I remember almost 20 years ago when the LDS seminary would have a designated missionary week at Skyline High School in Idaho Falls, Idaho. My good buddies would always give me a marked up, color-coded Book of Mormon. Often, they would have personally penned letters in the front or back cover.

One of those particular days after school, a basketball teammate, a great friend, called me up in order to sincerely share his testimony. And then he began talking about the two sticks. Before I knew it, his big brother jumped on the phone, referencing me to an obscure passage that I really had no clue about in high school, Ezekiel 37:15-19.

If you were to ask me last year what I knew of Ezekiel, I still wouldn’t have much of a clue. I was a complete major-prophet-Ezekiel illiterate. But this all changed as I began this year to personally study Ezekiel, line upon line, precept upon precept, tracing particular Hebrew expressions in all their vivid context month after month. The unfolding story is one of the most riveting, wild, mind-boggling, gut-wrenching, and heart-rejoicing books that I have ever read, scrutinized, and prayed over. And the journey is still not over. I begin chapter 40 this Wednesday night. I would love for any of you to join me in the study. Are there any other words written 2500 years ago that are packed with such relevance for today? Have you checked out those prophecies yet to be fulfilled?

Dennis L. Largey recently wrote in the Sperry Symposium Classics: The New Testament (2006), “Ezekiel prophesied that the stick of Judah and the stick of Joseph are to become one (see Ezekiel 37:15-19). We have seen them become one under one cover in our editions of the scriptures. The challenge now is to use them as one” (p. 65).

My first reply is “Deja vu.” My second reply is more of a plethora of questions that tumble forth as I live alongside you all in the LDS corridor. 1. Is this the standard interpretation of the Church, today? The true, official, exegetical stance? 2. Does this reflect normal, literal, historical, grammatical hermeneutics? 3. Is Largey’s interpretation giving priority to the overall message of Ezekiel? 4. Aren’t there any objective, Scriptural data right within chapter 37 that provides a contrary interpretation to Largey on Ezekiel’s powerful prophecy enactment?

Thinking of heart issues . . .