Getting into the scriptures. Having difficult conversations. The Liahona, what was it? Have we imagined the wrong compass? Having a fixed point. Building faith in each other. A type of Christ riding on the waters.
Transcript:
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the add on education network. The podcast where we take a look at the weekly come follow me discussions and try to add a little insight. Insight. Insight and unique perspective. Your host, Jason Lloyd, here in the studio with our friend and this show’s producer, Nathaniel Pyfer.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: It’s actually Kenneth. Nathaniel Pyfer. The first.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: The first.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: I threw that on there.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Okay. I thought the Kenneth has been going.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Yeah, the Kenneth has been going on for a while. We’ve got my grandpa, dad, and my eldest son. We’re all Kenneth’s.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: Is it full, Nathaniel, or. Yeah. Nice.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: I-E-L baby.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Very nice.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Nobody calls me that.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Nobody used to call you that, dude.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Not tonight.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: It’s on the air now. What can I do? You know, emails are coming in.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Yeah, right. Emails. Dear Nathaniel, the idea, if that is the way to actually spur emails coming in, then sure, whatever.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: How are you doing, Nate?
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Living the dream, dog. What’s up?
[00:01:20] Speaker A: I’m excited. It’s a little hard. We’ve got first Nephi 16 through 22. It’s 20 pages, I think, of the book of Mormon, and it’s 20 pages of introduction to Leo and bows, breaking and trying to get food and building boats and crossing the sea, and just a lot happening.
I don’t know. It’s how it is. Come follow me. In fact, we were talking about. Come follow me.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
Again, if you’ll allow us chase, in five minutes. I know we have a lot to talk about tonight.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: Five minutes. No. Yeah. By all means. I think this is important to the discussion.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: I was on the app formerly known as Twitter, and there was a poll put up by somebody that I follow that she posts really great thought provoking stuff about the church stuff and just trying to understand things better. And basically the premise of her question was, has come follow me. Helped you find deeper connection with the scriptures or hurt you out of convenience. And I think the poll ended up, like, 90% hurt or something. I don’t remember the exact number, so I don’t want to say a definitive thing. Needless to say, it was an overwhelming majority of people saying that it was not helping have them have deeper connections with it. And it totally just kind of got my brain asking the question, why? And also being kind of at least proud of everybody for being honest enough with themselves.
But I think through the comments, at least a lot of the general feedback was, again, I hate saying things definitively because I don’t remember the specifics, but the comments that I read at least, were very much like the convenience of this, the book tells you which questions you should be asking. And it says, hey, in this chapter, here’s the overview and here’s some good things to be learning from this section. Right. It almost makes it so convenient, but doesn’t really get into the teeth of the scriptures. Right.
I guess a lot of the comments, at least that I read and that remember more or less were, it’s so nice and convenient that it’s really easy to bring the family in and they’re like, hey, here’s what we’re reading this week. But the come follow me gives us a really great outline of how we can kind of go through this. And you’re like, oh, that does seem like a positive thing, but what’s the trade off, right? And so I guess the only reason I wanted to bring this up is because also one of the comments, and I think it was from the original post, was a podcast isn’t going to save you. And I was just like, amen.
And as somebody that we always hope that people listen to this and get something out of it, I feel like we’ve done a good job of prefacing why we do this in the past, which is you and I love having these discussions really, on the recording and off the recording. Right. But we would hope that our whole goal is like, I think the goal of come follow me is if there’s a nugget in here or if there’s a piece of this that spurs a bigger thought on your end. Our whole goal for this would be, hopefully, that leads you to go back to the text, that, that leads you to go back to your own searching and pondering and praying about this so that you can enjoy all of the incredible revelation that you get from this stuff. Right? And more than anything, we just kind of wanted to take our opportunity here to retestify of the scriptures and the text, and that that’s where you’re going to have the profound.
I’m sure all of our listeners know this already, but reading through this thing, it kind of got my brain thinking because we have our complaints about come follow me, which there’s a lot of time where we’re like, man, like, this week they’re like, they’ve just crammed in so much stuff. This week they’re like, what are we doing? And next week is like two chapters. And you’re like, not to be critical, but we’re kind of critical of this. We’re just like, wait, how did this get broken up like this? You know, we, we’d run, we’d run.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Into sections in the Old Testament where entire and entire chapters or sections that we thought were important were left out. And, and maybe the disconnect there is not seeing the importance, understanding the symbolism of the story where something in our perception looked very important or looked like it was worth covering in the perception of those putting together the guide, I mean, you’ve got so much to cover in such a little amount of time. Sometimes you have to stack up a bunch of chapters, sometimes you have to leave some things out.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: And so maybe the lesson was instead of us being critical of come follow me, that’s just another way of saying hopefully, if all of these things are just helping provide a spark or a great reason to dive back into the scriptures with a starting point or something else, we follow the come follow me because it’s just a convenient schedule. But there are times, there are weeks like this where we’re like, oh, man, there’s so much good stuff this week. And then next week you’re like, oh, there’s good stuff next week too. But why was that the cut off, right?
[00:06:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And I get it. I get it. It’s hard to cover everything in a year. But I’m glad you bring this up, and I’m glad you bring it up with the context. Right. Because if you were to ask me how do you think come follow me is going, I would have expected the opposite. I would have expected an overwhelmingly positive response. It shocked me that most people were saying it’s not good.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: But having that very specific question, though, not that it’s not positive, the specific question was, has this affected positively or negatively your scripture study personally?
[00:07:31] Speaker A: Right. Okay.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: I’m just saying that’s different.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: And that’s part of the context. That’s part of the context of the question. It’s part of the context of the reason why they’re answering and saying, and I think I look at come follow me, more neutral, and I look at, it’s our approach to come follow me. That if, if we’re looking at that lesson manual and it asks a few easy questions on how to go through a discussion with our family, and it takes five to ten minutes and we’re done and move on, and we never look at the scriptures, then I see where that 90% is coming from, where we’ve replaced the scriptures with a super easy discussion, where I see the benefit of come follow me again, taking a look at this and getting everybody on sync, getting Sunday school in sync, seminary in sync, home study in sync so that everybody’s talking about the same thing and it provides us with a platform to have a podcast where we’re talking about what we see during the week and it’s going out to others. I had my brother who listened to the show and texted me some interesting insights with the order of events in the Book of Mormon, something I hadn’t considered. If Lehi and his sons, if Lehi sends his sons to go get daughters before he has the vision of the tree of life, why then in the vision of the tree of life, is he not seeing Ishmael and Ishmael’s family? Why are they getting left out? And perhaps the order of events is a little bit differently, and Nephi is telling the story in a certain way, but I’m getting lost in the weeds on this. What I’m trying to say is, when we are having these discussions to supplement our study in the scripture rather than replace it, I think come follow me becomes a very positive experience.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: Totally agree.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: But when come follow me is a simple, you know what? I listen to my podcast for the week that check that box and I move on, or I just go through these simple questions that are in the manual, then it’s kind of negative because it removes us from the text itself. And if I could just put a bow on my perspective. Anyways, when we do our show, the last thing we want is for this to replace your scripture study or to remove you or take you one step further away from the source. If anything, we want this to inspire thought, inspiration to where you go back and you see it maybe differently, or you see things that we didn’t see. And it’s a discussion, but it’s because it plugged you back into it and you’re feeling enriched because the source itself is speaking to you. I don’t know.
[00:10:13] Speaker B: That’s great. My only boat. And I do wish come follow me. Had a little bit more teeth to it. Okay. That’s it.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: It’s a fair statement. It’s a fair statement.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: Just a little bit. Just a little bit more teeth. That’s all.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: I think there’s history there, and I’m.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: Not going to go down that.
