Progressive Wisdom 1 Nephi 1:8-16

Progressive Wisdom

1 Nephi 1:8-16

In my last paper, I wrote about Progressive Revelation. The concept of Progressive Revelation is basically that God is revealing more of Himself to mankind over time, thereby providing us with a deeper and more complete understanding of God’s revelatory nature. This Progressive Revelation is seen throughout Scripture. We have learned more and more about God as Scripture has evolved over time. I also said God spoke through His prophets and that He continues to speak through His prophets today, so God’s revelation is still happening within His Church, through the prophets and Scripture (my use of the word Scripture includes the Book of Mormon and D&C). The idea that God is continually revealing more of Himself is an important concept, and realizing that He, to this very day, is speaking to mankind is important.

I intend to redefine the concept of Progressive Revelation within this essay by adding another aspect to it. In addition to the already-defined notion of Progressive Revelation, I wanted to add a third aspect. God, through progressive revelation, is constantly revealing or making Himself known. We learn more about Him and about the world in the process, but God’s revelatory nature is not limited to just one dimension of time and space. When God reveals Himself to mankind, the ramifications are usually so great that it spans multiple dimensions of time and space, nature, humanity (i.e., physical, spiritual, and mental realms), heaven, etc. In other words, God doesn’t enter the world to disclose an aspect of Himself for just one purpose and for just one moment in time. When God works within humanity, God is always working within numerous layers of understanding, which takes humanity years to fully comprehend. God’s revelatory work always expresses itself across time and space, allowing for revelations to take place as one ponders God’s actions over time.

This concept of gaining greater understanding across time and space can best be understood within the Jewish Bible, which is broken up into three parts: Laws, Prophets, and Writings. The Laws section comprises the first five books of the Bible, also known as the Torah. The Prophets section contains prophets’ writings. The Writings section, often unnoticed, is just as important, consisting of Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Job, and Ecclesiastes. The Writings are considered Wisdom books, which came about through revelations, but those revelations were gained by looking into the Laws and Prophets books, and gaining a new or more complete understanding, i.e., an inspired servant of God looked into Scripture and gained a new understanding of God that was then written down to become the books of Wisdom, i.e., the Writings. This is important because God’s revelation can continue as inspired servants of God look into Scripture and allow God to give them a greater understanding that may not have been revealed previously.

I will call this new concept Progressive Wisdom, to be placed within the context of Progressive Revelation, as a subcategory--the idea that when we ponder God’s Scripture (Laws) and the prophets’ writings, inspired servants of God can gain a deeper revelation on God’s revelatory nature. Thus, because our Church has living prophets still revealing God’s nature to us, we then can look upon their teachings and ponder them to gain new and deeper understandings of God’s nature. This is best seen in General Conferences, when our inspired leaders often quote previous Prophets and relate those understandings in new and fresh ways to reveal additional aspects of God to mankind. Thus, Progressive Wisdom is the aspect of looking back at a time and space in which God revealed Himself to gain a deeper understanding of that encounter with humanity. That understanding under an inspired prophet then can lead to new Scripture so that all humanity may benefit from that understanding, creating Doctrine and Covenants, which would be considered Progressive Wisdom, or Writings. Thus, our Church today continues to add to the Wisdom Writings for humanity to gain a greater understanding of God. Jesus, of course, would have had this understanding as well. Jesus, at various times, used the phrase: “The Law and the Prophets say….” Although he left off the Wisdom Writings, it is naturally implied, and a Jewish listener would have understood the three distinct divisions. The name for the Jewish Bible, Tanakh, is actually an acronym for the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, with the first two letters of the Hebrew words for all three used to create the name. Thus, within the name Tanakh lies the three distinct aspects of Scripture. Each distinct division is considered God’s Word, but they describe the distinctive nature in which God’s Word is revealed to mankind. For example, the Law was given to Moses by God letter by letter. The Law, in Jewish tradition, is the highest form of God’s revelatory nature. We may notice that The Law contains God’s commandments. The Prophets is the section of Scripture inspired by revelations experienced by God’s servants (prophets) through visions, dreams, and angels; thus,

