Book of Mormon Studies Podcast: Helaman Text with Tyler Griffin

Rosalynde Welch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Maxwell Institute's Book of Mormon Studies podcast. My name is Rosalyn Welch. I am the Associate Director of the Maxwell Institute, and I am delighted today to be joined by Dr. Tyler Griffin. Dr. Griffin is an accomplished podcaster himself and I'm sure many of our listeners know of him. He is the Associate Dean of Religious Education here at Brigham Young University, and he is a teaching professor in the Department of Ancient Scripture. But that is not all. He has a secret past life in electrical engineering. And using those skills, he has created all sorts of really cool 3D renderings that kind of bring the Scriptures alive. Renderings of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus, an internal Book of Mormon map. He was telling me about one he's working on on Mormon's cave. These all sound really, really neat, and they're available to be explored virtualscriptures .org. What exciting projects. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Griffin.

Tyler Griffin: Thank you, Rosalynde. It's a pleasure to join you today.

Welch: Well, today we are talking about the Book of Helaman. Not a super long book, but it covers a lot of ground at a breakneck speed. As always on this podcast, we will not walk through every verse or every chapter in the Book of Helaman, but we're going to try to give you an overview, a kind of introduction that will help you, before you even start reading it, to know what to look for, to sensitize you to some of the most important themes and issues and characters, and hopefully to enrich your reading in that way. So as we jump off here, Tyler, give us any context that we need to know before starting in here in Helaman chapter one.

Griffin: Yeah, so this book is remarkable on so many levels. There are so many unique things about the Book of Helaman. In 16 chapters, you get all of these firsts. You get the first time that the Lamanite righteousness exceeds that of the Nephites. You get our first and only Lamanite preacher or prophet, Samuel Lamanite, with his speech or at least part of his speech recorded. You get the introduction of these secret combinations and their growth. And you get the Lamanites who become more bold than they've ever been before in their warfare. And so it's a fascinating book because the roller coaster ride of the ups and downs through the first parts of the Book of Mormon, all of a sudden, they kick into high gear as we get closer and closer to the coming of Jesus Christ, that first coming.

The highs seem to get way higher and the lows get way lower. And the cycles that shift between them seem to get way shorter. It's like you said, it's the best description I would give is keep your hands and feet inside the ride. You know, buckle up because it moves fast.

Welch: It's like a sine wave that starts to get faster and faster frequency and higher highs and lower lows. You can get motion sick if you don't hang on and pay attention. Yeah. Yeah.

Griffin: That's right. That's right. Hopefully we don't make anybody sick. The whole purpose of the book is to heal a man, not to make a man sick. So sorry for the pun.

Welch: Yeah. Well, it's interesting how as we've come through the end of the Book of Alma, we've been in these war chapters, right? And we've seen this ongoing eternal enmity between the Nephites and the Lamanites. And of course, we have the heroism of Captain Moroni. And yet for all of his work and effort, they haven't managed to resolve the intractable conflict between the Nephites and Lamanites. And I think putting that in place kind of throws into relief how remarkable the events of the Book of Helaman are, where in fact we do see this intractable conflict resolved by something other than warfare. We see it resolved in fact by the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we see for a while the Nephites and Lamanites coming together in peace. And of course.

Griffin: Yeah, I love that first time.

Welch: The first time, yeah. And as you mentioned, we're going to see this remarkable reversal that has been prophesied. So if you've been paying attention, it won't take you fully by surprise, but we'll see the Nephites sink lower than they ever have while the Lamanites, of course, grow in strength and in righteousness. And it's a beautiful thing to see.

Griffin: Yeah, you know, as we make that transition from Alma to Helaman, as you were as you were talking through that Rosalynde, the fascinating thing to me is, is that your boundaries and your borders are pretty clearly defined in Alma. It's not hard to figure out who your enemy is. I mean, there's a little subtlety going on with some of the stratagem that Captain Moroni would use, but pretty much, you know, who the the quote unquote good guys and bad guys are in the book of Alma.

And the moment you finish all those wars and Captain Maroni gets the Lamanites driven back to their land, then you get that first mass exodus out of the land of Zarahemla by many, many Nephites that go northward in Chapter 63. And then we flip the page over thinking, OK, now hopefully we'll find some peace.

And yet both enemies, the enemy from within, those dissenting Nephites and the enemy from without, those conquering Lamanites, it's this incredible shift that takes place where the internal enemy gets way more subtle and way more sneaky. And you've got to watch your back because you don't know which of your neighbors now is in the secret combination, these Gadianton robbers, and who's out to get you.

And at the same time in chapter one, for the first time ever, the external enemy, the Lamanites who have, you know, worn the different uniform for this entire history up to this point, they become more bold than ever before and they attack not in the periphery of the land of Zarahemla, but they come right to the heart and attack in the capital city of Zarahemla, first time ever in the history of the book where that happens.

So. Internal enemy becomes more subtle. External enemy becomes more bold. And all of a sudden you say, hmm, this is starting to sound a little bit more like the world in which we live, where back in the 20th century, it was pretty clearly defined borders of who your enemies were and who your your friends were. And as we get closer and closer to our day, it's become more more subtle with different terrorist attacks and you're not sure anymore who your enemy is.

Welch: I very much agree there's a breaking down of binaries that happens in the Book of Helaman and it gives a sense of instability and a different kind of threat. As you say, it's a threat that is more internal and the challenge comes not only in defeating it but in discerning it, right? In seeing it and having your eyes opened to see what genuinely is threatening your spiritual well -being. And it might be that this kind of breakdown,

Griffin: Yeah.

Welch: in binaries contributes in some ways to an unusual and sort of difficult structure. Some books in the Book of Mormon are structured in a very clear and elegant way, and some not so much. Tell us anything you can share about the structure of the Book of Helaman.

Griffin: Yeah, that's a great question. So Kim Berkey wrote an article from your team over there on the structure of the Book of Helium and how it's not quite as beautifully laid out in parallel structures like Joe Spencer points out with the Book of Alma. It's a more linear flow of events. But the thing that I think is amazing is how Mormon, as he's been putting this together,

It's almost as if he's playing spiritual ping pong with us where he'll show us these really low lows. We reach new depths in some of the lows, but he doesn't leave you discouraged. He then shows you the counter on the other side of what God is doing to combat those efforts from the devil to overthrow all of society and the church and the words of the prophets and the doctrine of Christ. And so you see, it's as if the wheat and the tares of that time period are growing more and more side by side. And Mormon does the structure. It's fascinating to watch as you go through the book of Helaman, how he'll touch, he's literally bouncing you back and forth between the two as we get closer and closer to the coming of Jesus Christ, the contrast becomes more and more stark. And it's such a -- in my mind, it's one of the most applicable books to the 21st century that I know. I love this thing.