We’re the dentures. That’s what we want our podcast to be, is the dentures to some of the missing teeth with come follow me. That’s what we should do as our opening bump.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: I’ve never heard that before.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: All right, let’s get in. Let’s get into it.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: They say meat before. Wait, milk before the meat. Right? But they do say, get to the meat.
[00:10:47] Speaker B: I know they do.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: You can’t live on milk forever.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Meat is probably hard to eat with dentures. We want to be the implants. We want to be the expensive implants to the gums of. Come. Follow me.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: But even if you graduate to meat, I can’t eat graham crackers without milk.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: No, milk is still delicious.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: A good glass of milk is always.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: Solid, except I always smell it. It could be literally one day old, and I literally. It’s just a habit now because I’ve drank too much sour milk in the past. Even stuff that’s not expired. I know it’s a funny thing, but I did it again this morning and in the moment, it’s funny you brought this up. I asked myself in the moment, why do I still do this? We got this yesterday, but it’s just habit now. Okay?
[00:11:28] Speaker A: It’s good to be safe.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: I never smell my meat. I’m always just like, cool, man. If it’s rotten, it’s rotten. I’m just going to cook it a little bit longer. All right, let’s get into it. Let’s get into the meat of this week.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: Eggs. Eggs, dude.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: Eggs. I’m sure I’ve eaten eggs that are the weirdest thing.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: If you’re frying an egg and it’s all runny on the top, I’m like, yo, man, I’m not interested.
I still like a soft yolk, but I get weirded out a little bit when it’s.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: Don’t worry about that, dude. Go to Brazil for a cookie.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: But then I don’t even hesitate eating cookie dough, dude. It’s just straight up raw.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:12:03] Speaker A: And I don’t think twice about that. There you go.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: All right, we’re getting into it.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: Sorry, guys.
First Nephi chapter.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: First Nephi. We’re back.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Sorry, Nephi.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: I’m not.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: All right.
The wicked take the truth to be hard. So we’re coming off the context here.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: Yeah, baby.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: Nephi just kind of laid it all out. And you remember he comes back to the tent of his father from having this incredible vision.
He sees what I think is the Lord. He sees the birth of the Lord, whether the Lord’s the guy sitting right next to him, or whether he just sees the Lord ministering and walking around. Either case, he sees the Lord, and then he sees things that are going to happen to him, things that are going to happen to his children, things that are going to happen halfway across the globe in churches that seemingly don’t have much to do with them, but yet they’re going to be led to interacting with his seed, the destruction of his people, almost everything all the way to the end of time, right? He sees amazing things. Overwhelmed with the things that he had seen. It reminds me of the experience with Joseph Smith. Doctrine, covenant 76, Sidney Rigden. He’s got to collect his strength before he can even talk to his brothers. And then he just lays it out on them.
They say, you’ve said a lot of hard things. And he’s like, I know the wicked take the truth to be hardened, and he cuts. And maybe it’s worth saying right here in this instance, it actually pulls over pretty good.
The brethren repent. Brethren for the brethren, his brothers. But if you read the text, and now my brethren.
But they repent to where Nephi has hope for.
So maybe it’s worth noting, Nate, and you’re a big proponent of this, and this is the whole discussion that we went with, the whole, come follow me. To begin with, maybe it’s best to not pull punches.
Nephi’s not afraid to lay it out the way he sees it. And maybe if we have high expectations for our audience, sometimes we’re worried that we might offend, or sometimes we’re worried that I got to try to do this the nice way, or I got to be their friend.
As a father, for example, it’s important to be engaged with your kids, to communicate with your kids. But sometimes it’s also important to put your foot down and say no and not be worried about your kids not liking you or offending them. And I think Nephi communicates some of that value here.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: There’s a lot of wisdom to that.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: He doesn’t compromise.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: There’s a lot of wisdom to that. It is interesting, too, because, again, you’re right. I am a big proponent of this, because I have a well documented issue with how convenient and easy we make it sometimes for me, specifically, the youth in this church. Right. And having taught youth in high school age and stuff, one of the things that I learned right away is it’s so healthy for everybody involved to have very high expectations and demand greatness. And people rise to the occasion when you ask a lot out of them. It’s part of the reason, like you said, that I sometimes wish that come follow me. Had some more teeth to it, or that we didn’t give missionaries cell phones and let them call home every week.
Because there is something that can be gained with a little bit of pressure, man.
Or with a high expectation. So, yes, by the way, too, this reminded me specifically, I love a lot of the pushback that we get sometimes in our emails and the discussions we have. And do you want to know why? Because it then makes us have to go, okay, cool. It’s good to get challenged on an idea, because then it makes you have to decide, where am I going to go with this? Am I going to dig deeper? Some pushback that we have gotten over the years, again, well documented on my feelings, on trying to understand the sacrament, has done everything in an incredible way to push me to really understand the sacrament for me. And again, the challenge didn’t make me change my mind. In fact, what it did is it has helped me really understand and lock in where my mind was going with this in the first place and gave me a really. It was the catalyst of having such a deeper connection with this.
You and I prep for these episodes hours and hours and hours outside of what we record, from pushing back against ideas and throwing out ideas over text message. And you specifically do an incredible job of diving into the scriptures and challenging. And it’s kind of what we’re going to talk about tonight, even is challenging. Like, hey, we’ve always seen this thing in this way, but as I read the text, it doesn’t read that same way. And then the lights start coming on.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: So to highlight this, yes, I am with you, and I’m glad that we are reading about circumstances like this, where Nephi is just like, no, this is how it is. And I’m not trying to make this convenient, and I’m not trying to make this easy. And by the way, Nephi expects greatness. And now that he’s the leader over all of his family, basically, at this point, I appreciate Nephi going, no, we have some standards and expectations that I want to be met, even if that forces everybody else to rebel against him in some of these circumstances. All right, take it away.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: Yeah, we can’t shy away from hard things. Hard things are going to find us regardless, right, in having that hard conversation. And if we’re intimidated by it, it doesn’t mean Nephi just dove right in and just laid it out. Remember, he had to take some time to collect his thoughts before he even had that conversation. And maybe sometimes, if we’re hot, we need to take a moment and make sure that we remove the motion from the conversation. Nephi didn’t go in there attacking them because they’re destroying his seed and things that they wouldn’t understand.
Maybe we need to take a moment to step back, collect our thoughts, and try to understand what we’re thinking we’re dealing with, but not be afraid to have those conversations either in a way that’s respectful, in a way that’s going to help somebody.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: That’s the point, though, is that he still got there, though.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: He didn’t shy away from having that conversation. It’s an intimidating thing to do.
We need to do it more. And the thing is, I think life is going to be hard no matter what.
It’s just a different kind of hard based on the decisions that we make, right?
Learning skills, becoming good at what you do. I mean, Nate, to have the ear that you have and to be a critic and critical enough to be a producer, you have to be comfortable having those hard conversations and you have to tell somebody and be honest with them. Because if you’re not, then what kind of music are you going to produce? At the end of the day, that’s hard work.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: We could do a whole episode on this.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: But yes, it’s hard work. Right.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: And by the way, it’s sometimes really hard conversations to be having with people that are in a vulnerable place, putting their heart out there, to have somebody push back against certain ideas. But for what purpose? Greatness.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: And if you didn’t do all of that hard work to be a master of your craft, to learn your skill, to put yourself in the uncomfortable situation, to have those conversations, to get where you are at today, then how easy would it be to be providing for your family right now?
