Reclaiming Lost Brothers - Book of Mosiah, Chapter Seven (Mosiah 7)

You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/7?lang=eng

Mosiah, the new Nephite king and high priest, does not forget those of his people who had gone back to the land of Nephi (about 80 years before, or 200 B.C.) in hopes of reclaiming lands from which they were driven during the reign of his grandfather (who was also named Mosiah). After three years as king during a time of peace, Mosiah sends 16 strong men on an expedition to learn about what has happened to these people, partly because the other Nephites have been inquiring about their fate (verses 1-2).

The leader of this expedition is a man named Ammon (one of the people of Zarahemla, or Mulekites, whom the Nephites discovered when coming to the land they now inhabit), and it takes the group 40 days to enter the area where their lost brethren have settled. Ammon takes three of his brothers with him to investigate more directly, with the others based at a hillside camp. Ammon’s party happens to come upon the king of the lost Nephites outside the gates of his city, which is known as Shilom. Not knowing who they are, and fearing for his safety, the king has his guard imprison Ammon and his brothers. Two days later, they are brought before the king to explain themselves (verses 4-8).

When Ammon reveals to the king that he is from the land of Zarahemla, the king is relieved and rejoices. The king tells Ammon that his name is Limhi. Limhi reveals himself as a person of great faith, as he immediately perceives that Ammon’s arrival signals the deliverance of his people from the bondage they face at the hands of the Lamanites. What bondage? More about that later. Limhi’s first order of business is to release his four prisoners and treat them and the 12 they will retrieve from the hillside camp as honored guests (verses 9-16).

The next order of business is for Limhi to gather his people together at the temple that they have presumably built during their time in the land (verse 17). It is interesting to consider that our “narrator” Mormon segues pretty directly from the account of King Benjamin addressing his people at the temple located in Zarahemla (Mosiah 1-5) to the account of King Limhi addressing his people (three years later) at the temple located in Shilom. 

What’s the common thread? Righteous leaders recognize the value of gathering near temples, where physical closeness to the structures betoken symbolic closeness to the covenants made within those structures connecting people to their God. And when something momentous is taking place in the shared history of a people (leadership transition, opportunity to escape bondage), the temple is where a leader can bring the people to forge shared commitment to a course of action. Benjamin’s people committed to becoming the children of Christ. Limhi’s people will focus on the need to achieve temporal freedom in order to improve their spiritual state as well.

As King Limhi speaks to his people by the temple, he recounts to his people—and to the rescue expedition led by Ammon—some of the tragic experiences that they have endured. Limhi’s grandfather Zeniff was the leader of the initial group who set out to return to the land of Nephi. The Lamanite king (named Laman) who Zeniff encountered when he entered the land preyed upon Zeniff’s overzealousness to inherit the land. King Laman made a treaty with Zeniff granting him and his people a place to live and possess, but Limhi says that this was part of a deception on Laman’s part to lure Zeniff’s people into bondage (verses 21-22). The rest of the story will unfold in the following chapters.

King Limhi doesn’t dwell on Lamanite treachery. Rather, he focuses on two things. First, his gratitude for the Lord’s blessings, with (as mentioned above) the arrival of Ammon’s expedition as a sign of deliverance. And second, the wickedness that brought his people’s afflictions upon them.

He helps his people understand that the Lord’s intervention is part of a much larger pattern. He does not abandon His covenant people, despite their own failings. This was the case with the Israelites in Egypt who were led back to Israel, and it was also the case with Lehi’s family who were led out of Jerusalem to the promised land in the New World (verses 19-20). Such deliverance points to the even more significant deliverance we all can find through the forgiveness of sin Christ provides as we have faith in Him and repent.

Limhi is very clear about which sinful act propelled his people into darkness. It was their inability to hearken unto the Lord’s words, and their willful rejection and murder of a prophet sent by the Lord to testify of the coming of Jesus Christ and their need for salvation from error through Him (verses 25-32). In coming chapters, we will learn of the courage of the prophet Abinadi, the wickedness of Limhi’s father (and Zeniff’s son) King Noah, and the raising up of another prophet (Alma, the first of two by that name) who will carry forward the message of the first.

