Sunday School Class Challenge Questions

Someone's parent came up with the idea that I ought to challenge the more "advanced" kids in my class. So every week I will post 3 challenge questions. You can email me the answers or bring them to class. Don't worry, you will be rewarded for your effort. But it is not required for you to participate.

1 Nephi 12-14

1. The vision of Nephi in these chapters is a tour conducted by the angel who began the instruction in 1 Nephi 11. Note as you read this chapter the things to which Nephi’s attention is directed by this heavenly messenger, using the words look and/or behold. Ask yourself why Nephi was instructed to focus on these things rather than the any others that might have been presented. Why did he include these accounts in this record. Speaking to his brother Jacob many years later, Nephi instructed him to write

. . . a few of the things which I considered to be most precious; that I should not touch, save it were lightly, concerning the history of this people which are called the people of Nephi. . . .

And if there were preaching which was sacred, or revelation which was great, or prophesying, that I should engraven the heads of them upon these plates, and touch upon them as much as it were possible, for Christ's sake, and for the sake of our people (Jacob 1:2,4).

What is there about the accounts of 1 Nephi 12 that could be considered “most precious?” Do these verses include “the heads” (the most significant parts) of sacred preaching, great revelation, or prophesying? Why is this material in the book at all?

2. As we read the words of the angel [in I Nephi 13], we discover that the world has never had a complete Bible, for it was massively, even cataclysmically, corrupted before it was distributed [Robert J. Matthews, "The Book of Mormon as a Co Witness with the Bible and as a Guide to Biblical Criticism," LDS Church Educational System Symposium on the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, 1982), p. 57)]

The only mistakes the newer translations can correct are those made since 325 A.D. when Constantine ordered 50 copies of the Bible made and sent to all the major Roman cities.

If you apply these descriptions of the corruption of the sacred text to the image of the iron rod, you can begin to understand why Satan has great power and why Gentiles stumble and are blinded. Who would want to trust their eternal destiny to a rod from which large chunks were missing—a rod weakened by rust and corruption?

Nephi learned, however, that the Lord had a solution for this corruption of the text before it ever took place. Nephi was promised: “Neither will the Lord God suffer that the Gentiles shall forever remain in that awful state of blindness . . .” (1 Nephi 13:32) What would he do to counteract the effects of the crippling damage done by this Satanic organization?

3. What 7 plain and precious truths taught in the bible are clarified in the Book of Mormon?