It would be just as hard, if not harder, having to continue working in a job that you don’t feel has a future that you can barely provide for your family. It’s going to be.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: Or that I’m probably just not good at, too. That’s the other thing, too. But yes, you’re right.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Whether we get an education or try to pursue something or whether we don’t, either way it’s going to lead to a hard road and the challenges are going to be different. The challenges that develop us are one, but the challenges of being underdeveloped and trying to provide. I mean, pick your poison. Which kind of hard do you want? I prefer the hard that develops and refines me.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: This hints back at what we talked about so much in the garden of Eden and everything else along the way, which is there’s no shortcuts. Right.
And again, I appreciate you saying that usually the hard way is when we tried to take a shortcut, realize very quickly or long term, unfortunately, that that doesn’t work and then still have to do it the right way, which is never easy. Climbing a mountain wasn’t supposed to be easy.
Returning back to the presence of God was never designed to be easy, because along the way is what actually forms you and makes you what you are.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: I mean, to break this down in a very simple example, and maybe I’ll be done with this, like, learning to ride a bike is challenging, and you fall over and you fall down, and it takes some work, right? But by the time you pick it up, I mean, look at what it enables you to do. How much faster you can get from one place, the time you get to enjoy as a kid, where if you never took the time to try to learn how to ride a bike and to take those falls, then how much harder is it to walk everywhere? And how much more limited are you? And having to deal with the challenges and the shortcomings that come with never learning that skill, I would say, is significantly harder than how it was to go through that development curve. I mean, what kind of hard do you want to deal with?
[00:22:15] Speaker B: Yep. Love it. Let’s keep going.
[00:22:17] Speaker A: All right, next. Next.
This is verse seven. And it came to pass that Inifi took one of the daughters of Ishmael to wife. And also my brethren took of the daughters of Ishmael to wife. And also Zoram took the eldest daughter of Ishmael to wife. And thus my father had fulfilled all the commandments of the lord which had been given to him. And also Nephi had been blessed of the lord exceedingly, which I think having to take a daughter to wife is part of that, being blessed to the lord exceedingly. But note that all of this was done in the valley of Lemuel, as my father dwelt in a tent and connecting him, dwelling in the tent, with the marriage of his sons. And we’ve already gone down this road and talked about the significance of this tent being a temple. I feel like this is a culminating moment here in this tent, the marriages. And we’ve talked about this being Melchizedek priesthood. And I feel like this is with the temple, the ceiling power. I think there’s something more significant happening here than what we talk about.
Also, you’ll notice in this conversation, where do the sisters of Nephi pop up because they’re not mentioned here.
When Nephi travels into the wilderness, he says they make their journey with his father and his wife, Saria, his mother, his father’s wife. I think I said that wrong. And so by mentioning Sarah, he’s not saying that. He’s only going to be mentioning the males of his family. He has no problem mentioning his mom. But then he says, and my other brothers, which consisted of Laman, Lemuel, and Sam.
And then when we’re getting to the point where they get aboard the boat, which we’ll be talking about here, he talks about how his father had two sons in the wilderness, Jacob and Joseph. And at some point, he mentions his sisters, but never by name. And where are they in this whole deal? They’re not mentioned here in the marriage that’s taking place. Did they not get married? When were they born, and how come their birth is never mentioned? And as I was thinking about this family situation, this kind of can be intriguing to me.
There was a rastus snow gave a talk back in the late 18 hundreds, and he said that the prophet Joseph Smith had said that Ishmael’s sons married into the family, and Lehi’s sons married Ishmael’s daughters. So when we talk about Ishmael’s sons having married into the family, remember, Ishmael’s sons were married before Nephi and Lehi. Sorry, Nephi, Laman, Lemuel and Sam go back to get Ishmael and his family.
To me, it almost makes the most logical sense. The reason why Ishmael’s family is chosen is because Ishmael’s sons married Nephi’s sisters.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: Before the whole wilderness.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: Before the whole wilderness. They weren’t born in the wilderness. Jacob and Joseph were born in the wilderness. If their family’s a little bit older, how many kids they have in the wilderness? And they would have been really? How come he mentions the sisters more? I think these sisters are older than Nephi, potentially even older than Laman and Lemuel, if they’re a marrying age. If they’re married and they have kids.
Because Ishmael’s sons already have families, it would make the most sense that why else would you pick Ishmael and his family? Because he’s going back for his daughters, and it’s convenient. It’s going to work, because they also have sisters that are going to sisters. Ishmael is going to have daughters that are going to work for Nephi and his brothers for them to marry.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: Interesting. Checks out.
[00:25:59] Speaker A: Kind of fits.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: Yeah, totally does.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: Just something to think about. All right, we’re going to keep going to kind of close out this chapter of this tent, verse ten. And it came to pass that as my father arose in the morning and went forth to the tent door, to his great astonishment, he beheld on the ground a ball of curious workmanship. And it was a fine brass, and within the ball were two spindles and the one pointed the way which we should go into the wilderness. And it came to pass that we did gather together whatsoever things we should carry. And we grabbed our seeds, and they departed back in the wilderness. So this is ending their encampment. They’re going to travel, and you got to understand how this journey works. They travel for a couple of days, and they stop, set up the tent, and make a stay of that valley, grab supplies, and then they’re going to make another little hop, travel for a while, find a good location, camp there for a while. And so they go in this long period of time. But going to the Lijona and this description, something stuck out to me that I’d never really considered before.
There’s this ball of curious workmanship, and Nate, you asked me on the way up here, down here, how big this ball?
I don’t. I don’t know that it gives us too much context to be able to even determine the size that they’re holding it. I think it’s not so heavy that they can’t hold it and work it.
[00:27:26] Speaker B: But are they holding it in their arms?
[00:27:28] Speaker A: And that’s a good question. It’s something to think about. It’s this round ball of curious workmanship. And it was a fine brass, and within the ball were two spindles. And I was thinking about this two spindles, and it says, and the one pointed the way, whether we should go into the wilderness. And then that made me think, what does the other one do? Why have two spindles? Why have one that works to show you which way you’re supposed to go. And then the other one, what just spins free?
What’s the point of two spindles?
And when we talk about this, they’re going to refer to it in a couple of places as a compass.
And we all know what a compass is. At least we all think we know what a compass is, right? It works magnetically, and you’ve got this spindle inside of it that points north. And when I think of what a compass is, and I think of the Lejona, to me, there’s a disconnect one. If it’s a magnetic compass, it’s always pointing north, not the direction they should go. In fact, they weren’t traveling north. They were traveling in a southeast direction. And they go south for a while, and then they’re going to change directions and cut east. So why would the compass be pointing east or south or different directions, depending on where they needed to go?
The other thing about the compass is it’s just got a single spindle that points that direction. You don’t have two. So what is this second spindle for? What’s the purpose? What does it need to do? And this kind of got me thinking about it.
Did they even have compasses back then? Where is this coming from? And I looked, in the old Testament, we talk about compasses, but not in the same way. In fact, I even looked through the Book of Mormon for the word compass to see where it showed up in all the scriptures. And most of the time, it’s actually consistent with how the Old Testament uses it. And in the word in the Old Testament, in the Hebrew, it’s a very common word. It’s translated as compass, means to encircle about.
And it comes from your architectural compass and your cartographer, the map maker’s compass. Right. They used a compass to make maps and to draw architectural plans. And this is a very different compass than the compass that we’re familiar with, that we use, that points north into navigational. We think of this, and it’s telling them which way they should go. And we think, oh, it’s navigational. It’s this compass. But here’s the thing. The navigational compass, the magnetic compass, was not invented in this part of the world until the Middle Ages, until maybe 1200 years ad, a long time after Lehigh and his family.
