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Alma 17–22 — “I Will Make an Instrument of Thee”

Key Verse

“Go forth among the Lamanites, thy brethren, and establish my word; yet ye shall be patient in long-suffering and afflictions, that ye may show forth good examples unto them in me, and I will make an instrument of thee in my hands unto the salvation of many souls.” — Alma 17:11


Why This Block Matters

After the devastation of Ammonihah, the Book of Mormon turns to one of its most beloved stretches: the fourteen-year mission of the sons of Mosiah to the Lamanites. These are the same young men who once roamed with Alma the Younger trying to destroy the Church — and who, after an angel stopped them cold, gave up their right to the Nephite throne to risk their lives among the people their whole nation feared and hated.

The block is, on its surface, an adventure story — Ammon at the waters of Sebus, the arms heaped before a stunned king. But its deeper subject is how hearts actually change: through service that wins hearts before words are spoken, through a doctrine taught in a deliberate order (the three pillars of Creation, Fall, and Atonement), and through the quiet faith of people the record barely names — a queen, a servant woman named Abish, a fledgling believer who had hidden her conversion for years. It is the single best block of scripture for understanding missionary work, teaching, conversion, and the patience required to love someone across a deep divide. Bytheway tells prospective missionaries: if you read one thing before your mission, read Alma 17–22.1


Historical and Literary Context

Mormon tells this story as a flashback, and even nests a flashback inside it. Chapter 17 opens at the end — Alma the Younger, traveling south to Manti, runs into the sons of Mosiah returning home after fourteen years, and rejoices to find them “still his brethren in the Lord” (Alma 17:2). Only then does Mormon rewind to the beginning of their mission. When Aaron’s story is told in chapter 21, the narration drops into a flashback within the flashback — an unusual literary device for scripture.2

The timeline matters. The sons of Mosiah left Zarahemla around the time the reign of the judges began, so their years away can be measured against events in the main narrative; by the time the next block opens, they have been among the Lamanites for roughly eleven years.2 Halverson notes the structural symmetry the scholar Joseph Spencer identified: the missionary chapters in the first half of Alma mirror the war chapters in the second half — two brothers doing immense good (Ammon and Aaron) set against two brothers who later wreak havoc (Amalickiah and Ammoron).3

The geography also comes into focus. These chapters open up Lamanite society — its lands (Ishmael, Nephi, Middoni), its apparently feudal politics under a “king over all the land,” its religion, and its internal divisions.2 Crucially, the hardest opposition comes not from the Lamanites themselves but from Nephite dissenters living among them — the followers of Nehor, the Amalekites, and the Amulonites (descendants of the priests of wicked King Noah). Where those groups dominated, conversion proved nearly impossible; where the Ishmaelite Lamanites had remained “untainted” by apostate Nephite religion, hearts were ready.2


Major Themes

1. The Recipe for Becoming an Instrument

The block’s title comes from the Lord’s promise in Alma 17:11: “I will make an instrument of thee.” But verses 2–3 give the prerequisites. The sons of Mosiah had “waxed strong in the knowledge of the truth”; they were “men of a sound understanding” who “had searched the scriptures diligently”; and they “had given themselves to much prayer, and fasting” — therefore “they had the spirit of prophecy, and the spirit of revelation, and when they taught, they taught with power and authority of God.”1 This is learning “by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118). The angel that knocked them down was not the end of their testimony — it was the beginning. Seeing an angel is not the same as becoming an instrument; that took fourteen years of preparation and labor.1

Don’t Miss This frames the instrument image with a memorable object lesson: an old violin that cannot be played, because it cannot be tuned. We often pray “make me an instrument,” but the sequence in Alma 17:9 is that they first prayed for “a portion of [the] Spirit to go with them.” The better prayer is “help me to be in tune” — and unlike a broken violin, a soul in the hands of the Master can always be restored to usefulness.4

2. “I Will Be Thy Servant”: Winning Hearts Before Teaching

When Ammon is dragged before King Lamoni, the king offers him a daughter in marriage and a place of honor. Ammon refuses both: “Nay, but I will be thy servant” (Alma 17:25). He is willing to dwell among this people “perhaps until the day I die” (17:23).