Welch: Yeah, I've come to see that as well. I've written elsewhere that there was a time in my life when I did not appreciate the Book of Helaman. I think I didn't understand it. I didn't give it the time that it deserves. And I think I didn't give the characters, especially the prophet Nephi, the credit that he deserved. And my eyes have been opened over the past couple of years to the real beauty and power in the Book of Helaman.

Despite the fact that it is this ping -ponging and there are some low lows. As you mentioned, Kim Matheson has read the Book of Helaman as a sort of series of comparisons. And the way that she lays it out is that in the beginning, the first two chapters, we're seeing a comparison between the Nephite dissenters, which is a form of opposition that we're used to and accustomed to, and this new form, the secret combinations that become entrenched in this group called the Gadianton robbers. We then move on in chapters four through six to a kind of comparison between the Lamanites and Nephites. So this is where, of course, we see the amazing theophany and conversion of the Lamanites with the preaching of Nephi and Lehi in Helaman 5.

Griffin: Yes.

Welch: And then we see the Nephites continue to plunge lower and lower in chapter six. We then move on in chapter seven through nine to the great and very memorable sermon of the prophet Nephi. And so there you see a comparison between Nephi and the secret combinations themselves. And you see how it is that Nephi as the prophet tries to muster a prophetic method and a prophetic voice that can speak to and maybe cut through to the hearts of the Nephites who are enthralled to these secret combinations.

Then we have a little bit of an interlude here where we interestingly see the earth itself get involved. I think of it as the earth kind of waking up in preparation for what we'll see in third Nephi. But we have the famine, of course, and then Mormon's comment in chapter 12 about how the earth itself responds in obedience to God's voice, whereas human beings are willful and blind to God's word.

And then finally, at the end with Samuel the Lamanite's sermon, we see a comparison between, as we've alluded to earlier, Lamanite faithfulness on the one hand, the beautiful fulfillment of prophecy as they embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, and on the other side, Nephite infidelity, as this group who has had the Messianic prophecies all along fails to accept them and recognize them right now when the time is most urgent.

Griffin: Yeah, it's amazing. All these attacks on the government, on the church, on the prophets, on different groups of people. And yet the Lord always provides these counters along the way to keep things moving forward. Love it. That's a beautiful overview from Kim.

Welch: Yeah. All right, well, let's talk now about some of the characters that we will encounter here in the Book of Helaman. Like the Book of Alma, not quite to the extent of the Book of Alma, but there's a lot of characters that we encounter here and there's some complex plotting, so we won't be able to touch on every single person who shows up in the Book of Helaman, but talk to us about the most important characters that we will encounter and what we should keep in mind as we're reading.

Griffin: Mm -hmm.

Welch: about their actions and words.

Griffin: Yeah, so you get kind of two sides if we want to do a separation of church and state here for a moment. You get the characters that are involved more in that government side. Initially, you know, Pahoran and then his three sons who are--it's fascinating the way the book starts, that there's this this serious difficulty among the people and infights. Why? Because there's a disputation about who should be the next leader of their government of the three sons, Pahoran, Paanchi and Pakumeni. And so you get that interesting interplay between those three brothers in chapters one and two, how the vote comes and then the different responses from the other two and then the death because of the Lamanites and then the next guy gets killed by secret combinations and you're saying, man, who wants that judgment seat?

And then, of course, Helaman, the prophet, takes that judgment seat that is--It's kind of like the, I guess the defense against the dark arts position. Nobody wants it, but Heleman takes it. It's dangerous. You don't last. You won't last. But I love the faith and the trust in the Lord. And there's that incredible chapter there, chapter two, where Heleman is this foil to Gadianton and Kishkumen. So this instrument in the hands of the Lord.

Welch: Because it's dangerous, right? It's literally life-threatening.

Griffin: In contrast to the instruments in the hands of Satan to overthrow God's work and this where they give that beautiful nutshell definition of what the Gadianton robbers are all about. And it's really just a description of what the devil tried to do in the pre -mortal council and what he's still trying to do to this day to secretly rob, gain power, murder in order for him to get gain. Well, that's pretty much it in a nutshell. And then you get the contrast of Helaman who's willing to give his life and to teach and to train.

And then on the church side, he obviously takes his two boys, Nephi and Lehi, and that famous Chapter five, the “remember, remember” speech that has to be one of the best father-son talks in all of eternity. As far as the scriptures are concerned, so beautiful and so powerful.

And then we watch that trajectory as they go and preach among the Lamanites and get thrown in prison. We hear the voice of the father and, Lo and behold, that's the catalyst for now starting the process of increasing Lamanite righteousness. It's that chapter and that event there at the at the ending part of chapter five that really turns the corner until we get to chapter six.

And then, of course, Nephi, he dominates the narrative here in a good way and receives the sealing keys. Wow. That chapter is so powerful. Chapter 10. And it comes when he's so discouraged after after having combated the secret combinations where he shows it's not so secret. I'll tell you exactly what they're doing. And he reveals it even gives him a script of here's what's going to be said. And it follows perfectly. And they still aren't convinced all of them collectively. And they don't change. And he's left standing alone as everybody wanders away and he goes home downcast.

And it's there in that moment and in kind of a low, trough period of his life, or of the cycle of what a prophet has to go through, where God visits him and gives him that sealing, those sealing keys. It's beautiful.

And then obviously our, well, you shouldn't have favorites, but my favorite character in the book of Helaman is Samuel the Lamanite. I love Samuel and everybody always just sees him as kind of a, if you say, tell me what you know about Samuel the Lamanite, they just,

Welch: Yeah.

Griffin: talk about him not being able to be hit by arrows and jumping off the wall and running away. And it's like that is such a teeny, teeny, tiny part of his overall story. He is one of the most faithful, one of the most courageous and one of the brightest doctrinaires of all of the scripture. He's got to be on the shortest of short lists of your most specific prophesiers of all time across the Bible and the Book of Mormon. I don't, I don't know of anybody who gave more in quantity specific prophecies, not just repent or you're going to be destroyed, but no, I'll give you the timestamp. This is what's going to happen and when it's going to happen and how it's going to happen. And by the way, here's the script. This is what you're going to say. He's just so specific. I love this guy. He's one of my heroes. So.

Welch: Yeah, and his sermon is notable, not just of course for the specificity as you mentioned, but also for the power of the imagery with which he paints for the Nephites the fate that awaits them 400 years in the future if they fail to repent. He's a powerful wordsmith and he creates images that-- the sword of justice is hanging over your head, right? That's how he opens. It's an unforgettable opening. So he's a powerful rhetorician and he's also an incredibly profound theologian as well. There's this little digression. It's kind of a hidden gem that I think we often miss in chapter 14. And it comes right between where he prophesies the signs of Christ's birth and the signs of Christ's death.