So we’re taking this word compass that seems familiar to us in our terms, and we’re trying to apply that to this because it’s providing them directions they should go. Of course it’s a compass. It’s got to be a compass. But we’re looking at it from a very modern lens.
The difference between a geographical geomagnetic compass that points north and an architectural or a cartographer’s compass is that a cartographer’s compass has two spindles where the compass, geographical, magnetic, only has one. I’m like, wait a second. That sounds a lot more. If it’s got two spindles and the word spindle, it means a rod or something that you can spin or turn, just like the compass that use in archaeology. Archaeology, cartography, architecture, cartography.
You fix the two spindles, the two rods, to one point, and you spin them. You turn them to draw circles.
And the purpose of the compass is you can draw a perfect circle by fixing one point, and the other one is always the same distance in relation to it. It’s kept in that to where you can turn it. And no matter where you go, it’s always kept at the same distance from it to create a perfect circle. And not only that, but if you fix that, then you can use symmetry and recreate that perfect circle somewhere else. And so you can create two exact copies. And this compass, it’s used to something that’s encircled about or to circumscribe. All of it. Yes.
And this kind of got me thinking, maybe all of this time we’ve been thinking about the wrong compass. Maybe the compass that was meant here and these two spindles is the much older compass.
And as I started thinking about this being discovered at the doors of the tent, which would be outside of the veil.
And this idea that to circumscribe or to enclose is what a compass is. Clothing something and encircling it, putting it over. Covering. Right.
Which covering is atonement? A covering, clothing, coats of skin covering.
And that’s outside of the veil. Right. This veil that covers and clothes. And the veil and the marks that it contains contains marks that are similar to what you see in architecture and what you see in cartography and what you see in the Lejona. And maybe the Leona bears with it a lot more temple symbolism and symbols than what we initially gave it credit for, because we kept thinking about it in terms of a geomagnetic compass rather than an architectural compass.
[00:33:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And to further your point, kind of, again, what you had brought up on our conversation is what the symbol circumscribed into the plates. Right.
[00:33:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So Don Bradley, who, again, I’m just very impressed with his work, did a lot of research on documents during early church history.
And there was an interview with Joseph Smith senior in which they was asking him about the plates, asking him about the 116 pages.
In going through some of his research and what he’s done, he explained that on the gold plates, there was the mark of the square and the mark of the compass.
And these are the builders tools, and they’re associated with the Yereman Thummim, which would make sense if it’s also associated with the Lehona. It’s the Lord’s.
I don’t know, his tool set, his maps. And I think if this is the case and if we want to read it this way. And again, I’m looking at this and trying to understand what it is. Right. And asking questions of the text.
But the significance of the compass is that one point has to be fixed in order for it to work and for us. Isn’t that God? Isn’t that the spirit, that as long as he is fixed in our lives, we’ll never be lost? And then the other one says the direction that we should go. And in geometry, we learn that in order to define a line, it takes two points.
And I learned that as a kid trying to build a treehouse, because if you nail a step onto a tree with a single nail, that thing’s going to be spinning around, right? In order to fix it, you need to have two points under that board to be able to hold it still.
So I think about this again. This compass, if maybe it’s just free falling or moving around in this brass ball when it’s not working, because they could clearly tell when the compass was working or not working by looking at it. But if that position became fixed, if the one point was fixed, and I look at that symbolically, if their lives were anchored and built on a sure foundation, if Christ was a fixed point for them, then they would always know their direction, because it would be in relationship to Christ. And between those two points, you could draw a straight line in the direction you needed to head. And that seems a lot more accurate for me. And trying to find direction in life, not just where I need to head, physically drawing a straight line and saying, that’s the direction we need to go, but it also gives us context to the writing that’s being put on the ball, because is that not also helping us understand our relationship with Christ and helping us draw closer to him? And you think about that compass. Yeah, you can spread them out, and you can use it to measure distances, but ultimately, the compass, you can draw it together to where those two points become one. And it’s unifying. In fact, the word compass come is with, and pass is possible, step to be in step with.
And compassion comes from the same root.
To be in step with, to fill, to be aligned with. And so I look at this compass, and to me, it almost has more of.
It seems richer with meaning, understanding this architectural compass, because it means to be in step with God, in line with God, and as long as he is a fixed position in your life, and you’re not just blown about by every philosophy or tossed around in the wind, you’ll always know where you need to be. You’ll always know where you need to head.
This Leojona just took on a completely different meaning for me this time as I was reading it through.
[00:37:17] Speaker B: It’s awesome. And it’s, I guess, why I was inspired to ask the question of how big we think this thing is.
A common theme, if you’ve listened to this show for a while, is our constant attempt to understand where art and doctrine meet.
And when you think of the we, I think your mind immediately goes to the freeberg picture, right? Which, again, like, is one of. Is always going to be one of my favorite artists because of how influential his artwork was in really my early excitement to have something to comb through during sacrament meeting, right? Book of Mormon. Right? It’s like, yeah, right? It’s like if you were a kid and the talk was born, you could always go look at those stripling warriors and be like, yeah, man, these he men looking dudes. Rad, right?
But we all think of the compass as like, yeah, the softball that has some cool stuff on it or whatever.
So when we say Leona, again, so much of our brains immediately go to the artwork that we’ve been shown, right? Which, again, that’s a whole other conversation for a different day, right, of how art influences what we think is doctrine and vice versa. But if we can, for a minute, divorce ourselves from that image and go, cool, what if it was bigger? What if it was something you still could carry? But what if it was something that you could.
[00:39:01] Speaker A: Maybe.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: Maybe it took one person to. One person could still do it, but it was like, hey, you had to actually kind of, like, pick it up and move it around, right?
It could then be used for different purposes.
What if you could put, say, like, a map in it or underneath it and use the compass to actually plot out, right. I guess I’m just saying is it could be a tool maybe in a lot more of a less mystical way than it kind of is viewed as. Right.
The way that we think of it is almost kind of like a magic ball.
I do think that there is a profound lesson to learn in when they weren’t being righteous, it didn’t work. Right. But I just wonder if we consider this functionally, if it’s like, oh, man. It kind of almost even demystifies it a little bit when you realize, like, oh, they could have actually been using this functionally as a tool to be charting out distances between things and to be figuring out which way to go and stuff, like, know more so than just a crystal ball, I guess.
[00:40:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And something that kind of stands out to me when Nephi is tied up on that boat and he gets himself free. This is in chapter 18 and verse 21. And it came to pass that after they had loosed me, behold, I took the compass, and it did work whither I desired it. To me.
What does it mean, wither? I desired it. I mean, why, wither, what are you doing with that compass? How are you using it.
[00:40:48] Speaker B: That’s an interesting detail to throw in there. Yeah, but if it’s in there, it’s worth probably thinking about.
And not just, hey, it worked again.
[00:40:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Just automatically it pointed the way we should go. No, in fact, what it did, not only did it work whither he desired it, and it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord. And after I prayed unto the Lord, the winds did cease, and there was a great calm. And so when he talks about it working, it’s working. While the winds are blowing them all over, which way? What? Right? I mean, how is it working if it’s just a compass? Is that thing just spinning like crazy as that boat moves all over the place, and you’re looking at it and say, it’s working, or it’s working, what’s it doing?
I don’t know. It’s just interesting to think about this.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: Leojona, let me throw this out there.
[00:41:40] Speaker A: Okay?
[00:41:41] Speaker B: And this may be apples to oranges, but even when Joseph Smith was translating the plates, he was using a tool, right? Let’s say a seer stone or a urim and thummum. That didn’t always work either, though, right?