God’s Word is spoken to mankind through intermediaries, no longer coming directly from God, yet are still authoritative. The Writings, as I explained earlier, are truths revealed by inspired servants of God, such as David and Solomon, who gained a deeper understanding of previous Scripture, then wrote those new understandings down, creating the Book of Wisdom, or Writings. I noted in my previous essay that God is still revealing Himself to mankind through His living prophets, and we are gaining a deeper understanding of God, leading to more Wisdom. This new Wisdom is incorporated into Writings, in keeping with Jewish tradition.

But Progressive Wisdom also can operate within another medium, such as when God reveals Himself physically, or when a believer encounters a divine miracle. In both cases, one’s understanding of these encounters or revelations will be expressed by what’s encountered through the process of Progressive Wisdom. Let me explain how this process works. In all cases in which God encounters humanity, the experience is so great that words simply cannot be used to capture the essence of the entire experience. Thus, over time, when one looks back at the experience, one continually adds more Progressive Wisdom to the experience to expose parts of the experience not mentioned previously. In other words, we only can describe snapshots of the experience, and over time, we continually add more descriptive snapshots to enhance the overall understanding of the experience, which leads to the process of Progressive Wisdom, giving the listener and, at times, the encountered (i.e. the person that experienced the encounter), a deeper understanding--and a new revelation. Thus, descriptions of truly divine encounters and miracles always will be expressed through the process of Progressive Wisdom.

Our prophet, Joseph Smith, had similar experiences when he used Progressive Wisdom to express his divine encounters. At times, people have criticized him, claiming he changed his story over time, when in reality, he was experiencing Progressive Wisdom. As he pondered more and more about his divine encounters, he gained more and more understanding of the encounters, leading to Progressive Wisdom. Thanks to Smith, we now can experience parts of his divine encounter through Progressive Wisdom, allowing his followers to look further at those glimpses and gain an even more divine understanding, giving us greater Godly Wisdom. I daresay that if he had lived longer, Smith would have given us even more Progressive Wisdom from his divine encounters. Simply put, divine encounters are so great that when God works, he works across time and space, reaching all aspects of humanity, i.e., physically, mentally, and spiritually--across space and time. God never works within limitations, allowing His encounters with mankind to have great revelatory impact on humanity, impacting numerous aspects of Creation, and making a profound impact on humanity, which is then expressed across time. Thus, a true encounter with God will have limitless truths and revelations attached to it. Words simply never would be able to truly encapsulate the entire circumstance, so over time, when one ponders the experience, one simply describes another portion of the experience, leading to Progressive Wisdom. At times, we all have had similar experiences in life, in which we tell the listener, “You just had to be there.” This is our way of saying the experience was so great that words would not do it justice, nor could they ultimately convey the totality of the experience itself.

I had a similar experience a few months ago, when I encountered God through one of His servants. The experience was so great that it’s difficult to encapsulate all that God was doing. Thankfully, God had impressed on me the need to journal, and I was able to capture some of the experiences, but as I look back and ponder the experience again, I see that God was working in areas I had not noticed previously. This encounter, combined with reading 1 Nephi 1:8-17, led to the realization that I, too, was experiencing Progressive Wisdom about my own encounter and that Lehi had had a similar experience. I began to realize that I had to find a way to encapsulate these experiences within a set of parameters and give them structure and understanding. This led me to Progressive Revelation, which led me to Progressive Wisdom, the concept of looking into a divine encounter and gaining a deeper understanding of that experience over time. The communication of that experience through segments is called Progressive Wisdom. These individual segments lead to a more complete understanding of the experience, giving the listener a more complete, yet incomplete, understanding of the experience itself. Thus, the process of Progressive Wisdom is the vehicle used to communicate any divine encounter with God.

