job of old and was willing to credit the devil for some of the misdeeds that had befallen him.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0003
Another mostly social inquiry from his friend, John Page. He proposes sailing in a soon-to-be-completed ship to the old world countries together with his friend. He finds his studies to be monotonous and mind numbing.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0004
Another social letter. Some insights into Jefferson’s thoughts on happiness, and related topics.
Perfect happiness I beleive was never intended by the deity to be the lot of any one of his creatures in this world; but that he has very much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it, is what I as stedfastly beleive. The most fortunate of us all in our journey through life frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us: and to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes should be one of the principal studies and endeavors of our lives. The only method of doing this is to assume a perfect resignation to the divine will, to consider that whatever does happen, must happen, and that by our uneasiness we cannot prevent the blow before it does fall, but we may add to it’s force after it has fallen. These considerations and others such as these may enable us in some measure to surmount the difficulties thrown in our way, to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience under this burthen of life, and to proceed with a pious and unshaken resignation till we arrive at our journey’s end, where we may deliver up our trust into the hands of him who gave it, and receive such reward as to him shall seem proportioned to our merit. Such dear Page, will be the language of the man who considers his situation in this life, and such should be the language of every man who would wish to render that situation as easy as the nature of it will admit. Few things will disturb him at all; nothing will disturb him much.
Handful of letters mostly dealing with relationships of acquaintances and their romantic relationships.
Also, it is interesting to note the airs of youth and how pious and judgmental Jefferson was, not unlike how I may have responded in earlier years.
Moroni 10:8-19 (Moroni 10:8-19)
I am being reclaimed.
I have read through the list of spiritual gifts and at least two stand out to me, no, three:
New day and I’m referencing my patriarchal blessing to see how this aligns with suggested spiritual gifts. From my blessing:
As I am reading through my patriarchal blessing, there are many gifts listed (as blessings), but I was hesitant to equate these with spiritual gifts, because I’ve always regard spiritual gifts as resources given to us to bless the lives of others around us. But for some reason as I read about these blessings from my patriarchal blessing, I was not considering these things as benefiting those around me.
But then the only blessing that is designated as a “Spiritual Blessing” in capital letters in my blessing is this:
Going back to Moroni, after listing the ones that he has listed, he adds this statement: “And all these gifts come by the Spirit of Christ; and they come unto every man severally, according as he will.” (vs. 17, emphasis added)
The shift for me is that whether from my patriarchal blessing or the scriptures, the purpose of Spiritual Gifts is the same: to bless the lives of others.
Jesus Christ is the gift of God. In John 4:10, Jesus told the woman of Samaria that if she knew the Gift of God and who he is… that she would have asked of him, and he would have given her living water. If I know who Jesus is, then I am asking him for living water; I am turning constantly to him as the source of life and true knowledge.
Following a “rabbit hole” of footnotes, the Lord is demonstrating to me his mercies which “are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance.” (1 Nephi 1:20)
Then gentle correction (from a merciful God):
That ye contend no more against the Holy Ghost, but that ye receive it, and take upon you the name of Christ; that ye humble yourselves even to the dust, and worship God, in whatsoever place ye may be in, in spirit and in truth; and that ye live in thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and blessings which he doth bestow upon you.
Alma 34:38
What I am sitting with is the trajectory that I have taken with Florence Nightingale, which came about exclusively through prayer, ministrations of the Holy Ghost, and constant study. What he has shown me and caused me to consider is extremely expansive from where I was before.
What I must not loose sight of is the process that brought me here: It has been the Gospel of Jesus Christ in action.
I am going to move on after this morning, but a final read through brought at least two more gifts to my attention:
The final take away is this: “…remember that every good gift cometh of Christ.”
(15 Sep 2023) My call back to the ministry this morning has to do with this reality: that God is merciful to those who choose to exercise faith in him. The witness, born of life’s experiences thus far, that is mine is that one can wake up from day to day and commend one’s life into God’s hands, study his words from the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon, but also from the rest of the canonical works of scripture and the words of living prophets and apostles. You can turn your petitions to the Lord at the start and end of the day on bended knee and counsel with and receive instruction from the Divine source of truth, which truth is not after the makings of this world and its modern conventions.
The world would tell you that you are a number, a dollar amount, a player in a system. Babylon was established anciently to get gain. We live amongst the modern day reiteration of Babylon. Systems both great and small are designed to get gain. Organizations are built around this objective, to make money. We live amongst Babylon on an exponential growth trajectory, the likes of which antiquity could have never imagined.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is also among us, housed in a modern organization. Perhaps, on its outward appearances, it resembles something of similarities with modern business. From it’s organzitional structure, to its modern systems that intermingle with the rest of the world’s modern economy. We distribute food via modern highways in semi-trucks and send humanitarian relief via airplanes. We pay our tithing online thanks to the Internet and modern Banking that allows this all to happen without leaving my bed!
