Weekly Newsletter

The concept of “the birthpangs of Messiah” arose out of Israel’s need for a divinely empowered deliverer of God’s people when conditions became intolerable. When Israel served in hard bondage in Egypt and the people cried to God for deliverance, he raised up Moses, who led them to the Promised Land. When the Philistines were […]

A “precept of men” we may have heard is that we should not search out mysteries. As if seeking the truths of God for ourselves is prohibited! In a day when “all things shall be revealed” (2 Nephi 27:11, 22; cf. Doctrine & Covenants 101:32—and indeed are beginning to be revealed—won’t seeking the truth save

Having first established—by analyzing the Book of Isaiah’s internal literary features—that “all things that he spake have been [in ancient times] and shall be [in the end-time]” (3 Nephi 23:3; cf. Ecclesiastes 1:9), we learn that Egypt, the great superpower of Isaiah’s day, forms a type of America, the great superpower of our day. But

I have shown that ancient Near Eastern emperor–vassal covenants are helpful in understanding the workings of the Sinai and Davidic Covenants. On a parallel with those ancient models, God acts in the role of emperor and his people or King David and his heirs act in the role of vassals. But there is a third

When Jehovah God of Israel addresses his end-time people through Isaiah, saying “I announce to you new things, things withheld and unknown to you, things now coming into being, not hitherto, things you have not heard of before, lest you should say, Indeed I knew them! You have not heard them, nor have you known

There is something right or righteous about praising our Savior Jesus Christ. As Jehovah God of Israel—who “paid the price of our peace” and “by whose wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5; cf. 57:19)—he apprises those who believe in him that they are “a people I formed for myself to speak out in praise of

In the Father’s “gift of his Son” (Ether 12:11)—a gift that keeps on giving—we observe the great “condescension of God” (1 Nephi 11:26) that underlies his plan of salvation and exaltation. Born in the flesh as a babe in Bethlehem (beit lehem, “the House of Bread”), Jehovah, God of the Old Testament, manifests himself to

If you have ever ventured to discuss some aspect of Isaiah’s prophecies with someone who was unacquainted with it, you may have inadvertently provoked the sometimes hostile response of “That’s controversial!” or “That isn’t in the manual!” or “I haven’t heard that before!”—as if what they haven’t heard before can’t be true, or that the

The prophetic construct of a “Messiah Son of Joseph” that relies on rabbinical interpretations of Zechariah and other prophets was pounced on by many Ephraimite Gentiles when popularized by Joseph Klausner in his book, The Messianic Idea in Israel. To them, resemblances of this hypothetical figure to the prophet Joseph Smith were too good to

When Isaiah asks God’s people of our day, “You have heard the whole vision [hazut kullah]; how is it you do not proclaim it?” (Isaiah 48:6), he is predicting the Ephraimite Gentiles’ neglect of his end-time prophecies whose understanding would most empower them through the time the world has now entered. When he adds, “For

Vague ideas exist about the so-called “gathering” or “gathering of Israel,” but do we really know how the scriptures define what this is? The same applies to the idea of “hastening the work.” As both are an integral part of the same end-time scenario, and as neither has yet occurred according to their scriptural definitions,

Book of Mormon examples of the Davidic Covenant in action exist for anyone who wants a clear idea of how it operates. Without its end-time reinstitution among the Ephraimite Gentiles, the prophesied gathering and restoration of the house of Israel—Jews, Ten Tribes, and Lamanites—cannot occur. Nor can the coming in glory of Jehovah/Jesus to reign