I made this comparison between my own divine encounter with that of Lehi, when I realized that Lehi’s vision is Progressive. As I began to write my commentary on 1 Nephi, I was immediately struck by Lehi’s vision. This vision of Progressive Wisdom would lay a foundation for the entire Book of Mormon. Let me explain the vision and how in 1 Nephi 1:8-16, Lehi experiences Progressive Wisdom.

I will provide only an overview, as I have promised to keep my studies within 10 pages, and this one section can be made into an entire book by itself. Nephi is writing about his father Lehi’s divine vision, which is so great, he is overcome, returns home, and immediately goes to bed because he was so overwhelmed with his divine vision and/or encounter. In Verse 8, Lehi begins to unravel the experience and tries to put it into words. What may go unnoticed is that he uses Progressive Wisdom as he relates his encounter. As Lehi continues describing his vision, we notice how Lehi’s revelation from God becomes more and more complete. In other words, as he ponders and expresses his vision, he becomes more and more aware of what he is seeing and who he is seeing. We will focus on how the concept of God evolves throughout his encounter.

In Verse 8, we notice that Lehi says, “He thought he saw God sitting upon his throne.” At this point, Lehi is unaware of who he is seeing; thus, he “thought” he saw God, but he’s unsure. True to most Godly encounters, at first, it’s hard to understand what you’re seeing. What’s happening is so new and overwhelming, you just don’t fully understand. Thus, Lehi is unsure of what is really happening, but as he progresses through his vision, Lehi describes God by saying, “Surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God.” Notice that Lehi is describing God as the God of the angels. He mentions that these angels are singing and praising “their” God. As you might notice, Lehi has yet to personalize God. As he progresses through his vision, he goes from, “He thought he saw God,” to “This being their God, the angels’ God.” As Lehi progresses through his vision, we notice in Verse 14 that Lehi now describes God by saying, “O Lord God Almighty!” You might think that at this point, God represents the God of Lehi, but notice that Lehi is just using a term to describe a powerful God, but he has yet to make God personal or make God his God. We progress from “he thought” to “the angels’ God” to “Lord God Almighty.” It’s not until Verse 15 that we read “his (Lehi’s) God.” The whole experience was so great that through the process of Progressive Wisdom, we see how Lehi’s vision and his understanding of it became more complete and personal. Of course, the more Lehi ponders his experience, the more he understands, leading to greater wisdom. One reads in Verse 16 that Nephi recognizes how great the experience was, writing, “I do not make a full account of the things which my father hath written, for he hast written many things which he saw in visions and in dreams.” From this experience and others, Lehi was able to write so much information that Nephi simply couldn’t copy it all into his book and had to abridge his father’s record.

One only can imagine the wealth of understanding we could have learned from reading Lehi’s entire Progressive Wisdom writings. I don’t believe this story at the beginning of the Book of Mormon is there without a specific purpose. I believe one reason is to show just how Progressive Revelation and Progressive Wisdom will evolve throughout the Book of Mormon. Throughout the entire book, we will see these processes evolve over time. We’re gaining a new and deeper understanding of God and Jesus through the process of Progressive Revelation, and we also are seeing how inspired righteous kings gave us Progressive Wisdom, leading to Progressive Revelation. If I can say we start with Progressive Wisdom and Progressive Revelation, we can say we end there as well. In Moroni 10, we noticed that we are to “ponder” what we have read. We end the Book of Mormon on the same basis in which we started, that when one encounters God, we should “ponder” because wisdom is given over time, and God is constantly speaking to us through His Word, and through His living prophets. Progressive Wisdom takes place when we encounter the God of Creation and begin to make sense of that experience. Progressive Revelation is continual, as I mentioned in my previous essay, and Progressive Wisdom is just one way a true encounter with God is expressed and passed down. As inspired Servants of God within our Church continue to allow God to use them to convey revelations, we will continue to receive Progressive Revelations from God, who is still speaking to us from the past, present, and future because God is not limited by time and space. Therefore, His Word endures forever.

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