2 Nephi 27 (II)

2 Nephi 27:11 And the day cometh that the words of the book which were sealed shall be read upon the house tops; and they shall be reads by the power of Christ; and all things shall be revealed unto the children of men which ever have been among the children of men, and which ever will be even unto the end of the earth. There are two other references that I know of where something is proclaimed from the housetop-Luke 12:3 Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops and Matthew 10:27 What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. Each is describing something that had been private becoming public. This is in reference to a custom common in Israel at the time of Christ for rulers to have public proclamations made after the majority of the townspeople had returned from their labors to their homes, and the crier would ascend to the highest roof and yell for people to listen up. In Luke, Christ is saying that men's secrets are not in fact secret, and in Matthew, he is instructing his apostles to be bold in preaching, and not to assume at anything he taught needed to be a secret. In Nephi, though, he is indicating that not only secret deeds, but every action will be published before the eager ears of the world. I am much less interested in the Matthew reference, because I think the doctrine of missionary work is sufficiently clear. What interests me is this idea of shouting to the public all the wrongs you have committed. What value does that create? I can't imagine that God is doing it just for the shame we should feel, or to force us to watch as our loved ones realize that we are not as holy as they might have thought, so what's the point? At that point in time, there seems to be little for others to learn from our mistakes, and we're clearly not going to be doing a great deal of repenting, post judgement, so who benefits? Does it really come down to justice requires transparency? God needs to be clear that he is not unjustly consigning anyone to hell?

27:22 Then shalt thou seal up the book again, and hide it up unto me... This reminds me of that story of the group of people who thought that they knew where the cave that Mormon had used to stash the various plates from which he had compiled the book of Mormon and had all moved to that mountain and spent their time looking for the cave. I don't believe anyone ever found it, but it's entirely possible that they did and the church hushed it up and somewhere beneath temple square, there's a room full of stuff the is being held for Moroni to say, go ahead and pull it out.