A mere six verses. This is one of those housekeeping chapters in the Book of Mormon, one that says, allow me to explain why we're suddenly rewinding several thousand years, or here, let me explain how we found this tale of the slavery and woe of a people heretofore unmentioned. Nephi explained that he was commanded by the Lord to make two sets of records (keeping in mind that said records were both hard to find and heavy). One set of records was to be a history, the other a religious record. Nephi says several times, in effect, "I don't know why God is asking me to do this, but He is God, so He knows best."
I started thinking while I read this little chapter. Sometimes hard things are really tough, like, say, forsaking all your possessions and camping for years in the wilderness. Sometimes things sound ridiculous on the outset and then turn out great somehow, like returning several hundred miles to the city you just left, to convince a family to come with you, who happens to have one child that matches each of your children in temperament, level of righteousness and relative age.
And sometimes, things can seem so insignificant as to not warrant your attention, but have far-reaching consequences. Nephi learned this, though not while he was technically alive, seeing as the Book of Mormon was compiled hundreds of years after his death, and translated thousands of years later. I learned this on my mission. Allow me to illustrate.
It was halfway through my first transfer in my very first area. My trainer was the intense type, and hanging with her on P-days was not exactly my favorite. It was just like working except there was no rush of success when an investigator felt the Spirit. We had an OK time together but I think that was because she was my first real companion and I didn't have anyone to compare her to. Anyway, one P-day she suggested we go to a nearby park and play basketball with the Elders. Recreation? As a missionary? Hallelujah!
This playground belonged to a local school and was surrounded on all four sides with a chain link fence. There was only one gate and it happened to be on the opposite side from where my companion and I approached the grounds. So my companion and I just clambered on over it. It wasn't really that high. However, I am humble enough to admit that I am a big klutz, especially when it comes to climbing over or under things. I stumbled (if you can picture what stumbling while climbing a fence would look like ... yeah, like that) but didn't fall, and felt really quite pleased with myself.
Next week. My date with destiny. We approached the same fence, and as my companion climbed I heard a little voice inside me say, don't climb the fence. I thought briefly about walking over to the gate and walking through, but that would draw attention to me and certainly elicit ridicule for my companion (she was kinda like a high school athletics coach in that way). So I climbed over anyway.
I fell, of course. I remember my foot slipping or getting caught somewhere, falling facefirst towards the pavement, but my knees reached the ground first and took most of the impact. Then I'm not sure how but I ended up on my back. It hurt a lot but I knew that if I cried in front of my trainer she would have made my life miserable, so I held it in.
My knees were both terribly sprained. For the rest of the week I was incapable of running after a bus, much to my trainer's annoyance. I whimpered every time we knelt to pray. And I burst into tears at a program because me knees hurt so, so, so, so, so bad. And I have a pretty high pain tolerance.
So, lesson learned. Obey promptings, even one that sound silly. You never know when God is preparing a Book of Scripture that will print millions of copies in several thousand years. Or when God is trying to spare you a week of dreadful pain.
1 comment:
Nephi was limited by the difficulty of writing on plates, but clearly this wasn't keeping him from keeping a good record of all of the wars and kings and contentions. The limiting factor in these plates wasn't space or time. There's a spiritual economy here. Nor is the standard merely to keep to spiritual things, because all things were spiritual for Nephi. Nephi says that the plates are "for the more part of the ministry" (verse 4). But that implies that not all ministry makes it in.
I think Nephi is crafting a work of art. He has to leave out good material because even good material, if it doesn't fit together well and preserve the right rhythm, doesn't necessarily contribute to a work of art.
That Nephi was trying to create a work with some internal cohesion tells us something about how we ought to read his books. First, we should be careful to take what we read in context. We should look for internal textual clues to understand the meanings of his words. We should find some unity in his message. Second, to see the unity in his message, we should occasionally read the text in order and fast enough that we notice the overarching message. If we never read it straight through we miss the overarching focus of the text. Incidentally, I should probably stop taking this a chapter at a time without peeking at the preceding and following verses because the chapters were not divided by Nephi.
On the other hand, it would be a mistake to read the text only with an eye for what Nephi wanted us to find because, as he says in verse 5, "the Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for a wise purpose in him, which purpose I know not." Presumably, there are valuable lessons in these plates that Nephi didn't see. The most obvious that comes to mind is, don't always be so intolerably pious towards your brothers if you want them to change their hearts.
This book was commissioned by God but written by Nephi. We probably shouldn't refer to these words as the words of God. The voice is most definitely Nephi's. But God has clearly endorsed this text as a way to come to him. So we shouldn't be afraid to be critical of Nephi, but any criticism should be tempered by the fact that God really wanted Nephi to write this book and clearly thinks highly of it.
The last verse emphasizes this. God really thought this story was important, important enough and well-written enough that he prepared it for the world thousands of years before he had it published. That's pretty mind-boggling to think about. Why would God commission a work? Why not just write it himself? Why Nephi's life? Why have Nephi write it? Why did Mormon just tack Nephi's words on and not summarize it?
(Incidentally, if you read the end of chapter 8 and the beginning of chapter 9 you get a nice flavor for how this isn't a work of history. At the end of chapter 8 Lehi ceases to talk to Laman and Lemuel, and at the beginning of 10 Nephi backtracks to some of Lehi's words to his kids. Nephi isn't concerned about getting the whole story out in the write order. He's concerned about getting things out in the order that serves his authorial purpose.)
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