READING FOR MARCH 17
3 Nephi 27-4 Nephi
LAST CLASS OF THE YEAR WILL BE APRIL 28
BLESSINGS OF THE COVENANT
“Rewards for obedience to the commandments are almost beyond mortal comprehension. Here, the children of the covenant become a strain of sin-resistant souls.”
Russell M. Nelson, April Conference 1995
THE LORD’S COVENANT OF KINDNESS
“Chapter 22 of 3 Nephi is a blessing of comfort from the Lord to his covenant people. In many ways it reads like a love letter from a husband to his wife, a billet-doux with covenant blessings and promises encoded into every verse.The verses of the text also resemble a wedding song or poem that celebrates the joy of a bride and her groom.The language sings with poetic figures, scriptural allusions, and multilayered metaphors. All of these language features emphasize the kindness that the Lord feels for his people, making the Lord's love seem impossible to fully express.”
“The Hebrew word for kindness is hesed, which has connotations of mercy, courtship, favors, loyalty, cherishing, marital duty, and constant attention (see 3 Nephi 22:8, 10, parallel to Isaiah 54:8, 10).7 In 3 Nephi 22, the Lord discusses his everlasting covenant of kindness by comparing latter-day Zion to a barren woman.Throughout the chapter and in related scriptures, the barren woman is symbolically associated with the destiny of (1) Zion and the church, (2) the earth and all creation, and (3) the Lord's servants and the Latter-day Saints. Each verse of 3 Nephi 22 weaves various combinations of these elements together into a beautiful song of loving-kindness.”
“In keeping with the plan of salvation, the faith and the faithfulness of the woman must be tried; she experiences a temporary separation from her husband and promised children.The woman lives alone as if she has been widowed or as if she has never been married. She has never been able to bear the children that she was promised in the covenant.The woman feels abandoned and fearful because she does not have a com- panion; she feels sad and desolate because she has no children to care for; she feels ashamed and vulnerable because in her culture singleness is a stigma and barrenness is a curse. Other women in her society have the blessings of family life, while she is ‘afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted!’ (3 Nephi 22:11, parallel to Isaiah 54:11).”
“When explaining the marriage metaphor, many scholars interpret all references to the woman as references to people who break their covenants.They read the Lord's kind words as an offer of forgiveness to a wayward but eventually repentant people. We should not equate the faithful barren wife with the adulterous wife.Although ‘all we like sheep have gone astray’ (Isaiah 53:6), the language of 3 Nephi 22 suggests that the Lord is addressing a woman who has tried to remain faithful to her covenants, not a woman who has been rejected because of infidelity.”
“Enlarge the place of thy tent literally means 'make the place where you set up your tent larger’ and figuratively means ‘make room in your life for promised blessings’ (see Genesis 9:27). Let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations means ‘let the birth of children cause you to enlarge your home.’ The desolate woman must have a great deal of faith to enlarge her tent to prepare for the blessing of children.”
“The single woman need not fear that her blessings will never come; the childless woman need not fear being ostracized; the woman alone should not be afraid of those who mock her efforts to rejoice in spite of rejection or loneliness.”
“In Jewish culture, a husband is not permitted to see his wife going through the travail of childbirth, but he does not abandon her. He sits in the corner of the room with his back turned so that she will not feel embarrassed or immodest in her hour of agony. She recites psalms as she goes through contractions.When the woman can no longer sing because of the pain, her husband takes over, reciting the psalms for her.”
“Though we cannot see the Lord, when we weep, he weeps with us; when we sing, he rejoices with us. He understands our pain because he ‘hid not [his] face from shame and spitting’ (Isaiah 50:6, parallel to 2 Nephi 7:6), even though sometimes ‘we [hide] as it were our faces from him’ (Isaiah 53:3, parallel to Mosiah 14:3).
‘My kindness’ is parallel to the 'covenant of my peace,’ implying that the main characteristic of the Lord's covenant is kindness, a charity that is characterized by peace.”
“The promise of children is the greatest blessing a barren woman can hope for, even if she must wait in faith. For the promise of this blessing, Christ was willing to be called as a man rejected, like a barren woman who is willing to suffer in order to be eventually blessed with children. Christ wanted us to be his children spiritually. The only barrenness we need ever fear is a lack of kindness; the only desolation we need ever dread is the loss of charity.”
Cynthia L. Hallen, https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/sites/default/files/archive-files/pdf/hallen/ 2016-02-05/12_cynthia_l._hallen_the_lords_covenant_1998.pdf
THE LORD’S COVENANT OF KINDNESS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulL7Z7B2S_0
MALACHI’S PROPHECIES
“After Jesus had described the last days and the blessings that would be given to the faithful, the question remained: ‘who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth?’ (3 Nephi 24:2; Malachi 3:2). Malachi 3–4 (3 Nephi 24–25) provides answers to this question.These chapters indicate that it will not be:
- those who are ‘sorcerers, adulterers, false swearers,’ ‘those that oppress the hireling in his wages,’ that oppress ‘the widow’ and orphans, or ‘turn aside the stranger,’ or those who fear not the Lord (3 Nephi 24:5)
- those who have ‘gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them’ (v. 7) those who have robbed God (in ‘tithes and offerings') (vv. 8–9)
- those who have ‘spoken against’ God (v. 13)
3 Nephi 24:18 (cf. Malachi 3:18) reveals the positive answer: Those who ‘discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.’ As Kent P. Jackson observed,‘Malachi’s revelation drew a stark contrast between those who are humble and receptive to the Lord’s will and those who are not.’”
https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/why-did-jesus-give-the-nephites-malachis-prophecies
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