Don’t Miss This counts everything Ammon does before he ever opens his mouth to preach — he serves, he protects the flocks, he becomes “a friend to the king” (18:3), he feeds the horses, he prepares the chariots. Ammon does not begin to teach until Alma 18:24 — two chapters in.4 His own stated strategy is a sequence: “that I may win the hearts of these my fellow servants, that I may lead them to believe in my words” (17:29). Win first; lead second.1

Mead names the principle behind it: the difference between formal authority (“do what I say because I’m the boss”) and moral authority (“I’ll do what you ask because I love you and I know you love me”). President Eyring’s observation lands here — Ammon was “called to teach the doctrine of salvation, but he was in the stables… Never underestimate the spiritual value of doing temporal things well for those whom you serve. Be their servants, and you will love them and they will feel your love, and more important, they will feel God’s love.”1 As Stephen Covey put it, “we have to warm them before we warn them”: people are converted to the messenger before they are converted to the message.1

Halverson extends the chapter into a parable of reactivation and retention. The scattered flocks Ammon gathers and brings “back unto the place of water” (17:31) become the scattered sheep of the Good Shepherd: capitalize the “K” in “king,” and Ammon’s whole game plan — be of good cheer, go in search, gather them to living water, encircle them so they flee not — becomes the work of restoring straying Saints to the King of Kings.3

3. The Waters of Sebus and “the Power Which Is in Me”

The famous scene at the waters of Sebus (Alma 17:26–39) is where Ammon defends the king’s flocks, slaying the rustlers’ leader and smiting off the arms of the rest. Holt’s close reading suggests Ammon was an accomplished military man facing perhaps twenty attackers — six slain with the sling (every shot a hit, nerves of steel), the leader with the sword, the rest disarmed — a feat so impossible the king concludes Ammon must be more than a man.2 (On “arms”: Mormon may mean weapons rather than limbs; Egyptian murals depict chariots of severed hands gathered as battlefield proof. Either way, the point is not the arms.)1

The doctrinal heart of the scene is a self-correction. Ammon says, “I will show forth my power… or the power which is in me” (17:29) — catching himself mid-sentence to redirect the glory to God.3 He makes it explicit later: “I do not boast in my own strength… I know that I am nothing… I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things” (Alma 26:11–12). As Mead asks: why do we even teach this story? Not to celebrate Ammon’s greatness, but God’s.1 Bytheway’s student read Ammon as a type of Christ — willing to lay down his life for the sheep, “encircling the flocks round about that they flee not” (17:33), and finally returning them “to the pasture of the king whose sheep they are” (17:39); compare D&C 35:13–14, “their arm shall be my arm.”1

4. Affliction as the Setting for the Example

The Lord’s promise in Alma 17:11 ties two things together that we usually separate: “ye shall be patient in long-suffering and afflictions, that ye may show forth good examples.” The good example is not in spite of the affliction; it comes through it. Eyes are on us most when we suffer.1 Mead tells of being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis the week of his first anniversary, and learning that “God is a God of promises” — a truth he and his wife return to whenever fear resurfaces. He reads the closing phrase “good examples unto them in me” (17:11) as exactly this: the example is of God working in us through hard things.1

5. The First Missionary Discussion: Creation, Fall, Atonement

When Ammon finally teaches, he does it by what every returned missionary recognizes as a “conversational tug-of-war” — meeting Lamoni where he is (“Believest thou that there is a God?”→“a Great Spirit?”→“this is God”), bilingual in vocabulary, gently pulling each tangent back onto the path (Alma 18:24–35).3 And the path is always the same three pillars Bruce R. McConkie called the “three pillars of eternity”: Creation, Fall, Atonement (18:36–39). Aaron will teach the king’s father the identical pattern in Alma 22:12–14.1