And yet, at its core. At the very center of this modern Church there is something far more profound and universal. It is the beating heart of the Gospel: Jesus Christ himself, the Son of the Living God. It is power, and it is strength to navigate a complex and modern world. The gospel of Jesus Christ, both gives us power to navigate through systems and organizations, and it also gives us power to define and create new systems, new ways of working for ourselves and others that value more than just money, but rather humanity.
And yet, we have to ask ourselves why? And the answers though simple to state are not always so simple to
I am a flurry of thoughts and emotions as I start into this final chapter of the Book of Mormon, in what has been a 12-year daily affair for me. But as I read Moroni’s invitation in verse 3 to meditate upon the mercy of the Lord extended towards his people since the time of Adam up until my present moment in time, the thought is overwhelmingly profound. How do I have in my possession a book that is of ancient date, which God has been able to use to school and train me in matters of profound spiritual significance. I have done something that was unique to me, and the result is that the Lord has taught me to repent: the infinite-tries, bounce back card, that never stops working.
How merciful is this! How profoundly life-altering is this.
God works by power. It is by the power of the Holy Ghost that truth is made known. It is by power that God work with us, according to our faith.
The invitation to prove the veracity of the Book of Mormon is in verse 4. Verses 5, 6, and 7 are then a backwards progression through the Godhead with a focus on proving the existence of Christ by the power of God. I had missed that focus on Christ previously, but it is here, as it always is, in the Book of Mormon:
Verse 5 states that we can know the truth of all things by the power of the Holy Ghost. (Such a profound and reassuring statement.)
Verse 6 turns the focus towards Christ, explaining that all that is good (or just and true) points us to Christ and acknowledges the existence of Christ. (For example the Book of Mormon points us to Christ and acknowledges him.)
But then I missed this in verse 7 (because Christ is referenced only by pronoun), by the power of the Holy Ghost, we will know that Jesus Christ is! Therefore, we must not deny the power of God, because this is how we will gain a witness of the Christ. (There is no other way.)
This is what Moroni was trying to get at with these first 7 verses. Gain a witness of the Book of Mormon because it will point you to Jesus Christ. That’s the whole point. They are trying to point us to Jesus.
I was about to move on, but then I was brought back to a phrase in verse 3 that I don’t fully understand: “If it be wisdom in God that ye should read them…” In Spanish, it roughly translates to ” If God judges that it be wise (or prudent) that you should read them…” (I suppose that when I have wrestled with this it will be plainly and painfully obvious.)
There is a timing element in this statement, as if to suggest that if God saw that this was the right time for you to read and consider these things.
(Side tangent: as I am wrestling with this, I was just brought back to housing plans for a home in Arizona that I had considered and contemplated building. I don’t know why. But it was like a packet of truth was unlocked and a flowering of inspiration and ideas resulted. Why? The housing crisis that we have is because we’ve homogenized the building process for commercial gains. That has to stop! We build houses according to local environs, not according to mass production.)
But the greater question is this: Why would it NOT be in God’s wisdom or time table that one should read these things? Or would it be prudent that God would judge that someone would not be ready to receive these things? This is such an interesting and yet profoundly important conditional that Moroni is laying here at the gateway to this invitation.
My takeaways from the above observation are these:
Despite all that our Church does directly, most humanitarian service to the children of God worldwide is carried out by persons and organizations having no formal connection with our Church. As one of our Apostles observed: “God is using more than one people for the accomplishment of his great and marvelous work. … It is too vast, too arduous, for any one people.”4 As members of the restored Church, we need to be more aware and more appreciative of the service of others.
Pres. Dallin H. Oaks, Helping the Poor and Distressed, October 2022 general conference
I have followed this further to the quote referenced by President Oaks from Orson F. Whitney. When contemplating why good men such as Abraham Lincoln and Horace Greeley couldn’t see the prophets of God right in front of them, Elder Whitney offered this insight:
…Perhaps the Lord needs such men on the outside of his Church, to help it along. They are among its auxiliaries, and can do more good for the cause where the Lord has placed them, than anywhere else. And the same is true of the priesthood and its auxiliaries inside the Church. Hence, some are drawn inside the fold and receive a testimony of the Truth; while others remain unconverted — for the present; the beauties and glories of the gospel being veiled temporarily from their view, for a wise purpose. The Lord will open their eyes in his own due time.
Orson F. Whitney, General Conference Report, p. 59 (emphasis added)
There is a preparation exercise in verse 3. Preparation for what? For the invitation to “ask God” in verse 4.
The preparation exercise is to ponder the merciful nature of the Lord towards his children since the beginning of time. Indeed, a Being of omniscience and omnipotence patiently waits for his wayward and prideful children to come around to him, generation after generation. I don’t know how and I don’t know why he would be such with us. Maybe because this is how seeds grow?
Then the invitation to ask is given in the negative. In consideration of God’s merciful goodness towards the children of men, with what we know of that, are the things presented in the Book of Mormon not an accurate account of God’s ongoing merciful nature with his children? Are these things NOT true? (I need to pray.)