Griffin: Yes.

Welch: And there's this place where he is talking about the expediency of why it is that the Messiah must come to earth and die. Why was it necessary that Jesus Christ has to die? And he has an incredibly profound explanation of that, of the resurrection, of the first and second spiritual deaths, what it means to us to come into the presence of God and how it is that judgment really occurs.

And it's an extremely subtle and profound treatment of those themes.

Griffin: Yeah. Yeah, honestly, Rosalynde, I would put that little segment starting in verse 15 down through verse 17 or down through 19, where he finishes with his call to action. Therefore, repent, you repent. I would put that up against any any treatise anywhere in scripture, any in any speech from anybody as far as giving the simplest nutshell definition of what Jesus Christ's resurrection actually accomplishes and why it was so needful in overcoming both aspects of Adam and Eve's fall, the physical and the spiritual death that they inherit and the spiritual consequences of my own sin. He introduces the condition of repentance and he paints that picture so succinctly and so clearly, better than anybody I've ever seen. I just, that's my favorite part of his speech right there.

Welch: Yeah, I agree. I agree. The way that he ties his overarching message of repentance into the whys and the hows, right? And it is remarkable to speculate on how such a sophisticated theological thinker emerged from a relatively young Lamanite church. We saw, of course, the early, early origins back in Alma 19, but it seems as though it had probably been a pretty small group of believers among the Lamanites, up until here in Helaman 5, where we see first in Zarahemla, Nephi converts many, but then things really, really pick up steam when the Lamanites begin to preach to themselves. So after the remarkable events in the prison and those 300 Lamanites who receive and--sort of, basically they receive their own kind of witness of God's presence. They themselves are brought into the circle of the divine fire. And then with that witness, they begin to preach to their brothers and sisters. And it seems like that is when the real turning point comes for the Lamanite people. But somehow in just these few years, Samuel the Lamanite has developed an incredibly sophisticated and deep understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It appears as though he's had access to the words of King Benjamin. He quotes King Benjamin at some point in time.

Griffin: Yep, he's quoting 20 words word for word right there in chapter 14.

Welch: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so many questions about where he comes from, but so much gratitude. Clearly, he was a prophet and the Spirit spoke to him and through him. And that is the real source of his power as a prophet.

Griffin: And you know, honestly, that is so empowering to people today, I hope, to see that here's a guy who we know nothing about his birth. We don't know his parents were. We don't know what city he was born in. We don't know at what point he joined the church or if he was born into the, is he a descendant of one of the anti -Nephi Lehi families? And he's now claiming his Lamanite heritage rather than his Ammonite heritage. We know nothing about this guy. We don't know who taught him.

And like you said, he clearly either has access to scriptures or we know from his speech that that he's he's giving some words that an angel has given to him, which is interesting because the part he quotes specifically in Chapter 14, verse 12, those 20 words, word for word, from from King Benjamin's speech in in Mosiah, Chapter three. Well, it's Mosiah, Chapter three that was also given to King Benjamin by an angel. So did he have access to those scriptures or did the same angel just give him the same?

Welch: Same angel maybe?

Griffin: speech prep that he gave Benjamin and so that's why there's the crossover. And it gives me hope that people who might not be born into royalty so to speak or into famous positions or powerful positions that God can still use anybody as a powerful instrument. It's about watching the Lord do his work more than it is about

Welch: Yeah.

Griffin: Samuel. And ironically Nephi didn't originally include him in the record until we get to 3rd Nephi 23 when the Savior himself has to say uh didn't I command my servant Samuel to prophesy that the graves would be open and did that not happen? So where is it?

Welch: Yeah. Oh, I so agree. So many lessons for us. And I love what you're saying here, Tyler. I'm reminded of our brand new apostle, Elder Kearon, who himself was a convert as a young adult. So over just a few short decades, he has been tutored by the Spirit and prepared to be able to minister in this most profound of ways and to bear the most profound witness of Jesus Christ. And he, again, was a convert, doesn't come from one of the famous names that you get to know if you live here in Utah. And like you say, it makes me think of all the young Samuels who are out there now somewhere, who knows where in the world, who are being tutored and led by the Spirit.

And the other thing, as you just mentioned, is that it reminds me, we sure need to be paying attention to these voices and they really, really matter. And the culpability falls on us if we fail to pay attention to these witnesses of Christ that are coming to us from unexpected places.

Griffin: Yeah, and that's I think that's one of the messages, one of the overarching messages if you will, of the entire book of Helaman is it's a story of god calling prophets and commissioning them to do things. And then you see people either accepting or rejecting the words of the prophets. This book is filled with both sides of that and we see the fruits of what happens on on how you respond to that prophetic invitation and loving--Samuel finishes the one part of his speech and then he opens up the next by referring to them as his beloved brethren. And yet he was treated terribly back in the beginning when he first started to try to come in and teach them. They rejected him, kicked him out. He gets the inspiration to go back. They won't let him back in, so he has to get up on the wall. Ironically a wall that was built to keep Lamanites out and now here's this rogue Lamanite standing on the wall preaching to the Nephites. The irony is thick. I love it. I love this whole story that he didn't he didn't give up. He kept going

Welch: Yeah. Absolutely. And Mormon does such a fascinating job of comparing these two powerful prophets here at the end of the book, Nephi and Samuel. And they really are counterparts and very different. Their overarching message is the same. It is six short letters, R -E -P -E -N -T, repent, repent. But their methods and their positions in relation to the Nephite people,

Griffin: Right.

Welch: could not be more different. We've just been talking about how Samuel the Lamanite was an outsider, symbolized in the fact that he literally preaches at the border of the city. He could not be more of an outsider and be able to talk to them standing on the wall of the city. On the flip side, we have Nephi, who comes from the most prominent of Nephite families. He is the great -grandson of Alma, right? and the great -great -grandson of Alma the Elder. So this has kind of been almost like a prophetic dynasty. So he is an insider and he gives his speech, of course, famously from...

Griffin: There you go.

Welch: this tower that is in his garden, which is on the highway right to the main central market of Zarahemla. So he could not be more of an insider. And, you know, it's no accident, of course, that Mormon has highlighted the places where these two iconic sermons are given, to show us the testimony coming from within Nephite culture and that from without.

Nephi has a very different...

Griffin: That's right.

Welch: personality. I was trying to get to know him as a person as I read it through this time. And he's an interesting person. You can tell he has a very creative side. He has a very emotional side. He has seen a lot. But you can see him casting about trying to find innovative ways to get through to his people. And he has to try really different things that have never been tried before because the old methods really don't seem to be working. So you see him making these extremely detailed signs that he gives them. And then of course, the sealing power that he uses to call down a famine. Even his, even just his sermon itself, before any of that stuff happens, but his tower sermon, you can see him reaching for new rhetorical tools to hold up a mirror to the Nephites and let them see that there's a new threat that's facing them. We talked about this before, right? Maybe the reason why Nephi has to be so creative is because it's a different threat. It's an internal threat this time and it's an invisible threat of the secret combinations that are within the Nephites themselves.

So I came away with a lot of respect for him. He's a prophet in some ways like Elijah from the Old Testament, right? He calls down fire, is associated with divine fire. He has a dramatic flair, a flair for the dramatic and the creative. And then you have Samuel who is in a lot of ways a prophet's prophet, kind of a classic Old Testament prophet.

Griffin: Mm-hmm.

Welch: John the Baptist is a lot like Samuel, right? And that makes sense as both of them being the final prophet before the coming of Christ. So it's fascinating to see how Mormon very deliberately holds up as contrasts these two prophetic figures.

Griffin: I love it. I love this. I love that whole, the whole story arc of Nephi then contrasts with Samuel coming from very different angles but teaching the exact same message really like you said.

Welch: Yeah. Yeah. Can I just share a sort of quirky favorite character from the Book of Helaman? There's lots of fun ones, but I want to give a shout out to Aminadab. Remember Aminadab? I'm sure you do. Aminadab was one of these Nephite dissenters, right, who had followed this very common pattern of becoming...

Griffin: Yeah. Ah, yes.

Welch: disillusioned with the Nephite church and so turning his back on his people, exiting and going to live among the Lamanites--in particular to try to manipulate them and take advantage of them to get back at his own people. So, Aminadab was one of these Nephite dissenters who was living among the Lamanites and he happens to find himself at the right place and at the right time to have an experience he never could have imagined.

So, he was there at the prison when Nephi and Lehi are surrounded by fire and then begin to converse with unseen heavenly beings. And of course, all the rest of the Lamanites are saying, what is going on? But something in Aminadab's head remembers the teachings of his childhood and of his upbringing. So he can explain to them and say, well, I think I know what's going on.

Griffin: What is going on?

Welch: I think they're actually seeing angels. And then the new, the Lamanites ask, well, what, what can we do? And he says, well, I, if I recall correctly, I think, I think you have to cry to the Lord and, and ask for repent, you know, repent and ask for forgiveness. And, and so he ends up being this unlikely guide and unlikely missionary to the Lamanites because of what he's experienced as a young person and he plays an important and beautiful role. We don't really know what happened to him, but I like to think that his own heart was changed and that he himself came to Christ that day in the prison.

Griffin: I love that. He's such a fun, often overlooked and forgotten character of the story.

Welch: Yeah. Well, let's move on here. You know, Tyler, your background and my background could not be more different. You are in electrical engineering. I was an English major. I did a PhD in English. So I'm going to take one for the team. This next section, we'll talk about literary forms. This is a favorite of mine. And I love to watch for these different literary forms as I'm reading through the Book of Mormon. To me, when you understand the conventions of the genre of the writing that you're reading, it helps you to understand the meaning of it more deeply. Now, Helaman is not the most literary of books, as we've talked about it. So it's put together very deliberately, but it's not meant to be beautiful. I think it's meant to wake us up and be shocking. Nevertheless, there are still some really interesting literary forms that we can see in the Book of Helaman.

One of which we have gotten used to as we've come through the books of Mosiah and Alma, and that is editorial interjections. So we see Mormon come out from behind the curtain from time to time. We see that in chapter three. Quite interestingly there in chapter three, not only does Mormon step out for a moment and tell us what it is that he wants us to notice in this passage of Nephite history, but he gives us a flash forward at that point. Mormon has given us flashbacks before as he catches us up on something we need to know about Nephite history. But here he gives us a flash forward and he says, let me remind you of what's going to happen to these Nephites. Let me give you a quick view from where I am right now. And that, evidently, he believes will give us the context that we need to interpret what's happening with the Nephites. So that's very interesting.

And then in chapter 12, we get a whole chapter of Mormon's voice. It's like he can't stop himself from just letting it out and letting us see his own grief and his own sorrow at being buried and immersed in these ancient sources and seeing the roots of the events that led to where he is now.

Griffin: It makes you wonder, doesn't it, Rosalynde, what was going on in Mormon's history in his own life when he when he was abridging chapters, you know, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, when he finally breaks in. You have to think that he's just seen incredible Nephite wickedness among his own people and he's seen them get defeated or something's gone. Maybe Baby Maroni had a rough night sleeping and teething or something. We don't know when he's doing this, but the idea being he's not having a great day when he writes Helaman chapter 12, the state of humanity.

Welch: Yeah, yeah. There's a very dark vision of human nature that comes out there. And we've encountered that before. King Benjamin has given us some real talk about the natural man, and Abinadi has given us some real talk about our carnal, sensual, and devilish nature. Always, though, it's been balanced in those two sermons by the promise of adoption in Christ, right, that we can receive new birth and can be made saints in Christ. Mormon, I think he's not in the right frame of mind to give us that other side of the coin here in chapter 12, and he is full of grief at what he is seeing.

You know, another thing that we see in the Book of Helaman is something we've talked about before on this podcast, which is intertextuality. So places where we see ideas or images, sometimes straight up words from another book of scripture that show up here. And we've talked about that as a kind of hyperlink that you can click on it mentally and you can import into this context all the ideas and associations and themes from the other context. So it's a very powerful way for a writer of scripture to pack a lot of meaning into a few words and to make this text susceptible to spirit-aided interpretation that can yield a whole variety of different interpretations speaking to different contexts and times.

What I think is so interesting about the intertextuality in the Book of Helaman is that by now coming through in the large plates, the books of of Mosiah and Alma, we've built up enough history and enough text that we start to see a lot of internal Book of Mormon intertextuality, rather than just imports from the Bible. So Helaman chapter five is an amazing example of this, where we see in so many ways--Helaman very explicitly instructing his sons, calling them back to the teachings of King Benjamin and the teachings of Alma.

And then we're told that the very prison where Nephi and Lehi have their remarkable experiences, the same one where Ammon and his brethren had been imprisoned many, many years earlier. So there's that kind of connection. And then there's also connections forwards because so much of what the Lamanites experienced there in that prison scene is reminiscent. What's the opposite of reminiscent? It's not reminiscent, but it...It foreshadows the Nephite theophany that we will see in 3 Nephi 11. So you can start to see these internal connections. We mentioned earlier how Samuel speaks 20 words, word for word, from Mosiah 3. So we're starting to see here internal intertextuality within the Book of Mormon, and it's really exciting to see the richness that results from all those different connections of people and contexts and teachings.