Holt explains the strategy: you must create a need to learn before you can teach. Talking about the Fall makes a person feel their fallen condition — “you’ve just described why I’m in trouble and why I need a Savior” — and only then does the Atonement answer the need. The plan of salvation has both the need and its satisfaction built in.2 This is why both kings, the moment they grasp the Fall (act two), instantly reach for the Atonement (act three): “What shall I do that I may have this eternal life?”1

Several distinctive insights enrich this:

  • It’s called the plan of redemption here, deliberately. The phrase appears ~15 times in the Book of Mormon, almost exclusively from Alma and the sons of Mosiah; the word “plan” never appears in the King James Bible. Redemption keeps the Redeemer at the center.1
  • The plan is a plan of relationships. What makes the Celestial Kingdom glorious is not its brightness but its relationships — with the Father, with the Redeemer, with family. The whole plan centers on our relationship to God and to one another.1
  • Creation teaches the who and the why, not the how. Moses 1:39 answers the why. To a student troubled by a biology class, Mead’s counsel: science can describe the how and the timing; scripture reveals that God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and a loving Father — and all three must be true together, or He is not a God you can trust.1
  • It is all about identity. As Mead’s three-year-old reasoned on a farm: little cows become big cows, little ducks become big ducks — and “little children of God grow up to be big children of God.” Creation, Fall, and Atonement together teach us who we are.1

6. King Lamoni’s Conversion

Lamoni cries, “O Lord, have mercy; according to thy abundant mercy which thou hast had upon the people of Nephi, have upon me, and my people” (Alma 18:41) — and falls as if dead. Ammon, who had carried Alma the Younger’s unconscious body to his father, recognizes the funeral of the old king and the coming resurrection of a new one with a changed heart.3 Notice that Lamoni relates to the Nephites not as fellow royalty but as a fellow recipient of mercy — Ammon could have led with “I’m a prince too,” but instead they meet as two people God has redeemed.4

Halverson dwells on the imagery of Alma 19:6 — “the dark veil of unbelief… cast away,” the “marvelous light” of God’s goodness lighting up the soul. He pairs it with Blaise Pascal’s hidden parchment, sewn into the philosopher’s coat and discovered only after his death: “FIRE. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers… certitude… joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.” It is not philosophy that brings a soul to God but experience — the fire, the light, the illumination Lamoni was receiving with his eyes closed.3 He wakes to testify: “I have seen my Redeemer; and he shall come forth, and be born of a woman” (19:13) — Christmas (Incarnation) preparing for Easter (Atonement).

7. The Sister Saints: the Queen and Abish

Chapter 19 hands the story to two women, a rare and precious thing in a book that names only about six. The queen sends for Ammon and, told her husband is not dead but sleeping, says, “I have no witness save thy word, and the word of our servants; nevertheless I believe” (19:9). Ammon’s reply echoes Jesus to the centurion: “Blessed art thou… there has not been such great faith among all the people of the Nephites” (19:10; cf. Matt. 8:10) — a Lamanite, and a woman, held up as the paragon of faith.3 Mead draws the modern application: amid all the competing voices (“here’s what they’re saying on this platform, and that one”), the queen says in effect, I want to hear from the Lord’s servant — and then trusts him regardless of the crowd.1

Abish is introduced in Alma 19:16–17 as a Lamanitish servant “converted unto the Lord for many years, on account of a remarkable vision of her father” — perhaps her father’s vision (like Lehi and Nephi), or perhaps a vision of her father, who may have died (compare Joseph Smith’s vision of Alvin in D&C 137).1 She had hidden her faith for years, like Esther, until this moment came.3 When everyone else lies senseless and the onlookers see only bodies and a Nephite, she knows it is the power of God, and runs house to house. But her plan seems to backfire — the crowd erupts in contention, and she is “sorrowful even unto tears” (19:28). She does not give up. She simply reaches out and takes the queen by the hand, and everything changes: “O blessed Jesus, who has saved me from an awful hell” (19:29).

