All Things Witness

Thoughts on the mission and power of Jesus Christ

Tag Archives: Prophets

Gold plates on a table


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Revelations Good and Evil

‘Some revelations are from God: some revelations are of man; and some revelations are of the devil.’ (Joseph Smith Jr)

I recall hearing this quote from Joseph Smith many years ago. It applies a caution to each of us as we seek – or even receive, as we believe – revelation from God for our lives. What I wasn’t taught at the time, was the context for the quote.

The context is that Joseph had received a revelation that Hiram Page and Oliver Cowdery should travel to Canada where they would succeed in selling the copyright for the Book of Mormon for a considerable sum of money. When they returned from Canada empty handed, they asked Joseph how he could have received the revelation of success when that wasn’t what happened. His reply was the quote above.

I find this fascinating, because it suggests Joseph himself saying that this particular revelation hadn’t come from God. I presume he believed it had come from himself rather than from the devil.

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An image of the earth from space


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The Glory of the Telestial

For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants is central to our understanding of our lives into the eternities. Latter-day Saints believe in a resurrection of the body, a final judgment, and finally a life eternally in a kingdom of glory for all but the vilest of sinners and most rebellious against God the Eternal Father.

These kingdoms comprise, in very broad terms, the Celestial (for the most valiant), the Terrestrial (for good people who aren’t prepared to sacrifice everything for Christ), and the Telestial (for everyone else). That’s a snapshot of D&C 76.

But look at little deeper into section 76 and there is something really curious about the description of those who will inhabit the Telestial world – something I don’t recall ever hearing anyone speak about.

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Nephi and Laman arguing


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Being Laman

I don’t believe there is any single ‘right’ way to read or interpret the scriptures. Throughout my life, passages of scripture have meant different things to me at different times. You might have had the experience of reading a verse for the umpteenth time, only to have it jump out at you for the first time, and saying to yourself, ‘I’m sure that verse wasn’t there last time I read.’ It happens to me a lot.

The Jews had 4 ways to read the scriptures:

1. Peshat: the literal, simple level.

2. Remez: the allegorical level

3. Derash: the sermonic level – what the text means to individual people applying it in their lives

4. Sod: the mystical level

I often tell myself that I ‘should’ really spend more time examining the scriptures with each of these four ideas in mind. And when I listen to talks given by Robert Kay, for example, on understanding what it means to call upon the name of the Lord in Ether 3-4, it blows my mind at what there is to discover (see the video here). Robert is totally fascinating and I encourage you to give him a listen if you haven’t previously.

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