Limhi’s closing message is that just as the people suffered greatly from their earlier rejection of the Lord, their turning back to the Lord can save them now (verse 33). 

Benjamin Gives Up Earthly Power - Book of Mosiah, Chapter Six (Mosiah 6)

You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/6?lang=eng

This is a fairly brief chapter. Yet, there are still important points to note.

The first point has to do with recording the names of those who entered into the covenant with the Lord in the previous chapter. As in Mosiah 1 when King Benjamin explains the importance of the various records on the brass and gold plates that keep sacred matters firmly in their minds, and in other places throughout the Book of Mormon, we see that the Lord works according to order. Keeping complete and accurate records of revelations and of individual covenants and ordinances is crucial to ensuring that those things are also recorded in heaven (verse 1). We learn the remarkable fact that every person of age among the Nephites within earshot of King Benjamin had entered into the covenant and taken upon themselves the name of Christ (verse 2). The power of the moment and the strength found in the people’s unity cannot be overstated.

Benjamin does two things before dismissing the gathering of his people (verse 3). The first is that he consecrates his son Mosiah to be king, and gives him immediate temporal charge over the kingdom. Appointing his successor before his death endows the appointment with legitimacy, and it also gives Mosiah the ability to use his father as a resource as he learns to become a king.

The second thing Benjamin does is appoint priests to teach the people, and in particular to follow up with them regarding the importance of remembering and keeping the covenant they made in chapter 5 to keep all of the Lord’s commandments. At its essence, aside from actually administering the ordinances with their accompanying covenants, this is what the priesthood and Church in our day are intended to do. Provide the structure that we need to remember our covenants. The recurring ordinance of the sacrament is at the center of this process in our day. At this time (124 B.C.), the law of Moses remained in effect, so it is likely that recurring sacrifices continued under priesthood authority to remind people of and point them toward the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

I find it interesting that even after giving over the kingdom to Mosiah, Benjamin retains ecclesiastical and spiritual authority to appoint priests. This foreshadows the choice made later in the Book of Mormon by Alma to give up his role as temporal leader and to focus on spiritual leadership. Evidently, Benjamin also believes in the primacy of things spiritual. It is a reminder to us that the priesthood is eternal, and does not end when our responsibilities over worldly things are transferred elsewhere.

Unsurprisingly, Mormon (our narrator) informs us that Mosiah walks in the way of the Lord as his father had taught, and as an example to the people who had all just taken the name of Christ upon them. He also labors for his own sustenance among his people, rather than succumb to a prideful expectation that he is entitled to the fruits of their labors. This heightens the contrast between Mosiah and some who follow him—most notably the wicked King Noah (in Mosiah 11-19).

The Children of Christ - Book of Mosiah, Chapter Five (Mosiah 5)

You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/5?lang=eng

In these opening chapters of Mosiah, we glimpse something extremely hopeful. That it is possible for sinful men and women to transform themselves. The choice, ultimately, to submit to temptation is ours. And we can fortify ourselves to the point where we are much less inclined to it.

As King Benjamin asks his people whether they believe his words to them, and they respond with a convincing yes, they go beyond an audience that merely accepts a teaching in principle. They are fully committed to the spiritual power of the moment, shown by their proclamation that the Spirit of the Lord “has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually” (verse 2). The power is such that the people tell Benjamin that because of their faith in what he taught them, God has shown them visions of the future (verses 3-4).

Something marvelous takes place next. The people tell Benjamin that they are willing to enter into a covenant with God. Is the covenant associated with a particular ordinance? Baptism? Something else? The record doesn’t say explicitly. My own feeling is that if the covenant is associated with any ordinance, it is probably beyond baptism, because these people seem like they would have already been baptized given their established patterns of worship. Perhaps it is an ordinance associated with the temple, given that Benjamin in speaking right next to the temple.

Even if we don’t know if an ordinance is part of this covenant, the covenant itself is straightforward. The people agree to do God’s will, and “to be obedient to his commandments in all things…all the remainder of our days” (verse 5). It is pure and total obedience to the Father, of the kind that Jesus showed in carrying out his atoning sacrifice for them and all of us. No equivocation.