Don’t Miss This draws the lesson: don’t let discouragement hinder you; the good Abish did “was good because it was good,” even when the result didn’t unfold as she imagined — and God turned her apparent disaster to His glory through one simple act of a woman ministering to a woman across every social barrier.4 This is the beginning of what could be called the redemption of the Lamanites: earlier attempts (by Jacob, by Enos) had failed, but God had prepared Abish.1 And Bytheway’s observation runs through it all: in the Book of Mormon people are never “converted to the church” — they are “converted unto the Lord” (19:31). The object of conversion is Christ; then we unite with the Church.1

8. Your Companion Is Your Mission

In Alma 20, Ammon and the newly converted Lamoni want to press on with the work — but the Spirit redirects Ammon to rescue his brother Aaron from prison. Halverson’s application is one of the most quietly powerful in the block: an overzealous missionary can resent a struggling companion who “holds him back” from the real work. But “this isn’t an interruption of your mission — this is your mission.” The struggling brother or sister, the difficult spouse, the child who “wasn’t part of the plan,” is not in the way of your eternal family; they are your eternal family. And the irony is that the very thing Ammon and Lamoni wanted to do gets done anyway — in a better, more miraculous way, on the path they didn’t choose.3

9. Ammon and Lamoni’s Father: Love Dissolves Prejudice

On the road they meet Lamoni’s father, the king over all the land, who is furious to see his son with “a Nephite, who is one of the children of a liar” (Alma 20:10) — the inherited story every Lamanite was raised on. Lamoni answers that he will not slay Ammon, “for I know that they are just men and holy prophets of the true God” (20:15): personal experience has trumped tradition and prejudice.3 When the enraged father attacks, Ammon disarms him but asks nothing for himself — only that Lamoni keep his kingdom and that Aaron’s brethren be freed. What overcomes the old king is not Ammon’s power but “the great love which he had for his son Lamoni”; he is “astonished exceedingly” (20:26).3 As Halverson notes, love evaporates the prejudices of others — ask Martin Luther King, ask Gandhi, ask Jesus. President Hinckley: “Our kindness may be the most persuasive argument for that which we believe.”1

10. Aaron’s Harder Mission, and Why Friends Matter

Chapter 21 explains why Aaron landed in prison: he went among the people of “Jerusalem,” built by Lamanites together with the Amalekites and Amulonites — Nephite dissenters “of the profession of the Nehors” (Alma 21:4) who were “still harder” than the Lamanites and hardened them further (21:3). Their challenge to Aaron is epistemological — “how knowest thou?” (21:5–8) — a preview of Korihor’s anti-knowledge.3

Mead draws out the recurring theme: who you associate with shapes who you become. President Monson taught that “the friends you choose will either help or hinder your success,” and that friends’ influence on temple marriage and missionary service rivaled even parental urging.1 Jim Rohn’s version: “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” And Elder Robert D. Hales’s definition is the one to keep: “A friend is someone who makes it easier to live the gospel of Jesus Christ.”1

Two more lessons from Aaron’s mission. Don’t compare your mission to anyone else’s — Aaron’s was simply harder, through no failure of his own.3 And be the missionary you actually are: when Aaron later tries to enter as a servant like Ammon, the king tells him, in effect, I already met an Ammon; I need an Aaron. Bring your own gifts; the doctrine is the same, but the way you live and teach it is uniquely yours.3

11. King Lamoni’s Father: “I Will Give Away All My Sins to Know Thee”

In chapter 22 Aaron teaches the great king the same Creation–Fall–Atonement pattern, and the conversion turns on a stunning contrast. To save his life a chapter earlier, the king offered Ammon “half of the kingdom” (20:23). To know God, he now says: “I will give up all that I possess; yea, I will forsake my kingdom, that I may receive this great joy” (22:15).1 His prayer is among the most moving in scripture — vulnerable, childlike, woven of doubt and faith at once: “O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me? And I will give away all my sins to know thee” (22:18).

