narrative material - edgemontscripturestudy.comedgemontscripturestudy.com/00 bom 1/bom 1cleaned...

Transcript of Edgemont Stake Book of Mormon Classes by John W. Welch, 2007 to 2009

Alma 17-22

Narrative Material

Tonight, we are going to be talking about Ammon and Aaron, and I hope you got the questions and enjoyed reading through this material with them. These chapters are very different than things that we have looked at before. In my email to you I pointed out that when we open Alma 17—and we now have the account of the Sons of Mosiah—we turn to a much more narrative section of the Book of Mormon than we have ever had before. The personalities, the details of where they go, the interactions and a series of events that take place, are more of a story than simply an episode here or there and certainly very little doctrine. We do not have much in the way of preaching. We get a little bit of an insight into what Ammon and Aaron used more or less as their first missionary discussion, and we will talk about some of those details, but the character of this section of the Book of Mormon, as narrative requires us to read in a very different way than we are used to.

Here we are invited into the lives and the situations of these people, but to gather the spiritual lessons that we need to receive from this text requires us to try to put ourselves into their situations and look at little hints and details that are given to us, and then imagine how we might have reacted and how we might have had to deal with some of the problems that they did.

Lessons From How the Sons of Mosiah Approached this Mission

The first question that I asked you was, “What lessons can we learn from how the sons of Mosiah approached this mission? This was a very unusual mission call as we mentioned several weeks ago. Remember they decided that they did not want to stay in Zarahemla, did not want to be kings. This was in the middle of that very difficult political change where they got rid of kingship and put in the reign of judges. I think for good spiritual reasons, but also for some political reasons, they decide that they are better off leaving the Land of Zarahemla where they are not going to be a political liability to whoever the new chief judge is. They go and it turns out they are gone for 14 years—it is a long mission— and we do not hear much about the last 12 years; what we hear about mostly are the first couple of years on how they finally are successful in establishing the conversion of Lamoni and his father. and from then on, we just know that there are a lot of impressive things that happen, but we do not get much in the way of detail there.

Search the Scriptures Diligently

With that as background, look at chapter 17 verses 2 to 3 and 9 to 12. Did you see any lessons there that might be useful to you as you approach a calling? I think the principles that we see, of course apply here when you go on a mission, and I think that chapter 17 is one of the main scriptures that people study in the MTC. But you can use this for any calling. How do you approach a calling in the Church that is a difficult one?

(Student) Search the scriptures diligently. They contain the spirit of prophecy.

So they spend a lot of time reading the scriptures. Now this is before they leave. Do you think they carried with them many scriptures?

(Student) They read from the scriptures.

Alma 17-22, 13 Dec 2007 (file 071213)

[1]


They have some scriptures and they talk about the records. When they talk to King Lamoni they talk about the scriptures and they rehearse a lot of them, and when it says rehearse, I wonder if it means something like reading or maybe a memorization. Reading in the ancient world was never done silently, by the way. When we sit and read a book, we are just quiet, but if you were a monk in the middle ages and you were reading, you would be in your cell and you would read out loud so that you would hear the words. They had not learned to read silently, so rehearsing the text meant they would read it out loud and so they apparently had at least some record with them. I do not know whether it was something written on fig bark or what kind of material it would have been - probably not metal - that would have been awfully heavy and maybe also a liability if somebody wants to rob them of something valuable.

They search the scriptures. When you get a calling, sit down and say, “What will the scriptures tell me about this new calling that I have received?” If you now reread a lot of passages that you have used on another occasion, you will find that with a new set of problems in front of you, the scriptures will open themselves to you in ways that they had not before. Sister Criddle, you mentioned also that they then receive the spirit of prophecy. This is in verse 3. What else have they done there in verse 3? “They had given themselves to much prayer and fasting. Therefore they had the spirit of prophecy and the spirit of revelation.” Is there a difference between the spirit of prophecy and the spirit of revelation? Why, when there is so little space on the plates, why would both of those words be used?

(Student) Revelation can be personal revelationprophecy tends to make us think more of the ward or group.

Okay. That might be one way of explaining that. Others?

(Student) …interesting because my grandmother received a blessing from LeGrand Richards and was told that she had the power of prophecy.

The spirit of prophecy, well that is a gift of the spirit mentioned in 1 Corinthians, so the spirit of prophecy, we think of prophesying of the future, specially, I think for them. What is the most important thing that they are looking forward to? The coming of Christ. So maybe as they read the scriptures they are filled with the spirit of the prophets who have spoken of the coming of Christ. Is that something that they will preach about? Both Ammon and Aaron will make that a big part of their main message.

(Student) …the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

That is right. I think that that is in the Book of Revelation, and when you reveal something, though, I think it may be more uncovering some difficult problem, or discovering something. The spirit of revelation is when you take the veil off of your mind and you now understand things a little better. But by reading the scriptures, if you ask for the spirit of revelation and the spirit of prophecy, you want to think like a prophet, you want to have the mysteries of God open to you, as Alma was talking about in chapter 12 that we talked about last time.

Speaking with Power and Authority

And this allowed them to teach with power and authority. What is the difference between power

and authority?