And maybe one last thing that I'll point out, and that is something called a type scene. And a type scene in scripture is a kind of format. It's a narrative format with certain rules and conventions that a writer can use and fill it in with different characters and in different contexts.

Griffin: Yeah.

Welch: So we see this type scene of the prophet who arrives to a hostile and degraded society and calls them to repentance. And we've seen this happen enough in the Bible and in the Book of Mormon that it's become very familiar to us now. Jeremiah calling Jerusalem to repentance. Of course, Lehi in 1st Nephi chapter 1, we start out with that type scene of Lehi calling his fellow Jerusalemites to repentance. We saw that with Jacob at the temple early in the book of Jacob as he calls his own people to repentance from their wickedness. Abinadi is maybe the most classic of all these prophets. Alma in Ammonihah is another instance of this. And then of course, Lehi here on his garden tower and Samuel on the wall fulfill and instantiate this scriptural type scene.

Every time it's a little different, every time there's something new that you can learn from it, but by the piling up of those characters and those narrative conventions, again, the writers of scripture can import a whole lot of meaning. There's a sort of a twist on this that you see sometimes, which is where the prophet wants to go away, right? The prophet tries once, is unsuccessful, turns around and the Lord says, no, you don't. You're going back. We see that with Jonah, of course, in the Old Testament, and that happens a number of times in the Book of Mormon as well, notably, of course, here with Samuel the Lamanite.

So it's really, really fun when you start noticing those repeated type scenes. And then when it comes along again, you can say, oh, I recognize that. And let me put on the front burner all of the previous prophetic figures and let me see how what's happening now is going to be similar and maybe different. And there's going to be deep meaning to be gleaned from that kind of comparison.

Griffin: Exactly.

Welch: Well, let's move on now to the real meat of the discussion. And that is, what are some of the most salient and alive themes in the Book of Helaman? There are so many. It's such a rich book. But touch on a few of the ones that speak most urgently to you, Tyler.

Griffin: There's so many. Yeah, kind of probably one of the biggest picture themes besides the overarching theme of all, the infinite atonement of Jesus Christ and his redemptive mission to save us from those deaths that we've inherited from Adam and Eve as well as that we've brought upon ourselves, is Helaman--often people in a Sunday school or a seminary or a primary or a home setting they'll often talk about the pride cycle and I love that.

The only problem is, is we often, I think, leave it half -baked in that the pride cycle, the way it's normally taught with the four aspects, if you expand it out just a little bit, then the Book of Helaman, you see how frequently they do go through this, but expanding it out just a little bit towards the top, you get the blessings which lead to this prosperity at the pinnacle. And that prosperity then leads them to pride and sin, which leads to destruction and sorrow at the bottom, and then the humility and repentance. So kind of an expanded pride cycle idea.

Why to me that's important through this book is to see that sometimes if we're not careful, we feel like a victim of the pride cycle. We feel like, okay, there's nothing I can do. If I prosper, then next step is for me to get prideful and sin and fall into destruction. And we see the Nephites do multiple iterations, it literally turns into a ferris wheel for them in this middle section, five, six, seven, that they're doing this cycle over and over again.

But it's interesting if you look at it from the perspective of at the top of the cycle, you have righteousness and blessings and prosperity at the bottom. You have all this sin and wickedness and destruction and despair. So if all we do is keep we're good, then we're bad, then good, then we're bad. Good, bad. That's more of a terrestrial way to live a life. And so in reality, I love looking at this book through the lenses of all three degrees of glory, if you will, that there is a telestial cycle in the Book of Helaman.

And later on, it becomes way more stark and visible in the Book of Mormon, the smaller Book of Mormon, where the people end up in destruction and sorrow. And instead of having that lead to humility and repentance, it actually leads them to deeper pride and more sin, more gross iniquity, which leads them to further destruction. And so it becomes a telestial spiral downward.

And then you get the overall terrestrial pride cycle.

But my favorite is if you look at it and say there are a lot of examples in here where people are getting these blessings. And blessings and prosperity don't have to make us become prideful. It's not like it's a foregone conclusion that if you're prospering, next step is to be prideful. And I love a celestial cycle when you and I today experience prosperity to pause for a minute and in humility and gratitude turn heavenward and say, what would thou have me do next? How could I, how could I repent even more? How could I become even more like the--and you can bypass that whole side of the cycle. You don't have to go there. You can have prosperity lead you to greater humility and greater repentance, which will lead to greater blessings and prosperity. And it becomes a spiral staircase, a celestial staircase. So I love looking at this whole book of Helaman through those lenses of, we have agency. We're not objects waiting to be acted upon. We get to choose at what point we then. what our next step is going to be. So I love that theme.

Welch: Yeah. Yeah. I think King Benjamin, you know, lays out--I love how you've talked about sort of the celestial, terrestrial and telestial versions of this pride cycle. And King Benjamin gives us a glimpse of what that looks like when, you know, when we receive blessings from God--and he tells us even the very air that you breathe, the fact that you wake up in the morning, that is prosperity. That is a gift from God. And if--rather than that acting on you to make you feel prideful and self -sufficient, like, this is my life, I own it, I'm standing on my own two feet--if instead you shift your perspective and willingly face the reality of your own, what he calls nothingness, right? Which is the reality that we are creatures of God and that we depend on him from moment to moment. That can lead you to this beautiful moment where-- “this is the man,” he says, “who has salvation.”

So it's precisely these blessings that can-- there's this fork in the road, right? And it can lead us to ever more boastful reliance on the arm of flesh, in the words of Book of Mormon authors, or it can lead us to this understanding and grateful acceptance of our own nothingness and turning to God. And then that brings the new birth and the life in Christ that we all seek. That's the celestial version of this here.

Griffin: And the irony is, isn't this so easy for us to talk about, Rosalynde? See how easy, see how simple we've made this? Just do that and you're good. And I love the fact that the Book of Mormon teaches this theme and you see it, that God is so patient. He's so willing to forgive and to keep working with us. And we try here and fall short. And then we, if we're...

Welch: Yeah. We've got it all figured out.

Griffin: just willing to repent and trust in the Lord. He is willing to forgive us and help us stand up and move forward and try to walk that path again. And I'll help you. I love the message of hope that comes from the very dark, you know, experiences that some of these people are going through. kind of like you had mentioned before with the prison experience. It's in that darkness, in that--they're coming in to abuse them again and to destroy them when that light shines the brightest and it's in the hope to move forward. It's going to be okay if we stay with the Lord.

