Come Follow Me with Sam

Welcome to Come Follow Me With Sam! We are going to talk about Enos, Jarom, Omni and friends, exodus's, new civilizations, and old ones, all in one short blog post.  Just like there are crazy ripples happening in the world today, there are crazy ripples in Nephite civilization. This is a really great reading considering the current events that happened this week. What happened in that forest? Enos's prayer in the forest starts out with a simple enough explanation - he was thinking hard about life and wanted to talk to God about it. What happens in the forest is very complex. Here are some elements that I can pull out. 1. Enos was really praying. All the day long and when the night came, he 'did still raise my voice high that it reached the heavens'. He REALLY had some things to say. What things of eternal life and the joy of the saints sunk deep into his heart? for that Enos matter, what was the joy of the saints? in our twitch stream today , my brother suggested...

Welcome to come follow me with Sam! We are finishing jacob's record this week! We will cover the allegory of the olive tree, Jacobs teachings about it, and his smack down with Sherem, the first anti-christ in the Book of Mormon. The allegory of the olive tree The allegory of the olive tree is more chronological in its nature than many other teachings we have so far covered in the Book of Mormon, but the central nature is still a spiritual one. It is a mistake to merely dismiss the allegory as a simplified way of demonstrating future events. Jacob shows by his introduction in chapter 4 and in his commentary in Chapter 6 that he is primarily concerned with the redemptive theme, not simply chronological fortune-telling. That being said, it will help to understand the message if we cover the more chronological part first. The allegory can be split into 3 phases: Phase 1: The master of the vineyard and his servant observe the tame olive tree that it is producing decayed branches...

Hello everyone, welcome to Come Follow Me with Sam. Since the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints cancelled church meetings world-wide due to the corona virus, I have a special announcement. Me and my brother will be Twitch-streaming a come follow me discussion today at 2:00PM MST. We plan to continue to Twitch-Stream every Sunday at 2:00PM until church resumes. You can participate live at twitch.tv/comefollowmejosephandsam For those new to Twitch, it is an online streaming platform that is completely free to watch and encourages participation via live comments/chat. We will be covering Come Follow Me and other various topics in the coming weeks. See you there at 2:00PM MST Sundays :)

Welcome to Come Follow Me with Sam! We are now entering a period of scripture that I call the Lull - things slow down a little and its not clear either what is happening among the Nephites or how righteous they, or even the authors themselves, are. The words of Jacob are, like Nephi, pure and sincere. Here we have a prophet and leader who knows Christ, exhorts his people to follow Him, and corrects their path in fear of God. Enter into his Rest Jacob is careful to talk about his efforts to spiritually help his people. At a head is verse 7:  Wherefore we labored diligently among our people, that we might persuade them to come unto Christ, and partake of he goodness of God that they might enter into his rest, lest by any means he should swear in his wrath they should not enter in, as in the provocation in the days of temptation while the children of Israel were in the wilderness. I created a mini-series on revelation last year and I talk about this curious phrase, the rest ...

Welcome to Come Follow me with Sam! 2 Nephi 31-33 is where the gospel is taught in its plainest form as far as I know. These are also chapters that speak so purely that I am extra careful that my commentary is meaningful and not detract-ful from the core message. It is not a mistake that we focus an entire week on these chapters. This is the way Nephi is continually explaining the condescension of God in different forms, probably because it is so key to the plan. In Chapter 31, he says he makes an end to prophesying on Isaiah and instead will teach according to 'the plainness of my prophesying'. He talks about baptism. He really wants us to understand what baptism is. While on my mission, I realized in the first few weeks that I had no idea about the big picture of baptism. by the end of my mission, I realized that even my new understanding of the first few weeks was just the beginning. Nephi's approach to help us understand this is unique in possibly all the scrip...