Alma 15-16
Reading Assignment for class on Monday, Jan. 22: Alma 15-16
Learning Activities:
- What do you admire about Zeezrom?
- What did you learn from him about repentance?
- Read these quotes and consider adding them to your scriptures:
Alma 15:3–5. Physical suffering caused by spiritual disorders
Elder Bednar:
“Guilt is to our spirit what pain is to our body—a warning of danger and a protection from additional damage” (David A. Bednar, “We Believe in Being Chaste,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2013, 44).
While Zeezrom was repenting, his sins “did harrow up his mind until it did become exceedingly sore” (Alma 15:3). President Boyd K. Packer (1924–2015) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke of the reality of the physical suffering that can be caused by spiritual disorders:
President Boyd K. Packer
“I [once] asked a doctor of family medicine how much of his time was devoted purely to correcting physical disorders. He has a large practice, and after thoughtfully considering, he answered, ‘Not more than 20 percent. The rest of the time I seem to be working on problems that very much affect the physical well-being of my patients but do not originate in the body.
“‘These physical disorders,’ the doctor concluded, ‘are merely symptoms of some other kind of trouble.’
“In recent generations one after another of the major diseases has yielded to control or cure. Some very major ones still remain, but we now seem able to do something about most of them.
“There is another part of us, not so tangible, but quite as real as our physical body. This intangible part of us is described as mind, emotion, intellect, temperament, and many other things. Very seldom is it described as spiritual.
“But there is a spirit in man; to ignore it is to ignore reality. There are spiritual disorders, too, and spiritual diseases that can cause intense suffering.
“The body and the spirit of man are bound together” (Boyd K. Packer, “The Balm of Gilead,” Ensign, Nov. 1977, 59).
Alma 15:11-12
Elder Oaks:
“When we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we must have trust in him. We must trust him enough that we are content to accept his will, knowing that he knows what is best for us. …
“… Faith, no matter how strong it is, cannot produce a result contrary to the will of him whose power it is. … We cannot have true faith in the Lord without also having complete trust in the Lord’s will and in the Lord’s timing” (Dallin H. Oaks, “Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,” Ensign, May 1994, 99, 100).
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