1 Nephi 4

(January 6, 2015)

                Two brief thoughts from the scriptures today.  The first thought was on the Israelites looking back to Moses for their examples (Nephi begins with doing just this thing).  That was somewhat odd to me, since I don’t go around saying “let us be honest like George Washington” or “let us be brave like General Jackson.”  I find my examples more current.  But I think that might be a change in society – after all, once upon a time the Bible and the works of Shakespeare were the two things that you could count on everyone having read.  Now you can barely count on everyone being aware of what happened last week.

                The second thought was on Abrahamic sacrifices.  It seems that they inevitably come to all of us at some point and time or another.  Nephi, being commanded to kill Laban, was one such sacrifice.  That is why loving the Lord is the first great commandment – because we never know when that commandment might conflict with one or more of the other commandments.  When we hold to the commandments (blessings though they are) as the purpose of our existence, we worship a creation rather than the Creator.  We must place the first commandment as “Come Follow Me,” and recognize that everything else flows from that.