Jacob 2:13-17

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13 And the hand of providence hath smiled upon you most pleasingly, that you have obtained many riches; and because some of you have obtained more abundantly than that of your brethren ye are lifted up in the pride of your hearts, and wear stiff necks and high heads because of the costliness of your apparel, and persecute your brethren because ye suppose that ye are better than they.

14 And now, my brethren, do ye suppose that God justifieth you in this thing? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. But he condemneth you, and if ye persist in these things his judgments must speedily come unto you.

15 O that he would show you that he can pierce you, and with one glance of his eye he can smite you to the dust!

16 O that he would rid you from this iniquity and abomination. And, O that ye would listen unto the word of his commands, and let not this pride of your hearts destroy your souls!

17 Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you.

Quotes for Discussion

Pride

Pride does not look up to God and care about what is right. It looks sideways to man and argues who is right. Pride is manifest in the spirit of contention. Was it not through pride that the devil became the devil? Christ wanted to serve. The devil wanted to rule. Christ wanted to bring men to where he was. The devil wanted to be above men. Christ removed self as the force in His perfect life. It was not my will, but thine be done….Humility responds to God’s will—to the fear of His judgments and the needs of those around us. To the proud, the applause of the world rings in their ears; to the humble, the applause of heaven warms their hearts.

President Ezra Taft Benson, CR, April 1986, p. 6

Pride is essentially competitive in nature….In the words of C.S. Lewis: "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something only out of having more of it than the next man….It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone."

(Mere Christianity [New York: Macmillan, 1952], 109-10)….

Pride is ugly, It says, "If you succeed, I am a failure."…

Pride is the great stumbling block to Zion. I repeat: Pride is the great stumbling block to Zion.

Ezra Taft Benson, in Conference Report, Apr. 1989 [salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1989], 4-7

Riches

The worst fear I have about this people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and His people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty, and all manner of persecution, and be true. But my greater fear…is that they cannot stand wealth.

Brigham Young, Life of a Pioneer, James S Brown [salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon and Sons, 1990], 122-123

The great trouble is that there are many people who, as they grow and increase in the things of this world, set their hearts upon them and lose the Spirit of the Lord. Therefore, that which is counted by the world as success is failure; because if a man starts out for a prize and…after laboring nearly a lifetime for that prize, certainly his life has been a failure….The appetite for money grows upon a man, increases and strengthens unless he is careful, just as much as the appetite for whiskey. It gets possession of him, and he loves the money instead of loving it only for the good that he can do with it.

Heber J. Grant, Teachings of Presidents of the Church [salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2002], 25

Continuing with the words of Paul, "For the love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Tim. 6:10). It is the love of money and the love of those things which money can buy which destroys us. We all need money to supply our needs. But it is the love of it which hurts us, which warps our values, which leads us away from spiritual things and fosters selfishness and greed.

Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, May 1997 [salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1997], 49

Today we are basking in the lap of luxury, in the like of which we have never seen in the history of the world. It would seem that probably this is the most severe test of any we have ever had in the history of the Church.

Harold B. Lee, Address to Church Employees, 13 Dec. 1973

I remember reading the results some time ago of a national survey which attempted to summarize the responses as to what brings happiness….Most people felt money was a significant part of happiness. The author’s research, however, indicated that money alone seldom, if ever, resulted in true happiness….It’s important to have sufficient money for our needs, but beyond that, money has little to do with true happiness.

W. Eugene Hansen, Ensign, Nov. 1993 [salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1993], 81

Money in and of itself is not an evil, but as Paul taught Timothy, it is the love of money that is the root of all evil (1 Tim. 6:10). There are some of the wealthy who deal with their prosperity very well, using their resources to bless others and build the kingdom. For many, however, wealth presents major difficulties….

The more our hearts and minds are turned to assisting others less fortunate than we, the more we will avoid the spiritually cankering effects that result from greed, selfishness, and overindulgence. Our resources are a stewardship, not our possessions. I am confident that we will literally be called upon to make an accounting before God concerning how we have used them to bless lives and build the kingdom….

How much should we give? I appreciate the thought of C.S. Lewis on this subject. He said: "I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare….If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us,…they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them"

(Mere Christianity [New York: Macmillan, 1952], 67

Joe J. Christensen, Ensign, May 1999 [salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1999], 9, 11

I can stand at a window in my house and see horses gently grazing in our pasture. As I look beyond our property, I can see our neighbors working in their yard. Extending my perspective farther, I behold the clean, blue water of the reservoir just north of our small town. But if I apply a special type of silver paint to the glass, my view of the world around me changes considerably. Because of this special paint, my window becomes a mirror. As I try to look out my window, I no longer see the world as it is; I see only myself. This is the challenge for all of us who find excess silver in our lives. Instead of viewing the world as it is, this silver may change our perspective to the point that we may not be able to see beyond our own self-indulgent desires. If our hearts are turned inward, it doesn’t take much silver to blind us to the world outside our own house. But if our souls are in tune with the needs of others, if we truly care about our fellowman, then we can use whatever silver the Lord blesses us with to bless the lives of God’s children in and outside our own homes.

Jack R. Christianson and K. Douglas Bassett, Life Lessons from the Book of Mormon [salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2003], 124-125

Making a living probably occupies a larger portion of our thinking and our ambition than anything else; making a living warrants our close attention because it makes provision for the family. It makes provision for education. It makes provision for our children themselves to learn the art of making a home and of carrying forward the lives which they must lead.

