Day 116 Seers: Translating Ancient Records by God's Gift

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 116 on our 365-day journey through the Book of Mormon. And today, your reading is going to be one chapter.

It's a rarity now as we have been going through Mosiah and dividing up chapters and sections. Today, you're going to be reading Mosiah chapter eight. Let's dive into this one.

We've got some, it's kind of a connector chapter here actually. We have Ammon who has come over from the King Benjamin–Mosiah world, right? And he has found this group of people that was Limhi.

Then Limhi showed him that they had records about their experiences, and then he also tells them about other records that they found going out in their exploration. So we've got all sorts of connectors coming up. And then we're going to dive in tomorrow and for the next several days, focusing on the records of Zeniff, who is Limhi's grandfather.

Did you get all that? I hope so. Let's dive into the verse today and see if we can just focus on one verse here and maybe just come out with a little thought.

We have Mosiah 8, verse 13 today as our verse in Savory Salt. And it says this: Now Ammon said unto him, I can assuredly tell thee, O king, of a man that can translate the records. For he has wherewith that he can look and translate all records that are of ancient date.

And it is a gift from God. And the things are called interpreters. And no man can look in them, except he be commanded.

Lest he should look for that he ought not, and he should perish. And whosoever is commanded to look in them, the same is called seer. Now there's a lot going on inside of this verse, but I think it's pretty cool actually.

We get regularly to have an opportunity to raise our hands to sustain our leaders as prophets, seers, and revelators. And there's not a lot in scripture that dives into the differences of each of those. There's not like a place where somebody teaches and says, "Here's prophet, here's seer, here's revelator." We kind of all see them as synonymous, right?

And just kind of all the same thing. And yet here in Mosiah, Ammon is explaining something really cool. That I think is not like a proof necessarily that Joseph Smith wrote these under revelation rather than made them up on his own.

But we have here something very similar to the way that Joseph Smith described translating the Book of Mormon. We have these things—the things, even Ammon calls them things—that are called interpreters, right? And they have the ability to translate all records that are of ancient date.

And it's a gift from God. Joseph Smith talked about translating the Book of Mormon through the gift and power of God. I love this.

This is just a little mini testimony nod to me that when we sustain our leaders as prophets, seers, and revelators, we sustain them as those having the ability that should scripture come in terms of ancient scripture, or should the need arise for ancient dated records to be translated, that we sustain these men as prophets, seers—seers meaning those that have the ability to see these and translate them—and revelators. Just a quick little nod to those that we sustain regularly in our leadership. I am grateful to have prophets, seers, and revelators on the earth today with living revelation and ongoing revelation being a regular part of our church experience inside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

That's all for today, my friends. 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, and I hope you are too.