Welch: Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that perspective. You know, I was working with my son last night on a paper. He's in ninth grade and he was writing a paper for English. And so I was working with him on it and we kept on coming back again and again to what is your thesis statement and how is your thesis statement being explored in this body paragraph and this body paragraph.

And so I have thesis statements on my mind and it strikes me as we're talking here that Mormon is writing the large plates, and especially here at the Book of Helaman, with an extremely strong thesis statement in mind. And it is sort of encapsulated in that pride cycle, and that is that when we do righteously, the Lord blesses us. And when we do wickedly, God's judgment will come upon us, and suffering follows that. There's a lot of power in the sort of simplicity of--and there's a lot of truth in the simplicity of--that teaching.

But it's possible, I think, let's complicate things now, okay, in case we were being a little too simple, let's complicate it a little bit. It's possible to interpret that wrongly. And it's possible to take that simple teaching that obedience brings blessings and that disobedience brings suffering and to say, to draw a conclusion that's not warranted. And that conclusion is that anybody that I see who is suffering,

Griffin: Sure, sure.

Welch: must be disobedient and anybody that I see who's prosperous and doing well must be righteous. That's actually a conclusion that is not warranted even by sort of the very strong and simple thesis statement that Mormon is using to guide his historiography here. But it's an easy one to jump to.

But it strikes me that there's something right here in the middle of the Book of Helaman that if we notice it,

Griffin: Yes.

Welch: helps us to complicate, in helpful ways, a sort of too-simplistic misinterpretation of that thesis. And that is the famine. Because a famine is widespread, right? And thinking about who did the famine affect, well, it certainly must have affected not only wicked Nephites, but also the righteous Lamanites.

Griffin: Mm -hmm. That's right.

Welch: They were mingled among each other. They didn't live in discrete places. The wheat and the tares, right? They were growing up together, and the famine affected them all. And so there undoubtedly were Lamanites who were sorely, righteous Lamanites who were sorely, sorely suffering as a result of this famine.

And I think if we see that and we catch it, that helps us to add to Mormon's very stark thesis for historiography, and remind ourselves that we cannot take that extra step and make conclusions, draw conclusions about people based on whether it looks like they're prospering or they're suffering in this moment.

Griffin: Yeah. So, so as you're talking through that, it's just blaring Elijah and the famine and being fed by the ravens and the widow of Zarephathus, that story of he was suffering from the famine just as much as the wicked people. And it reminds me of the Greek philosophy of what you're describing, that any sign of suffering is simply an indication of divine disfavor. Somebody did something wrong and.

Welch: Yes.

Griffin: It was probably you or your parents if you were born that way. And that's the reality. And yet in the very book, in probably the most famous verse from Helaman, Helaman 512, he corrects that false, oversimplified notion that some people might get in a judgmental way looking outward and saying, well, I wonder what bad thing they're doing because they're struggling so hard with their health or career or whatever the case may be.

I love the fact that when he's that when Helaman's talking to his two sons, he invokes three names, titles, roles of the Savior here. The build upon the rock of your Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God. You must build your foundation. And then he says that when not if, but when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, his shafts in the world, and he went all his hail and mighty storm shall beat upon you. That doesn't sound like a path of least resistance to me. It doesn't sound like, he's not saying, well, you're you're going to suffer because you're you're terrible people. He's like, no, you're going to build on the rock of your Redeemer so that when these bad things happen, because they will happen, you will face these terrible difficulties. But you're going to be OK because of the rock upon which you're built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation where on if now there's your condition in the verse, if men build, they cannot fall.

That that's such a beautiful connection to me of what you were describing as as sometimes people jumping to an oversimplified interpretation to say, tap the brakes. It just because you join the church, just because you go to church, just because you pay your tithing, just because you make temple covenants doesn't mean all of a sudden.

Welch: Mm.

Griffin: You're going to have every door of opportunity and blessing and privilege open up for you magically. Get ready. It's there is an opposition in all things, including discipleship.

Welch: Yeah. That is such an astute reading. I had never noticed that, but it's so powerful. Notice the when and notice the if, right? That suffering will come is a when. We know that that will happen. But where we have choice is in how we respond when it comes. That's really powerful.

Griffin: Yeah. You're going to face it. Yeah. And the best time to build that foundation is not... The best time to build a barn is not in the middle of a tornado. You're going to get hurt if you try. So you don't wait for the storm to come to then say, okay, now I need Jesus. It's no. Build your foundation before the storms of life really ramp. And you can't predict. Most natural disasters are pretty unpredictable. So prepare for them.

Welch: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Share with us another theme that jumps out to you from the Book of Helaman.

Griffin: So again, we've already touched on this one a little bit before, but to me, one of the beautiful themes here is a barometer of to what degree am I willing to be humble and to follow Jesus Christ by trusting his chosen servants at that time. And it's not binary. It's not like I either fully accept or fully reject. Sometimes it's a very fuzzy logic scale that's dynamic and it can change over time depending on the topic or the direction. And I love the fact that in here he sustains and he upholds his prophets. And whether we're talking about Nephi after his difficult run in with those people from, as you said, preaching from the tower about these, these Gadianton robbers--who some of which were standing right in front of him listening to the speech--and he's so discouraged he's like I can picture the thoughts in his heart being dear god on high I have done everything I can and look it's not working I'm a total failure you picked the wrong guy.

I can I don't know I'm putting words and thoughts and and I'm probably taking it too far but I can picture that human discouragement. And then I love how the Lord props him back up in Chapter 10 with the most amazing promises possible to a prophet to say, it's not you. It's, this is between me and them. It's kind of that that Samuel. We want a king. They haven't rejected you, Nephi. It's really me.

And I love that to see those tender, connecting relationships as they're not very frequent in Scripture. So when they come, it's fun to kind of hunker down and look closely at how God talks when he's consoling or working with a prophet who hasn't had an easy time because people reject him.

And then for me personally, it causes me to think, hmm, how can I do more to not just raise my hand in a conference to sustain the prophets, but...with my heart to sustain them so that their job isn't quite as painful and hard as some of the prophets in the past have been.

Welch: Yeah, I agree with that. I think that is a real gift of the Book of Mormon. I think it is more open and forthcoming about prophetic psychology, about the experience of being a prophet and a preacher. And all of us, you know, I'll never be a prophet, but...

Welch: I am a teacher in my own home, and in a way, I am a witness of Jesus Christ to my own children. And so many of the same mechanisms that you see at work in the minds and hearts of prophets, I think also apply to all of us in our capacities as teachers. And we see the hard parts, right? We really, really do--especially in the small plates where we actually get to hear the first person.

