2 Nephi 27:19

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Reference Search: 2 Nephi 27:19

19 Wherefore it shall come to pass, that the Lord God will deliver again the book and the words thereof to him that is not learned; and the man that is not learned shall say: I am not learned.

Quotes for Discussion

Unlearned

Joseph Smith (as a young man)…could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well-worded letter, let alone dictate a book like the Book of Mormon, and though I was an active participant in the scenes that transpired, was present during the translation of the plates, and had cognizance of things as they transpired, it is marvelous to me—a marvel and a wonder—as much as to anyone else….My belief is that the Book of Mormon is of divine authenticity—I have not the slightest doubt of it…when acting as his scribe, your father (she was being interrogated by her son) would dictate to me hour after hour; and when returning after meals, or interruptions, he would at once begin where he had left off, without either seeing the manuscript or having any portion of it read to him. This was an unusual thing for him to do. It would have been improbable that a learned man could do this and for one so ignorant and unlearned as he was, it was simply impossible.

Emma Smith, The Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, comp. Preston Nibley [salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1968], 28-29

A man asked me awhile ago—“Why did the Lord choose Joseph Smith to build up his kingdom? Why did he not choose Dr. Porter, Henry Ward Beecher, or some such men?” Said I—“Such men would sell the kingdom of God and everything in it for money and popularity, and as the Lord lives he never could rule and handle them, none of them would work with him, they are too much like the Pharisees, Sadducees, High Priests and Rabbis of Judea and Jerusalem.” Did the Lord ever choose such men to perform his work? Go through the whole history of the world, and you will find that whenever God wanted a servant, an Apostle or a Prophet, he chose the very humblest man that could be found. When a king was wanted for Israel, he could not find one out of all the tall sons of Jesse; and when the Prophet asked if Jesse had not another son, he was told no, only the boy that looked after the sheep. Nobody thought anything about him, he was of no consequence. “Let me see him,” said the man of God; and when he was brought, the Prophet poured oil on his head and anointed him King of Israel. So it has been all the way through. Take Moses, the leader of Israel….When the Lord called Moses to deliver Israel from Egypt, said he—“How can I do this? I am a man of a hard language and slow of speech….

So all the way through the Lord has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the wise, and the things that are nought, to bring to nought the things that are. Jesus Christ himself was born in a stable and cradled in a manger; and who were his Apostles? Illiterate fishermen, men of the lowest calling almost in Judea….

The Lord called Joseph Smith because he was foreordained before the world was to build up this Church and Kingdom….He was an illiterate youth, but the Lord used him, and he lived to fulfill the measure of his appointment.

Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses, 18:118

Why did God choose an unschooled rustic to be the tool in his hand to build up the last dispensation? Why did he not take of the wise men of the earth…?

We will answer that question by another. Why did God choose the family of a humble Nazarene carpenter in which to rear his Son…?

Why did not Jesus, beginning his work and choosing those who should follow him, seek out those of great learning, from among the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the elders, why did he not choose them that were schooled in the law and in its refinements and perversions….Why instead of that, did he go along the seashore among the humble fishermen…?

Men would choose the wise and confound the weak, but God chooses the weak things of the earth to confound the mighty. Nor does he put new wine into old bottles….

So the Son of God chose the fishermen on the seashore to march with him, and the Father and the Son chose the humble rustic to lead the way into a new and the last dispensation. They chose a virgin mind that, unpolluted by heresies and sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit, could be taught and led….

So, as time went on, God revealed to the boy prophet the things he should know in order to restore and again build up the Church of Christ on earth.

J. Reuben Clark, Jr., On the Way to Immortality and Eternal Life [salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1961], 120-22