Alma 17-22, 13 Dec 2007 (file 071213)

[2]


(Student) Jesus taught them as one having authority and not as a scribe.

That is right so at the end of the Sermon on the Mount we know that Christ is able to speak with authority. Why does it say that they have the ability to speak with power and authority? What is the difference?

(Student) Authority comes by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Okay. Power of the Holy Ghost or maybe Lynn, what else?

(Student) I have been taught that priesthood comes, or the power comes by the laying on of hands. The authority comes by the laying on of hands but the power comes by right to use the power.

That is right and I think that may be a way of understanding this. But they had both. They had been called, they had been set apart, they had authority. How does that apply to you when you get a calling? Do you need to have the authority to act? How do you get that authority? By the laying on of hands? Have any of you been called to a position and not been set apart? Right now, are any of you in a position? Do you want to admit that you have not gone to the Bishop and been set apart? You should not serve without being set apart for that particular calling. Let me just say that I think every Bishop in the world would be really happy if people, when they are sustained in Sacrament Meeting, would come and camp out on the Bishop’s doorstep or outside his office and plead, and not go away until you receive the blessing until you get… because it is hard to keep track of. It is not written down on your membership record. There is nowhere where we keep track of the fact that you have been set apart. The Bishop will lose track of that because he assumes that his counselors have done it and the counselors will assume that the Bishop has done it, and so be sure that you get set apart for any calling and receive the blessing and listen to what you are blessed with.

They did that. They received the spirit. They had the power and the authority. They had the right by the laying on of hands and then by their righteous living were able to speak with authority and last time, you remember one of the last points we made about the Melchizedek priesthood was that it had the power to cause people to repent. That the righteous use of authority is the key for opening up the hearts of people so that they will repent. There may beI think I said this last timethere may be other dimensions to the priesthood, but I believe that every purpose, everything we do in the priesthood is to bring people to repent and they had that power. As you watch the story you wonder why are we being told this story? Even someone like Lamoni and Lamoni’s father, through the power and the authority that they had they were able to bring about repentance in their lives.

Well, other - any other comments about how they prepared? Yes.

(Student) …With setting apart one of the things that has always struck me is that there are things that are revealed to you while you are being set apart and one of those things is marching orders that the Lord has for you. What is the emphasis?

That is right, and I can tell you as a Bishop, sometimes I knew when I called someone to something what I hoped they would do, but often when I set them apart I found out what the Lord wanted them to do, And it was not always the same. Revelation that comes through the laying on of hands is very important. I have not done this myself, so I cannot really be a very

Alma 17-22, 13 Dec 2007 (file 071213)

[3]


good advocate of this. I have not gone home when I have been set apart and written down what I could remember about the setting apart that I have received. I do not know if you have been better at that than I have. I probably ought to repent and do a better job of that, but one of the great blessings I remember on several occasions was talking as a Bishop to someone when I was releasing them, and thanking them for the calling and for the work they had done, and then on more than a few occasions, having them say, “I remember what I was told when I was set apart, and let me tell you what happened in the course of this calling.” We find out a lot in this process.

(Student) Just this week my wife was going through some documents and found a blessing that she had written down that a Stake President had given me in 1981 and I read over that again and it was the most profound blessinglooking now back over these years.

And you would have forgotten that.

(Student) Absolutely. But she has made a habit of doing that. The thing that impressed me is not only the preparation, but when you take a look at who they were and how they got to this point, and the strength and depth of the testimony that they must have had of the Savior to want to number one, give up a potential very lucrative power base, and they did not have to leave, and comfort, and to go off on a mission. I do not know if they had any idea when they started that they were going to be gone as long as they were gone.

Probably not and I do not think they had any real idea that there was going to be a civil war in Zarahemla so the spirit is moving upon them to, and I think rightly, to get them out of harm’s way there, although they certainly marched into plenty of harm’s way where they went, but you are right, I do not think they had a clue what was coming.

(Student) Incredible individuals they were.

Recording Blessings

Speaking of the blessings that we get, did they write down the blessing that the Lord give them at the beginning of this fourteen year mission? They did. Where is it? It is in verses 10, 11, and 12, in there, where they took courage. Look at the blessing that they got. “It came to pass that the Lord did visit them with his spirit and said unto them, ‘Be Comforted.’” A short blessing but there are many times when that is the thing you need to hear when you are given a calling or a difficult assignment, but it is nice that they received that. Sometimes the blessing will be given, “Be comforted and know that the Lord is mindful of you,” or whatever the person setting you apart tells you, and if you do not receive it, if you say, “Oh, I do not think so,” or “ ‘Be comforted,’ no I’m still worried,” the blessing does not really work. But they were comforted after all the difficulties that they had.

(Student) They talked about how later on they fasted and prayed that the spirit could be with them so that they could be an instrument in his hands, and then he answers that as well, although I did not find it really comforting to be told, “Be patient and long-suffering and affliction….”

That is right, that next verse, “Go forth among the Lamanites, they are your brethren, do not forget that; establish my word….” That word establish, they are getting started, they are opening up new country, like opening a city that has not been open for 500 years, and “Be patient in long suffering and afflictions.” When these happen though, was that not comforting to them in that

Alma 17-22, 13 Dec 2007 (file 071213)

[4]


they knew this is going the way the Lord knew it would. It is not as though we have done something wrong and things are, you know, not working out appropriately.

