Does God have a favored people?

Thomas R. Valletta

“It is convenient to imagine all the righteous in one camp and the wicked in another, and this has been the usual and comfortable interpretation of the Book of Mormon—it is the good guys versus the bad guys. But this is exactly what the Book of Mormon tells us to avoid. God plays no favorites. Nephi rebukes his brothers for believing that because they are Jews they are righteous; God does not judge by party, he tells them; a good man is good and a bad one is bad, according to his own behavior: ‘Behold, the Lord esteemeth all flesh in one; he that is righteous is favored of God’ (1 Nephi 17:35)” (Nibley, Prophetic Book of Mormon, 506).

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