I apologize, again, for allowing such a long time between entries last week. Today, we’ll be looking at 1 Nephi 14.
In the very first verse of this chapter, the angel tells Nephi that the Gentiles will be given an opportunity to accept Messiah when he is revealed to them, by the removal of their “stumbling blocks.” This is a term I’ve run across before and all of us know what it means. Merriam Websters defines it as “an obstacle to progress” and “an impediment to belief and understanding.” However, I didn’t find that to be descriptive enough, for some reason. I’ll admit it. My husband has infected me with a love of etymology. The best etymological understanding I found on this word came from Wikipedia. In Hebrew, the term used in the bible for “stumbling block,” according to Wikipedia, is mikshowl which Google Translate tells me means “obstacle.” The Greek translation of the word mikshowl is skandalon, from which the English word “scandal” derives. According to Wikipedia, the terms quite literally mean “to trip someone up.” The Catholic church (says Wikipedia) uses the term, “scandal,” to denote a sin in which someone knowingly encourages someone else to sin. So, think about it for a minute, do you have any habits that currently lead you to sin? To my mind, these are called addictions. You might call them something else. The point is, it’s these things that get in the way of our desire to repent. This scripture, then, gives all of us addicts a certain amount of hope. We are promised that, if we repent and take advantage of the Atonement of Christ, our addictions, or whatever it is that is leading us into sin will be taken from us. Isn’t that amazing?
On the other hand, we have to avoid letting ourselves get caught up in pride in any sense of the word. If we keep our hearts soft and pliable, we are promised that those who seek our destruction will be, themselves, destroyed.
Once again, I have no desire to get into the whole argument about which church is the “great and abominable” church. I’m not interested in that. Instead, I give you a quote from C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia.
“Therefore, if any man swear by Tash [the devil] and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me [Aslan, Jesus Christ] that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I [Aslan, Jesus Christ] who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name [Aslan, Jesus Christ], then though he says the name Aslan [Jesus Christ], it is Tash [the devil] whom he serves and by Tash [the devil] his deed is accepted. (C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle, p165)”
The scriptures also tell us as follows.
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. (Matthew 7: 16-18)
So, basically, it doesn’t matter which church we officially belong to. You could be a Mormon and still be a member of the great and abominable church if, for example, by your fruits, people knew you were only in it for the money. Likewise, you could be a member of any other church on the face of the earth and, if you were living as close to the gospel as presented to you by that church, you would be a member of the church of the Lamb of God. That’s my understanding of the situation, anyway.
Lastly, Nephi sees the apostle called John the Beloved, author of the work known by mankind as Revelations. Nephi tells us that he saw much more but was commanded not to write about it. John, he says, will write it. He ends by bearing testimony of the fact that he saw everything his father saw.
Applying the Scriptures to My Life
The Lord has been trying to teach us not to judge each other unless we have to for as long as there have been prophets on the Earth. I thank my parents for teaching me this by their actions as well as their words. I can’t lay claim to being perfect at it, though. The way I see it, nobody really can. It’s a struggle for me, sometimes, to look at mistakes people make and not judge them. It’s also a struggle for me, sometimes, to remember that every faith has some of the truth. They have the amount of truth their members can handle. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I know for a fact that I don’t have all the truth. I know, as a church, we have most of it. I’m pretty sure, though, that we probably don’t understand it all. Again, we understand about as much as we can handle. It’s not up to me, as a member of the Mormon faith to call people to repentance based on which church others belong to.
Interesting story: At one point, my Young Women’s group were holding a bake sale at a local grocery store to earn money so that we could go to camp. I was charged with standing at the opposite entrance with a plate of samples trying to convince buyers to come to the sale and buy some of our delicious baked goods. As I approached one person, she walked right by me exclaiming, “I can’t buy anything from you because you teach your children lies that lead them to Hell,” or something like that. I was floored. I haven’t, since, been spoken to like that by anyone. At the time, though, I remember feeling vastly misunderstood. Looking at that experience, I think most of the world would say I would have been justified in using any number of unflattering or even insulting names against that woman. However, the Lord teaches that such behavior isn’t appropriate for those that follow him, so I’m glad she got away before I could think of any kind of reasonable comeback.
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