(Student) Lord how can I be an instrument? Their hearts were pure.

That is the next thing that they say, “And how can we be an instrument? Let us just be an instrument through which thy will can be done.” I think that a lot of times, the objective in our callings is primarily to be transparent so that the light of Christ, the glory of God will shine through us but not on us. We will see this in the Sermon on the Mount, where Christ will tell his disciples, “Let your light so shine before men,” and that word so is very important. It does not just mean, “Okay, so let your light shine.” It means, “Let your light shine in such a way that.” The Greek is very clear there. “Let your light shine in such a way that when people see your good works, their reaction will be to glorify your Father which is in Heaven.” Now that is an interesting way of saying the same point about being an instrument in the hands of the Lord.

(Student) Did they not themselves of themselves choose to go to the Lamanites? Did they not say, “Let us go to the Lamanites?”

Yes, back in Mosiah 28. They were converted with Alma the Younger, and they know that Alma the Younger is going to be the chief judge in Zarahemla, and why they decide, we do not know. Why they decide or feel so motivated to go to the Lamanites …? Maybe they say, “All right Alma, you take care of Zarahemla, we will go take care of the Land of Nephi.” But they felt strongly that they should go.

(Student) In a sense, I wonder if Alma 17:11 when they are comforted is a ratification of their choice.

Yes. Well, and it was not like they just said, “We are going to go.” They went to their father, King Mosiah, and he interviewed them pretty carefully. He did not want them all to go. What father would? They leave and Mosiah dies.

(Student) He was promised that his sons would not be harmed….

Yes, but King Mosiah will never see his four sons again. They do not even come home for his funeral. They do not even know that he is dead, I imagine, for 14 years. Now he dies a couple years after but not long after Alma becomes the chief judge.

(Student)…so I think comforted could mean confirm to their minds -

That they are doing the right thing? Yes, I like that, good point. Well we have only talked about a few verses, and as usual, we have to move on.

(Student) Whenever I study this something I always ask myself is, “What happened to their families during these fourteen years. The scriptures seem to be silent about that.

Yes, we never hear about whether they are even married. How old they are, we do not know. They do not take wives and children along with them, we know that, so….

(Student) As kind of a continuation of this, they say that they realize that the Lamanites had dwindled…worship idols…and the curse of God is upon them. Verse 16 says, “Therefore, this is the cause for which the Sons of Mosiah had undertaken the work.”

(Student) But why did they separate from each other? It is more dangerous to be alone.

Alma 17-22, 13 Dec 2007 (file 071213)

[5]


Well maybe, maybe not. We will come to that one in a few minutes.

A Flashback: When Did This Occur?

Let me just go on with question two here. I hope you have been reasonably clear about when and where these events are taking place. On the when, I have given you a handout, if you picked this up as you came in, on other instances of flashbacks. We had a flashback in the Book of Mosiah where we went through King Benjamin’s speech, and then Ammon and his explorers go down to see what has happened in the Land of Nephi, and then we back-track two generations to find out what has been going on there.

Well in somewhat the same way, if you start with, in the chart, the left-hand column, the first year of the reign of judges, or 91 BC, that first column tracks what happens for eleven years through the eleventh year of the reign of judges in Zarahemla. This is what we have been studying with the execution of Nehor and the Amlicite civil war, the conversion of Amulek and Zeezrom, and in the eleventh year of the reign of judges, the attack of Ammonihah.

Now we are backtracking up to 91 B.C. We have followed what Alma has been doing, but what we pick up with here in Alma chapter 17, is the four sons of Mosiah with Ammon and Lamoni going to the Land of Ishmael, and we learn a little bit about that, and then we have yet another flash-back in chapter 21 where we look at what has happened with Aaron and what is going on. Ammon goes to the Land of Ishmael, Aaron will go to the capitol city where the Father of Lamoni is the king, the old city of Nephi that was evacuated when Limhi left and Lamoni’s father moved in. We never learn his name but he now takes over and rules in the old city where King Noah…after all, it is probably a nice place. They had done a lot of building there, and he moves in and makes that his capitol.

Anyway, we follow on through with these different flashbacks, and eventually we will run across Ammonihah being attacked. We will get to that next week. Then we have the anti-Nephi-Lehis moving up to Jershon. They come with Ammon, they are the Ammonites, and then we pick up again in the fourteenth year of the reign of judges back in Alma. This will be Alma chapters 27 and 28, and now we connect the dots with these Ammonites being attacked as the Lamanites are trying to get these people back. Anyway, it is complicated. Keeping all these years, comings, and goings straight is hard for a reader, but it is one of the things that is a strong testimony of the fact that Joseph Smith is translating an actual record. Keeping track of this in your head as you are dictating, and this the first time through, and you do not know the story if you are just somehow making it up. The complexity of the record and the accuracy of it again is a wonderful testimony. The going down, coming up, they go up to the land of Nephi, they go down to the Land of Midian, all of these things are consistent throughout the geography, and I have given you a map. If you did not get one when you came in, there are others, courtesy of a friend of mine who has printed these and generously offered to give us enough for you all to have one. He has tried to position all of these places in actual locations that make sense whether they - we can talk a little bit more about the geography later, but the important thing is just realizing that it can make sense. These things all do fit in some interesting ways.