Halverson reads this as the willingness to admit our “ifs” and suspend disbelief long enough for God to manifest Himself — “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”3 Bytheway sets it against the three attitudes toward commandments: not “how bad can I be?” nor “how good do I have to be?” but the disciple’s statement, “I will give away all my sins to know thee” — a man seemingly born again before he is even baptized.1 This is eternal life by Christ’s own definition: “that they might know thee, the only true God” (John 17:3). And as President Benson taught, no one truly desires the Savior until he understands the Fall — which is why the middle pillar is the one most of us understand least.1


Words and Phrases Worth Slowing Down For

  • Rabbanah (Alma 18:13) — “powerful or great king.” The servant’s title for Ammon; scholars (e.g., Matthew Bowen) note its kinship with Rabboni, “Master/my great one,” strengthening Ammon as a type of Christ.
  • “Wise yet harmless” (Alma 18:22) — directly echoes Jesus’s charge to His missionaries, “be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matt. 10:16) — and they too will stand “before governors and kings.”1
  • Repentance — from the Greek metanoia, “a change of mind.” The Bible Dictionary stresses “a fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world” — not first a change of behavior but a change of heart and relationship.1
  • “Plan of redemption” vs. plan of salvation vs. plan of happiness — the Book of Mormon’s preferred phrase in these chapters, foregrounding the Redeemer.1
  • “Converted unto the Lord” (Alma 19:31) — never “converted to the church.” The object of conversion is Christ.1
  • “The Great Spirit” — the Lamanite name for deity; Ammon and Aaron build on it rather than dismissing it, finding the connection point.3
  • Sebus — the “place of water” where the flocks were gathered and contested (Alma 17:26).

Cross-References

  • Mosiah 27–28 — the conversion of the sons of Mosiah by the angel, and their plea to take the gospel to the Lamanites; the backstory to everything here.1
  • Alma 26:11–12, 35–37 — Ammon’s psalm of rejoicing: “I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God.”1
  • D&C 88:118 — “seek learning, even by study and also by faith”; the formula behind Alma 17:2–3.1
  • D&C 35:13–14 — “the weak things of the world… their arm shall be my arm”; the strength behind Ammon’s arm.1
  • Moses 1:39 — the why of creation, the key to teaching the first pillar.1
  • John 17:3 — eternal life is to know God; the answer to the old king’s prayer.1
  • Matthew 8:5–13 — the centurion whose faith exceeds Israel’s; the pattern for Ammon’s praise of the queen.3
  • Matthew 10:16 — “wise as serpents, harmless as doves”; the source of Alma 18:22.1
  • Acts 17:22–29 — Paul on Mars’ Hill teaching that we are God’s offspring; the New Testament parallel to teaching the Lamanites who God really is.1
  • Alma 12:32 — commandments given after the plan of redemption; the sequence behind Ammon’s teaching order.1
  • Mosiah 17:11–12 — Noah nearly frees Abinadi until his priests (his friends) stir him up; a cross-reference on the influence of associations.1
  • Alma 1 & Alma 2–3 — Nehor and the Amlici(te) conflict; the roots of the Amalekites/Amulonites who harden Aaron’s field.2
  • D&C 137 — Joseph Smith’s vision of his brother Alvin; a lens on Abish’s “vision of her father.”1

Questions for Study or Teaching

  1. Alma 17:2–3 lists what made the sons of Mosiah powerful instruments (study, sound understanding, scripture, fasting, prayer). Which of these is the Lord inviting you to strengthen so He can make an instrument of you?
  2. Ammon serves for chapters before he teaches a word. Who in your life have you been trying to “teach” before you have won their heart — and what would “winning the heart” actually look like for that person?
  3. The Lord promised “good examples… in afflictions” (17:11). When have your hardest moments been the ones where your example mattered most?
  4. Both kings are taught the same order — Creation, Fall, Atonement. Which of the three do you understand least, and how would understanding the Fall better change your need for the Savior?
  5. The queen chose to hear and trust the Lord’s servant over the surrounding voices (19:9). Whose voices compete loudest for your trust, and how do you make room to hear the Lord’s?
  6. Abish’s plan seemed to fail before it succeeded (19:28–29). Where have you done good that “didn’t pan out” — and could God still be turning it to His glory?
  7. The old king moved from offering “half my kingdom” (to save his life) to “all my sins” (to know God). What is the “all” God is inviting you to give to know Him more fully?

