Ether 3

Today I have two smaller issues that stuck out to me while reading Ether 3.

The first was after the brother of Jared first saw the finger of the Lord, but had yet seen Christ. The Lord then asks the brother of Jared, "Sawest thou more than this"? (v. 9) In response to that question, the brother of Jared asks the Lord to show Himself unto the brother of Jared. (v. 10) The interesting part of this passage is what happens next, the Lord asks, "Believest thou the words which I shall speak"? (v. 11) This is virtually the same question that the Spirit of the Lord asked Nephi in 1 Nephi chapter 11 when Nephi is pondering the dream of his father. The Spirit asked Nephi, "Believest though that thy father saw the tree of which he has spoken"? (1 Ne. 11:4) Don't they already know the answer to that question? Obviously the answer to that question is, 'yes.' So then, why do they need to ask it? It seems to be the question asked before something miraculous happens. I don't know the answer to that question. Maybe it is because Heavenly Father wants us to ask ourselves that question before He shows us a vision. I don't know. Does anyone else know the answer to that question?

Second thing that stuck out to me was that I believe there are more people on this Earth that have seen Christ than we believe or think. When a person has faith, they are shown signs (because signs follow those that have faith). Those signs strengthen a person's faith. When that faith becomes a perfect knowledge, like the brother of Jared, we "cannot be kept from within the veil." (v. 20) There are many faithful followers of Christ that have had signs enough to make their knowledge full. The interesting thing is that Christ commands those, to whom he has shown himself to not make these things known unto the inhabitants of the world. Our journey through life and to exaltation is a personal one. Although we have guides along the way, we each need to make the journey on our own. Let us each take steps today, no matter where we are on the journey, to progress towards a perfect knowledge.