I come back around to one of the first points made in this post: God works by power.
(I don’t like this chapter.)
I am sitting with the descriptions found in this chapter, and I am asking myself: why? Why is it here in the Book of Mormon? Of what I’ve allowed myself to experience, and even of recent news reports that I’ve read of horrific military actions in foreign countries, this is the worst of human depravity that I have ever read about. (Back in Mormon 4:12, Mormon even states that according to the word of the Lord, there had never existed this level of wickedness amongst all the House of Israel.) And what’s more, the more horrendous of the acts was found among the wicked Nephites; once exposed to light, now completely devoid of it.
Why am I being brought to consider such ugliness in a book that testifies of Christ? The reality is that probably not even the thousandth part of their heinous acts are recorded herein, but enough is given to illustrate under what conditions Moroni and Mormon had to operate.
Part of me wonders if satan wasn’t just interested in taking down an entire nation, which he succeeded in doing, but if he was also trying to divert the completion of the Book of Mormon record, which he failed at doing. I don’t know that I should give the adversary that much foresight and credit. Yet if he (satan) understood the impact of this record in Joseph Smith’s time, and tried to prevent it at all costs, could he not have been trying to do the same thing during the time of the Nephites? Destroy an entire civilization to attempt to thwart the completion of the Book of Mormon?
I’m sitting with my destructive responses to anger in the past.
Why did the adversary have his focus fixed on the destruction of the Nephite nation? Because they once were a delightsome people (see vs. 12) and they had Jesus as their guide (reference?), therefore they had a target on their heads. For some reason, exposure to the light, and then rejection thereof, brings greater wickedness than having never been blessed with the light.
Mormon is also mourning their rejection of basic concepts of principle, civility, order, and mercy. Their ability to function as a society of self-governed people was no more. (Oh how we take these things for granted!)
The character of Mormon in this chapter is amazingly and unflinchingly righteous.
As I have gone through this chapter, it strikes me that Mormon understands a key purpose of this mortal existences is for us to “labor [to] conquer the enemy of all righteousness” and prepare for the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth. Despite the horrific circumstances in front of them, Mormon knew that this was not the end.
And hence, we have this powerful declaration of Mormon’s at the end of the chapter:
My son, be faithful in Christ; and may not the things which I have written grieve thee, to weigh thee down unto death; but may Christ lift thee up, and may his sufferings and death, and the showing his body unto our fathers, and his mercy and long-suffering, and the hope of his glory and of eternal life, rest in your mind forever.
And may the grace of God the Father, whose throne is high in the heavens, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who sitteth on the right hand of his power, until all things shall become subject unto him, be, and abide with you forever. Amen.
(verses 25-26)
Moroni 8:24-30 (Moroni 8:24-30)
I love this passage found at the end of this chapter, where Mormon concludes by explaining the doctrine in pure, matter of fact statements. I absolutely love this passage of scriptures! Deep reflection has brought me to this reality again!
What is interesting is that work is not a visible component of Mormon’s explanation here, but I want to explore this thought more, because work is the maintenance that is required to… No! Never mind, “endureth by diligence” there is the work!
There is a real temptation to look a this passively, but what makes this so very true is that work undergirds this entire process. The Holy Ghost comes to us (which is work to put one’s self into that space) and gives instructions (commandments from the Lord), showing us all things what we should do (2 Nephi 32), and at the very same time this Comforter fills us with hope, peace, and love. That love continues with us as we are diligent in prayer to the Father, continually seeking to align ourselves with His holy will.
I know these verses of scripture well, but I am not seeing something.
Remission of sins comes from fulfilling the commandments, which makes sense because sin is a violation of the law, and repentance is the process of changing ourselves to be in harmony with the laws of God. Jesus Christ was always in harmony with God’s laws and hence had no need of baptism. Ordinances are a part of God’s law that we are to be obedient to. Thus was Christ baptized to comply with the law.
It seems striking to me that at the end of their civilization, Mormon and Moroni are grappling with issues of basic doctrine. Why was this so important to the Lord?
Disobedience to law always causes suffering. Obedience to law brings peace. What law? God’s law, eternal law. Law that cannot be altered by edict or decree.
(I’m realizing that while I am intimately familiar with these passages, that this familiarity is causing me to not ponder and consider the deeper significance of these statements.)
Remission of sins brings meekness, or in other words, a condition of being teachable. Why would this be so? The soul opens up to correction, change, and growth in the presence of divine forgiveness.
Isaiah 29 is gold! As it pertains to meekness and a true witness of what will happen at the end of times. The saints will come forth as witnesses of what God can do with a willing people.
Verse 27 seems almost utterly uncorrelated with the previous verses, except that it offers a macro example of what happens when people go the other way. Where meekness and lowliness of heart brings the visitation and hope of the Comforter, pride brings destruction except they should repent.