In my opinion, the following scripture from the Book of Mormon is one of many that have been misinterpreted by members of the LDS church, consequently making it difficult for those who do not belong to the LDS church to find any reason or motivation to read the Book of Mormon at all.
And he said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth. (1 Nephi 14:10)
From that opening paragraph and the verse I quoted, I could take this blogpost in a lot of different directions, but my purpose in writing this is to help people understand what this verse is talking about so that they might know better how to become part of the “church of the Lamb of God.”
I can remember being stumped by this verse when I was a teenager. Having been raised in the LDS church, I was taught that it was the “one true church.” But if that was the case, why didn’t this verse say something more like “there is only one true church and all of the others are not true?” Why does it refer to only two churches?
Even if I hadn’t been raised in the LDS church, I doubt I would have understood that verse at that young age. I still saw things through a very temporal lens. How could Nephi’s angel guide tell him that there were only two churches? I could count far more than that just in the town I grew up in! Only two churches? How could that be? What’s he talking about?
It might be good to bring in another scripture:
But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)
Understanding scripture requires us to see things the way the Lord sees them. When Samuel sought for the man whom the Lord had appointed to be king over Israel, the Lord had to tell Samuel which son of Jesse would be king, because the Lord looks on the heart, and it was David’s heart that qualified him to be king.
Now, I’m not going to go into this in this blogpost, but I’ll just mention here that names mean things, and that is true for names of churches, too. “The church of the Lamb of God” means something, and if you want some extra credit, you can do some further research on this.
For now, I’ll just assume the reader and I agree that being part of the church of the Lamb of God is a good thing. After all, what’s the alternative? The church of the devil—“that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth.” Who wants to be a part of that? (Spoiler alert: It turns out, more than you would think.)