In praising his people, Benjamin tells them that through their obedience they will be made free (verse 8). It seems like such a paradox, this idea that following someone else is freedom rather than captivity. Unless we accept the teaching that there is a battle between good and evil going on for our souls, Under this teaching, which has the added benefit of being true(!), the good path is where obedience comes through persuasion from someone who wants us to be happy and to receive everything he has. The evil path is one where we think we are acting perfectly free by “escaping” the obedient, good path, but little do we know we are actually being compelled to act by a miserable being who wants us to dispossess us of all we have so we can be miserable with him. And once we follow that path, we realize that we have weakened ourselves and are prisoners to pain and prone to further weakening unless we make a redoubled effort to get on the good path.

And the rub is this. Every man and woman who comes to earth is a child of a Heavenly Father. We have divinity within us. However, the defining question for each of us once we have come to earth is whether we choose to be a son or daughter of Jesus Christ as well as of Heavenly Father. Becoming the children of Christ, which is what is happening here with the Nephites gathered to hear King Benjamin, means that “your hearts are changed through faith on his name” and “ye are born of him” (verse 7). By covenanting to become like him and being willing to give for others, we actually remove from ourselves the burden of full suffering for our own sins because of what he voluntarily bore. That is part of what being free means, beyond simply being able to choose between two different things. We can be free of sin, free of sorrow, and yes, free of fear. And as we become Christ’s children, we also inherit His name (verse 9). If we don’t take His name, we “must be called by some other name” (verse 10). There is no neutral ground.

As Benjamin finishes speaking to his people, he implores them to retain Christ’s name “written always in your hearts,” to hear and know his voice (verse 12) and be “steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works,” that they may come to know Jesus intimately and that he may “seal you his…that ye may have everlasting salvation and eternal life” (verse 15). Sounds like a pretty good path to take compared with that other one. To be a Christian, and to embody the characteristics of the best person who ever lived.

Humility and True Commitment Lead to Deep Knowledge - Book of Mosiah, Chapter Four (Mosiah 4)

You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/4?lang=eng

I’m not sure that there’s a more powerful or speedy response by a people to its spiritual leader in recorded scripture than that of the Nephites under King Benjamin in this chapter. We had seen earlier that the people instinctively responded to Benjamin, but it’s one thing to come to hear the leader speak for a day or two, quite another to make a deep commitment to follow his teachings for the rest of your life.

We get this great show of humility by the Nephites as they fall to the earth after hearing Benjamin share the words from an angel about the absolute necessity of following the gospel of Jesus Christ (verse 1). It seems the people are truly struck by the reality that their choices have consequences, and they want to make the right choices.

Usually, we conceive of repentance as something very personal and private between a single person and the Lord, but here we see that it can also happen in a more communal setting. Presumably many of those gathered had already entered into covenants through baptism, but we in our day can appreciate that recommitment to earlier covenants is critical in dealing with the challenges we constantly face in mortality.

As they recommit, the people are filled with joy and feel peace of conscience. Of course, this assurance in our beliefs is so important in helping us take those next steps along the pathway of faith and righteousness.

At this point, King Benjamin senses that the people are in such a humble and receptive place that he can teach them boldly about things that are critical for them to embrace if they would follow in the footsteps of the Father and the as-yet unborn Jesus. These things include:

• Key qualities that God has (goodness, matchless power, wisdom, patience, long-suffering) and that we need to have for salvation (trust in the Lord, diligence in keeping His commandments, and continuing in faith throughout mortal life) (verse 6).

• Reiterating what the angel told him to relate (in chapter 3) about Christ’s atonement for our sins being the only way to salvation, and our need to repent and sincerely seek God’s forgiveness (verses 7-10).

• Retaining a remission of sins through daily, steadfast prayer and action (verses 11-12). This echoes the “doctrine of Christ” Nephi previously shared more than 400 years before (in 2 Nephi 31:20-21) and that is found in the record Benjamin has kept throughout his life.

• Caring for our children temporally and spiritually, which involves helping direct them away from the devil’s ways of contention and disobedience, and toward the Lord’s ways of love, service and “truth and soberness” (verses 14-15).

• Finding ways to help the needy in our world, rather than finding ways not to help them or to condemn them, under the rationale that we all are ultimately beggars at the feet of God for what we need in life and to reunite ourselves with him despite our tendencies to sin.

