Israel is a country of stones. Anybody who has visited the Holy Land has seen the miles and miles of rocky landscape that covers much of the territory. There are some garden spots to be sure. But there is much that is not really what you would call prime real estate. It is a testament to its sacred history that mankind has fought over that little piece of stony earth so vehemently down through the corridors of history.Perhaps Jesus had these tels in mind when He said "I am ...the stone of Israel. He that buildeth upon this rock shall never fall." (D&C 50:44.) Christ is the stone foundation upon which all men must build. When Jehovah came to Abram, He promised Abram many blessings -- peace, priesthood, posterity and property. God changed his name to Abraham and gave him the land of Israel and promised him a great posterity. The two ideas are inseparably connected. Both are sacred as both are gifts from a generous God to a childless wanderer upon the earth. Abraham set up stone altars as memorials of the promise throughout the land.
The Old Testament contains many other instances of stones being put up as memorials to sacred events. The stones were to tell the story of the place. In many cases the stones were to represent the children of Israel, such as the monuments left at the crossing of the Jordan River. It was kind of a natural thing since the word for stone in Hebrew (abanim *ah-bah-neem*) is nearly the same as the word for children (banim). Altars were to consist of stones of certain dimensions. Houses were built of stone. The land was stony, but it was sacred. Stones represented land and children, the promises of God. The banim were tied to the abanim. The children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were to inherit the land of Israel.
One day as John the Baptist was ministering in Jordan, the Jewish leaders came and questioned his authority. They were angry that the people were coming to John and not them. John told them to "think not to say within yourselves, We are the children of Abraham, and we only have power to bring seed unto our father Abraham; for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children into Abraham" (JST Matthew 3:36). Usually, bible expositors say that John was referring to the Gentiles standing around. Maybe, but I don't think that's all of it. The usual derogatory designation for the gentiles (which actually means "nations") was as dogs, used even by the Master to the woman of Canaa. "It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast [it] to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table." (Matthew 15:26-27) To belittle someone as stone would have been more of a gentile attitude and not a Jewish one. I believe that John was referring mostly to the poor Jews (the people of the land) who came out to see the new prophet the Lord had raised up.
John's words were a rebuke of the Pharisees' and Sadducees' attitude towards their fellow Jews. The leaders were wealthy, therefore they thought they had God's blessing; they were powerful, therefore they had been made judges of the people; their attitude was condescending. John's words would have called up all the sacred symbols and images impressed upon the Jewish mind. It was a rebuke of pride and a reminder of Israel's humble and unsophisticated past with Jehovah. The covenant was for all of the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It was not the leaders who offered salvation. They held no monopoly. It was a gift from God. They weren't exclusive agents.
Christ renamed Simon, "Cephas" or stone. Peter is a testament to Christ's work. Peter called those in the kingdom "lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 2:6) As children of the Kingdom, we are to be memorial stones of God's goodness and mercy, built upon Jesus Himself "the stone which the builders rejected, the same [which] is become the head of the corner" (Luke 20:17-18).
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