BOM Mosiah 2

I could not possibly begin to exhaust the riches to be found in this marvelous chapter, Mosiah 2 — todays’ reading and the first installment of King Benjamin’s well-beloved sermon.

In the glory days of the old Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), we devoted considerable attention to King Benjamin’s address.  Among the fruits of that attention were this book, and this simpler one based upon it.  And here’s a brief newspaper column that I wrote, about the setting of King Benjamin’s sermon, in the spirit and light of that earlier scholarly focus.

It’s difficult to improve upon the simple principle taught by King Benjamin that “when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God” (2:17).

But I’m also fond of a story once told to me, many years ago, by Truman Madsen.  I think I’m remembering it accurately.

Back in the day when the guides or hosts at Temple Square were typically older men called as part-time missionaries from the Salt Lake Valley, it was apparently customary for them to gather for an annual dinner sometime during the Christmas holiday season.  They would eat, enjoy each other’s company, and listen to a speaker.

One year, the speaker was Elder Joseph Fielding Smith, then the president of the Council of the Twelve.

Apparently, he was not overly pleased at the note of self-congratulation that he detected in the various remarks that preceded his part of the program.  There was a little too much emphasis, for his taste, on the many wonderful things these missionaries had done, and the way Temple Square and the Church in general were prospering because of their efforts.

So when he stood up to speak, he scrapped his remarks and simply read this passage from Mosiah 2:

I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all thethanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another — I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.  (Mosiah 2:20-21)

Then, closing “in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen,” President Smith sat down.

Truman, who (I gather) was in the audience, told me that it was one of those moments when you could have heard the proverbial pin drop.  Surprise.  Stunned silence.  But the lesson was pretty clear.

And then — back to Mosiah 2 — there’s that marvelous closing verse, only partly quoted here: