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Come, Follow Me — July 29–August 4, 2024

Official lesson: “Look to God and Live.” — Alma 36–38. The manual centers the week on being born of God, Jesus Christ replacing sorrow with joy, scripture preserved “for a wise purpose,” small and simple means, counseling with the Lord, and strengthening loved ones through testimony.¹

← Previous: Alma 32–35 — Plant This Word in Your Hearts | Next: Alma 39–42 — The Great Plan of Happiness →

Alma 36–38 — “Look to God and Live”

Key Verse

“And now, my son, see that ye take care of these sacred things, yea, see that ye look to God and live.” — Alma 37:47

Why These Three Chapters Belong Together

The world is hardening, war is approaching, and Alma responds by gathering his sons.

That is the week’s first surprise. Alma has just returned from the Zoramite mission. He sees people becoming offended by the strictness of the word and feels “exceedingly sorrowful.” He does not answer public collapse with cynicism. He turns toward the relationships and sacred trusts immediately before him: “he caused that his sons should be gathered together” (Alma 35:15–16).¹

Alma 36–38 records two personal charges. To Helaman, Alma gives his conversion memory and the physical records that preserve a people’s covenant memory. To Shiblon, he gives praise for quiet steadiness, repeats the center of his conversion testimony, and warns that strength must remain humble, temperate, and filled with love. The movement is:

1. Remember deliverance — Israel’s, Lehi’s family’s, the Nephites’, and Alma’s own.
2. Catch hold of Jesus Christ — the turning point from torment toward mercy and joy.
3. Preserve saving memory — records can enlarge a people’s memory and bring souls to Christ.
4. Follow the word day by day — like the Liahona, simple direction must be trusted and acted upon.
5. Become a steady witness — bold without overbearance, passionate under a bridle, humble in prayer.

These chapters make a father’s central message concrete: God has delivered before; Jesus Christ can deliver now; preserve that witness so another generation can look and live.

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What to Watch for While Reading

• Mark every form of remember. Notice what Alma wants remembered and what Christ allows him to remember without torment.
• Trace the paired words in Alma 36: captivity/deliverance, fall/stand, pain/joy, darkness/light, horror/longing, destroy/build, and bitter/sweet.
• At Alma 36:17–18, slow down. Jesus Christ is not an ornament added to the conversion story; He is its turn.
• Distinguish remembrance of sin from being continually harrowed by pain. Alma remembers enough to testify and repair, but the torment no longer owns him.
• Ask why Alma tells a future record keeper his conversion story before handing him records.
• In Alma 37, list what scripture does: preserves, enlarges memory, corrects error, brings people to know God, produces repentance, and points a course.
• Keep “small and simple things” in its immediate context: records, words, daily miracles, faith, diligence, and the Liahona.
• Notice Alma’s ethics of disclosure in 37:21–31: preserve the Jaredite record and reveal the moral warning, but do not teach the operational oaths of secret murder.
• Compare counsel with the Lord with merely asking the Lord to approve a decision already made.
• Follow the Liahona sequence: prepared → points → works according to faith → neglected as too easy → progress stops → becomes a type of Christ’s word.
• Give Shiblon the attention his short chapter deserves. Mark both commendation and caution.
• In 38:10–12, circle the balancing words: diligent and temperate; bold but not overbearing; passion bridled so love can fill the soul.
• Compare Shiblon’s prayer counsel in 38:13–14 with the Rameumptom prayer in Alma 31 and the publican’s prayer in Luke 18.

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Historical and Literary Context

A Family Council Between Missions and War

Alma 35 closes with political danger. Zoramite leaders have joined the Lamanites, the Nephites are preparing for conflict, and Alma is grieved by spiritual hardening. Alma 36–42 interrupts the public narrative with private father-son instruction. David Butler and Emily Belle Freeman describe it as a gathering-in moment: the story narrows from cities and nations to individualized conversations inside a family.²

The narrowing is not a retreat from public responsibility. Helaman will safeguard the records and later lead the stripling warriors. Shiblon will remain faithful and eventually receive the sacred records. Corianton, addressed in the next unit, will repent and return to ministry. Formation at home becomes preparation for service in a nation under strain.

See the wider sequence in Alma Timeline Map and the transition from Alma 32–35 — Plant This Word in Your Hearts.

Alma 36–37 Is One Charge to Helaman

The current chapter heading says, “The commandments of Alma to his son Helaman. Comprising chapters 36 and 37.” Earlier Book of Mormon editions did not divide the charge between the conversion account and the record-keeping instructions. Heather Hardy argues that the unity matters: Alma is not giving Helaman an inspirational story and then changing subjects to archival administration. He is transferring a legacy of deliverance and the records that preserve it.³

Alma’s sequence answers a practical question: Why keep records? Because sacred records hold the testimony that a person and a people can be delivered. Helaman must preserve not merely metal objects but the living memory that helped turn thousands of Lamanites toward Christ.

Chiasmus: The Form Enacts the Turn

Alma 36 is a sustained example of chiasmus, a literary arrangement in which themes proceed inward and then return in reverse order. John W. Welch’s detailed mapping made the chapter the best-known Book of Mormon example. Diagrams differ in some details, so the form should not become a game of pretending that every word has one indisputable partner. The broad reversals are clear and meaningful.⁴⁵

Movement inward	Christ-centered turn	Movement outward
Keep the commandments and prosper (36:1)		Keep the commandments and prosper (36:30)
Remember captivity and deliverance (36:2)		Remember Egypt, Jerusalem, bondage, and deliverance (36:28–29)
Trust God; be supported and lifted (36:3)		Trust God; be supported, delivered, and raised (36:27–28)
Knowledge is not “of myself” (36:4–5)		Knowledge and the word are from God (36:26)
Born of God (36:5)		Born of God; others taste the same joy (36:23–26)
Seeking to destroy the Church (36:6–9)	Remembering Jesus Christ and crying for mercy (36:17–18)	Laboring to bring souls to repentance (36:24)
No use of his limbs (36:10)		Strength returns; Alma stands (36:23)
Horror at God’s presence (36:14–15)		Longing to be in God’s presence (36:22)
Racked, harrowed, bitter pain (36:12–17)		No longer harrowed; marvelous light and exquisite joy (36:19–21)

The pattern is not the gospel; it serves the gospel. The descent tightens around guilt and apparent extinction. At the center Alma’s mind catches hold upon “one Jesus Christ,” and the language reverses: pain becomes joy, paralysis becomes standing, destruction becomes ministry, and fear of God’s presence becomes longing.

