The other day I asked this question to my 89-year-old mother. Her answer was, “I don’t believe that for a minute. She knew exactly what she was doing.” It is impossible to know the precise degree to which Eve may have made her decision (about eating the fruit) by being swayed by Satan’s temptations or … Read more
A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again. Alexander Pope Both the diagram and the quotation above illustrate the human tendency to think we know more than we do. They do not discourage learning, but remind … Read more
The following story, recorded in the Book of Mormon, took place in America about 29 to 23 B.C. It’s events are amazingly similar to recent history. And it came to pass that the Lamanites did hunt the band of robbers of Gadianton; and they did preach the word of God among the more wicked part … Read more
Republicans like to play a little game with the word “democracy.” Whenever someone refers to the United States as a “democracy” they pipe up in a self-righteous know-it-all voice and say, “The United States is not a democracy, it’s a republic.” This word game, while technically historically accurate, is essentially meaningless. While the founding fathers … Read more
Lord, who made the lion and the lamb,You decreed I should be what I am;Would it spoil some vast eternal plan,If I were a wealthy man? Tevye from “Fiddler on the Roof” In our daily trials and troubles, it is not uncommon for us to think, like Tevye, “Oh, if only I were rich! I … Read more
I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries … Read more
The Book of Mormon did not come to us easily. Nephi hand made a set of plates out of gold (which he had mined and refined) and engraved the record of his people upon them (1 Nephi 19:1-6). He even made a duplicate set of plates, for a reason he did not know, because the … Read more
3 And because my words shall hiss forth—many of the Gentiles shall say: A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible. 2 Nephi 29:3 I was an LDS missionary in the mid-1970s in the Southern United States — the Bible Belt. We missionaries had a special connection to … Read more