If you have questions about when and where, write me an email and I will tell you I do not know the answer. But I will give you my best shot.

Alma 17-22, 13 Dec 2007 (file 071213)

[6]


Lessons from the Conduct of Ammon in the Land of Ishmael

Well the next question, what lessons did you learn from the conduct of Ammon in the Land of Ishmael? We know the story of Ammon pretty well. We hear it a lot in Primary and in other places, and Minerva Teichert painted a couple of paintings about this, so this is a bit more familiar to us than what happened to his brothers, but let us start with Ammon.

Did anything dawn on you about what personality characteristics or virtues you learn from the way he worked and what he did? Help me write them up on the board. Anybody?

(Student) Strength.

Strength, okay, he was strong. How did he behave? What personality? Humble? Where do you see his humility coming out?

(Student) He was willing to be a servant.

Okay, and he simply says that the king…what does the king offer him?

(Students) His daughter.

I wonder why? How does he get to the palace, by the way? He is captured, right? You do not have passports, you do not have I.D.s in this world, and so here somebody shows up and I think he is all alone, right? He has just kind of wandered in, and if he had been in a group of people, he would have been much more of a threat. You remember what happens when Ammon and the explorers whom we met in Mosiah chapter 7? They bump into King Limhi and they almost get executed on the spot as trespassers or intruders.

(Student) How could he be identified easily as a Nephite? By his clothes?

I am sure that he would not have acted like a Lamanite. They probably dressed differently, their skin color is a little different. This man is a refined person. He may not be dressed in royal regalia but he is still going to behave in a fairly aristocratic way.

(Student) He was a prince. He was the son of a king from another kingdom, and the king probably recognized that he was impressive, looked good, and held himself well.

Yes, but do you think Ammon, when he introduced himself said, “I am the son of King Mosiah?” That would have been pretty risky. Anyway, he says, “No, I will just be your servant.”

(Student) Nevertheless, we can say that he made a good first impression.

He made a great impression and apparently this king has enough daughters that he says, “Here, I will give you one of them.”

(Student) Ammon must have been very impressive to King Lamoni who desired him to dwell there maybe until the day he died.

Here he made a long-term commitment. Missionaries going in…. You go into a city, you know you are not going to be there for very long, but it is a good thing when missionaries remember the people that they have served with; that they continue to have contact with them or with their missionary companions. We do not have the same kind of stability in our lives that people did in the ancient world. We move around so much, but building and maintaining long-term commitments to other people as friends…. Maybe when you write your Christmas cards is the

Alma 17-22, 13 Dec 2007 (file 071213)

[7]


only time you keep contact with some of these people, but Ammon had that kind of sincere interest, and that builds a strong relationship with people - makes a good impression.

(Student) When you put it in missionary terms, it is a relationship of trust.

Okay good. He was trustworthy. What else do you see?

(Student) He was artful.

Artful? Explain what you mean by artful.

(Student) Through artifice he got those folks to do what he wanted them to do. Listen to me all the way through, hear everything I am going to say and the way that it is written is that he “caught them with guile.”

All right, but it also emphasized that he was harmless.

(Student) Sure, sure, wise as a serpent, harmless as a baby.

Exactly. So he is clever.

(Student) …other than the six guys he killed.

Seven, he killed seven. So we will not emulate Ammon in that regard.

(Student) I think he was very loyal and he was self-confident because he knew what needed to be done. He was asked to take care of the horses and he did it.

Let us look at chapter 18 verse 3, and the loyalty that comes out there where the other servants come and they report to the king and say, “We do not know whether he is the great spirit or a man, but we know this, that when we were all scared to death, he went and put his own life on the line, and he is, we know, a friend to the king.” Well he had proved his loyalty there.

I wanted to say one thing back on the first impression point. Now it is not just enough to make a good first impression. That is important, but you then have to follow through on it too. I think he does that in a lot of ways. One other thing on first impressions; we went to a mission reunion and heard Kim Clark - now President of BYU Idaho, previously the Dean of the Harvard Business School, and he had something that he taught people in the Harvard Business School about first impressions. His theory was that you have ten seconds when you first meet a person to show interest in them, so if you sit down on a bus next to someone or in a class next to someone, if you do not show some interest, ask, “What’s your name?” or introduce yourself in the first ten seconds, you will never be able to effectively introduce yourself to that person. You will be able to pick up the conversation a little later, but they will never trust that you really care about them if you did not immediately reach out and try to show an interest in them. So first impressions are important - carrying on with it - following up is important too.

(Student) He had compassion for these people and he thought of them as his brothers.

Very good, and especially a lot of unselfishness too, when he thought of them as his brother and was willing to serve and to put himself. I think have Chapter 18 Verse 21 on that …Verse 21, and he says to the king, “If you will tell concerning these things whatsoever thou desirest…” This is when the king says, “Whatever you want I will give to you.” What does Ammon ask for? Does he say, “Okay, make me rich.” No. “Just listen to what I have to say.” He is very selfless… he is not in this for self-aggrandizement.

