Mosiah 12

Mosiah 12:13 And now, O king, what great evil hast thou done, or what great sins have thy people committed, that we should be condemned of God or judged of this man? we're the people really that unaware of their sinful behavior? How could they be, considering the punishments God was threatening to pour out on them? At this point, it had been at least 20 years since their last war with the Lamanites, during which, they had stomped all over the Lamanites. People now, though, don't think they are doing anything wrong when they sin. I'm thinking of Sarah, who moved in with her boyfriend, and then was hurt when her grandmother looked at her reproachfully for participating in communion. She felt (despite growing up being clearly taught otherwise) that she was not doing anything very wrong, meaning she didn't think it was bad to be having premarital sex or to be taking communion while doing so. Which I don't get. I mean, I could understand most of her behavior—all of it, in fact—except for the part where she didn't think her grandmother should look at her with reproach.

Mosiah 12

Mosiah 12:1 And it came to pass that after the space of two years that Abinadi came among them in disguise, that they knew him not, and began to prophesy among them, saying: Thus has the Lord commanded me, saying—Abinadi, go and prophesy unto this my people, for they have hardened their hearts against my words; they have repented not of their evil doings; therefore, I will visit them in my anger, yea, in my fierce anger will I visit them in their iniquities and abominations. I wonder what was the purpose of his disguise if the first words out of his mouth were, "my name's Abinadi." 12:3 And it shall come to pass that the life of king Noah shall be valued even as a garment in a hot furnace; for he shall know that I am the Lord. This is an interesting metaphor. How often do you think that something is worth a piece of clothing in a furnace? How often do you throw clothing in the furnace anyway? How many Nephites had furnaces? Noah's people, when they brought Abinadi to king Noah quoted it a little differently, 12:10 10 And he also prophesieth evil concerning thy life, and saith that thy life shall be as a garment in a furnace of fire, indicating that regardless of what he said, they heard that king Noah's life was going to end with him being burned up. (I wonder if perhaps his priests took this prophesy as inspiration when they had finally had enough of him, or if it was just their preferred method of killing. Would Abinadi have been burned at the stake if he hadn't prophesied this against king Noah?) The idea of cloth being thrown(specifically) into a furnace isn't something that I can find other references to, but I did find a couple of places where God talks to Moses about burning clothing. In Leviticus, Moses instructed that the clotting of a leper should be burned if the disease was there, And if it appear still in the garment...thou shalt burn that wherein the plague is with fire. The implication is clear, there comes a point where the clothing is unredeemable and must be burned to prevent the further spread of disease. In the Epistle of Jude, when speaking about how we need to concern ourselves with the salvation of others, he tells us, And of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. This is a fairly clear reference to what needs tobe burned and what doesn't—the filthy garment, the connection to the worldly sins, has to go, but the sinner himself needs to be plucked from the fire before he is consumed. I believe the fear is supposed to be our caution regarding touching the unclean thing; in our quest to save others, we need to be cautious to avoid falling into the same sins we are helping them to overcome. Anyway, back to the story of king Noah, his life is going to be treated like the diseased garment that it is, spreading its filth and disease all over the kingdom.

Mosiah 2

Mosiah 2:28 I say unto you that I have caused that ye should assemble yourselves together that I might rid my garments of your blood, at this period of time when I am about to go down to my grave, that I might go down in peace, and my immortal spirit may join the choirs above in singing the praises of a just God. ie always thought it was a great thing that this guy wanted to get to heaven in order to join the choir. I wonder whether he sang well in life and loved it or if he, like me, was not gifted in singing and so looked forward to the opportunity to go to heaven where he would be able to sing the way he perhaps always heard his voice inside his own head. 2:3131 And now, my brethren, I would that ye should do as ye have hitherto done. As ye have kept my commandments, and also the commandments of my father, and have prospered... I don't know of I had noticed this before, but these people are (some of them) the group that left the land of Nephi when the Lord warned the first Mosiah to take those who would listen and bail. They left the people who were unwilling to listen to the prophets, and they were either absorbed or slaughtered or driven out by the Lamanites who showed up to possess that land. So when he's talking to them and reminding them that they have listened to the prophet, he knows full well what they were asked to do in abandoning their homes and lands to follow a prophet's word. You also have here, the Mulekites, who I have to wonder about here. They had lost much of their language, had no writing, and had lost their spiritual moorings until Mosiah showed up, talking a fine language, reading out of books, and telling them about God. Apparently they latched onto it, though, as he doesn't distinguish between Mulekites and Nephites as he speaks.