Griffin: Absolutely.

Welch: internal perspective and experience of Nephi and of Jacob especially. Yeah. And then Mormon is very generous with us and he gives us a lot of primary documents from these major prophets. So like King Benjamin and Abinadi and Nephi here. And he lets us get inside their minds and hearts and see how hard it is. And like I say, you know, that sense of failure that can, that

Griffin: Nephi’s Psalm, yeah.

Welch: of course, comes to a prophet as he sees his words being ignored, and perhaps to us as parents and teachers in church as we try to do our best to teach, and not always do those seeds fall on fertile ground. So it gives me a lot of company along the road to see how these prophets struggle and the burdens that they carry, but it also gives a lot of comfort.

And as you say, that scene is so tender in chapter 10 between Nephi and the Lord. There's a--I can't remember exactly what it is, I'm paraphrasing--but there's this moment where he says to him, behold, thou art Nephi and I am God. And it's this kind of, this tender sense of we are in this together. I know you. We are in relation to one another no matter what happens around you. I have you in the palm of my hand and I have you under my wing. We're in this together. And it's so tender and beautiful there.

Griffin: Yeah, I love what you did there, taking it from so that it's not just a story in history about individual men and a connection with God, these prophets that are sometimes bigger than life in our minds. I love how you brought that forward to relationships that we experience today. I don't have to be a prophet to sometimes get divine direction to go and try and whether it's in my role as a teacher or as an administrator or in a church calling or probably the most important relationships, those in our family circles where sometimes we're not always accepted in those circles, kind of like these prophets weren't perfectly accepted in there. And to to feel some of that, to borrow, if you will, some of that tender relationship reassurance that the Lord gives to the prophet. And then as you read that. to fill that in the various hats that we wear today, either as a mother or a spouse or a leader in an organization of the church or in a career, in a mission setting, wherever we may be, to see it's okay. Maybe I need to be less concerned about making sure that everything is done perfectly and let God do his work and submit more to be an instrument in his hand and let him work through me rather than being so over anxious or frustrated when things don't work out perfectly the way I think they should have worked out in the timing that I think was ideal. Kind of that notion of, Heleman's book to me is another reminder to be still and know that I am God. I got this. I'm able to do my own work to quote 2nd Nephi 27. He's got this.

Welch: Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and that relates so well to maybe just one last theme that I'll share here before we move towards the end of our, oh, there it goes. My, uh, my, my long time watchers know this happens almost every episode, trying to figure out how to get my office light to stay on. It times out. I'm not moving enough, but it's all good.

Um, so this is a theme that, um, we have seen multiple times from the, from the small plates moving ahead, but it comes into greatest focus yet here.

Griffin: Is that the timeout? We just.

Welch: in the Book of Helaman, and that is the salvation of the Lamanite remnant. So this is sort of the Book of Mormon's widest scale zoom out lens. Sometimes it zooms in really, really close to the individual human heart, and then it can zoom way out to the largest scale movements of God in history with entire peoples. And a theme from the beginning has been that

Griffin: Yes.

Welch: the Lamanite--that God has a plan for the Lamanite remnant and that in the latter days, they will be gathered, gathered back to the house of Israel. They will be introduced to their covenant identity. They will remember who they are and they will be able to step back into the warmth and connection of that covenant relationship with God that we call gathering. And it's an incredibly hopeful and reassuring message that God is aware of the Lamanites. He has his plan. He's going to work his plan and he can do his work in the latter days.

There's another side to it though, and we see that here as well. We were talking before about conditional and unconditional promises and statements. In the Book of Mormon, it seems like the salvation of the Lamanite remnant is an unconditional promise that--this is something that the Lord promises he will make it happen. But there are some big question marks in the Book of Mormon also about some other groups in salvation history. And one of those is what the Book of Mormon calls the Gentiles, right? There's a big question in the Book of Mormon in its largest scale zoom out lens. What is the fate of the Gentiles in the latter days? Will they repent or will they not?

Griffin: Mm -hmm.

Welch: As you say, Tyler, that feels to me like a question that is extremely salient and relevant to me right now. I know the first readers of the Book of Mormon in 1830 also felt that it was extremely relevant and urgent. I think every reader of the Book of Mormon feels that, but I feel that question in my bones. Which way are we going as a society and as a group? So there's that big question about the fate of the Gentiles.

Griffin: Yes, they did.

Welch: And then at this moment, stepping back into the Book of Mormon here, the Book of Helaman, there's that question about the fate of the Nephites. And at that point in time, they still didn't know, right? For Nephi himself, he didn't know what was going to happen. He could see that his people were balanced on that knife edge. And the Nephites did not have the unconditional promise, the unconditional collective promise that they would be saved. For them, it was up to them--they could choose to repent or not. And so right here, we're at that knife edge.

Of course, Mormon, we talked about his pessimism. That comes from having seen the end from the beginning and seeing that though Christ came and broke the cycle for a period of time beautifully and hopefully, nevertheless, in the end, the secret combinations and those old ways and habits of being together collectively came back to the fore and the Nephites did not repent and they were destroyed.

So that's a theme that shows up especially at the beginning of the Book of Mormon in the small plates and it kind of gathers steam. It's most explicitly set forth here by Samuel the Lamanite and then of course when Christ comes, he's just going to hammer that theme home, the salvation of

Griffin: Yeah.

Welch: the Lamanite remnant. So Samuel is kind of the warm -up act here to prepare us for, just as John the Baptist was, to prepare us for the message of Christ.

I think it's worth noting something here as well, which is that, though the Book of Mormon, I talked about how it can zoom in to individuals and then it can zoom way out to whole peoples. And we can ask ourselves, well, where does individual agency come into that, right? Why should...

Griffin: That's beautiful.

Welch: membership in one particular ethnic or social group have anything to do with my own personal fate? And the Book of Mormon, again and again, is very careful to point out that the Lord accepts all. Nobody is denied, male or female, bond or free, black or white, Nephite or Lamanite. Any individual who heeds the call to repent and turns to the Lord will be accepted back as an individual.

So we are in no way advantaged or disadvantaged on individual spiritual terms by the group to which we belong. Nevertheless, the Lord can see the reality that there are these kind of peer effects that happen in history. And we are indeed influenced by our time and our place in history and our peers. And so he's able to see from the largest scale perspective, the kind of movement and collective choices of different groups of people.

And to me, that doesn't, that doesn't discourage me, but it just helps me remember how important these collective bonds are, right? That I am more than just an individual. I'm actually a part of a group. I'm a part of a covenant group and that my relationships to them really, really matter and that they matter to my own personal salvation. So that's what I try to take from these moments where the Book of Mormon zooms way out to these large scale prophecies about whole groups of people.