Alma 17-22, 13 Dec 2007 (file 071213)

[8]


(Student) I think one thing is that he had a lot of courage to do it the way he did, but he was following the spirit. I think that is the key that he kept in tune, because it could have been a disaster.

00:37:05 Yes. Yes, that is right. I mean he is walking into a very difficult situation. It is kind of like David standing up against Goliath. I wondered if maybe Ammon thought of himself in those terms. A young boy - maybe - well not as young as David, but still David was destined to become a king. Ammon never becomes a king but he was of royal birthright. He could have become…

(Student) We know that his father was promised that he would be…

00:37:48 Kept safe, yes. I am sure that gave him some confidence but you know, I have taken enough boy scouts out into the wilderness, and we have all promised them that if they will be smart they will come back safe, and you do not want them to push the envelope too much, right? You wonder if Ammon is pushing the envelope a little bit here. Well, many wonderful virtues come out here. He is just working in the stables with these servants. He is willing to do the real dirty work even anonymously. I do not think those other servants have the faintest idea who he is, “They think well, is he the Great Spirit? Is he a man? He has not disclosed to them that he is the son of a king. They probably do not even know much about his Nephite background. So, there is a virtue. We have mentioned quite a number of them here.

00:38:53 Are any of these virtues useful for you to think about in your discharging of assignments or responsibilities that you have? Well, I think as you go down the list it is nice to hear these stories, but maybe there are some of these virtues where you can see, “I can be more like that,” and I think the Lord will bless you that way.

(Student) I was just thinking…just so touched that he answered, “Whatsoever thou desirest that is right, I will do. This is a king, you know, he could have tried to impress him by doing whatever, but he makes his statement, “whatever thou desirest that is right, I will do.”

I will still have my standards, right? Yes. He has his act together.

(Student) I think when they instituted the chart of the full time missionary service each week, really they found that missionaries served other people that opened doors for them to teach and baptize following this example. I watched many converts come into the Church because two missionaries just offered service just out of the clear… and they were doing something in their yard and the missionaries stopped to help them, and that opened the door to teach…

You think that is a life-long lesson or just something that works in the mission field?

(Student) Well, some remember it life-long…

Well it is a great principle.

(Student) How is it that Ammon was successful and his brethren were thrown into prison? Was it just luck?

00:40:48 Well, his brethren, we will talk about that in a minute, you know, when they go to Middoni and Jerusalem, they do not go to a palace. They fall among less noble spirits, I would say, and they have the especial… now I do not know whether it is bad luck or not. Did they choose where they were going? I mean one of them ends up going to a city called Jerusalem,

Alma 17-22, 13 Dec 2007 (file 071213)

[9]


right? And what does he find there? The Amulonites! Who on earth are they? These are the leftovers of the priests of Noah, and I wondered if they just kind of walked into that unwittingly, or did they say, if we are going to make headway in the Land of Nephi, we have got to convert these people, because they are movers and shakers. They go into their synagogues, they preach to them out of their scriptures, I mean they are… this is a different kind of assignment. Ammon has his own hardships, but at least he is dealing with a very noble person. King Lamoni is a believing person. He believes in the Great Spirit, he will believe in the words of Ammon. Maybe it was just luck that he went to the Land of Ishmael and meets Lamoni there, but the people in…

(Student) …they are also equally righteous and worthy - assuming they are all…just one of them had success. I think they all had to share that…

00:42:46 Well, they do. Of course, Ammon will receive the revelation, “I have to go help my brothers. They are in trouble. Maybe he had premonitions because he has now learned a little bit about where they went. Once Lamoni is his friend, he will say, “You know, I have some brothers and they went over toward this lake and there’s… Lamoni probably says, :Oh, man, they walked into a hornet’s nest. I know those people!” Then Ammon gets a revelation. “We have to go!” It is nice that Aaron, after all the difficulties he has in prison… Ammon and Lamoni go back to the Land of Ishmael, and Aaron shows up in the City of Nephi and will now work with the father of King Lamoni but of course the father of Lamoni now has at least had a taste of the greatness and the generosity; the two things that really impress him about Ammon. The father now says, “I want to know more about this,” and that opens the door for Aaron. So they do share and help each other. But interesting the way it all worked and that they divide up and go in different places and they did not go two-by-two - not like we do.

(Student) Well I have a question along those lines. In Chapter 17 Verse 8 it says “They departed into the wilderness with their numbers which had elected to go to the Land of Nephi. Now apparently these instances happened to them individually, but they did not initially go alone, right?

I am sure they have supporters. They must have a few people going with them. How many people are in that group… If Ammon took anyone else with him, we do not have a hint of it. But we do know that Aaron and…

(Student) …unless they left before the 14 years.

Maybe, maybe some of them died. This is a rough, rough place. Okay. Well good thoughts, and thanks for your thinking about Ammon and his behavior.

