Sunday, July 16, 2023

2 Nephi 28:4 -- On Contention and Education

"And they shall contend one with another; and their priests shall contend one with another, and they shall teach with their learning, and deny the Holy Ghost, which giveth utterance."
2 Nephi 28:4


This is talking about churches in the latter days, but it sounds a lot like us as individuals as well. We contend about so many things, and rely on our education and opinions rather than on the spirit. Strife (2 Timothy 2:23-24) and contention (Mosiah 23:15, 3 Nephi 11:29) are both to be avoided, but education is good as long as we don't use it in place of God. God wants us to study things out in our minds before asking about them... learning to figure things out and how to think, and God tells us that "to be learned is good if [we] hearken unto the counsels of God" (2 Nephi 9:29). Education is awesome, but we have to make sure we are still listening to God rather than thinking that we already know everything.

Today, let's make sure we aren't denying or resisting the Holy Ghost, either through contention or because we are choosing to rely on the world's wisdom to the exclusion of God's wisdom, and let's be very careful when we teach, making sure that we are teaching God's actual word, not our own ideas or the ideas of others. That doesn't mean we can't discuss, paraphrase, or talk about how we think God's plan all fits together... we just need to make certain that we are very clear about what God actually says and what he doesn't so that we don't lead anyone astray.

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