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9 - 15 Mar - Learn With Joy and Not With Sorrow - Jacob 1 - 4

Jacob 1 - That We Might Persuade Them to Come Unto Christ I'm taking an online economics class right now, which prompted me to think of the definition of economics in the context of the scriptures. Economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources. In the case of Nephi and his successor Jacob, the plates upon which they engraved their record was a scarce resource. They were costly to make and difficult to engrave, and instilling a tradition of passing them through generations was surely cumbersome.  Recognizing the great importance of spiritual things and the challenge of maintaining records, Nephi instructed Jacob to prioritize religious instruction saying, " if there were preaching which was sacred, or revelation which was great, or prophesying, that I should engraven the heads of them upon these plates, and touch upon them as much as it were possible, for Christ’s sake, and for the sake of our people" (Jacob 1:4).   This priority was not only reflecte...
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2 Nephi 13 - The Stay and the Staff


In describing the downfall of Jerusalem, Isaiah draws a parallel between life-giving bread, and sound spiritual leadership. "For behold, the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem, and from Judah, the stay and the staff, the whole staff of bread, and the whole stay of water—The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient; The captain of fifty, and the honorable man, and the counselor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator. And I will give children unto them to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them" (2 Nephi 13:1-4).
I have always misread this passage of scripture to imagine proud and the haughty leaders being humbled and replaced by leaders with the purity and innocence of children. But Isaiah is praising, not denigrating, the "cunning artificer" and "eloquent orator", and he is referencing the ignorance and self-interest, not the wholesomeness, of children. The famine that he describes in a literal famine that would affect the House of Israel after the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon, and a more general drought of spiritual leadership accompanying the Apostasy. "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord" (Amos 8:11). 

 At the recommendation of good friends Bren and I recently watched the documentary series "Cooked" by Michael Pollan. The episode "Cooked: Air" explores the process of baking bread and explains the crucial role of fermentation in making nourishing bread. Specifically, if all you had to eat was ground wheat flour, you could not survive. But, if you mix that flour with water, allow it to ferment (rise), and bake it, it becomes a nourishing substance that can sustain life indefinitely. Particularly because the chemistry of fermentation is beyond me, this detail makes the metaphor of sound leadership as bread (and Christ as the living bread) even more powerful for me. 

 As I imagine flour and water magically filling with bubbles through unseen forces of fermentation to become a life-giving substance, I think of the power that Christ has to touch and transform our lives. We posses basic ingredients like talent, personality, personal will, and our own efforts, which are touched and enhanced by the unseen hand of Christ. Like fermentation, if we submit ourselves to Christ we are transformed into the "staff of bread" through the refining power of Christ's atonement. We become a source of life-sustaining spiritual nourishment and strength to our families and society. By alluding to the value of varied and complementary spiritual gifts that comprise the body of virtuous leadership, Isaiah implicitly encourages us to honor and strive to be mighty men and women, military leaders, judges, prophets, prudent people, experienced (elderly), leaders of organizations (captains of fifty), honorable men and women, counselors, inventors and skilled craftsman (cunning artificer), and eloquent orators.

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