Stephan Taeger suggests that the form invites more than detached analysis. Readers overhear a father telling a son, enter the story’s descent through concrete language, and then experience its sudden Christ-centered turn. This is a rhetorical and literary reading, not an official claim about how every reader must respond, but it helps explain why Alma 36 is powerful even when no diagram is visible.⁶

One Conversion, Three Retellings

Alma’s conversion appears in Mosiah 27, Alma 36, and Alma 38. The accounts are complementary rather than mechanically identical:

Account	Voice and audience	Distinctive emphasis
Mosiah 27	Mormon’s third-person narrative	the angel, companions, Alma the Elder’s prayer and fasting, public aftermath
Alma 36	Alma to Helaman	inward torment, remembered teaching, Christ-centered reversal, lifelong labor, covenant memory
Alma 38	Alma to Shiblon	compressed witness: pain → cry to Christ → remission → peace

S. Kent Brown observes that Alma repeatedly turns his conversion into a persuasive witness. He does not use autobiography to center himself. He uses remembered failure and deliverance to make repentance credible to people who might otherwise believe they are beyond hope.⁴

The Exodus Inside Alma’s Conversion

Alma frames individual rebirth within communal deliverance. He begins with the captivity of “our fathers” and ends with Egypt, the Red Sea, Jerusalem, bondage, and the promised land. S. Kent Brown reads this as part of a wider Book of Mormon Exodus pattern: historical deliverance becomes a type of Christ’s power to bring souls out of spiritual bondage.⁴

The comparison does not mean that every conversion must resemble a dramatic Red Sea. It means that Alma knows salvation as an act God performs when no merely human power can open the way.

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The Turning Point: “My Mind Caught Hold”

Godly Sorrow Is Not the Savior

Alma’s language is severe: racked, harrowed, torment, pains of hell, horror, chains, bitterness. A rack pulls apart; a harrow tears hard soil. Jared Halverson uses these images to make the spiritual anguish vivid, while emphasizing that repentance is the joyful escape from bondage, not the sin that created it.⁷

The official manual similarly asks readers to compare Alma before and after repentance rather than treating repentance itself as divine punishment.¹ Paul’s distinction is helpful: “godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation,” while destructive sorrow does not (2 Corinthians 7:10). Pain may awaken responsibility, but pain cannot atone, forgive, or recreate. Jesus Christ does that.

Alma’s wish to become extinct describes the depth of his despair; it is not a model for how much psychological anguish a person must produce before forgiveness. Nor should every experience of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thought be blamed on personal sin. Alma is narrating his own moral awakening. A person in immediate danger needs trusted human and professional help as well as spiritual care.

A Half-Remembered Sermon Becomes a Lifeline

At the narrative’s lowest point, Alma remembers hearing his father teach “concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world.” The recollection sounds almost small: a sermon heard earlier, perhaps resisted, reduced to one remembered name and promise.

But the remembered word is enough to turn toward. Don’t Miss This emphasizes the parental hope here: Alma the Elder’s teaching may have seemed ineffective when first spoken, yet it remained available when his son finally needed language for mercy.² The sermon did not force conversion on schedule. It placed a saving truth within reach.

“Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me.” — Alma 36:18

Alma does not report an elaborate formula. He names Jesus, confesses his need, and asks for mercy. The shift is immediate: “when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more.” That does not mean all consequences vanish or all repair is finished. It means the relationship to sin and God has changed. Memory can now become testimony and moral action rather than an endless torture chamber.

From Horror to Longing

Before crying to Christ, the thought of God’s presence fills Alma with “inexpressible horror.” Afterward he sees God upon the throne and says, “my soul did long to be there.” Don’t Miss This highlights this matched reversal as one of the chapter’s clearest pictures of grace: Christ meets Alma in his actual condition but does not leave him there.²

Forgiveness changes more than a legal status. It changes the direction of desire. The Judge Alma wanted to escape becomes the Father whose presence he longs to enter.

Joy Becomes Labor, Not Self-Congratulation

Alma rises and “from that time even until now” labors to bring others to repentance. He does not preach in order to reimburse Christ for grace. Grace cannot be repaid. His labor is the outward movement of joy: he wants others to “taste as I have tasted.”

This is a useful test of conversion. Genuine relief does not leave the disciple absorbed only in private innocence. It turns outward in patient witness, repair, service, and hope for people who still seem unreachable. Compare the prior guide’s movement from planted word to social fruit in Alma 32–35.

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Sacred Things and Enlarged Memory

Four Stewardships in Alma 37

Section	Sacred trust	Helaman’s responsibility	Saving purpose
37:1–20	Nephite records and brass plates	keep a record; keep the artifacts sacred; appeal to the Lord	preserve holy writ, enlarge memory, correct error, bring souls to know and rejoice in Christ
37:21–31	twenty-four Jaredite plates and interpreters	preserve them; translate/reveal the warning; withhold secret oaths and signs	expose works of darkness without teaching their methods; call the people to repentance
37:32–37	doctrine and daily discipleship	teach hatred of sin, repentance, faith, humility, good works, wisdom, prayer, and counsel	help people withstand temptation and find rest in Christ
37:38–47	Liahona and its meaning	remember how it worked; teach its spiritual type; take care of sacred things	show how Christ’s word points a daily course beyond sorrow to the promised land

Frank Judd’s inventory of the “sacred things” emphasizes that Helaman receives a collection rather than one generic book: prophetic records, brass plates, Jaredite records, interpreters, and the Liahona. Each artifact carries both history and obligation.⁸

Keep Sacred Things Sacred

Alma says both “keep all these things sacred” and “take care of these sacred things.” The wording makes stewardship active. Sacredness is not an excuse to lock the records away unused. The records retain spiritual “brightness” by being preserved, read, copied, taught, and brought to bear on present life.