00:45:16 Did you want to compare quickly what Ammon and Aaron use as their… I call it their first missionary discussion. Did any of you do this? When Ammon speaks in Chapter 18 Verses 24 to 39, and then when Aaron speaks with Lamoni’s father in Chapter 22 Verses 6 to 14, we have some real similarities there, right? Aaron will begin and will emphasize the importance of repentance. He knows that what Lamoni’s father needs more than anything else is to repent, and Lamoni’s father is a bit of a hothead, right. He was about to kill his own son and by the way, could a father in this world kill a son with impunity? Yes, we call this patria potestas, which in most ancient civilization gave the father the right to kill his son if he wanted. He could not be then accused of homicide or punished by the society. A father was king in his own family. Especially when you are the king of the land too! I guess you are the double king, but that story

Alma 17-22, 13 Dec 2007 (file 071213)

[10]


might strike you as odd. I mean how could he threaten to kill his own son simply because he had been offended because the son had not come to a great feast. The feast may have been extremely important, by the way, for political and religious purposes.

00:47:07 But in any event, we see in several ways, that Lamoni’s father is probably not quite as spiritually inclined as Lamoni himself was. The relationship between Lamoni and his wife, and Lamoni’s father and his wife—very different relationships there. One, King Lamoni, how does he feel about his wife? Wonderful. Very tender. Did you pick up what he says—the blessings that he gives to her—how much they understand each other, work together. And you compare that with Lamoni’s mother and father. They do not get along very well, and the queen, I mean she is even ready to kill all these people - she does not get what is going on at all - and so I think repentance gets greater emphasis in Aaron’s message where belief is emphasized in Ammon’s message.

00:48:27 But beyond that point number one, the first question they both ask is what? Do you believe there is a God? And you know that is the first article of faith, right? “We believe in God the Eternal Father and in his Son, Jesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost.” If they do not believe in God, if you are dealing with atheists, secularists or whatever, it is very difficult to construct any kind of ethical theory or responsibility, accountability for what you do and so they begin with really the crucial question, both of them, and I think we see them both doing it. They must have understood this is the way we will begin, we will ask, “Do you believe in God.”

(Student)…what impressed me is how similar their topics - the order in which they teach them.

00:49:26 Yes, what are some of those things? Okay, I wonder if somebody read this when they were doing Preach My Gospel? I imagine they did. Right, is there a God? Yes. Next thing, do you believe he created all things? Yes. Next thing is, by having created all things, he understands all things. That is an important principle of faith. If you look at the world and just say this is a random world, how could God even know what’s going to happen in it? But if he is the designer, the creator, he knows the world that he has created, then that is the next part of having faith in him. He knows what he is doing and has a plan and all of this follows logically as you go on in through their discussion then of the creation of the world, the creation of Adam, they both talk about being - man being created in the image of God - they both talk about the fall of Adam and Eve, the Plan of Redemption which was laid from the foundation of the world, the coming of Christ, believing in his name and so on.

00:50:39 Now there are a couple of little differences. When Ammon speaks to Lamoni, he emphasizes more the history of the Old Testament Prophets, how Lehi came across the sea, the rebellions of Laman and Lemuel and Ishmael, kind of talking about what happened with the Nephites and the Lamanites. I am not sure why Aaron does not talk about that. He jumps over that point and instead, talks about the commandments that were given, so maybe he has a little less of a personal relationship, and at least Ammon has won enough confidence that he can explain to Lamoni how they were separated as brothers with what happened with Laman and Lemuel. King Lamoni’s father still believes that the Nephites, after all, robbed and stole their rights and things like that. Lamoni is more open to saying, “You know, I am not sure I believe all of that.” I think he accepted Ammon’s explanation of the Nephite point of view on what had happened there.

Alma 17-22, 13 Dec 2007 (file 071213)

[11]


00:52:05 But the thing that Aaron emphasizes is that because of the fall of man— and here he is talking to the big king, king Lamoni’s father—because of the fall of man, man could not merit anything of himself. You would think, “How is a king of that stature going to receive that teaching?” King Benjamin was willing to say “I see myself as dust.” Lamoni’s father, this is probably not his ordinary way of thinking about himself. He at least is impressed enough that he reacts by saying, “What must I do to have eternal life?” That is that crucial question that is asked even by the Pharisee, the lawyer who asked Jesus, “What must I do to have eternal life?” That brings on, you remember, the story of the Good Samaritan. Lamoni’s father also says, “What must I do to get the wicked spirit out of my breast?” People in the ancient world were very concerned about having wicked spirits in them and want to expurgate them— they want to see that they were removed from having any influence over him and he recognizes, “I do have a— after all—tend to lose my temper. Maybe I now understand why I have this kind of problem and I want to get rid of it,” he says. And this is when he is told, “Well, you must repent, bow down and call upon the name of Christ” and this is the wonderful prayer where he prays, “O God, if there is a God, I will give away all my sins to know this truth.” That is a powerful line, one that gets quoted many times. Any reactions to… we have kind of reviewed the reaction there.

(Student) The instructions there have not changed.

Yes, the instructions are the same.

(Student) For us, it is the same; we go back to the garden. Be taught.