Lest Benjamin’s people find themselves overwhelmed by the number of responsibilities he lays at their feet, he leaves them with two guiding principles. They can be summed up as (1) pace yourself and (2) watch yourself. None of us can do everything. One of our Apostles, Elder Neal A. Maxwell, wrote one time (citing author Anne Morrow Lindbergh) that he simply did not have the time or capacity to reach out to everyone to whom his heart responded.

We too must determine those things that are centrally important to accomplish, and recognize that we can only help a little at a time. We can hopefully learn how our actions can inspire others to help a broader circle of people, so that through the ripple effect of our influence we might be able to help more people than we can simply from a time- and energy-limited standpoint. Verse 27 says, “And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength.”

King Benjamin Prophesies of Christ - Book of Mosiah, Chapter Three (Mosiah 3)

You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/3?lang=eng

If you are not familiar with the Book of Mormon and wonder what it really says, the best advice I have for you is to read it. If you read it, you will find that its record-keepers and prophets come back again and again to one central theme: Jesus Christ is the Son of God, Savior of the World, and in charge of the great effort to bring Heavenly Father’s children back to Him and to lift them up to their potential to truly become (in the words of Paul in Romans 8) “joint-heirs” to all the Father has and is.

After King Benjamin winds up the immediate business he has with his people, the Nephites, in making sure they understand his love for them, his concern for the state of their souls and his son Mosiah’s role as their new servant-king, Benjamin speaks in a more intimate way, as though the crowd of thousands that had gathered are a small group of confidants that he has brought together to share a very special secret. “I have things to tell you concerning that which is to come” (verse 1). And these things come from an angel.

For those of us familiar with the story of the Nativity (Christ’s birth) in the Gospel of Luke, verse 3 should alert us to what Benjamin is about to share. The angel tells him that he has come to declare “glad tidings of great joy.” Not surprisingly, those glad tidings are a summation of Jesus’ birth, life, ministry, suffering, death, Resurrection, and judgment—about 125 years before Bethlehem, the manger at the inn, the shepherds and the wise men. The glad tidings also make very explicit reference to Christ’s role as the “Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning” (verse 8), so we understand that Jesus played an active part in the creation of the world on behalf of His Father.

After sharing this testimony of truth, Benjamin relates what the angel tells him about why it is vitally important for the people of the world (which, of course, includes us and other readers from our day). We learn that the physical reality of Christ’s willing sacrifice has some very specific consequences for men and women everywhere. These consequences may seem miraculous, and at times difficult to believe because of their power to overcome the effects of sin and death.

But in sharing these details with Benjamin (who then shares them with his people and with us), the angel approaches the subject in a way that reminds us of Nephi. He is very straightforward and wants to show that we can understand some important things about how the Atonement of Christ works even if we don’t understand all things about it.

One thing the angel explains is that true prophets share the message that salvation comes through Christ by faith and repentance. Other teachings, such as the law of Moses with its various do’s and don’t’s, only have power for us in the sense that they point us toward the Atonement and how we can make it effective in our lives.

The advice the angel gives is a variation on what Jesus Himself taught in Matthew 18 when he placed a child before his disciples and said that whosoever will humble himself as a little child is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. It includes some particularly powerful counsel in verse 19 that teaches us how to rid ourselves of a rebellious attitude and to receive inspiration from God rather than repel it:

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

This is a reminder to us that whatever we think our limited time on this earth is about, at some level it is essentially a contest between good and evil for our allegiance. Our bodily desires are powerful, and will naturally lead us to do things opposed to God’s plan to get us back to Him unless we choose to focus on following the messages He sends us through the Holy Spirit. The great consolation in this somewhat harsh truth (including the fact that choosing good can feel like something “inflicted” upon us because it can be challenging) is that God is sending us communication that can deliver us from evil if we listen.

But the notion that we naturally dwell on neutral ground and can make a leisurely choice between good and evil like deciding where to shop inside a mall is a false one. We are subject to temptation and will succumb to it unless we act on the heavenly inspiration that (thankfully) comes to each man and woman. Through Benjamin, the angel also reassures us that those who go through life without a full recognition of God’s law—whether they die as little children (verse 16) or just are not properly informed about the difference between right and wrong (verse 11)—will find salvation through the sacrifice Jesus makes for us.