Well, Tyler, we're coming up to the end of our time together. And as always, I wanted to invite you to share with me and with our listeners a scripture or a passage from the Book of Helaman that is powerful to you in your own spiritual life.

Griffin: Thank you, that is a very difficult prompt because there are so many verses and so many parts of Healman that I love from Samuel's speech, from Healman's speech to his two boys at the beginning, Healman 512. I mean, it's on a short list of favorites. But I'm gonna go to chapter 10. We've talked a lot about this to verse four.

And this particular verse, I find it very insightful, very powerful, not because any of us are on Nephi's level of spiritual capacity probably, but because at my own little teeny tiny minuscule level, I can feel of God's love for everybody, including

This is one of those verses that helps an infinite atonement feel more like an intimate atonement, where it's kind of like that temple recommend interview question of, do you have a testimony of the atonement of Jesus Christ and of his role as your savior and redeemer, not just as the savior and redeemer kind of a perspective. So it's,

“blessed art thou Nephi for those things which thou hast done. For I have beheld how thou hast with unweariness declared the word which I have given unto thee, unto this people, and thou hast not feared them, and hast not sought thine own life, but hast sought my will, and to keep my commandments."

That whole verse right there becomes, you talked earlier, you're an English PhD, you like thesis statements. Honestly, that...

Welch: Uh huh.

Griffin: could be a thesis statement for a life. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm not very good at it, but I'm trying. That's what I'm seeking so to do in my life. And somehow I feel like the Lord is kind and he's merciful and he's graceful and he's gonna keep working with me until I can get those paragraphs to match my thesis, until I can get the evidence to line up to say, yeah, this is well done essay.

Well done, life.

Welch: I like that. Our life as an essay, right? I can get behind that. Oh, that's wonderful. Thank you. I love that verse as well. And as you said, the tenderness and the individuality and the intimacy, as you say, in the individual covenant relationship that we enjoy with the Lord. Well, I wanted to share some verses from that same chapter.

Griffin: Yeah, yeah.

Welch: No surprise, Helaman 10, it's so powerful. And I'm hoping that I can communicate what I want to. I was thinking it through before we started it. I'm not sure I totally have it clarified, so I'll ask you and our listeners to bear with me. But I wanted to read these verses here where the Lord gives him the sealing power. I'll just start here. Well, actually, yeah, I'm going to do verse five as well.

Griffin: Hey.

Welch: “And now, because thou hast done this with such unwearingness, behold, I will bless thee forever, and I will make thee mighty in word and in deed, in faith and in works, yea, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word. For thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will. Behold--here's that phrase I remembered before--behold, thou art Nephi, and I am God.

Griffin: Here's your phrase.

Welch: “Behold, I declare it unto thee in the presence of mine angels, that ye shall have power over this people, and shalt smite the earth with famine, and with pestilence, and destruction, according to the wickedness of this people. And behold, I give unto you power, that whatsoever ye shall seal on earth shall be sealed in heaven. And whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. And thus shall ye have power among this people.”

So first of all, I think it's just worth reflecting on this idea of the sealing power and what the sealing power is. It looks a little different here than what we experience as Latter -day Saints in our temples. But really, you can see that the kernel is the same, that what is sealed on Earth is sealed in Heaven, and what is loosed on Earth is loosed in Heaven. So the ordinances, and in fact, not just the ordinances, but

Griffin: Mm-hmm.

Welch: all things that we do in this life have eternal consequences and that we are building the foundations and the structure of our heavenly society now, right now in this life. So what we seal here really matters and is observed and is relevant in heaven as well. So that's the sealing power.

But I was thinking about--again, here's a moment of intertextuality where we see verses that are very similar in the book of Matthew, where Peter is also given this sealing power in very similar language in Matthew 16. And it's interesting, I noticed that Peter is given, that moment for him comes where he's given the sealing power after he confesses,

Griffin: Mm.

Welch: his knowledge of the divinity of the Savior. He confesses that he knows that Jesus is the Christ. He says, you are the Messiah. You know, Jesus famously asks him, who do you say that I am, Peter? And Peter answers, you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

And it struck me that we see the same pattern at work here with Nephi, because if you go back to chapter eight, in verse 23, Nephi makes his own messianic confession there in verse 23 of Helaman 8. Scroll down to it here. He says, in verse 22, “Our father Lehi was driven out of Jerusalem because he testified of these things. Nephi also testified of these things and also almost all of our fathers even down to this time, yea they have testified of the coming of Christ and have looked forward and have rejoiced in his day which is to come. And behold, he is God and he is with them.”

So there is Nephi's own messianic confession. And following that wholehearted testimony that he knows who Christ is, then he at that point, is given this amazing, sealing power to bind on earth and bind in heaven.

And the other thing that really struck me in these verses is the importance of asking and of asking rightly. In our own temple ceremony, we know--and in ancient temple ceremonies--we know that asking, and asking the right questions, is an important part of coming unto Christ.

In the Sermon on the Mount, we're told to ask and to seek and to knock, and that these are the steps that we take to approach the presence of the Lord and that when we ask and when we knock, we will be answered.

And so it's very meaningful to me that in these verses here in Helaman chapter 10, we see asking come up again, right? “That thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will.” Nephi knows the questions to ask.

And in that knowledge of Christ, in the courage and the willingness to ask the right questions, and the faithfulness to use the power that comes to him only for the good of others in selfless ministry, that is where this tremendous power is bestowed on him.

And then we go on to see him use it in ways that are very difficult and that take a lot of courage on his part, but are a part of his prophetic ministry to call the people to repentance, to wake them up and to show them that they too can ask and can knock at the door if they only will.

Griffin: I love that just as a little teeny add -on. He's given that incredible power that you can do anything because you're not going to ask, not which is amiss. If I had that power, boy, I'd probably use it very, very unguardedly, shall I say. And I love his humility. He has that incredible power and yet you watch him use it and he's so meek. He's so humble. Oh Lord.

Welch: Yes.

Griffin: Please don't suffer this people. Can you have this happen? He's so kind. I love Nephi.

Welch: Yeah, I agree. Well, Tyler, this has been such a great conversation. You've helped me to understand Nephi better and to understand Samuel's address better, and especially to understand how relevant the themes of the Book of Helaman are to us in the 21st century. It's a wake-up call to us. The Nephites might not have woken up. They might not have heard it, but it has another audience, and that is you and me and every reader of the Book of Mormon. And we have the opportunity to wake up and to remember.

Griffin: Amen to that. Thank you. It has been a pleasure to be with you. I've learned some great things here today. Thank you.