00:54:54 Yes, okay. When you want an answer to your prayer really badly, is this the same thing that we should be thinking of? We do not make sacrifices of blood and sacrificial animals, grain offerings, and things like that anymore, but you can think of things that you can sacrifice, such as sins that you can give up. Is it pleasing to the Lord when you say, “I would like to know, O Lord, what the answer to this is, and here’is what I will give up that I might know that?” Have any of you ever done that and has it worked?

(Student) I know I have never said, “I will give this up,” but I have said, “What would you have me do?”

00:55:58 Okay. And he tells you right? And then you—Yes, that is right, I will give up anything. Tell me what it is. Oh, not that! Right? Well, it was like— it is Lamoni’s father who, when Ammon is about to cut off his arm, right? He gives him—this is when they meet with Lamoni and Lamoni’s father, and they are out on the road. Ammon hits his arm and I guess knows how to make it go numb, and he’s about to kill him and what does Lamoni’s father say at that point? He says, “Do not kill me. I’ll give you anything, even half my kingdom.” Well that is not quite everything, is it? He has made some progress, has he not? At first, he was only willing to give up half his kingdom. Now he is willing to give up “all my sins.”

(Student) All his possessions. He starts out by giving all his possessions, then he says “all my sins.”

So he’s made progress, hasn’t he? Yes.

(Student) There was an interesting item in the news on TV where a workman was tearing down a wall for a lady in her home and (found) a half a million dollars homeowner. She told the

Alma 17-22, 13 Dec 2007 (file 071213)

[12]


workman she’s split it 50/50, then thought it over and thought ten percent ought to be enough for him.

Who found it and who is entitled to it? Well, okay. Anyway, we could probably tell some more stories that are fun like that.

(Student) There are several accounts in the Book of Mormon where someone sees the premortal Christ…

00:58:09 Yes, okay, I am glad you mentioned that. Yes, that is why I say Lamoni seems much more spiritually inclined, and he does not have the emphasis on, “You have to repent and you have to change.” Now maybe it is because Ammon has been such a wonderful example of loyalty and he has completely gained the trust of King Lamoni, but Lamoni believes anything that Ammon says, and is willing when he hears the gospel explained. It simply says, “And he believed.” He is so overcome by what he now feels, that he goes into this— for two days and two nights, he is overcome by the spirit and as you say, what does he see?

(Student) “I have seen my redeemer.” He had a great experience.

00:59:09 Now why do you think King Lamoni was blessed with a vision of the premortal Christ at this point? I mean partly because of his faith. Anything else? I mean this is an extraordinary thing. I mean how many of your missionary converts after the first discussion had an experience like this? Well, not very many. Visions come like this at certain times in history when they are at important moments. Can you think of others? What about Lehi? Why did Lehi see what he saw? The Lord needed to call him to do something very unusual and to start a whole migration—a whole nation that would be faithful. The Lord is trying to raise up a righteous people. Do you think that the Lord knows that there is an opportunity here?

(Student) All of the Lamanites who are converted become the people of Ammon. He is still the leader of the people even though …

We do not hear about it.

(Student)Ammon become a spiritual leader too of those he has converted. The king probably became a leader of all these converted Lamanites.

01:00:30 That is right and many of his people will then become converted and will also see visions. So next week we will talk more about the Ammonites and how powerful they become because of the oath that they will make, but it all begins with this conversion. It is no ordinary conversion and for very extraordinary reasons.

01:00:58 Well, a couple other quick things and then we will try to wrap up here before too late tonight. I asked you about family lessons we might learn about relations from the behaviors of Lamoni and his father. They share some traits, they resolve their conflicts in certain ways, but, I do not know, did any of you think of any family relations lessons you could learn there? Not sure. Well, I think - well. It’s late.

(Student) Actually I was thinking Lamoni, like his father, had absolute power.

01:02:18 Both of them have a lot of power and are used to it, but they do seem to be quite deferential toward each other. Lamoni did not go to the feast, but he certainly does show respect to his father. Interestingly, when Lamoni’s father will be converted, the one thing that they will

Alma 17-22, 13 Dec 2007 (file 071213)

[13]


request is that freedom, the right to believe, and the proper administration of law —protection of what we would call freedom of religion—should be established throughout the land. Lamoni requests this, and his father grants this and then makes a proclamation throughout the whole land that that should happen, so there is some teamwork here. Both very powerful people, able to knock heads but when they are united, they become a very powerful force as a partnership together.

(Student) I think probably King Lamoni’s father must have had a few harder knocks in his life, as he ran his kingdom 30 or 40 years. Maybe he was just a little bit more austere, not so pliant.

He is older, a lot older and maybe for that reason too. You get more set in your ways. Okay, well

(Student) I think one thing we can extrapolate or guess about the personality of Lamoni is that he must be a lot like Ammon, that is why he liked him so much. That is why he responded to him.

01:04:16 That is an interesting thought. After all, Lamoni was also a prince, and he has his little territory, a land that he rules, but he is just a vassal, tribal lord, and he is accountable to his father. Ammon would have been in that same position. They may have understood each other for that. That is good to think of.

(Student) I have a question. Are there any clues as to who the scribe or the historian was who wrote this? And I wonder, is the voice print the same?