Hardy shows how Alma models the practice he requests. His charge is densely woven with earlier scripture—Lehi’s throne vision, Exodus deliverance, Nephi’s record language, King Benjamin’s teaching, Psalms, and his own prior sermons. Alma has not merely stored the tradition; he has studied, internalized, and faithfully extended it.³

For a modern disciple, “take care” can include accurate quotation, preserved context, honest attribution, careful transmission, and lived obedience. The goal is not treating a physical book as a charm. It is keeping the word bright enough to lead another person to Christ.

“By Small and Simple Things” in Context

The famous sentence appears while Alma is explaining how engraved records accomplish God’s eternal purposes. A plate, a copied word, a parent’s repeated testimony, or a daily reading may appear too small for the salvation of nations. Yet Ammon and his brethren used preserved records to correct inherited error and bring thousands to rejoice in Jesus Christ.

In the 2024 followHIM discussion, Hank Smith applies Elder David A. Bednar’s painting image: a masterpiece is made of ordinary brushstrokes that are unimpressive in isolation. Family prayer, scripture study, and faithful teaching may feel similarly small, especially when distracted children remember no single spectacular lesson. Consistency becomes the painting.⁵

The metaphor guards against two errors:

• grandiosity: waiting for one heroic spiritual event while neglecting today’s faithful stroke;
• mechanical minimalism: assuming any tiny act is automatically transformative without faith, diligence, repentance, and Christ.

Small means matter because the Lord works through them, not because smallness itself is magical.

Scripture Enlarges Memory

Human memory compresses, rearranges, and forgets. Scripture gives a covenant community access to deliverances it did not personally witness. John Bytheway’s concise formulation in followHIM is useful: scripture allows us to benefit from the experiences of others; marks on a page enlarge the span of a life.⁵

Alma names several results:

1. records enlarge collective memory;
2. they expose mistaken traditions;
3. they bring people to know God;
4. they bring repentance—defined in verse 9 as knowing the Lord and rejoicing in Jesus Christ;
5. they preserve hope for future generations.

Scripture therefore does more than archive information. Read by faith and the Spirit, it turns remembered deliverance into present trust.

Information Stewardship and the Jaredite Record

Alma commands Helaman to preserve the Jaredite record and make known its wickedness, murders, and destruction. He simultaneously commands him to withhold the secret oaths, signs, and procedures so that the people do not imitate them.

This is not a general license to hide inconvenient history. Alma insists that the moral truth and consequences become known. What he withholds is operational instruction in organized murder. The passage offers a durable stewardship principle: teach enough truth to warn and protect; do not package destructive technique as fascination, prestige, or a manual.

The ambiguity of “Gazelem” should also be retained. The grammar permits the name to refer to the servant or to the stone; scholarship and early Latter-day Saint usage have not produced one uncontested resolution. Alma’s doctrinal point is clearer than the identification: God can bring secret works out of darkness into light.⁴⁸

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Counsel With the Lord

“Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good.” — Alma 37:37

To counsel with the Lord suggests relationship, honest speech, listening, revision, and continued action. It is different from:

• making no decision until a spectacular sign removes agency;
• informing God what He must do;
• asking for approval after refusing every alternative;
• using prayer to avoid study, responsibility, or wise human counsel.

The surrounding verses place the whole day in God’s presence: cry for support; let doings, travel, thoughts, and affections be unto the Lord; lie down under His care; rise with thanksgiving. Don’t Miss This emphasizes that honest questions and pain can be brought into this counseling relationship. The process may not yield an immediate explanation, but it can turn “Why?” toward the next faithful “What?” and “How?” without pretending the hurt is unreal.²

Compare Prayer and Doctrine and Covenants 6:36: “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.”

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The Liahona and the Easiness of the Way

The Liahona is both artifact and type. It pointed Lehi’s family toward a promised land, worked according to faith, and ceased to help when they became slothful and forgot diligence. Alma then interprets it: the words of Christ can point a straight course “beyond this vale of sorrow into a far better land of promise.”

Liahona in the wilderness	Word of Christ in discipleship
prepared by the Lord	revealed and preserved by the Lord
points the course	teaches the way toward eternal life
works day by day	guides ordinary repeated choices
requires faith and diligence	must be heard, trusted, and acted upon
easy to neglect because the means looks small	easy to postpone because prayer, scripture, repentance, and covenants seem familiar
points straight even when travelers wander	Christ remains the sure direction even when a disciple’s actual path includes correction and return

“Straight course” does not mean a disciple never wanders or needs grace. It means Christ’s direction is trustworthy. David Butler and Emily Belle Freeman distinguish the compass’s reliable bearing from the travelers’ uneven route: the Savior provides both direction and grace for people still learning to walk it.²

The allusion to the brazen serpent joins Alma 37 to the preceding sermon in Alma 33. Israelites could look at the lifted sign and live; some refused because the way seemed too simple. Jesus later applies that image to His own lifting up (John 3:14–17). Looking is not a magic glance. It is trusting the divinely prepared way enough to turn toward Christ and follow.

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Shiblon: The Steady Son Still Needs Christ

Shiblon’s chapter is short, but Alma does not overlook him. He names specific goodness: steadiness, faithfulness, diligence, patience, long-suffering, endurance under bonds, and faith while being stoned for the word. Praise is concrete rather than generic.

Then Alma locates the source of deliverance: “the Lord was with thee.” Shiblon’s endurance matters, but his strength is not self-created salvation. Alma repeats his conversion in eight verses and states the governing doctrine plainly:

“There is no other way or means whereby man can be saved, only in and through Christ. Behold, he is the life and the light of the world.” — Alma 38:9

The Occupational Hazards of Strength

Jared Halverson reads Alma’s cautions as the potential shadow side of Shiblon’s virtues. This is devotional interpretation, not an accusation that Shiblon was secretly proud.⁷

Evident strength	Possible distortion if ungoverned	Alma’s balancing counsel
diligence	frantic pace, self-reliance, or eventual collapse	be diligent and temperate
wisdom and strength	boasting or superiority	do not be lifted up in pride
boldness	overbearance	use boldness, but not overbearance
passion and zeal	running over people rather than loving them	bridle passions to be filled with love
public teaching	performance for praise	do not pray as the Zoramites
endurance	trusting one’s own toughness	remember the Lord delivered you

A bridle does not kill a horse’s strength; it gives power direction. Bruce C. Hafen’s interpretation, quoted in followHIM, is that passions are harnessed, channeled, and focused because disciplined passion makes richer love possible.⁵ Alma does not specify only sexual desire. The counsel can include appetite, anger, ambition, certainty, religious zeal, and every strong impulse that must serve covenant love rather than rule it.

