{"id":29823,"date":"2016-01-08T21:24:23","date_gmt":"2016-01-09T04:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=29823"},"modified":"2016-01-08T21:24:23","modified_gmt":"2016-01-09T04:24:23","slug":"bom-1-nephi-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2016\/01\/bom-1-nephi-14.html","title":{"rendered":"BOM 1 Nephi 14"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Temple<\/a>
The Kyiv Ukraine Temple
(LDS.org; click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s reading is\u00a01 Nephi 14<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to continue focusing on a topic that I raised yesterday<\/a>, regarding 1 Nephi 13. \u00a0That topic is the \u201cgreat and abominable church.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I said yesterday that I don\u2019t believe that the idea can be sustained that that phrase refers to the Roman Catholic Church. \u00a0I\u2019ll go further, today, and say that it clearly cannot<\/em> be referring to a specific denomination.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1 Nephi 14:10, Nephi reports<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And he [the angel] said unto me: Behold there are save\u00a0two\u00a0churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the\u00a0other\u00a0is the church of the\u00a0devil; wherefore,\u00a0whoso\u00a0belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the\u00a0whore\u00a0of all the earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

If everybody who doesn\u2019t belong to \u201cthe church of the Lamb of God\u201d is a member of \u201cthe church of the devil,\u201d that church cannot simply be one denomination among many (however large).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Furthermore, with that in mind and in that light, I\u2019m open to the possibility that \u201cthe church of the Lamb of God,\u201d as Nephi uses the phrase here, also doesn\u2019t refer simply to a denomination, and not even to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible that there are nominal members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who really belong to \u201cthe church of the devil,\u201d and that there are members of other denominations \u2014 and perhaps even adherents of other faiths altogether \u2014 who, ultimately, belong or will belong to \u201cthe church of the Lamb of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

However we interpret \u201cthe church of the Lamb of God,\u201d though, 1 Nephi 14:12 is quite interesting:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were\u00a0few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon\u00a0all\u00a0the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some members expect membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to expand geometrically, so that our numbers become enormous:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. \u00a0(Daniel 2:34-35, 44)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And that, of course, hasn\u2019t quite happened yet. \u00a0Others, critics of the Church, mock and deride its relatively small numbers, claiming that our failure, thus far, to convert hundreds and hundreds of millions demonstrates the insignificance and silliness of the Restored Gospel.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Give us time!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

One can easily point out the fact, of course, that Christianity itself, around AD 200, was still very far from the worldwide movement that it\u2019s since become and very far from the major world-historical force that it\u2019s long been.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s crucial to note that, in the vision of the latter days recorded in 1 Nephi 14:12, while \u201cthe saints of God were . . .\u00a0upon\u00a0all\u00a0the face of the earth,\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u201ctheir dominions upon the face of the earth\u00a0were\u00a0small\u201d and the \u201cnumbers\u201d of \u201cthe church of the Lamb of God\u201d were \u201cfew.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is no scriptural reason to expect\u00a0that, this side of the Millennium (and even, perhaps,\u00a0throughout<\/em>\u00a0the Millennium), \u201cthe church of the Lamb of God\u201d is going to win any sort of global popularity contest.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll spread worldwide \u2014 we currently have over 11,000 members in Mongolia, of all places; temples are going up in such cities\u00a0as Bangkok, Lisbon, Paris, Port-au-Prince, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, and Durban, South Africa; and a new mission has just been established in Hanoi \u2014 but there is, alas, no reason to believe that we\u2019ll ever be Earth\u2019s\u00a0predominant church, numerically speaking.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Today\u2019s reading is\u00a01 Nephi 14. \u00a0 I\u2019m going to continue focusing on a topic that I raised yesterday, regarding 1 Nephi 13. \u00a0That topic is the \u201cgreat and abominable church.\u201d \u00a0 I said yesterday that I don\u2019t believe that the idea can be sustained that that phrase refers to the Roman Catholic Church. 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