Day 20 Plain and Precious Things Taken from the Bible

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus tells his followers that they are the salt of the earth, and in the same sentence offers a warning that savorless salt is good for nothing. Join me in an attempt to be savory salt as I share each day one verse of scripture and one small thought. Perhaps this small daily emphasis can lead to greater savor in your life and ultimately you and I can be savory salt.

Hello, my friends and family, wherever you're listening from. Thank you for joining me and know that I'm cheering for your every success. Welcome to day 20.

These chapters, folks, I got to tell you, I love these chapters and chapter 13 is awesome. So if you're following along on the 365 day journey with me, reading the Book of Mormon every day, Today, for 365 days, today, day 20, you will read 1 Nephi chapter 13, verses 10 through 29. So this is one of those rare chapters, at least so far in the book, that we actually need to divide up over a few days.

And so you started 13 yesterday if you did the reading and today takes us into the middle of chapter 13 and then we're going to finish chapter 13 tomorrow. The verse that I've chosen for you today, well, actually, before I dive into the verse, just a little challenge for you. I remember being a teenager and reading chapter 13 and starting to put some dots together.

I was learning United States history at the time and I was reading chapter 13 and I was sitting here going, wait a second, is Nephi talking about Christopher Columbus or other explorers here? And then I thought, wait a second, is he talking about the Founding Fathers? Wait, wait, is he talking about the American Revolution and the United States colonies fighting against Great Britain and their motherland?

Like, there's some awesome stuff inside of here. And so I challenge you to kind of overlay this one to American history a little bit and take a look at what Nephi gets to see inside of this vision. The verse we're going to look at today is not about any of the American Revolution stuff.

Instead, we're going to dive into verse 28. And Nephi sees a vision of the Bible being written by the followers of Jesus Christ. He sees the records and he sees that they hold great information, but then he talks about this time and what happens with the Bible a little bit.

Verse 28 says, "'Wherefore thou seest that after the book had gone forth through the hands of the great and abominable church, that there were many plain and precious things'." It's interesting here because the part I want to focus on actually is part of the foundation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Joseph Smith was asked repeatedly when the church was just beginning what The Church of Jesus Christ stood for. What were its core tenets or articles?

And he wrote a letter that later would become known as the "Articles of Faith" for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And what Nephi sees here is actually an explanation of one of those "Articles of Faith" that I want to share with you today. If you look at the eighth "Article of Faith" for the Church, it says, "We believe the Bible to be the Word of God as far as it is translated correctly.

We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God." What's happening inside of this verse is Joseph Smith is trying to say, hey, look, even Nephi saw that over the years, the Bible was translated and overly translated and overly translated. And sometimes in those translations, there were nefarious plans to take plain and precious parts out of the Bible. And thus the Bible lost some of those.

And Nephi's seeing it happen here in verse 28. And I think it's interesting. I'm actually going to connect today and tomorrow together because Nephi sees what else happens as well aside from just this.

But we have a beginning understanding here to one of the core tenets of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that is, we absolutely believe the Bible to be the Word of God. We also understand that there are components of it that had either translation issues or were intentionally and deliberately left out or revised in order to mislead men in their beliefs of Jesus Christ. So kind of a half of a thought, if I could leave a thought with you today, because the second half of that thought comes in the second half of Nephi's vision today.

But I hope you enjoy this part of chapter 13. Look at the other historical aspects of it. You're going to love the things that you see if you're a history nut like I am.

Until then, that's all I have for today. Remember that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass. Keep it small, keep it simple, and always seek to be savory salt.

I'll be here tomorrow. I hope you are too.