Boldness Without Overbearance

Boldness tells the truth clearly and acts courageously. Overbearance tries to control another person’s conscience, pace, or dignity. The distinction is not simply volume. A soft voice can manipulate; a firm voice can protect.

Alma places the safeguard immediately beside the command: be filled with love. A useful teaching test is:

• Am I making Christ clearer or myself more impressive?
• Am I inviting agency or punishing hesitation?
• Am I speaking to bless this person or to discharge my frustration?
• Can I remain patient if the response is not immediate?

A Better Prayer Than the Rameumptom

Shiblon has seen Zoramite worship firsthand. Alma tells him not to pray to be heard and praised, or to thank God for being better than his brethren. The replacement prayer is not self-hatred: “forgive my unworthiness, and remember my brethren in mercy.”

Compare the publican who prays, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” rather than the Pharisee who inventories other people’s failures (Luke 18:9–14). Humility sees personal dependence and a neighbor’s need for mercy at the same time.

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Verse-by-Verse Commentary

Alma 36

Alma 36:1–3 — Prosperity, Captivity, and Trust

“Whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions.”

Alma opens and closes with the covenant formula about keeping commandments and prospering in the land. “Prosper” should not be reduced to constant wealth, health, or comfort; the same verse promises support in trials rather than exemption from them. The ultimate lifting is “at the last day.”

Remembering captivity is a spiritual discipline. Israel, Limhi’s people, Alma the Elder’s people, Lehi’s family, and Alma himself all testify that God can open a future when none could deliver them by human power alone.

Come, Follow Me connection: before asking whether today feels prosperous, ask where God is supporting, directing, preserving, correcting, or promising final deliverance.

Alma 36:4–5 — “Not of Any Worthiness of Myself”

“If I had not been born of God I should not have known these things.”

Alma separates revealed knowledge from self-congratulation. He does not deny the importance of seeking, studying, obeying, or laboring. He denies that revelation is a trophy proving his superiority. His life is evidence of God’s grace, not Alma’s innate worthiness.

Being “born of God” is explained by the changes that follow: a different relation to sin, Christ, God’s presence, other souls, work, and hope. The official manual notes that most conversions are more gradual than Alma’s dramatic event, while the same rebirth can be real.¹

Come, Follow Me connection: testimony becomes safer and more persuasive when it points to God’s mercy rather than the speaker’s status.

Alma 36:6–11 — The Angel Stops Destruction

“If thou wilt of thyself be destroyed, seek no more to destroy the church of God.”

The angel intervenes because Alma’s agency is injuring the agency and faith of others. Alma falls, hears no more, and loses speech and movement for three days. Mosiah 27 supplies external details about companions, fasting, prayer, and Alma the Elder; Alma 36 gives the inward memory.

The account neither teaches that coercion ordinarily converts nor that every wanderer will receive an angel. It testifies that God knew how to interrupt Alma and answer the prayers of others without erasing Alma’s responsibility to turn.

Restoration parallel: compare Mosiah 27:8–24 for the community’s view of the same event.

Come, Follow Me connection: intervention is merciful when it stops harm and opens space for truthful agency, not when it merely forces outward compliance.

Alma 36:12–16 — Racked, Harrowed, and Afraid of God

“The very thought of coming into the presence of my God did rack my soul with inexpressible horror.”

Alma no longer minimizes what he has done. “Murdered many … or rather led them away unto destruction” is moral language for spiritual injury, not a confession of physical homicide. He understands that his choices affected people he once treated as abstractions.

A harrow breaks hard ground; a rack tears by tension. The images show a conscience awakened to consequence. But the chapter will not leave Alma under either instrument. Sorrow’s faithful purpose is to turn the soul toward Christ and honest repair.

Pastoral caution: do not demand Alma’s intensity as proof that another person has repented. Remorse varies, trauma complicates emotion, and Christ—not the quantity of suffering—makes forgiveness possible.

Come, Follow Me connection: godly sorrow tells the truth about harm without declaring that Christ’s mercy has become unavailable.

Alma 36:17–18 — The Name at the Center

“I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy … concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ.”

The central memory is relational and doctrinal: a father had testified that Jesus Christ would come and atone for the sins of the world. Alma moves from a general doctrine about “the world” to a personal cry: “have mercy on me.”

Faith here is not confidence in Alma’s ability to undo the past. It is confidence that Jesus is who the remembered testimony said He is. Alma’s mind “caught hold”—a vivid image of grasping a lifeline while encircled.

Restoration parallel: Doctrine and Covenants 19:15–20 joins Christ’s suffering with the invitation to repent rather than suffer as He did.

Come, Follow Me connection: when the mind loops through failure, give it a true sentence about Jesus Christ to catch hold of, then act on that truth.

Alma 36:19–23 — Pain Replaced by Joy

“There can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.”

The reversals arrive quickly: no more harrowing pain, marvelous light, joy equal to pain, longing for God’s presence, strength in the limbs, standing, and public witness. Matthew S. Holland calls Christ the “exquisite gift of the Son” and testifies that Christ can address both the agonies caused by moral failure and suffering not caused by personal sin.⁹

Alma remembers his sins later—he is telling the story now—but memory no longer functions as an instrument of endless punishment. He can use it humbly, truthfully, and redemptively.

The throne vision echoes 1 Nephi 1:8, even repeating Lehi’s language about God and numberless concourses of angels. Alma’s recovered relationship with God also restores him to his people’s sacred memory.³

Come, Follow Me connection: forgiveness does not erase truthful history; it changes what that history can become in Christ.

Alma 36:24–27 — Conversion Bears Fruit in Other Lives

“From that time even until now, I have labored without ceasing.”

Alma’s new birth produces movement. He wants others to taste joy, be born of God, and receive the Holy Ghost. The verb taste links lived knowledge, Lehi’s fruit, Psalm 34, and the prior seed sermon. The gospel is not merely examined from a distance; it is received and embodied.

Alma’s continued trials also correct a shallow reading of conversion. He is forgiven and still faces prison, bonds, death, troubles, and afflictions. The promise is not ease but divine support and continuing deliverance.