Personal Application

  1. Tune the instrument. Don’t pray only “make me an instrument”; pray “help me be in tune,” and then do the tuning — study, scripture, fasting, prayer (Alma 17:2–3, 9).4

  2. Serve someone before you ever “teach” them. Ammon fed the horses (18:9). What is the unglamorous, practical act of service that would let a neighbor or family member “feel God’s love” through you this week?1

  3. Reframe the interruption as the mission. Whoever is “holding you back” — a struggling companion, a hard marriage, a child off the expected path — is not in the way of your work. They are your work (Alma 20:1–7).3

  4. Be your own kind of missionary. Stop trying to be the Ammon you admire; the people in front of you may need the Aaron only you can be. The doctrine is the same; the delivery is yours.3

  5. Audit your associations — and be a true friend. “A friend is someone who makes it easier to live the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Are yours making it easier? Are you?1

  6. Pray the old king’s prayer. When God feels distant, try the honest, childlike version: “If thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me? And I will give away all my sins to know thee” (Alma 22:18). It admits the doubt and offers everything anyway.3

  7. Be patient on God’s timeline. It took fourteen years. The Lord “has made ample provision” and is “really good at playing the long game” — with the Lamanites, and with the people you love and worry about.1


Pulling It Together

If Alma 13–16 asked whether God can be trusted when the innocent suffer, Alma 17–22 answers a different question: how does a hardened heart actually change? The answer the block gives, over and over, is relationship before doctrine — service that wins the heart, a friendship that dissolves a father’s prejudice, a queen who trusts a servant of God, a woman who reaches out and takes another woman by the hand. Only into hearts softened that way does the doctrine land, and when it lands it always follows the same path: a God who created us (so we are His children), a Fall that leaves us needing Him, and an Atonement that brings us home.

Teach this block as one message and it is this: the Lord makes instruments of ordinary people who give Him their hearts and then give Him their time. Ammon insisted the story was never about Ammon — it was about “the power which is in me,” the goodness of God working through a willing servant. The same offer stands to every reader: “I will make an instrument of thee in my hands unto the salvation of many souls.” The only prerequisites are a tuned heart, patient love, and the willingness to give away all our sins to know Him.


Previous: Alma 13–16 | Next: Alma 23–29


Footnotes


Further Reading

  • Come Follow Me - Alma 17-22 - Instruments in the Hand of God (Unshaken)
  • Come Follow Me Alma 17-22 (June 22-28) (Don’t Miss This)
  • S03E25 - Alma 17-22 (Gospel Talktrine)
  • Sources/PDFs/followhim_book_of_mormon_2024/BM-27-Dr.-Brian-Mead-Alma-17-22-followHIM-Podcast-SHOW-NOTES.pdf
  • Bowen, Matthew L. “Rabbanah: Ammon as a Type of Jesus Christ” and “Abish, Theophanies, and the First Lamanite Restoration” (BYU Religious Studies Center)
  • Alma 13–16 — Enter into the Rest of the Lord (previous block)

Footnotes

  1. Mead, Dr. Brian, with Hank Smith and John Bytheway. “Alma 17–22 — ‘I Will Make an Instrument of Thee’” (Episode 27, July 1–7, 2024). followHIM Podcast. Sources/PDFs/followhim_book_of_mormon_2024/BM-27-Dr.-Brian-Mead-Alma-17-22-followHIM-Podcast-SHOW-NOTES.pdf 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

  2. Holt, Mark. “Alma 17–22” (S03E25). Gospel Talktrine. S03E25 - Alma 17-22 2 3 4 5 6 7

  3. Halverson, Jared. “Come Follow Me — Alma 17–22 — Instruments in the Hand of God.” Unshaken (Faith Matters). Come Follow Me - Alma 17-22 - Instruments in the Hand of God 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

  4. Butler, David and Freeman, Emily. “Come Follow Me Alma 17–22 (June 22–28).” Don’t Miss This. Come Follow Me Alma 17-22 (June 22-28) 2 3 4 5