{"id":34210,"date":"2015-10-23T04:00:52","date_gmt":"2015-10-23T09:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=34210"},"modified":"2015-10-16T09:05:06","modified_gmt":"2015-10-16T14:05:06","slug":"reading-nephi-331-43","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2015\/10\/reading-nephi-331-43\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Nephi – 3:31-4:3"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"068-068-the-liahona-full\"<\/a>They misplaced the chapter break.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve reached a hard spot in the Book of Mormon for me\u2014perhaps the hardest spot in Nephi\u2019s record. The text in chapter four challenges me on multiple fronts every time I read it. I hope that my wrestling with it is fruitful and faithful, but often it\u2019s merely implacable.<\/p>\n

One thing that I can see clearly is that we here get Nephi\u2019s commentary on the nature of miracles and the way they interact with human reason and trust. All of us have Laman and Lemuel within us. Analyzing the variables of our life, we simply cannot<\/em> see a solution to a given problem\u2014there is no plausible way out of whatever bind we find ourselves in. Laban has twice now sent his henchman to threaten Laman. The reality of Laban\u2019s ability to kill him is obviously quite firmly in the forefront of Laman\u2019s mind\u2014encounters with those who are perfectly comfortable using violence to coerce others is bound to have that sort of effect. This isn\u2019t a game anymore, this isn\u2019t perseverance or faith or optimism; this is now suicidal\u2014Laban wants to kill us. Laban\u2019s perfectly capable <\/em>of killing us. I don\u2019t walk on water, and the water doesn\u2019t part for me. Yes, I\u2019ve read that God\u2019s performed water miracles in the past, but I have no experience with such things. My experience with water is that when I step into I sink, and should I try to cross a lake let alone a sea, I would drown. My experience with Laban is that he kills with impunity and God doesn\u2019t spare his victims. I\u2019ve confronted Laban twice with no miracle\u2014if we keep playing this game, I\u2019ll drown. I hear these words in my own voice as I confront certain challenges.<\/p>\n

Nephi\u2019s narrative is crafted to highlight even further that this\u2014Laman\u2019s realist perspective\u2014is a perspective we can inherit even after witnessing miracles\u2014or certain types of miracles. God\u2019s sent an angel to confirm to me that we ought to get the plates, but God\u2019s also allowed me to almost be killed. God seems pretty minimalist when it comes to miracles, and while he commands that I continue to strive for the plates, he certainly doesn\u2019t offer me a personal guarantee\u2014it seems quite plausible that I end up the sacrificial lamb in order to get these plates away from Laban. How\u2019s that for your Exodus parallel? If just one of us make it out alive with those plates, it\u2019ll be a genuine miracle. I can believe in miracles and believe that God wants my dad to have the plates and still not know that I\u2019m going to come out of this alive; in fact, it looks much more likely that it\u2019ll be my blood smeared on the lintels.<\/p>\n

I personally wrestle with this, because I worry that I\u2019m more like Laman and Lemuel than I am like Nephi. I have faith in God\u2019s miracles and power of deliverance, but I have a great deal of faith in Job as well. I have a faith in the story of Lehi\u2019s family for that matter. Ultimately they don\u2019t <\/em>make it out alive. Rather than a family making it to build Zion in a new promised land, we end up with a disastrous family fission followed by centuries of war and eventually genocide.<\/p>\n

This is one of the deep challenge I face. At the end of the day (i.e., at the end of life), Laman is absolutely right. Laban can command and even slay fifty. Then why not us? The reality is, he will<\/em> slay us. We will die. And I can believe in Moses and in Nephi and in temporary deliverance, and angels can minister to me. And I will still watch those I love, those who mean more to me than my own life, die in front of me. And eventually I will confront the inevitability of death myself. If I interacted with resurrected beings, if the Christ confronted me with wounded hands and side, then perhaps I\u2019d be in a different category of reason, faith and expectation. But the finality of death is an inevitable challenge to the temporary deliverances I witness, no matter how dramatic.<\/p>\n

Nephi is trying to give me another way of experiencing my death and consequently how I live, altogether. I can see that much. I deeply want to see and understand more. I want to live in the face of my mortality as he did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They misplaced the chapter break. We\u2019ve reached a hard spot in the Book of Mormon for me\u2014perhaps the hardest spot in Nephi\u2019s record. The text in chapter four challenges me on multiple fronts every time I read it. I hope that my wrestling with it is fruitful and faithful, but often it\u2019s merely implacable. One thing that I can see clearly is that we here get Nephi\u2019s commentary on the nature of miracles and the way they interact with human reason and trust. All of us have Laman and Lemuel within us. Analyzing the variables of our life, we simply cannot see a solution to a given problem\u2014there is no plausible way out of whatever bind we find ourselves in. Laban has twice now sent his henchman to threaten Laman. The reality of Laban\u2019s ability to kill him is obviously quite firmly in the forefront of Laman\u2019s mind\u2014encounters with those who are perfectly comfortable using violence to coerce others is bound to have that sort of effect. This isn\u2019t a game anymore, this isn\u2019t perseverance or faith or optimism; this is now suicidal\u2014Laban wants to kill us. Laban\u2019s perfectly capable of killing us. I don\u2019t walk on water, and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34211,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34210\/revisions\/34211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}