Come, Follow Me connection: ask what grace is freeing you to do for another person, not only what it has removed from your record.

Alma 36:28–30 — Personal Salvation Inside Covenant History

“He has delivered them out of bondage and captivity from time to time.”

Alma’s testimony expands from “me” to “our fathers.” Egypt and Jerusalem become recurring patterns of divine fidelity. “From time to time” is honest: deliverance is real without pretending covenant peoples never reenter difficulty.

The chapter ends where it began—with commandments, prosperity, and God’s presence—but Alma now speaks as one who knows both being cut off and being brought near.

Come, Follow Me connection: keep a deliverance history. Include both the Red Sea moments and the quieter “from time to time” support that would otherwise disappear from memory.

Alma 37

Alma 37:1–5 — A Record Is Entrusted, Not Merely Owned

“Keep all these things sacred which I have kept.”

Helaman receives responsibility to keep writing as well as preserve what already exists. Sacred tradition is both inheritance and assignment. The brass plates carry scripture, genealogy, and prophecy into future generations.

“Retain their brightness” may include literal preservation, but the verse immediately extends brightness to all plates containing holy writ. The primary issue is continuing spiritual usefulness.⁸

Come, Follow Me connection: ask whether your family and personal records merely store events or make God’s dealings easier for the next generation to recognize.

Alma 37:6–10 — Small Means, Thousands of Souls

“By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.”

Alma points to records and words. Preserved scripture enlarged memory, corrected error, and helped Ammon’s mission bring thousands of Lamanites to repentance and joy in Christ. The small object participates in a great work because God uses it across time.

Verse 9 gives an unusually rich description of repentance: the records brought people “to the knowledge of the Lord their God, and to rejoice in Jesus Christ their Redeemer.” Repentance is not only stopping behavior; it is returning to truthful, joyful relationship with the Redeemer.

Come, Follow Me connection: choose one repeatable brushstroke—one verse recorded, one sincere prayer, one apology, one act of service—and let God compound it over time.

Alma 37:11–20 — A Wise Purpose Not Yet Fully Known

“These mysteries are not yet fully made known unto me; therefore I shall forbear.”

Alma models epistemic restraint. He knows the records have a divine purpose but does not invent details God has not revealed. “I shall forbear” is part of prophetic stewardship.

Helaman must appeal to the Lord about the sacred artifacts. Divine preservation does not remove human responsibility; obedience and revelation govern the trust. God has already fulfilled one purpose in the Lamanite conversions and will show power to future generations.

Come, Follow Me connection: faithful confidence can coexist with “I do not yet know.” Do not fill every silence with speculation.

Alma 37:21–26 — Records and Interpreters Bring Darkness to Light

“I will bring forth out of darkness unto light all their secret works.”

The twenty-four plates contain the Jaredite record. The interpreters allow hidden works to be revealed as a warning. Alma’s “Gazelem” wording is grammatically uncertain, and the passage does not require the reader to settle whether it names the servant or the stone.⁸

The theological claim is that hidden evil is not permanently safe from truth. God’s light serves repentance and protects future communities.

Come, Follow Me connection: secrecy may postpone accountability, but covenant record keeping places hope in eventual truthful light.

Alma 37:27–31 — Reveal the Warning, Withhold the Blueprint

“Only their wickedness and their murders and their abominations shall ye make known.”

Alma’s rule is discriminating rather than evasive. Helaman should teach what happened, why destruction came, and why the people must abhor sin. He should not reproduce the secret signs and oaths that would enable imitation.

The repeated “except they repent” matters. Even warnings about ripe destruction preserve an opening for turning.

Come, Follow Me connection: when teaching destructive behavior, give enough truth for recognition, compassion, prevention, and repentance without glamorizing technique.

Alma 37:32–34 — What Helaman Should Teach

“Preach unto them repentance, and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

After telling Helaman what not to disclose, Alma gives the positive curriculum: hate sin rather than people; preach repentance and faith; teach humility; resist temptation through Christ; do not weary of good works; find rest through meekness.

“Everlasting hatred against sin” cannot justify contempt toward sinners. Alma’s own life proves the difference. God stopped his destructive work, forgave him, and made him a prophet.

Come, Follow Me connection: teach sin seriously enough to protect people and grace strongly enough to make return believable.

Alma 37:35–37 — Learn Wisdom in Youth

“Let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord.”

Wisdom is defined through covenant practice: commandments, prayer, directed action, consecrated affection, counsel, nightly trust, and morning gratitude. This is not merely an adolescent lesson. “In thy youth” emphasizes beginning before habits harden.

Counsel with the Lord is participatory. The disciple brings questions and a willing plan, listens, acts, and returns. The Lord’s direction is “for good,” though it may include correction rather than endorsement.

Come, Follow Me connection: place one decision inside a real conversation with God—state the facts, desires, fears, alternatives, and willingness to change.

Alma 37:38–42 — A Miracle Worked Day by Day

“They had this miracle, and also many other miracles wrought by the power of God, day by day.”

The Liahona’s miraculous direction did not eliminate daily faith. When Lehi’s family became slothful, miracles ceased and progress stopped. The object was not autonomous; it worked within a relationship of faith and diligence.

Hunger and delay show that ignoring direction has embodied consequences. Yet the narrative itself exists because the family resumed the journey. Failure at one stage did not cancel the promised land.

Come, Follow Me connection: yesterday’s guidance is not a substitute for today’s attention. Ask what ordinary direction you have begun to treat as background noise.

Alma 37:43–47 — The Word Points Beyond the Vale of Sorrow

“The way is prepared, and if we will look we may live forever.”

Alma explicitly calls the Liahona a “shadow” and “type.” Its temporal function teaches a spiritual reality: Christ’s word points toward eternal life. The “easiness of the way” can become a stumbling block when people demand something more spectacular than trust, repentance, covenant, scripture, prayer, and continued following.

The final command joins artifact care and worship: “take care of these sacred things” and “look to God and live.” Preserving scripture without looking to God misses its purpose; claiming to look to God while neglecting His word discards the prepared compass.

Biblical parallel: Numbers 21:4–9 and John 3:14–17.

Come, Follow Me connection: simplicity is not insignificance. Use the prepared way rather than waiting for a harder one that feels more heroic.

