Come, Follow Me May 20-26: Mosiah 18-24
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.
To Know the Lord Is to Live in Covenant with Him
By Jennifer C. Lane
I’ve always thought that these chapters were a story of two peoples—the people of King Limhi and the people of Alma. But on closer reading I noticed a third group of people that undergoes dramatic change in these chapters—the Lamanites. All three groups learn something that changes their physical conditions, but their spiritual change and relationship with the Lord vary. The people of Alma have something that the people of Limhi want and that the Lamanites weren’t taught about.
Under the instruction of the priests of King Noah, the Lamanites learn the Nephite language. Being able to “keep their record, and that they might write one to another,” their economy changed. We see that “the Lamanites began to increase in riches, and began to trade one with another and wax great, and began to be a cunning and a wise people, as to the wisdom of the world” (Mosiah 24:7).
In these chapters, we see that Alma’s people and Limhi’s people had both been taught of the Lord, which gave them faith to change and come to know him more fully. In striking contrast, the Lamanites “knew not God; neither did the brethren of Amulon teach them anything concerning the Lord their God, neither the law of Moses; nor did they teach them the words of Abinadi” (Mosiah 24:5).
This contrast heightens the focus on knowing the Lord in these chapters. With this focus, we particularly see the knowledge of the Lord among Alma’s people, who became the Lord’s people through baptism. They were “desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people” (Mosiah 18:8) and then to care for each other as part of that relationship. Describing the waters and forest of Mormon where they were taught and baptized, we read: “how beautiful are they to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer” (Mosiah 18:30).
The people of Limhi, in contrast, seem to have made a vow or pledge to the Lord (see Mosiah 21:31), but they lacked—and wanted—the further relationship that baptism could create (see Mosiah 21:32-33).
Being in covenant relationship includes being known by the Lord and knowing him.
We see the knowledge born of covenant relationship repeatedly in the Old Testament. Because covenant relationship is such a close and personal bond between the Lord and his people, the analogy of marriage is used throughout the Old Testament to explain it.
And knowing the Lord as his covenant people is tied to a way to be in the world. Knowing the Lord is expressed in caring for each other. That way of interacting with others is the living out of the covenant relationship and emulating God’s goodness and mercy. Knowledge of the Lord is seen in how those who are vulnerable are treated. “He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me? saith the Lord” (Jeremiah 22:16).
Knowing God comes from being a covenant people and is connected to redemption. When Alma gathered the believers, he shared the means to know the Lord: “he did teach them, and did preach unto them repentance, and redemption, and faith on the Lord” (Mosiah 18:7). After he taught them, they were “baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you” (Mosiah 18:10).
After they were baptized, Alma organized teachers, and “he commanded them that they should preach nothing save it were repentance and faith on the Lord, who had redeemed his people” (Mosiah 18:20; emphasis added). Teaching among the Lord’s people focused on the Lord and living out the covenant relationship.
Once they had been redeemed from sin, they then needed redemption from other forms of captivity. Mormon explains: “For behold, I will show unto you that they were brought into bondage, and none could deliver them but the Lord their God, yea, even the God of Abraham and Isaac and of Jacob” (Mosiah 23:23). The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob remembers his covenant and his covenant people.
“Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage.” (Mosiah 24:13)
The covenant mercy of having our burdens lightened and eventually being delivered from bondage is part of the Lord’s covenant relationship with us. Living in a covenant relationship is coming to know the Lord and being known by Him. Jehovah spoke to ancient Israel about their covenant relationship: “And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the Lord” (Hosea 2:19-20).
