Come, Follow Me January 1-7: Introductory Pages of the Book of Mormon
In 2024, the Maxwell Institute will offer a weekly series of short essays on the Book of Mormon, in support of the Church-wide Come, Follow Me study curriculum. Each week, the Maxwell Institute blog will feature a post by a member of the Institute faculty exploring an aspect of the week’s reading block. We hope these explorations will enrich your study and teaching of the Book of Mormon throughout the coming year.
The Book of Mormon and the New Commandment
The title page of the Book of Mormon sets it apart among the standard works. No other book of scripture opens with such an explicit explanation of and justification for its existence. Section 1 of the Doctrine and Covenants, the prologue to the Gospel of John, and the salutations that open the epistles of Paul are all similar in some ways. But none approaches the specificity of the reasons set forth in Moroni’s title page: who and what the book is for, whence it comes, and why and how it was brought forth.
Moroni gives two principal purposes for the book: first, “to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers … And also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations.” But there’s something else that Moroni wants to emphasize: he clarifies that this record was “written by way of commandment, and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation.” Among all the other relevant explanations and justifications, readers must understand that the Book of Mormon was produced in obedience to commandment.
In fact, each of the book’s principal editors and writers makes a point of stating that he writes because of commandment. Nephi, the first narrator of the Book of Mormon, is perhaps the most emphatic on this point. On at least three occasions, he assures the reader that the Lord commanded him to keep, in addition to the exhaustive historical record that would eventually become the Nephite royal annals known as the “large plates,” another set of plates: the shorter record of his prophetic ministry known as the “small plates.” He writes that “the Lord God said unto me: Make other plates; and thou shalt engraven many things upon them which are good in my sight, for the profit of thy people. Wherefore, I, Nephi, to be obedient to the commandments of the Lord, went and made these plates upon which I have engraven these things” (2 Ne 5: 30-32; see also 1 Ne 9:3, 5-6 and 1 Ne 19:1-2).
Late in his ministry, Nephi transfers the small plates to his brother Jacob, together with the Lord’s commandment. Jacob makes sure to record his commission from Nephi: “Nephi gave me, Jacob, a commandment concerning the small plates … that I should preserve these plates and hand them down unto my seed, from generation to generation” (Jacob 1:1-2). Thereafter, each new keeper of the plates is commissioned “by way of commandment” from the previous keeper (see Jacob 7:27, Jarom 1:1, Omni 1:1, and Omni 1:3). By the end of the record, the recital of the commissioning commandment seems formulaic, and there’s no evidence that the keepers sought or received a divine commandment like Nephi’s. Still, it’s notable that they continue to appeal to commandment as explanation and justification for their writings.
The large plates, it seems, are similarly transferred “by way of commandment.” Because readers have Mormon’s redaction of the large plates, not the first-person voices of the keepers, we don’t see every transition. But we glimpse an important moment when Mosiah, whose sons have refused the kingship (and thus the royal plates), delivers the records to Alma. Mosiah “took [all the records which he had kept and preserved according to the commandments of God], and conferred them upon [Alma], and commanded him that he should keep and preserve them … even as they had been handed down from the time that Lehi left Jerusalem” (Mosiah 28:11, 20). The large plates are handed down “by way of commandment,” as stated on the title page--a commandment originating with God and preserved through human chains of responsibility.
Finally, the editors of the book, Mormon and Moroni, also undertake their project “by way of commandment.” The boy Mormon is commissioned by Ammaron to recover the plates of Nephi and record the demise of his people (Mormon 2:17). Later, Mormon is commanded by God to abridge the Nephite records (3 Ne 5:14) and to append the small plates to his abridgement (Words of Mormon 1:7). Moroni likewise receives a human commandment from his father Mormon (Mormon 8:1) and a divine commandment from the Lord to conclude the abridgement and append the translated Jaredite record (Ether 4:5).
What are we to make of the strong testimony that the Book of Mormon originated in obedience to commandment? For one thing, of course, we learn that the Book of Mormon plays a central role in God’s large-scale plan for the salvation of humanity, and we’re reminded that the prophetic writers and editors of the book, though subject to human failure, were men of God who acted in obedience. And we’re likewise encouraged to live in obedient faithfulness to God’s commandments.
We also learn something important about the nature of commandments. Early in the Book of Mormon, Nephi receives a blessing from the Lord: “Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, … and inasmuch as thy brethren shall rebel against thee, they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord” (1 Ne 2:19-20). Read in a limited context, this passage might seem to suggest that we keep the commandments in order to ensure our spiritual prosperity, while the disobedient are accountable for their own spiritual poverty. This is not entirely wrong: our obedient response to God’s commandments does form our character in godly ways, which is good for us. Indeed, Nephi’s original commandment to keep the small plates specifies that they are “for the profit of thy people” (2 Ne 5:30).
But on its own, this is too narrow a view of commandment theology. The Book of Mormon, another testament of Jesus Christ, must be read in the light of the Christian gospel. And Jesus taught that all commandments may be reduced to the single principle of love: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt 22:37-40). If the Book of Mormon is written by way of commandment, then it is written as an act of love.
When the Savior visits the Nephites, he teaches him what love of neighbor looks like: “I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven” (3 Ne 12:43-45). If the Book of Mormon embodies the Christian commandment to love, it is written for the good of friends and enemies, without expectation of profit, repayment, or reciprocity. That is the specific quality of divine love, and it’s the love we are called to emulate.
And so it’s significant that this is precisely the love that is expressed “by way of commandment” on the title page of the Book of Mormon, if we read between the lines to see it there. Moroni writes that the book “is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites—Written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of the house of Israel; and also to Jew and Gentile.” The Lamanites are only the secondary subjects of the Book of Mormon, which is, after all, the record of the Nephite prophets. But they are the principal audience of the book. In that reversal we can see the love at the center of the commandment to write the Book of Mormon.
Early in his ministry, Nephi prophesies that a genocidal enmity will arise between his own spiritual progeny and his brothers’ people. Yet he also sees that the record he is commanded to keep will be the latter-day means of a great renewal among the Lamanites (1 Ne 13:39). Mormon and Moroni are eyewitnesses to the prophesied slaughter. Yet they do not hesitate to obey the commandment to write for the welfare of their enemies, so they may come unto Christ and “it shall be well with [them] in the day of judgment” (Mormon 7:10). All three men give their life’s work to a project that, in the long run, is not for the benefit of themselves or their own descendants, but instead will “bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you” (3 Ne 12:44).
The commandment that gave rise to the Book of Mormon was, at root, a commandment to love God and to love neighbor. It embodies the essence of the Christian gospel, the central commandment of the new age inaugurated in Christ, and the basic ethic of the kingdom of God.