Ok, so for the spiritual thought today: we were talking about D&C 6 &9 today in class. In 6, Oliver Cowdery is told he will be able to translate – “whatsoever you desire shall be given you”. In 9, the Lord takes the gift away from Oliver “ you took no thought save it was to ask me”. We have always thought Ollie went down in history as being a complete failure. That’s not necessarily true. There is record of 28 words written in Joseph Smith’s handwriting in Alma 28. That is approximately where they would have been historically due to the date of the revelations and other things historians have tracked. My prof suggested that those 28 words were written by Joseph and translated by Ollie. What that means is that he successfully did it. What happened? Same as Peter. Peter walked on water and then his faith faltered. I think (because I thought of this analogy even before the prof suggested it) that it’s the same situation. Ollie tried, succeeded and then faltered. Anyhow, I thought that was cool. Also, we talked about how the book of mormon is the fullness of the gospel. The bible is a skeleton – it tells you what to know, but not how to know it or what to do with it. Not only that, the BoM provides application – example that makes it very clear what the gospel is. There are 3 specific chapters wherein the gospel is stated in its entirety. And the rest of the book is expounding on how to live: 2Ne 31, 3Ne 11, and 3Ne 27. For example: baptism. We know Jesus was baptized, we presume he was baptized by immersion, but we wouldn’t know how or even what to say if it weren’t for the BoM. So the BoM contains the fullness. It puts the meat on the bones. So my challenge to you is look for instances in which the Book of Mormon clarifies the Bible and it may be necessary to even look for vagueness in the bible. But the Book of Mormon helps us understand the bible in ways that other religions can't.
