Doom, Gloom, and A Ray of Sunshine I am generally an optimist, but it’s getting harder to see the good in our world of constant negativity, contention, and war. I can see why the prophet Nephi in the Book of Helaman acted the way he did. His public display of lamentation on his tower was […]

An Emerging Gift This week, I will diverge a bit from the theme of the Come Follow Me curriculum. My reasons for that are that the subject matter of the particular chapters we are covering is apparent and disturbing in our world and time. We are consumed by it daily in the media during election

A Metanarrative of War In the Book of Mormon, many chapters are devoted to people at war with each other. We sometimes think there are unjustified aggressions against innocent people, but that is untrue. Consider these verses in Alma 50, “… inasmuch as they shall keep my commandments they shall prosper in the land. But

States of Being The Book of Mormon is so much deeper than the Bible (with the exception of the words of Jesus Christ) in doctrine that it helps us understand ourselves and deserves intense attention. Alma’s counsel to his son Corianton highlights the idea that we live in different states of both existence and attitudes.

Escaping Bondage This week I did something I never do; I watched snippets of ‘Come Follow Me’ commentaries on YouTube. It was exactly what I expected, and I will not be doing that again anytime soon. The content was about as milk-toast as you can get. They ranged from narrated cartoons to guys in suits

Poverty, Faith, and Understanding Alma, chapter 32, is one of the most quoted examples of the definition of faith in revealed scripture. Indeed, it is one of my favorites, not for its definition of faith but for its definition of what constitutes reality. As I read it this past week, I was impressed by another

Some Things Never Change This week in the Book of Alma, we covered the stories of Korihor and the initial contact with the Zoramites. In each case, we have prototypes of atheists and deviant religions. In both cases, the ideas about God are wrong. In each case, pride and elitism raise their ugly heads. It

Keep Working! Your Faith Depends On It Before getting into today’s message, I want to mention a couple of interesting things. The converted Lamanites called themselves the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi, an interesting name. Maybe it was just me, but I could not figure out why they picked that name. Then, it occurred to me that

The Conversion Model This week’s reading in the Book of Alma covers the miraculous missions of the sons of Mosiah and the conversion of thousands of Lamanites, beginning with their kings. There is no reason to rehash the stories known to every primary-aged child. However, these accounts reveal essential insights into the methods and model

Critics Versus Truth In our Book of Mormon reading, the encounter between Alma, Amulek, and the people of Ammonihah reveals how critics of religion react when confronted with its truth. Alma’s first encounter with the people of the city demonstrated close-mindedness and extreme disdain for his message. They knew his former role as chief judge