FIrst Nephi Chapter 5

In this chapter we see a family rejoicing at discovering one's familial connections through genealogy. A desire to belong, and to know where one belongs, seems to be an innate characteristic of the human condition: witness the longing of adoptive children to find their biological parents; the formation of gangs in fatherless inner city neighborhoods; the statistical probability of psychological well-being if raised by one's own two married parents.  This longing, I believe, is God-given, a call for us to become sealed to and linked to the great family of God, through temple covenants, which connect us and seal us to the family of Abraham, and the family of Noah, and the family of Adam, as God's children and sons and daughters.

Of all the hundreds of stories about their ancestors which the family of Lehi learns about as they study the brass plates, they seem to focus their attention and find it to be of particular importance to remember that their family was "led out of captivity" by God.  1 Nephi 5:15.

Remembering when one's ancestors were in captivity, and remembering that they were led out of captivity, seems to be a recurrent theme throughout the Book of Mormon. (See for example Alma 36:2, and Alma 36:29, in which the remembrance of captivity and of being led from captivity, is incorporated into the early and latter portions of the chiasmus of Alma the Elder's repentance-focused serrmon to his son.)

I believe the key and primary reason for this focus is because of its symbolic value in emphasizing and reemphasizing the central message of the Book of Mormon: that Christ has delivered us from the captivity of death and sin.  It is this message, and what we must do to benefit from that deliverance, which should be our focus when we read the scriptures, as it seemed to be for Lehi's family.

First Nephi Chapter 4

I've always struggled with some of the theological implications of this Chapter, as with some of the Chapters in the Bible, in which the Lord commands violence for His divine purposes. I don't know that I will fully resolve those struggles in this lifetime, though I take note that people die every day and if the Lord wants to delay that death, or hasten it, these things are out of our hands in any event. Whenever I might die, I will be responsible for the life I have lived up until that point. 

On this reading, I focused on another issue, the sequence of events which, per Nephi's reasoning, could cause a nation to dwindle and perish in unbelief (1 Nephi 4:13-27).  That sequence apparently involves: 

- A nation being deprived of its scriptures.

- A nation therefore losing its knowledge of the law and commandments of God;

- That nation then being unable to follow the commandments of God. 

We know that the Savior's atonement is infinite and extends to the benefit of all men, so that the individual members of a nation which has so fallen may still be saved.  Why then the concern in the interim?  The rational answer to this question, in my mind, is that having the Gospel in our lives is a blessing to us in THIS lifetime.  We are living part of our own eternity right now.  Today.  The atonement can improve and bless our lives, not just in the eternities and in the hereafter.  But right now, today.  If we let it.