2 Nephi 28

(August 9, 2013)
If there is an overarching theme to this chapter, it seems to be that God still has power to do His work.  Nephi seems to be telling that to both the unbelievers, those mistaken in their beliefs, and the believers.  To the unbelievers and those mistaken in their beliefs, he tells them this as a warning.  But, of more interest, his warning to the believers is that God still has power today and so we must wait on Him rather than trust in flesh and the precepts of men.

This is a difficult concept to get right, even when I am trying to do so.  I firmly believe in the power of God to accomplish his work, but we are also told to me anxiously engaged in a good cause.  We are told to seek out of the best books wisdom and learning.  At what point does anxiously engaged become trust the arm of flesh?  At what point does seek out of the best books become harken to the precepts of men?

I try to draw that line based upon feel, but I don’t really have a good intellectual basis for drawing it at any one place.  My first thought, of course, is that you draw it on the basis of those things communicated by the Spirit.  But, as taught by President Packer, sometimes the Spirit allows us to work things out according to our own intellect and capacity.  Of course, if the Spirit teaches us otherwise, we follow that rather than what we read or think we should do.  I guess that might be the best way to draw that line – draw it as best as we can with the underlying understanding that the Lord is in charge and we are His, and if He tells us to move the line we do so.