The angel then describes for us the consequences that will surely come if we are unable to put off the “natural man” and choose good over evil. He assures us that the “knowledge of a Savior shall spread throughout every nation, kindred, tongue, and people” (verse 20). In a situation where there is general understanding that good and evil exist and are opposed to one another, everyone is accountable.

And then Benjamin (through the angel) is just bearing pure testimony. We will feel the full weight of sin if we don’t repent and turn to Christ. In saying this, Benjamin is following directly in the footsteps of Nephi (in 2 Nephi 33) and Jacob (Jacob 6), who also unfolded a vision of final judgment to us that may seem harsh but is ultimately born from deep love that would have us avoid eternal misery.

Only in the Service of Your God - Book of Mosiah, Chapter Two (Mosiah 2)

You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/2?lang=eng

The first thing that stands out in this chapter is a fairly obvious one. The people respond to their leader. Though this may seem almost too elementary to mention, experience and history teach that it is rarer than we probably initially think for societies to submit to governance without some kind of compulsion. But here we sense that the Nephites joyfully come when called to the temple by King Benjamin’s son Mosiah. It clearly says something both about their leadership and about the widespread inculcation of virtue among families.

As they bring the firstlings of their flocks for sacrifice, they don’t just do it out of habit or sheer obedience, they do it out of gratitude for coming to the New World, being delivered from their enemies, and having “just men” serve as their teachers and their king, “who had taught them to keep the commandments of God, that they might rejoice and be filled with love towards God and all men” (verse 4). There is clear symbolic power in the detail that every man pitched his family’s tent with the door pointing toward the temple, signifying where they looked for guidance and direction (verse 6).

  

We sense that, over his lifetime, King Benjamin had inspired his people on many occasions. Yet, the only address Mormon chooses to preserve in his abridgment is this one. There’s this great line at the beginning where Benjamin tells his people that he wants them to really hearken to what he has to say. He wants them to be ready to receive revelation and to be willing to bring their lives into alignment with the message from the Lord he has to share, not to “trifle with the words which I shall speak” (verse 9).

Benjamin first recounts to the people that he has served them selflessly and without enriching himself at their expense. He is quick to say that he does not share these things to boast, but he understands two key truths.

First is that when we serve others, we are really serving God. Perhaps even more accurately, given all we have received from God despite our own imperfections, part of the way back to His presence—to show Him our real love for Him—is to serve the people around us who are also His children. We owe Him that, and it is the least we can do. One of the most-cited scriptures in the Book of Mormon is verse 17:

And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.

It’s important to understand the context around this verse so that we do not misinterpret its meaning. In some sense, yes, by understanding whom we’re actually serving when we help others, it elevates our vision of that effort. But the word “only” signifies the importance of avoiding an exaggeration of our own virtue. Because of our relationship with our God, it follows that we should be serving each other. Period. That’s the plan and we need not overstate (or understate) the significance of our actions in line with it.

The second truth ties into the first one, and is encapsulated in verse 21 where King Benjamin tells the people if they should serve God “with all their whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.” It might seem a little startling, but in his last opportunity to speak to his beloved people King Benjamin is focused like a laser on telling them what is true and not what is comfortable to hear. Righteous action is important, and it is service to God, but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that he’s getting more from us than we get from Him.

Once we accept this vision, hopefully it becomes easier to focus on the immense blessings that it communicates. God does not expect us to be profitable. He just expects us to give all we can in keeping His commandments. If we do it, there are temporal blessings that follow, paralleling the covenant promise to the Nephites that is tied to the New World land they inhabit (verse 22).

Beyond that, verses 23 and 24 tell us why we remain indebted to the Lord. First, He gave us life. Yes, it’s really that simple. Second, when we do something right, we are immediately blessed. Wow. Do we really comprehend this?

We may ask, how are we immediately blessed? My feeling is that two things take place. First, we know that we have made a good choice, and that knowledge is a blessing in itself. Second, we invite the Holy Ghost to dwell with us and to comfort and teach us (in the words of an 1830 revelation to Joseph Smith) the “peaceable things of the kingdom.” Those who have any comprehension of how the Holy Ghost makes you feel when He enters your life will appreciate the magnitude of this blessing. There’s really nothing sweeter on this earth.