01:04:56 Oh, the voice print is quite different, but we are switching now into narratives, so we do not know if it is the same author who is now simply in a different style, or a different author. We do not know who wrote this story. It could have been Ammon and maybe Aaron. Maybe they combine and give their homecoming report when they get to Zarahemla; they file their record. It is probably something that was written later. It does not appear to be a contemporaneous record. It is a retrospective, so they know how this is all going to end. They know what’s important. Lots of other things probably happen and we do not hear about them. If Ammon and Aaron were not the authors, possibly Alma was. In Alma 26 which we will talk about next week, Alma is just so thrilled to run into his four lost friends. He has not seen them for a long time, and they rejoice together. It says that they swap stories on what has happened and maybe the first thing that Alma does is, “We have got to get this written down.” So it may be Alma, it may be a court reporter who takes it down and records it. They do keep annual records. Finally it may be Mormon who is writing this based on records that he has. So there may be that too.

(Student) Verse 35, Chapter 22 it says, “Having said all this -

I now return. Yes, but who is the I?

(Student) I thought probably it was Mormon?

01:06:45 It could be Alma. It is in the Book of Alma or it could be any narrative. It could be Ammon, who has made that digression to talk about Aaron. “Now I will continue with—” and maybe the important thing is to give the report of where these people of Ammon come from, because Ammon is bringing them to the Land of Jershon and this becomes kind of the constitutional charter for these people as they are given the Land of Jershon and brought into the Nephite nation. They are being counted among, numbered among, the Nephites. So knowing

Alma 17-22, 13 Dec 2007 (file 071213)

[14]


where they have come from is an important thing for Ammon to explain. Anyway, lots of things there.

01:07:32 I know our time is up, but I am going to ask just a couple last questions on the bonus list. We have asked some of these, but the third bonus question: Was it customary among Ishmaelites to bring the bloody body parts of defeated enemies? Well, you have to wonder what is going on here? Ammon has cut off the arms of these people and the servants bring them, drag them in, and drop them in front of the king. Well what you may be interested to know is that in the ancient world, especially in the ancient near east, when soldiers went out into the battlefield, they were not necessarily all mercenaries, but some were, but they all expected to be rewarded for what they did on the battlefield. When they killed someone, they would bring a body part of the person they had killed, and it would usually be the right hand. A person has only one right hand, so if you could bring in a right hand—left hands did not count because then you may be paid double — so you always had to bring in the right body part. We have in the Assyrian archeology murals and depictions showing soldiers bringing the arms or the legs, whatever they were supposed to bring in order to be paid for their service. So maybe it was traditional.

(Student) Was this a precursor to the scalping by the Indians?

01:09:25 Well, Yes, well it may be. It is the same concept, but what we have here is the arms being brought in. Anyway, it is an interesting thought.

(Student) The servants may have been showing consideration for what Ammon did.

Yes, they might have. Okay, my last question is why was Lamoni in no hurry to ask Ammon his questions? How long did he wait? An hour to ask. Can you imagine sitting there for an hour waiting for the questions?

(Student) I have seen it happen in American Indian movies where they sit solemnly and do not say a word until the old one has spoken.

01:10:14 Well, we are in a big hurry. Time is money for us, and we will not just sit there patiently and wait. If somebody has a question, you know, I do not know what Lamoni was thinking for that hour, but maybe there is a little lesson for us to learn there. Silence may be golden. Maybe I should be quiet, Jeanie says. Okay. So I will let you for an hour just sit here and wonder about this last question.

What did you see as the three or four main themes of these two stories? I hope you spent a little bit of time thinking about that. I came up with ten possible things, which I am not going to go over. I am sure you thought of many themes, but the point is simply that there are lots of themes that can be drawn out of these stories. Themes about reaching out to other people and not condemning them even though you may have plenty of reason to think that they are going to reject you; stories about loyalty; stories about the price we have to pay to have liberty to believe what we believe; lessons about being missionaries, about being kings and servants and husbands and wives and maybe above all; the lesson of how we overcome violence. I will leave it with that, because that is the introduction to next week with the oath to never take up arms again.

01:12:06 We start out with some very violent Lamanites here and they will completely change, and violence will be eliminated from their culture. What a wonderful blessing it would be if violence could be eliminated from all of the cultures of the world today, if the story of Ammon

Alma 17-22, 13 Dec 2007 (file 071213)

[15]


could be believed, repeated, known, and followed in our lives and in the lives of nations and people who are violently responding to each other. This is the way of peace and at this Christmas time, the song of the angels, “Peace on earth” is one that we celebrate and Ammon certainly implemented.

01:13:00 I pray that the spirit of peace will be with you and that you will really enjoy the next few chapters. We go up through Alma Chapter 28 next week.

I leave you my testimony of the powerful, wonderful stories that give us models of righteousness and goodness that have wonderful applications for us in our everyday life, and I do this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 01:13:31

Transcriptionist Carol H. JonesEdited by Rita L Spencer

Alma 17-22, 13 Dec 2007 (file 071213)

[16]

narrative material - edgemontscripturestudy.comedgemontscripturestudy.com/00 bom 1/bom 1cleaned...

Documents