Ammon

Ok, I had a new insight this morning as I prepared yet another lesson this week regarding Ammon the son of King Mosiah Ended up not giving that lesson, and merely showing another video cause It was Friday afterall, and I have a habit of allowing the kids to merely recap what we read about all week in a video. We already watched the living Scriptures cartoon, so I played the newly created video from the Church Library. But, I have not this, been able to share my insight, so I will do so now.

I always think most about the King Lamoni of the Lamanites thinking that Ammon was a great spirit, nay, THE great spirit and that he mentioned that Ammon perceived his thoughts. This is a strange thing to dwell on, no? but, I have for many years. And this time as I read the Book of Mormon I was impressed....hey wait, see that question mark on the previous line? Thanks Charlemagne! (thinking of the Carolingians, I had go adjust my choice of capitalization to be more precise). ok, so this time I noted how many times people "perceive the thoughts" of another. It is not that hard to pick up on contextual cues others give when not "Saying" verbally as much, thereby seeming to know wat you are actually thinking. I need to branch off in t wo directions here 1) why Ammon is different and 2) abilities to speak without words.

First, Ammon stands out because he obviously has the power of God, tough falsely assumed at first to be God. at one point he says that his brethren are being held captive in a neighboring land, and the king asks him, how he came to this knowledge, Ammon tells him, the spirit told him. This is surely the all-knowing spirit of the Godhead, else how could he possibly KNOW such a thing? So, Ammon was different than just being good at knowing his audience. He perceived things that are not typical to a son of man.

Second, I used to be very upset by the notion that someone/anyone could know your thoughts. it makes fascinating art in terms of songs, movies and such. But, after a whole lot of considering things, it does not seem that out of the range of possibility that man could communicate without speaking, or even sensing visual cues. Yeah, it sounds like the subject for one of those radio broadcasts that happen after hours. can men unleash an additional sense and use a portion of their unused brain to communicate in a new telepathic way? but,  think about after the Tower of Babble or even when the Frankish tribes separated enough ethnically to evolve a once common language. I do not know if men would perceive thoughts as audible words, as if all communication needed to evolve from spoken words, sort of how babies evolve babbling and cooing into a language. But, I do not think that Telepathic communication is out of the realm of possibility. think of mobile/cellular communication.

I have already touched on the point that occurred to me anew this morning. It is that King Lamoni was gaining a testimony of the priesthood power being the same power used by God or in other words the power of God. Ammon could do thing which could, so Lamoni thought, only be done by God because he did not know that man has been given the very same power. Aman who does such things is not God. So often Jesus himself spoke about that.