[00:41:56] Speaker A: Right.
[00:41:57] Speaker B: It is an interesting thing to think about that even some of these tools functionally, like, maybe the nature of the tool doesn’t change. It’s the person using the tool or the people trying to use the tool that have to be in line, right? Circumscribed, that have to be in harmony with maybe, again, trying to understand what this Leojona is, at least even as we’ve just been kind of talking about it and you’ve kind of thrown it out there, it’s been awesome for me to kind of go, okay, cool.
Where are all of the other little deeper meaning or deeper anchor points? When you stop just thinking of this as, again, just a mystical ball, and instead going, oh, if this is a different type of a tool, what else can we be? And you’ve already brought up a couple great ones, the fixed point, the anchor point, and stuff like that, too. So I guess that is the question. When Nephi has to start working it, right? Like, let’s just put it into our terms, so he has to get it and start using it or working it to his desire. Again, it’s not just a spinning thing that just stops spinning. It’s like, okay, now here’s the way to go again.
I don’t know. There’s something there too.
[00:43:15] Speaker A: Doesn’t he even say? And it did work according to the faith and the diligence that we did give it.
[00:43:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Which sometimes it says, faith is work, by the way.
[00:43:24] Speaker A: It’s work.
I think somewhere else in Alma, it says the simpleness of just looking at it. All you had to do was look at it. But when you start looking at how they actually applied it, it sounds like it required some faith, it required some working, it required some diligence.
Not just something that even then with.
[00:43:46] Speaker B: The faith, right, if they’re out in the wilderness using a tool. And that’s kind of another awesome idea about maybe the size of the Lejona, what if it is just a little bit bigger than the softball that we’ve said? What if it’s a soccer ball size, right?
At a certain point, it’s still not giving you the full line. Here’s the destination.
There’s no physical room that it can say, hey, here is point a to point b. In theory, it still requires faith to go. Here’s where it’s lining up and telling us to go. And that might be into a place in the wilderness where you’re like, man, I hope there’s something on the other side of this, or it might be in part of the ocean where you’re like, I can’t see land away from here. Maybe a lot of the faith that it’s talking about in a lot of these things is the faith to go, hey, the line can literally only draw so far out. And then once we get to that point, we can map out a new place, but we kind of have to go. Not knowing really what’s beyond the physical limitations of this thing as well.
[00:44:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I like know what you said just a second earlier too, about the putting work into it reminded me really how this whole podcast started, right? When we look at come follow me as maybe an example of the Leajona and we look at some of the responses to the polls and how has this helped, right? What kind of faith or diligence are we putting into this program? Are we just letting something else expecting it to just show us the way without much effort on our part? Or are we looking at this and saying, what do I need to do to be diligent and work on it so that I know the direction that I need to go and I start getting those answers to me and all of a sudden the Lehona becomes a very living thing, even for us today, in how those scriptures are guiding us.
So I’m glad you roped that in at the beginning. It just kind of fits.
[00:45:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it does kind of fit.
[00:45:50] Speaker A: That’s good.
All right.
[00:45:53] Speaker B: It’s an interesting thing to think of.
So many of the things that we’re just used to hearing or mentally imagining.
I would again hope that, as always, anybody listening to this that is being inspired or has some insight to add into this. We’re just trying to kind of get your brains working. But if you have some extra insight, send it to us, because we’re having fun, really kind of trying to think through this whole thing.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: Well, you know what? Something we can add on this. Because the very next story is going to be when Nephi’s bow breaks. And that’s, like, the straw that does it for Lehigh, right?
He’s been strong with his sons being gone on their mission for maybe way too long. He’s been strong with all of their setbacks and everything that they’ve had to deal with. And now, all of a sudden, it just seems like this is maybe one setback too much. And he was a great strength for Saria when she was mourning the loss of her sons. And now to have Nephi restore confidence in him and saying, where do I need to go to find food?
And putting that trust and that faith back in him.
I almost look at that going again with these two spindles that are working in concert. Because sometimes we’re like Saria, where things have been hard.
And it’s good that she had a husband there. That could be that fixed point to help reassure her and to help her get through that to where she could believe. Where we go through maybe a period of question or doubt and say, what’s going to happen next? And sometimes, even though we were a lehi to a Saria, we might turn around and find that we need a Nephi to our Lehigh. Because where we were strong, now all of a sudden we’re wondering, and we need somebody else to put a little bit of faith or trust. And maybe another lesson that we can learn from this compass is that we don’t do it alone. We can’t do it alone, even alone. Do we not rely on the Holy Ghost or God to be that second fixed point? And does he not expect us to walk in his shoes and to also be that fixed point for those that are lost, the lower lights that guide people?
It’s not just the one light on the hill, right?
[00:48:17] Speaker B: That’s right.
It’s a great point. Let me ask you this.
Do you think that’s the only reason he went back to his dad to be like, okay, where should I go now?
I think that there’s more there.
Yeah.
Part of me wonders if it’s actually kind of fulfilling multiple purposes.
Tell me if I’m totally off base on some of this, but doesn’t it feel like part of it is also a chance to kind of subtly give his father the opportunity to repent a little bit? Do you think Nephi really had to go back to Lehi to know where he was supposed to go at this point? I mean, Nephi was the most kind of, like, enduring, faithful one in this whole story, according to him.
I’m just saying, according to him, I had to throw that caveat in there.
[00:49:14] Speaker A: Right.
[00:49:14] Speaker B: But let’s just take the text for it being the most correct book.
[00:49:19] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:49:22] Speaker B: Do you think Nephi had to go back to his dad functionally to know where to go?
Or do you think that that was. And I have a couple of these, because I’m not even saying all of them are right, but they all might be, too. But they all might be wrong? I don’t know. But do you think that that was maybe an opportunity to give his father by a chance to also show him respect as the patriarch? Right. To also say, hey, and at the same time, to go, here’s an opportunity for you now to go and get right and be a fixed point for all of us. Again, there seems a subtle rebuke in here, too.
[00:50:00] Speaker A: For me, there does. What if? Because it doesn’t tell us, what if Nephi did go to God and seek that answer? And God said, ask your dad.
[00:50:10] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:50:11] Speaker A: The answer is already there. I’ve already provided Leahona, I’ve already provided you with the prophet in this instance. This is not something you need me to supply the answer to. Go ask your dad. And he can provide you with a.
[00:50:26] Speaker B: It feels kind of like one of those chances. Or it reads for me, as when Jesus is talking to Peter after he’s been resurrected and asks him the three times, do you love me? Jesus knew the answer to the question, but it almost felt like an opportunity to kind of really bring back, to make a point with this.
There’s just a lot of depth that I think that it reads, with Nephi making a purpose to go back to talk to his dad. And I don’t think that he needed to. From a spiritual standpoint. I think Nephi at this point probably knew how to read the Leo or do what the Leoona was telling him to do just fine. And I think that really, because we don’t know, he probably could have prayed and be like, hey, now I got the bow fixed, and we’re all really hungry.
Can you help me know where to go get some food? It does make sense that either from a prompting or from maybe a direct answer from God, that it’s like, go give your dad an opportunity to, one, reaffirm your trust in him as the patriarch. And I would like to have him have this opportunity to go. Let me put this maybe in like, a not to get super personal, but kind of like a day to day thing.
