Book of Mormon

This year, we're reading the Book of Mormon as a family and any of those who want to read it with us. I hope all of you will. It will be just a chapter a day and once in awhile, only a half a chapter. I hope the parents will read it with the kids. I can promise that each of you and the kids will be blessed. Your day will go a little better and your faith will get a little stronger. Today, I just want to say one or two things I think are important about the Book of Mormon and tomorrow we'll start with chapter 1. Sorry this is so long.

One thing to remember is that the Book of Mormon always refers to the very righteous or the very wicked. Most all of us fall somewhere in the middle. Many conference talks, church talks and people in the church tend to do the same thing causing us to feel that we fall way short and thus are failures in the church. It's important for church leaders to present things as they do, but we as members should be accepting of all people. Unfortunately, it's not unusual for many people to feel like they don't belong because they aren't as righteous as an apostle yet. We all have things we need to work on. We can all do a better job on keeping the commandments and we should always be trying to do better. The Lord does expect us to keep all of his commandments. But we also fall short. The Lord knew this would happen and that's why there is an atonement. Spiritual growth is a lifetime project. With the Book of Mormon, we should learn from both extremes, learn from their examples, and try to have our lives on a path that keeps us going in the direction of righteousness.

The second thing I think important to remember is the miracle of the Book of Mormon. Simply put, Joseph Smith could not have done this. Because of my profession and my education, I figure I have written over two thousand pages in books, articles and papers. I have had far more years of schooling than Joseph did. Everything that I wrote took weeks, months, and in some cases, years. With everything I had to write, numerous revisions were necessary and I often had other people editing each revision. There is no way I could replicate anything close to a Book of Mormon. The style, the complexity, and the lack of any contradiction (which is extremely hard to avoid) in the story line and doctrine is amazing. The style of language changes with each writer in the book when they are quoted directly by Mormon and this also would have been impossible for Joseph to do. That fact that he wrote this in 60 days without a single revision except in punctuation and spelling is proof alone he couldn't have written it. Compare the writing of the Book of Mormon with his early letters and it is obvious. Had he used the grammar he used then, it would have taken more than 60 days just to correct that. Finally critics have failed remarkably in their efforts to prove it false. It has stood the test of time. Each time I read it, I am amazed.

And lastly, like all great literature, some things are hard to understand. Don't be bothered by this. Just keep moving forward. If you understood everything perfectly, there would be no need to read it more than once. You will never get to the bottom of things in the scriptures. It's the same reason why I like great classical music. You always hear and learn and feel something new. It's the same with the scriptures. I would suggest that rather than trying to understand everything perfectly, read each chapter with the idea of finding one thing that the Lord would like you to learn.