Alma 38

Alma 38:1–5 — The Quiet Heroism of Steadiness

“I have had great joy in thee already, because of thy faithfulness and thy diligence.”

Alma praises Shiblon’s actual history: he taught among the Zoramites, suffered bonds and stoning, endured patiently, and experienced deliverance. “Steadiness” is not a personality compliment detached from cost. It is continued trust under pressure.

Alma still redirects the credit: Shiblon bore these things “because the Lord was with thee.” Faithfulness and grace are not rivals. Shiblon acted; God sustained and delivered.

Come, Follow Me connection: strengthen a reliable person by naming specific faithfulness, not by assuming steady people need no encouragement.

Alma 38:6–9 — The Conversion Story in Its Shortest Form

“I did cry unto him and I did find peace to my soul.”

To Shiblon, Alma compresses the account: spiritual knowledge is from God; an angel stops destruction; Alma suffers bitter pain; he cries to Jesus Christ; mercy brings remission and peace. The central doctrine remains unchanged even when the literary detail is shortened.

Verse 9 is the interpretive key: no other way or means saves except Christ. He is life, light, truth, and righteousness. The testimony protects Shiblon from treating steadiness as self-salvation.

Come, Follow Me connection: a testimony can be brief without being shallow when it clearly names the need, the Savior, and the peace He gives.

Alma 38:10–12 — Diligent and Temperate

“Use boldness, but not overbearance; and also see that ye bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love.”

Alma gives paired virtues. Diligence without temperance can burn out or dominate. Temperance without diligence can become passivity. Boldness without love becomes overbearance; love without courage can avoid needed truth.

The bridle image preserves energy while directing it. Passions are not amputated. They are consecrated so love, rather than impulse or ego, determines their use.

Come, Follow Me connection: identify one strength that needs a bridle, not because it is evil, but because love should decide where its power goes.

Alma 38:13–15 — Mercy for Me and My Brethren

“O Lord, forgive my unworthiness, and remember my brethren in mercy.”

Alma directly contrasts Shiblon’s prayer with the Rameumptom. The Zoramites thanked God that they were better; a disciple asks forgiveness and mercy for the community. “Acknowledge your unworthiness” means refusing self-saving pride, not denying divine identity or worth.

The farewell is tender and purposeful: blessing, peace, sobriety, and “go … teach the word.” Shiblon is not forgotten. He is trusted to continue.

Come, Follow Me connection: replace comparative prayer with two petitions: “forgive me” and “remember them in mercy.”

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Gospel Library Scripture Links

Assigned Reading

• Alma 36 — Alma’s conversion, the Christ-centered turn from torment to joy, and remembered deliverance.
• Alma 37 — sacred records, small and simple means, responsible disclosure, daily counsel, and the Liahona type.
• Alma 38 — Shiblon’s steadiness, salvation through Christ, disciplined strength, and humble prayer.

Key Parallels

• Alma 35:15–16 — Alma gathers his sons because public spiritual hardening grieves him.
• Mosiah 27:8–31 — the third-person account of Alma’s conversion, including family and community response.
• 1 Nephi 1:8–15 — Lehi’s throne vision echoed in Alma 36:22.
• 1 Nephi 16:10, 28–29 — the Liahona, faith, diligence, and small means.
• Numbers 21:4–9 — the lifted serpent and the invitation to look and live.
• John 3:14–17 — Jesus identifies the lifted serpent as a type of His saving mission.
• Luke 18:9–14 — the Pharisee’s comparative prayer and the publican’s plea for mercy.
• 2 Corinthians 7:8–11 — godly sorrow leading to repentance and salvation.
• Doctrine and Covenants 6:36 — “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.”
• Doctrine and Covenants 19:15–20 — Christ’s suffering and the urgent invitation to repent.
• Doctrine and Covenants 64:33 — great things arising from small things.
• Helaman 5:9–12 — remembering that salvation is only in Christ and building upon His rock.

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Teaching Illustrations and Activities

1. Fold the Conversion Story

Write the major movements of Alma 36 on two sides of a paper folded inward:

• destroy / bring souls;
• fall / stand;
• horror / longing;
• pain / joy;
• bondage / deliverance.

Place Jesus Christ—have mercy on me on the fold. Open and close the paper to show that Christ is not merely another item in the list; He is the turning point that changes the meaning and direction of the whole story.

2. A Harrow and a Garden

Show an image of a soil harrow beside prepared garden soil. Ask what hard ground must become before a seed can enter. Then add the essential correction: the harrow is not the harvest. Sorrow opens hardened ground; Christ plants mercy, light, new life, and useful labor.

Do not use the image to pressure learners into displaying a particular level of pain.

3. The Masterpiece of Brushstrokes

Place a detailed painting on screen, then zoom in until only a few strokes are visible. Ask which stroke is “the masterpiece.” None is impressive alone; together they carry color, shape, and light.

Invite learners to name recurring brushstrokes in a covenant life: brief prayer, one verse, sacrament, apology, gratitude, service, honest work, and returning after failure. The point is not that consistency earns Christ. It is that grace trains and transforms disciples through small faithful participation.

4. An Enlarged-Memory Box

Place a journal, photograph, scripture, family letter, and sacrament program in a box. For each artifact ask:

• What would be forgotten without this?
• Does it only preserve an event, or does it preserve God’s dealings?
• What context must be added so a future reader does not misread it?

Connect the activity to Family Scripture Study and Alma’s charge to keep writing, not only to store earlier records.

5. Reveal the Warning, Hide the Blueprint

Offer a safe hypothetical: a school uncovers a cheating network. Learners must decide what to tell the community. They should reveal the harm, methods of recognition, consequences, and path of repair without publishing passwords or step-by-step evasion techniques.

Use this to discuss Alma 37:21–31 as responsible information stewardship rather than fascination with secrets.

6. Counsel, Do Not Dictate

Draw two speech bubbles. In the first write: “Lord, here is my plan; please approve it.” In the second write:

• Here is what I understand.
• Here is what I want and fear.
• Here are the people affected.
• Here are the alternatives I can see.
• What am I missing?
• I am willing to change.

Leave quiet time for listening and record the next faithful step rather than demanding the whole route.

7. Compass and Footprints

Place a compass beside a page of wandering footprints. The compass can point straight while the traveler’s route still includes mistakes and correction. Ask:

• What keeps Christ’s direction reliable?
• What keeps a wandering person from despair?
• How do repentance and grace bring the traveler back to the bearing?