Keeping with Benjamin’s intent to speak very straightforwardly to his people, he tells them that he has called them together for one last act of service to them that will allow him to die with a clear conscience that he has done all in his power to protect them from sin and has pointed them in the direction of how to access the Lord’s strength in their lives.

Very literally, Benjamin points them to Mosiah as their new king and teacher. Then he warns them: Don’t choose the way of contention. Don’t follow the misleading call of the “evil spirit.” If you do, you will be in a state of “open rebellion against God” and will withdraw yourself from the Spirit of the Lord, because the Lord “dwelleth not in unholy temples.”

But Benjamin knows that the teaching that truly inspires focuses more on the promise of righteous living than the perils of contention with God and others. So he presents a vision for his people to ponder (verse 41):

And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness.

Securing Righteousness for a New Generation - Book of Mosiah, Chapter One (Mosiah 1)

You can read the entire chapter at the following link https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/w-of-m/1?lang=eng.

The prophet Mormon, who was introduced to us in the Words of Mormon, continues the narrative thread he picked up there. He will be our voice of conscience and reflection over most of the rest of the book.

What strikes me most about this chapter is the message for us about vigilantly preserving whatever we know that is pure and good for successive generations. King Benjamin has “fought the good fight” for his people, the Nephites, in staving off wickedness both externally and from within. As he approaches the end of his life, it’s clear how mindful he is of making sure the legacy of his efforts doesn’t perish with him.

How does this principle matter for us? Is there a kingdom we possess that we’re responsible for handing down? Absolutely. Even if we may not rule over a vast number of people, most of us have relationships and responsibilities that are sacred in nature. People’s lives and destinies turn at least to some degree on how we inspire and instruct them.

To that end, King Benjamin does two things. First, he puts things in order. For us, it is about making sure that the essential, righteous knowledge and traditions of our families are safeguarded and made vibrant and relevant for our children and grandchildren. So that means handing down records—which includes spiritual truth as well as details of lives, events, personalities and struggles. But even more vital than that is banishing contention. Regardless of the content of instruction we provide, if our families and societies are not spiritually prepared to receive that instruction, there’s little point in providing it. So perhaps the most significant observation from Mormon occurs in verse 1 when he tells us that there was “no more contention” among the people of King Benjamin. This sets the tone for everything.

Then we learn of the marvelous things that King Benjamin has done to make sure traditions are handed down. His sons know the language of their ancestors so they can teach and expound the records that the Nephites have inherited, presumably dating back to Adam (verses 2-4). And most importantly, Mormon quotes King Benjamin’s personal charge to his sons to search the scriptural records diligently, and to keep the commandments of God, that “ye may prosper in the land according to the promises which the Lord made unto our fathers” (verse 7). This charge is given especially to Benjamin’s son Mosiah (the namesake of this component book of the Book of Mormon), whom he anoints as his kingly successor. Pursuant to the custom of the Israelites, the Nephites handle the transfer of power whenever possible before a king dies rather than after.

After putting things in order, the second thing King Benjamin does to protect the legacy of righteousness that has been established among the people is to “give this people a name, that thereby they may be distinguished above all the people which the Lord God hath brought out of the land of Jerusalem” (verse 11). This showcases the prophetic insight Benjamin has. By proposing to literally name (or in some senses, rename, the Nephites), he teaches us how we can use names and identifiers to orient ourselves regarding who we really are in our eternal relationships with the Lord and one another, and to remind and admonish us of the covenants we have made and the promises (from obedience) and consequences (from disobedience) stemming from those covenants. To emphasize the importance of this name for his people, Benjamin has King Mosiah gather the people to the temple that has been built in Zarahemla. This is the first we hear of a temple in this location (Nephi and Jacob had told us about an earlier temple in the land of Nephi from which the Nephites later fled, effectively ceding it to the Lamanites). Having another temple in the Nephites’ relatively new location tells us something about the magnitude of commitment King Benjamin (and perhaps his father Mosiah) was able to ignite within his people.