When your kids come and ask you for a blessing, there is a nice opportunity to account, right? To do some self inventory. And I know that I have felt this on multiple occasions, and even when I was, like, younger, late teens, I hadn’t received the priesthood. I remember a hike that I went on with my dad, and I remember even at the time, for some reason, it’s kind of morbid, but thinking like, oh, man, what would he do? What would I do if we were up on this mountain and it’s just me and him and something were to happen to him? And I remember even at that time in my life being like, I’m not really living to a place where.
To a place where I would be able to serve a mission or to be able to go through the temple or to be able to receive the Melchizede priesthood. I went on a mission a little bit later because there were some things in my life I needed to sort out before that. But it’s interesting because even then, I remember thinking, man, I’m not living in a place that I could be of service to him or to anybody in this type of a thing. And I have felt that on multiple occasions, sadly, since, right when I come home and my kid’s been super sick all day, and my wife or my kids, like, hey, can I have a blessing? What’s the first thought that usually goes through your head? Right?
It’s usually like, oh, man, how were my conversations today?
[00:53:36] Speaker A: Am I ready for this? If you could ever be ready for it, because it’s something that’s just always happening on the yes.
[00:53:42] Speaker B: Which, by the way, is one of the reasons I think we’re encouraged to go to the temple as often as we are too.
Aside from the awesome opportunity is to do work for other people, and aside from the awesome opportunity is to learn the lessons that you learn in the temple, I also think that most people probably when it’s like, hey, I’m going to book some time to go to the tempo. Usually our thoughts are, would I still be able to answer yes to those questions that I was asked when I got that recommend. Right. And so, for me, at least, there’s a lot of that that reads in this story. The depth of this story is, Nephi also went back to his dad to ask for a blessing, more or less. He went back to him to ask for, as the patriarch of this family, as a priesthood holder in this family, maybe the priesthood holder in this family, bless me as your son, that I will know what to do. Give me your blessing. Right. I need you to go pray to know where this is, showing respect in that, but also giving Lehi an awesome, merciful opportunity to go back and.
[00:55:00] Speaker A: To. I don’t want to take anything away from what you said, because I think.
[00:55:02] Speaker B: No, but no.
[00:55:04] Speaker A: Super valuable and spot on. So this is a little bit minor, but it’s a different perspective of this, too, that maybe complements it. And to say, remember that this is Nephi’s reign and ministry. He’s already slain Laban. He’s carrying Laban’s sword. He’s carrying that title, that firstborn, the whatever.
[00:55:23] Speaker B: Right. I know where you’re going with this, and I think this is in harmony with what I’m saying, but please continue.
[00:55:27] Speaker A: Yeah, you look at what did Pharaoh do when he had those dreams?
Was seek spiritual inspiration to understand, what does a good ruler do? What does the king of Babylon do when he asks Daniel to interpret the dreams? What does any king have? Is it not a cabinet of spiritual.
So if Nephi is a good king, does he not lean heavily on his father for spiritual advice, for spiritual direction? For.
[00:56:00] Speaker B: This is my point is Lehi doesn’t stop being his father. Lehi, by the way, doesn’t also stop being the patriarch of that family.
Even if Nephi is like we’ve talked about extensively through the last few weeks, and I’m with you on, by the way, too. Even if this is the reign of Nephi, as the, say, spiritual leader, say, he is the bishop of the ward. Does the bishop of the ward not still have a patriarch in his family?
Right.
Your father doesn’t stop being your father just because you have a calling, just because you have a position.
[00:56:43] Speaker A: And Christ himself did not stop relying on.
[00:56:45] Speaker B: That’s exactly right.
[00:56:47] Speaker A: Every step of the way. We are never at a point in our life that we are so empowered, that we are so confident that we can’t rely on somebody else or something else for spiritual help and guidance.
[00:56:59] Speaker B: This is. Yes. Nailed it for me. And by the way, too, there is something also that it’s like, lehi, father, you have probably done this so much to give me some advice. I’m just saying, like, there’s so much more here than just, this is my reign. I know what I’m doing.
He probably did. He’s the one that actually was out there physically strong, doing the physical work himself, and was still humble enough to do it, but was still inspired enough to go back. I’m just saying there’s so many nice, harmonizing things that all have to do with this simple act that I think there’s a lot to take away from that.
[00:57:45] Speaker A: Well, it reminds me of when Jesus asked John the Baptist to baptize him.
[00:57:49] Speaker B: That’s right.
That’s exactly right.
[00:57:52] Speaker A: And does not Christ ask us to do things? You’re like, wait a second, you’re God. You can do everything. Why do you need?
[00:57:57] Speaker B: Remember how we literally just talked about this a few weeks ago when we were talking again about John the Baptist, where one of the things that I had thought about when we were listening, somebody had brought up John the Baptist and him not feeling worthy to baptize Jesus. Literally, we said, I bet you when Jesus went to him and said, hey, john, I need you to baptize me, it was even less so of like, oh, hey, I know who you are, and I know who I am. It was probably more maybe John going, oh, man, I know my weaknesses. I know the things that I’m still working on. I know my sins.
This puts me in a tough know. It was probably a huge personal inventory for John the Baptist when he was initially asked to do that. And still Jesus said specifically, it is us that need to fulfill all righteousness.
Because Jesus also knew. I also know your shortcomings and your sins, and I’m still here to ask you to do this. And so I’m glad you bring up the John the Baptist connection there, too.
[00:59:10] Speaker A: Thank goodness we have family. Thank goodness we have children. Fathers.
[00:59:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, wives, mothers.
[00:59:16] Speaker A: Mothers, mothers and ministers, friends, ward, bishop, patriarchs, people we can count on. Like, the Lord does not expect us to do this alone.
[00:59:31] Speaker B: My kids, even at the youngest of ages, I feel like now that I’m just really kind of, like, settling into this thought late on this. It’s shocking how even my children at young ages give me the opportunity to realign my stubbornness in a lot of ways and to check myself in a lot of ways and simple day to day things. And again, I think that the obvious one is, yeah, when your kids come and ask you for a blessing, you go, yes, but you need to give me a few minutes to maybe go and fix some things.
Give me a few minutes to kind of go and get aligned with God again before I would feel comfortable being able to use the authority to do that. But maybe even on a smaller scale, for me, at least I’ve told the story about even simple things like my son’s basketball game, where, again, I’m up in the stands going like, oh, no, you got to be way more physical, and you got to be mean, and you got to do all of this stuff. And on the car ride home, my son’s going, I don’t want to hurt anybody. I don’t want to be mean. I don’t like that they’re not playing within the rules, but that doesn’t mean that I have to. And I’m up in the front seat sobbing like, yes, thank you for teaching me that lesson. Right? Hopefully, at no point as children or as parents, we ever get to the point where we’re like, hey, we’re the ones now only doing the directing and not asking for that advice or not seeking that advice from either our parents or feeling like we can’t be learning lessons from our you. My bow on this so we don’t just drag this on for too much longer, is for me, at least. I bet you Lehi was also probably pretty appreciative in a lot of ways that Nephi came and asked him, and I bet you that realignment or that chance at going and getting right with God again, for Lehi, probably it meant a lot to him, but also that his son still held him in high enough regard to go and ask him for advice, even though he had kind of broke, right? Yeah, this one broke him Lehigh and the bow broke.
Nephi helped to fix both, though. It’s all good.
[01:02:05] Speaker A: It’s all good.
There’s something about this, too, that reads different. Now when we’re looking at the compass versus compass, and this is verse 16, and it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld the pointers.
Now he calls them pointers. Do you call the spindle on a compass a pointer? Maybe it’s pointing the right direction. But what if it’s a compass that has pointers right? Now, thinking about this, I thought it was just the one that told him which direction to go. He says the pointers which were in the ball, that they did work according to the faith and diligence which I gave them.
And then this is where the writing shows up on the ball, and that blows them all away. But it says that they told him, let’s see. Let’s go. Verse 30. And it came to pass that I, Nephi did go forth up into the top of the mountain according to the direction which were given on the ball. Now, if we’re talking about just a compass, a compass does not tell you distance, and it doesn’t tell you altitude.
But if you’re talking about a compass, a cartographer, architectural, or how we’re talking about this compass, you can tilt it to get elevation, and you can extend it to get distance to where you could pinpoint a location up in a mountain, or you could pinpoint a location and say, this is how far you need to go. You can’t tell how far you need to go with just a single stick pointing a single direction. But if you have two pointers and you can manipulate them and swing them at a different angle or move them, now you can start getting details that you wouldn’t be able to get otherwise, which I find interesting also.
[01:03:50] Speaker B: It’s a great. Just little bump. Symbolism that. Where did he go? Where did it tell him to go? To get spiritually fed as well as physically fed.
[01:03:58] Speaker A: That’s it. The mountains, when you’re an apostasy. Right. And really, in short, that’s kind of what they’re going from. And this is playing on a very common symbol in the Old Testament and the scriptures. Lack of food is often associated with apostasy. And where you go to get spiritually fed, you’re also going to get physically fed. And that connection is made pretty strong here.
[01:04:22] Speaker B: Love it.
[01:04:24] Speaker A: I know we’re probably, like, out of it.
[01:04:25] Speaker B: It doesn’t matter. We’re bringing the meat. Remember, we’re the dentures, dude. We’re the come follow me dentures.
We’re adding that into the bio.
[01:04:36] Speaker A: Wow.
[01:04:37] Speaker B: No, we’re not. But we should.
[01:04:40] Speaker A: That’s great.
[01:04:41] Speaker B: Let’s keep going because we got some good boat stuff that we want to talk about.
[01:04:44] Speaker A: We do.
I’m just going to tell you guys right now, there might be a lot that’s going to get left kind of on the chopping floor. There’s no way we can cover everything, but we’re going to cover maybe some of the more significant symbolism to kind of wrap this episode up. I think when we get to the boat, and I’m sorry, I’m leaving out some of the amazing Nephi field with the power of God to where his brothers are going to get.
[01:05:12] Speaker B: Jesus is like, no, go shock them.
[01:05:15] Speaker A: Go shuffle your feet and poke them with your finger. Yeah, like this, except with a lot more.
There’s. There’s so many similarities, guys, if you’re reading through this with the Old Testament exodus. And I think Nephi is laying a lot of this on. In fact, when Moses comes from the presence of God, his face is shining with glory, and the people are afraid to approach him. And then you have this similar experience with Nephi here in this boat building.
And anyhow, the whole story is impressive. When he’s praying to God and God says, build the boat, where do I go to get ore? I’m like, oh, well, he was definitely a metalsmith. Well, then how do you explain all of the way he works the wood? Well, he’s definitely a woods. I don’t know. Nephi was what he needed to be. He wasn’t afraid to learn new skills and to pick things up and do whatever it was that the Lord asked him to and trusted that he would be enabled and learned how to figure. It was. It’s a cool story. They build the boat, and I’m going to fast forward to them on the boat. And this says, as I’m fast forwarding through my pages, layman and lemuel. Right.
Chapter 18, the ship is finished, verse three. And I, Nephi, did go into the mount oft, and I did pray oft unto the Lord. Wherefore the Lord showed unto me great things and kind of bridging off where we stopped with Nephi going into the mountain to get food. Right. We see that comparison again.
And there’s a couple of critical words in this. Right. Oft. Like you keep saying, nate, in this episode and the episode last time, how often do we go to the temple? Is that something that we are willing to do ourselves, or we just wait for somebody to take care of that for us? Him going off is significant. And then it almost seems like his signature move. He showed unto me great things. He just sums it up with great things and leaves it at that. Right? We don’t know what he learned. We don’t know what he saw. We don’t know the experiences that happened to him came to pass. That the voice of the lord came unto my father, that we should go down and we should go into the ship.
It’s probably worth mentioning. I’ve skipped past this, and I’m just thinking about it now. As it says, the voice, lord came to us, father, they should go into the ship.
I’m just going to take a little detour. I think sometimes we give layman and lemuel a really bad rap for their murmuring and whatnot.
[01:07:52] Speaker B: Well, then that whole trying to kill.
[01:07:54] Speaker A: Everybody thing and trying to kill.
[01:07:56] Speaker B: I mean, I think they kind of earned it, too, but yeah. Okay, keep going.
[01:07:59] Speaker A: Okay.
When you think about.
It’s a matter of perspective.
Nephi talks about how they couldn’t light a fire in the wilderness, and so the lord’s providing them the light in the form of this Leahona that’s going to guide them. And it’s similar to the Israelites. They have a pillar of fire and a column of smoke, but they can’t do that, because then people will know where they are, and they’re kind of on the lamb. Right. So as they’re running in the wilderness, Nephi says, what a great blessing that the Lord made our meat sweet so that we could eat it raw.
[01:08:36] Speaker B: And you’re like, sushi.
[01:08:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And Nephi is, like, reveling this. Like, we could eat raw meat, and it was good. And our know what a great blessing that they were made mighty like unto men, and they were able to provide for their kids. Okay, there’s a flip side to that coin.
Did you really think of this through? We’re eating raw meat. What if we get sick?
And our women are going through such a hard thing, bearing children in the wilderness? They almost died. There’s no midwives here helping take care of them.
Things aren’t sanitary. We’re going through hell, putting our family’s lives at risk, and you’re forcing us to eat raw meat.
Nephi’s singing praises to God about how wonderful this is. And layman and Lemuel are like, you lost your mind. How do you think this is so wonderful? And then you think we’re going to jump in some boat and just get lost at sea? You’ve got to understand something about seafaring at this time period, at this time in this area of the world, they did not go out to sea. They built boats that were always within sight of the shore, and they traveled up the shore to the next port, where they could see if they got caught out to sea. They were goners. It was a bad situation. You don’t just build this boat and push it off and launch out into the great deep and hope that there’s something on the other end of that. Usually that’s death for Layman and Lamuel. From a very logical.
You’ve taken us away from Jerusalem. You’ve made us eat raw meat. You won’t even let us make a fire to cook our food, and now you’re just going to launch us into the ocean.
They have some serious.
[01:10:21] Speaker B: Into the ocean. Sorry. That was just a funny way to say that. Yeah. All right.
[01:10:24] Speaker A: They’ve got some serious concerns.
[01:10:26] Speaker B: All right, layman and Lemuel, you didn’t want to get launched out into the ocean.
[01:10:32] Speaker A: If they’re doing it not because God asked them to, but because they’re delirious or they belong in a sane asylum, then wouldn’t it be extremely irresponsible of them to just follow along and keep catering to their brother’s delusions and their dad’s deliriousness?
So I think even the Lord sees their plight, their situation, and what they’re going through, and asking big things requires big signs. I think God’s not just going to have them go out there and trust in what may or may not be the delusions of their brother and their father.
And so the voice of God himself speaks to layman and Lemuel and tells them, this is right.
This is a rare thing happening in scriptures where often do we hear the voice of God speaking to people from heaven? It doesn’t happen very often. It happened when Christ was baptized. It happens when Christ comes to the earth. And we’ve already talked about how Nephi is kind of this Christ type figure. To have the Father God speaking and vouching for Nephi is almost like him saying, this is my beloved son. And it puts him in a very interesting position symbolically.