8. Bridle the Strength

Use reins or a picture of a horse and bridle. Ask learners to choose a genuine strength—energy, confidence, intelligence, ambition, loyalty, humor, certainty, or boldness. Then ask:

• What good can this power do?
• Whom can it trample when ungoverned?
• What would love direct it to do?

The lesson is consecration, not self-erasure.

9. Praise Shiblon Specifically

Invite each learner to write one sentence of specific, evidence-based encouragement to a reliable person who may be overlooked. Follow Alma’s pattern:

• name the virtue;
• name the costly setting where it appeared;
• acknowledge the Lord’s sustaining presence;
• offer hope for continued faithfulness.

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Questions for Personal Study or Teaching

1. Why does Alma respond to public wickedness by gathering his sons?
2. What is the difference between withdrawing from the world and forming people who can serve it?
3. Which deliverance does Alma ask Helaman to remember before telling his own story?
4. Why does Alma say his knowledge is not “of myself”?
5. What changes when Alma stops minimizing the effects of his behavior?
6. How can sorrow be truthful without becoming a counterfeit atonement?
7. What earlier testimony did Alma’s mind find when everything else seemed closed?
8. What true sentence about Jesus Christ does your mind need to catch hold of?
9. Why is Christ at the center of both the literary form and the spiritual transformation?
10. What is the difference between remembering a sin and being continually harrowed by it?
11. How does forgiveness change Alma’s desire regarding God’s presence?
12. Why does Alma’s joy lead to labor for other souls?
13. What trials continue after Alma’s conversion, and what does that correct about shallow prosperity teaching?
14. Why should Helaman hear a conversion narrative before receiving the records?
15. What do records accomplish that unaided memory cannot?
16. Which small and simple practice are you tempted to dismiss because it does not feel dramatic?
17. How can scripture bring a person to know God and rejoice in Christ rather than merely win an argument?
18. What does Alma’s “I shall forbear” teach about responsible uncertainty?
19. How does Alma distinguish preserving a true record from publicizing destructive technique?
20. What modern stewardship requires the same balance of transparency and protection?
21. What is the difference between hating sin and hating a sinner?
22. When have meekness and lowliness helped you continue good work without burning out?
23. What would an honest counseling conversation with the Lord sound like today?
24. Which part of your day—thoughts, travel, work, sleep, or waking gratitude—needs to be redirected toward Him?
25. Why did the Liahona’s ordinary, daily operation make it easy to neglect?
26. Where is Christ’s direction straight even though your path has wandered?
27. What makes Shiblon’s steadiness heroic rather than dull?
28. Which strength in you has an occupational hazard?
29. Where do you need boldness, and where could that boldness become overbearance?
30. What passion needs to be bridled so that you can be more fully filled with love?
31. How can you praise a steady person as specifically as Alma praises Shiblon?
32. What changes when prayer says both “forgive me” and “remember my brethren in mercy”?

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Personal Covenant Application

Catch Hold of One True Thought

Choose one sentence from these chapters about Christ. Memorize it and place it where a destructive mental loop commonly begins. Examples:

• “O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me.”
• “I did cry unto him and I did find peace to my soul.”
• “He is the life and the light of the world.”
• “Look to God and live.”

Then pair the thought with one honest act of repentance, repair, or reaching for help.

Write a Deliverance Record

Add one page to a journal with four headings:

1. captivity or difficulty;
2. what I could not do alone;
3. how God supported or delivered “from time to time”;
4. what a future reader needs to remember about Christ.

Do not polish away uncertainty or pain. Bright records are truthful records.

Make One Small Stroke

Select a faithful action small enough to repeat daily for the next week. Tie it to a specific purpose rather than vague self-improvement: one verse to remember Christ, one prayer to counsel about a relationship, one message to strengthen a Shiblon, or one repair to reduce harm.

Counsel With the Lord About One Decision

Bring one real decision to prayer with facts, motives, alternatives, and willingness. Study relevant scripture and reliable information. Record impressions without claiming more certainty than you received. Act on the best faithful light available and return for correction.

Take Care of One Sacred Thing

Identify a trust God has placed in your care: scripture, a child, a calling, a relationship, a testimony, a family story, confidential information, a body, time, or resources. Ask what it means to preserve its brightness rather than merely possess it.

Bridle a Strength

Name one strong quality and its shadow side. Decide what rein love needs to place on it this week. For example:

• confidence → listen before answering;
• diligence → accept a needed rest;
• boldness → preserve agency and dignity;
• loyalty → refuse to excuse harm;
• passion → match intensity to the learner’s capacity.

Pray the Shiblon Prayer

For one week, end prayer with two movements:

• “Forgive my unworthiness” — name dependence without self-contempt.
• “Remember my brethren in mercy” — name people without comparison or superiority.

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Pulling It Together

Alma begins with sorrow over a hardening society. He does not pretend that the coming war, apostasy, or family difficulties are small. He chooses a small and simple response with generational reach: gather his sons, tell the truth about deliverance, pass on sacred records, and bear testimony of Jesus Christ.

To Helaman, he gives a story shaped like conversion itself. Alma descends through remembered harm, torment, paralysis, and fear of God’s presence. At the center, a teaching once heard from his father returns: one Jesus Christ would come to atone for the sins of the world. Alma’s mind catches hold. He cries for mercy. Then the language reverses—pain to joy, darkness to light, falling to standing, fear to longing, destruction to lifelong labor for souls.

That is why chapter 37 follows chapter 36. Records matter because a remembered word can become a lifeline. Scripture enlarges memory beyond one generation, corrects false tradition, brings people to know God, and teaches them to rejoice in Christ. Its means can seem embarrassingly small: marks on plates, words on a page, a parent repeating testimony, a compass pointing day by day. Yet God uses those means to save thousands and direct travelers beyond a vale of sorrow.

To Shiblon, Alma shows that steady disciples need the same Savior. Faithfulness is praised, but not allowed to harden into self-reliance or superiority. Diligence needs temperance. Boldness needs restraint. Passion needs a bridle. Prayer must stop comparing and start asking mercy for self and brethren. Strength becomes Christlike when love governs its direction.

