Obey and Prosper

 

My Grandma Allsop has always been a good example to me as someone who continually reads and studies the scriptures. She loves the word of God, and it shows in the way she has lived her life. She has inspired me in my own scripture study.

A few years ago my mom made us scripture study journals, and when I first started writing in mine, I started a few lists:

1. Book of Mormon Authorship: The plates of the Book of Mormon were passed from ancient prophet to ancient prophet. Sometimes it can be easy to forget who is narrating. I've been keeping a list up through Words of Mormon, after which it gets tricky, because in all the books after that, Mormon likes to interject things and do summaries, and then go back to the text of the original prophets.
2. The Contents of the Brass Plates (as noted by Nephi in 1 Nephi:10-14)
3. Prophets Mentioned in the Book of Mormon without Current Books of Scripture
4. Book of Mormon Bad Guys: I need to update this list, but I generally keep track of whether they were Lamanite or Nephite, the prophet they rebelled against, and how they died.
5. Verses that have some form of the phrasing "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall prosper in the land."

That last list is really why I am writing today. I pretty much blazed through the last half of Alma this week, and even though I've been keeping the obey/prosper list for a few years now, there are always verses I miss.

But I've been thinking a lot, especially with the upcoming elections and the general state of people in the world right now, about how our blessings correlate with our dedication to God. While this definitely has a personal application, I've been thinking about it more on a country- and worldwide scale.

Lots of people don't like the "war chapters" in Alma, because they describe...wars. There is a lot of fighting and strategem and people dying or getting captured. But the righteous leaders remind the people that if they remember the Lord that they will be blessed, and they will overcome their enemies. I think our country as a whole has forgotten the Lord and that he is the source of all our blessings.

Anyhow, there's a lot more that could be said about that, but I won't say it. I'll just say this: the scriptures are true. And we have them. And since we have them, we have the benefit of learning from the mistakes of previous civilizations. It would be a shame to waste that gift.

I'm sure this list is incomplete (especially since it stops in Alma, and there are six more books aftere that), but I've included the verses I've found that fit under my obey and prosper list. So far there are 25 references. (So maybe it's an important concept?)

1 Nephi

• 2:20 - the Lord to Nephi
• 4:14 - Nephi recalling the Lord's words
• 7:13 - Nephi to his brethren
• 14:1-2 - Angel to Nephi
• 17:13-15 - the Lord to Nephi before he builds ship

2 Nephi

• 1:9-10 - Lehi's prophecies to his sons
• 1:31 - Lehi to Zoram
• 3:2 - Lehi to son Joseph
• 4:4 - Lehi to Laman and his posterity
• 5:10-11 - Nephi

Short Books

• Enos 1:10 - the Lord to Enos
• Jarom 1:9-10 - Jarom quoting what the Lord said to his fathers
• Omni 1:6 - Omni quoting the Lord to his fathers

Mosiah

• 1:7 - King Benjamin to his sons
• 1:13-14 - King Benjamin to his son Mosiah
• 2:22 - King Benjamin to his people

Alma

• 9:13 - Alma to the people of Ammonihah
• 9:24 - Alma to the people of Ammonihah
• 36:1 - Alma to his son Helaman
• 36:20 - Alma to his son Helaman
• 38:1 - Alma to his son Shiblon
• 45:6-8 - Alma to his son Helaman
• 48:15 - Mormon talking about Nephites
• 48:25 - Mormon talking about Nephites
• 62:51 - Mormon talking about Nephites

Comments

[russanne]

I like this a lot. I want to start reading the Book of Mormon in a different light each year. I'm going to get a new blue one every January and dive in with lots of marking a journal taking.

[Mahna Mahna]

This is probably cheating, but here's a link. Interestingly, 'inasmuch' seems highly correlated to this phrase. The theme is present in a lot of other places though too -- it's just not explicitly stated.

http://www.lds.org/scriptures/search?lang=eng&type=verse&query=inasmuch+&testament=bofm

[Darcy]

Yep, that's totally cheating. I figured there would be some kind of easy search for that, but that would make it way too...easy. And you're right, there are verses that talk about the general idea without using the specific wording.

There's also a broader application to it too. There's the obey my commandments, prosper in the land bit, with a very literal application, then there's the obey my commandment and ye shall have eternal life application. So it's a temporal and a spiritual directive.

[Darcy]

And I think "inasmuch" correlates with this phrase because it's an exchange. If you do this, then this will happen.