Mosiah 2

Mosiah 2:21 I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants. I'm thinking about this notion of profitable servants. If you are rich enough to afford servants, you must believe that what they are giving you is worth the money you are paying them for performing those tasks, or else you would not employ them, right? And yet, servants are not supposed to contribute to actual profitability, they're jut supposed to do tasks that you don't have the time or willingness to do yourself. So if we provide literally nothing to God, the why does he continue to bless us? My kids don't perform any actual work for me, and when they do help, it's rarely actually helpful, but they provide me joy and fulfillment in my life, which is why I like them. Perhaps God gets something else out of the relationship with us than "profitability."

Mosiah 2

Mosiah 2:18 Behold, ye have called me your king; and if I, whom ye call your king, do labor to serve you, then ought not ye to labor to serve one another? Who in my life could say this to me? And who could I say it to? As parents, are we able to say this to our children? "Hey, kids, I have served you, so you should serve one another?" Or are we precluded from calling that revive since we created those kids, and they didn't exactly elect us to our jobs as their parents? In America, we have the mindset that we owe our kids a decent upbringing, and the best shot at success in life, since we brought them into this life. In most of Asia, however, they take a completely different view—the kids owe the parents because the parents created them and brought them into this life. Which does the scripture support? Moses said to honor thy father and thy mother. The proclamation to the world says that children have claim on their parents for support. Psalms says that children are an inheritance to the lord.

Mosiah 2

Mosiah 2:15 Yet, my brethren, I have not done these things that I might boast, neither do I tell these things that thereby I might accuse you; but I tell you these things that ye may know that I can answer a clear conscience before God this day. Mosiah is concerned that his people know that he has a clear conscience. Why is it important that others know the state of your conscience? I feel like this is not the only case where this is said. Maybe it is, though. I just retread the end of 2 Nephi and the start and finish if Jacob, and didn't see it, so maybe I'm just remembering this section.

Still, though, why do you need others to know the state of your conscience? To that end, why do you need to let others know whether you have a testimony at all? We have our sacrament meetings where we take turns sharing what we know with the other people who have come to church that Sunday, and it often includes the line, "I want you to know..."

Mosiah 2

Mosiah 2:9 I have not commanded you to come up hither to trifle with the words which I shall speak, but that you should hearken unto me, and open your ears that ye may hear, and your hearts that ye may understand, and your minds that the mysteries of God may be unfolded to your view. King Benjamin here asks for three faculties: ears, hearts, and minds. The first to actually take in the message, the second to be prepared to feel something as you do so, and the last to think through what he says in order to have some intellectual understanding of what he is saying. I notice that this is in fair contra position to the mindset or expectation of non religious activists in the US today, who produce bumper stickers saying things like, "the more you know, the less you believe." When I was a missionary, one of the things we told ourselves was that somebody had done a study of religiosity and education that showed that religiosity decreased as education increased except in a few notable cases, Mormonism being one. Thanks to the questionable reliability of Wikipedia, I have found that educational attainment drives or is correlary to religious involvement: "Similarly, studies of Mormons in the US show that Mormons with higher education attend church more regularly than uneducated Mormons. Survey research indicated that 41% of Mormons with only elementary school education attend church regularly, compared to 76% of Mormon college graduates and 78% of Mormons who went beyond their college degrees to do graduate study attending church regularly.[19]