And I feel know we want answers to our prayers. We want a big experience to help us know that this is true. And this is the book of Mormon is the word of God, and this is the church. And we sit there and we’re waiting for the voice of God to speak to us from heaven and say, well, Lehman and Lemuel heard the voice of God. Surely I’ve got to be better off than them, right? Consider the position that they were in.
They’ve got to know, is my dad or brother institutional?
What they’re asking us to do is crazy.
I think desperate times calls for desperate measures. And I think God was very merciful and understanding of their plight and maybe even sympathetic for what they’re going through and knowing that a lot of their concern and anger and frustration with their dad and their brother comes from concern and love and fear for their own wife and children and family that they’re trying to care for.
[01:12:54] Speaker B: Fair. That’s fair. That’s a very fair.
We can give them this one.
All right, let’s keep going. We are for sure out of time, and I know we want to hit the boat real quick.
[01:13:04] Speaker A: All right, boat. Boat. Boat. So, chapter 18. They’re on this boat.
Here we go.
Sorry. Turn the page too far. Chapter 18. And we did put forth, this is verse eight, into the sea and were driven forth before the wind towards the promised land. And again, the promised land. This idea of headed to the promised land, it’s very symbolic of Eden, paradise.
And this idea that this Lehona is bringing them back into paradise, the Garden of Eden, the promised land. That’s worth mentioning. Verse nine. And after we had been driven forth before the wind for the space of. And this is critical, I think, many days.
Behold, my brethren and the sons of Ishmael, and also their wives began to make themselves merry. And so much that they began to dance and to sing and to speak with much rudeness, yea, even that they did forget by what power they had been brought. And so Nephi was worried that they were going to cause their destruction.
I think this story fits so well in every story we have about seafaring.
And there are whole articles and books written on this. When you are lost out at sea, not even lost, per se, but you could say lost because you can’t see land. You don’t know how long it’s going to take there. And you know you have to live on everything in the boat, and everything that’s in the boat is diminishing day after day. How long is it going to last? How long before you get there? There’s a lot of pressure. And you can’t just go somewhere else because somebody’s bothering you. You’re stuck on the same small boat, living in a house, per se.
You don’t have room to run around. You can’t go hunt for animals. You can’t go blow off steam. You’re stuck in a small, confined space. How many seafaring stories do you hear about mutiny, about people murdering each other, about casting people out into the deep, about sailors that end up being cannibalistic in the lifeboats because there’s some crazy things that happen at sea. And you talk about sailors, and for whatever reason, they’re seven times more likely to end up in mental problems, hallucinations, drinking, just all sorts of things. I mean, the stage is set, and so when they’re out at sea, you’ve got all of this pressure, you’ve got all of this mounting. What do you turn to? Well, you’ve got drink, you’ve got barley, you’ve got grains, you’ve got fruits, you’ve got wine. They’re hitting the bottle. They’re trying to drown out some of the things, and they’re making themselves merry.
This is not surprising.
It would almost be more surprising to not expect a story like this to happen. It just kind of seems to fit with everything I imagine is seafaring. Anyhow, when this happens, they tie up Nephi. And this is kind of a good point with what we’re talking about with compass. When they tie up Nephi, they say they bind him so that he can’t move. If they just tie him up with ropes by himself, I mean, that guy can still roll around. He can still move, but they’ve fixed him to a point to where he can’t move. To me, that means they’ve tied him to a beam, to wood, to where he is immobile.
And the imagery, again. And it’s so interesting going back to that compass, right? Being fixed to a point.
Isn’t this also Christ, who was fixed to the cross for us? And that process of being fixed to the cross is what fixes us to him, why we’re engraving in his hands, and why? Know, it’s symbolic, too.
And I think it’s interesting. Christ, his ministry lasts for three and a half years. And then if you look at it and consider that late at night on Wednesday, and he goes into the garden of Gethsemane, and he’s captured, and then you have the Thursday trial and him being crucified. And this is lasting Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and into Sunday, when he resurrects, you’re talking about three and a half days or on the fourth day. And here you have Nephi, and on the fourth day, he’s set free. The symbolism, he becomes almost like the savior who was fixed to the wood, crucified. And for the whole three and a half days that this is going on, darkness, storm, destruction, this is prophesying. What’s going to happen to Nephi and his seed when Christ dies? For me, this chapter really takes Nephi and personifies Christ. And through him, you start to see that prophecy of what’s going to happen. He’s not just prophesying, but he’s living it. And I think that’s what’s fascinating about God, is his ability to create prophecies in the lives of his prophets, to create these symbols of Christ, and to be an artist in time, in history, in our lives, to use us as a medium. The potter’s clay. And as much as his brothers wanted to protest and fight and destroy and kill Nephi, they’re playing the role. They’re fulfilling the prophecy.
As much as the Jews hated Christ and wanted to crucify him, they’re fulfilling the role. Even those that fight against Christ, end up fulfilling his designs, his plans. It cannot be frustrated as much as we fight against it. We’re going to play a role one way or another, what role we play is up to us, but either way, it’s going to fulfill God’s plan.
[01:18:54] Speaker B: Well said.
Anything else you want to hit?
[01:19:00] Speaker A: Chapter 22 is amazing. 21. I’m sorry we can’t give it all justice. I’ll just finish chapter 22. We get into some Isaiah chapters, and Nephi quotes Isaiah, and it’s fascinating because you can see him seeing himself through Isaiah’s eyes when Isaiah starts talking about the jews that are scattered to the isles of the sea.
And you know what? I think a lot of this we can actually get into when we get into Jacob five and that allegory of the olive tree and the scattering and the gathering or whatnot. So I’ll leave that for your own discovery. Just know we had 20 pages to cover and we hit a few highlights.
There’s a lot that’s getting left out.
[01:19:39] Speaker B: And that’s what stood out to us. And I bet you that if we were to be, like, cool, we’re doing a part two of this next week, we could go through and do another 80 minutes of all the other stuff we didn’t cover. And as much as we would like to do that, that’s kind of the fun of it. Right?
[01:19:57] Speaker A: We’ll leave it here.
[01:19:58] Speaker B: Is that we get to leave it here?
Yeah, there it is.
Yeah.
It’s been a good thing for me, Jason, as we’ve been doing these things, just the conversations that we really have over text and that we have driving to the studio and back home and things like that.
I want to just reiterate, I kind of want to come full circle and finish where we started, which is there is so much depth. There’s so many incredible things that I feel like are there waiting to be enjoyed and waiting to be learned. I just want to, again, I guess, testify that with this help of the spirit, I don’t even think it takes nearly as much effort as I think we would think it would. Sometimes, if we go in with the purpose of really just trying to find new meaning and depth in the scriptures, it’s low hanging fruit in a lot of these cases, if we’re willing to go in and put the work in, but that if we are doing know God’s there to give it to us, he’s there to show it to us. And Nephi said it. A lot of that stuff is just plain. Right? Like, a lot of that stuff is there to be read and to be understood.
If nothing else, Jason and I hope that this podcast can continue to inspire you to go in and just feast and have such an awesome experience enjoying the meat.
[01:21:40] Speaker A: Well said.
[01:21:41] Speaker B: Thank you for listening. You can get a hold of us the email address hi@weeklydeepdive.com we greatly appreciate you sharing this with your friends. We really appreciate the feedback that we get after each episode and the love and support.
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Leaving reviews on the various podcasting, listening apps and outlets helps a ton. Leaving reviews is really a positive thing that can help us. So if you do enjoy this podcast, we greatly appreciate your support there. I think that’s it. So till next week.
[01:22:32] Speaker A: See ya.
It’s working.
It’s working.
Bye.
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