The Lord did not intend us to be a poverty-stricken people. One of the last sermons that I heard President Joseph F. Smith preach was over in the temple to a select company, and I remember distinctly his saying on that occasion, the Lord never intended the Latter-day Saints to be a poverty-stricken and destitute people. He intended that their goodness should entitle them to inherit the good things of earth if they were used properly….

He did not say that it could be accomplished without hard work….

Do not get the idea, my brothers and sisters, that we have a quarrel with wealth if it is legitimately acquired. It is the utilization of wealth which is often subject to criticism.

Stephen L. Richards, Where Is Wisdom?, pp. 57-58

Money never goes as far as you want it to,…you just cannot get enough of what you do not need, and…it is not possible to buy happiness at a store or through a catalog….Everything that you take with you into the next life is everything that money cannot buy….

I love the story our prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley, relates about a conversation he had with his wife, Marjorie, on the eve of their wedding. He was anxious about the economic realities of their marriage. He had totaled his assets and realized that he had less than $150 and, even more alarming, that he made only $185 a month. Marjorie put his fears to rest. She replied that "she had hoped for a husband and now she found out she was getting $150 too." "This will work out wonderfully," she told him. "If you’ve got $150, we’re set.’ And, as you well know, they were.

Mary Ellen Smoot, "Everything Money Cannot Buy," Satellite Broadcast, 3 Feb. 2002, Brigham Young University [salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2002], 1-2

Even though costly apparel was and is a physical manifestation, Mae Blanch rightly identifies it as a spiritual dilemma: "When money and possessions become the chief marks of distinction in society, then the pursuit of money becomes the only action worthwhile. And if this pursuit requires the sacrifice of honesty, integrity, compassion, and all other virtues, then so be it, for the love of money is indeed the root of all evil. Thus the wearing of costly apparel involves the soul as much as the body."

Our society may well be as guilty as the wealthy Zoramites of using fashion as "the science of appearances, inspiring us with the desire to seem rather than to be." In our day the costly apparel syndrome may be identified as one aspect of the modern-day term "conspicuous consumption." The word conspicuous alludes to the visual side of vanity—the need to be seen, to be recognized. Consumption refers to that which we take in or that which we consume. Conspicuous consumption may be defined as that which we take to ourselves in order to be recognized and approved by others. By its very definition, the person trapped in conspicuous consumption, especially as it applies to "costly apparel," must be focused on the opinions of others, because what is "in" today may be "out" tomorrow. Vanity then becomes its own punishment, because there is never time to be satisfied—the eyes and opinions of others can turn so quickly to embrace someone else….

Jacob’s counsel, however, is at variance with most worldly philosophies. The world would have us believe that the Lord helps those who help themselves. Jacob seems to be saying that the Lord helps those who help others. That places wealth and education in a different light. When we use wealth and education to serve our fellow beings, we are placing ourselves in a better position to gain the Lord’s approval. In this way a person uses wealth and education not as weapons to separate himself from others in a vain attempt to rise above the rest but as tools to serve and lift his fellow man.

K. Douglas Bassett, "Four Faces of Pride," Doctrines of Book of Mormon, 1991 Sperry Symposium, p. 18, 20

The real problem is not with riches, of course. The real problem is with hearts. When our hearts are not pure, we cannot love with a pure love. We cannot love the Savior as we should, nor can we love our neighbors as we should. The Savior came to save us from this deficit of love by extending the arms of mercy, through our own faith and repentance, to each of us.

Why do some of us resist? Is it not because we somehow see ourselves as being sufficient as we are? Do we not believe in our hearts that we are already good enough, that the Savior may indeed have to forgive us of a few things, but his love and generosity will easily take care of those things and we will then be ushered ceremoniously into the blessings of the great beyond? (2 Nephi 28:7-9). Such a belief is what the scriptures call pride. It is the belief that we are good, though perhaps our deeds are not. This is the belief that the old us does not need to die and become a new creature, but only our garments need to be cleansed. In pride we see ourselves as eternal creatures who may need to be forgiven and lifted up by Jesus Christ, but who do not need to be essentially changed by him. We do not need that new and pure heart which only he can give to us.

My understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that no mortals are just and righteous enough of themselves to go to the same kingdom as Jesus Christ unless they are remade in the image of Christ, heart and mind, body and soul. For without that pure heart, that charity, we are nothing (Moroni 7:44), and can, of ourselves, do not good thing (John 15:1-5). We must cease to exist as the old selfish persons we were and take upon ourselves new hearts and new minds.

Then in the humility of being salvaged from damnation by the Savior's love, we will never again consider that we are better than anyone else. Then we will know that we stand only in the grace of Christ, and will never be found looking down on anyone, including the worst sinner and Satan and his angels. We will then know our true place and being in the universe, and will say of the sinner, "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

Pride is the root of our evil, the source of our selfishness, the great barrier to our salvation. It is the pride of our hearts from which we need to be saved more than from anything else. Once we are saved from that, then all good things can be added to us. Then we will see as we are seen, know as we are known, and we will be familiar and free with our substance, treating all men as brothers. Then indeed we will have heaven on earth.

Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate, Jr., eds., Jacob through Words of Mormon: To Learn with Joy, p.232-233

Edited October 4, 2010 by pam