The week’s title therefore names more than a concluding slogan. It gathers all three chapters:

• Look away from self-destruction and toward Jesus Christ.
• Look into sacred memory and let the word point the course.
• Look day by day, even when the way seems too simple.
• Look humbly enough that strength becomes love rather than pride.

The world may be hardening, but one remembered testimony can still turn a soul; one preserved word can still guide a generation; one steady disciple can still teach with love. Look to God and live.

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← Previous: Alma 32–35 — Plant This Word in Your Hearts | Next: Alma 39–42 — The Great Plan of Happiness →

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Annotated Source Guide

• Official Come, Follow Me manual: establishes the exact quoted lesson title and the governing emphases: being born of God, Christ replacing sorrow with joy, scripture preserved for a wise purpose, small and simple means, counseling with the Lord, and strengthening loved ones with testimony.¹
• BYU Studies lesson 31 index: audited first and retained locally. It supplies the chapter-by-chapter scholarly map: chiasmus, three conversion accounts, Exodus typology, sacred records, seeric instruments, the brazen serpent, and literary contrast.⁴
• Welch and Edwards on chiasmus: Welch supplies the classic detailed reading of Alma 36, while Boyd and Farrell Edwards model methodological care about when a proposed chiasm can carry evidentiary weight.¹⁰
• John “Jack” Welch / followHIM (2024): strongest local current-year source for the form and Christ-centered content of Alma 36, enlarged memory, the small-brushstroke illustration, the sacred trust given to Helaman, Shiblon’s compressed conversion account, and bridled passion.⁵
• Jared Halverson / Unshaken: strongest for the turnaround form of conversion, “catch hold” as disciplined Christ-directed thought, scripture as preserved conversion memory, keeping sacred things sacred, and the devotional reading of Shiblon’s strengths and their possible shadow sides.⁷
• David Butler and Emily Belle Freeman / Don’t Miss This: strongest for the intimate gathering of Alma’s sons, a parent’s apparently dormant testimony becoming a lifeline, counseling with God through pain, sacred things entrusted to care, the compass’s straight bearing amid a winding human journey, and specific praise for Shiblon.²
• Heather Hardy: provides a detailed literary reading of Alma 36–37 as one intergenerational transfer of deliverance memory and sacred records, with extensive scriptural allusions. Scholarly interpretation, not official curriculum.³
• Stephan Taeger: explains how Alma 36’s narrative sequence, concrete language, and overheard father-son setting may invite vicarious transformation rather than only apologetic diagramming. Scholarly rhetorical interpretation.⁶
• Frank F. Judd Jr.: inventories the records and artifacts in Helaman’s trust and carefully preserves uncertainty around Gazelem and the interpreters. Historical and textual scholarship.⁸
• Matthew S. Holland and D. Todd Christofferson: official Church teaching on Christ’s capacity to replace agony with joy and on scripture’s preservative, revelatory, and converting power.⁹¹¹
• Alma 36–38 in the Church scripture edition: primary text for every verse quotation, section boundary, and verse-level observation in the commentary.¹²

Source Availability Audit

A matching 2024 followHIM proofread PDF was already retained locally and was extracted during this run to a searchable companion Markdown artifact. Matching local Unshaken and Don’t Miss This transcripts were found and used through bounded reads. The BYU Studies lesson 31 index was checked chapter by chapter and retained as a local source note. The local 2024 Gospel Talktrine collection contains no matching Alma 36–38 file in its currently preserved sequence; the available sequence skips after S03E26 to later episodes. No matching local Scripture Central Book of Mormon 2024 transcript was found, but the BYU Studies index and canonical Scripture Central/RSC pages supplied relevant scholarship. These statements report only what was found locally during this run, not that no episode or future artifact exists.

Footnotes

Footnotes

1. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “July 29–August 4: ‘Look to God and Live.’ Alma 36–38,” Come, Follow Me—For Home and Church: Book of Mormon 2024 (2023), https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/come-follow-me-for-home-and-church-book-of-mormon-2024/31?lang=eng. Official Church curriculum. The exact week, quoted title, assigned reading, introductory setting, and adult-study headings were verified from this lesson-specific page. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

2. David Butler and Emily Belle Freeman, “Come Follow Me Alma 36–38 (July 20–26),” Don’t Miss This, local generated transcript Come Follow Me Alma 36–38 (July 20–26), original video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elghwUtZTiE. This is a prior curriculum-cycle transcript whose chapter-specific content remains relevant; its printed dates do not match the 2024 week. See lines 30–75 (gathering and individualized counsel), 81–169 (chiasmus and remembered parental testimony), 182–308 (deliverance, trust, and counseling), 321–415 (sacred records and repentance), 418–559 (straight course, grace, and Liahona), and 574–631 (Shiblon). Devotional teaching application. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

3. Heather Hardy, “Well-Crafted Counsel,” in Give Ear to My Words: Text and Context of Alma 36–42, ed. Kerry M. Hull, Nicholas J. Frederick, and Hank R. Smith (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Deseret Book, 2019), 389–410, https://rsc.byu.edu/give-ear-my-words/well-crafted-counsel. Literary scholarship. Hardy reads Alma 36–37 as one crafted transfer of patrimony and identifies allusions to Lehi, Nephi, Benjamin, Psalms, Deuteronomy, and prior Alma sermons; the guide uses the insight without claiming every proposed verbal connection is certain. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. BYU Studies, “Look to God and Live — Alma 36–38,” Come, Follow Me: Book of Mormon, lesson 31, https://byustudies.byu.edu/come-follow-me/book-of-mormon/31; retained locally as BYU Studies Come, Follow Me — Look to God and Live — Alma 36–38. Curated scholarly index, not official Church curriculum. See especially John W. Welch, “A Masterpiece: Alma 36”; S. Kent Brown, “Alma’s Conversion: Reminiscences in His Sermons” and “The Exodus Pattern in the Book of Mormon”; John W. Welch and J. Gregory Welch, “Chart 106: Three Accounts of Alma’s Conversion”; and Blair G. Van Dyke, “Light or Dark, Freedom or Bondage.” ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

5. John W. Welch with Hank Smith and John Bytheway, “Alma 36–38 — ‘Look to God and Live,’” followHIM: A Come, Follow Me Podcast, BM-31 (2024), proofread local PDF BM-31 followHIM PDF, searchable extraction BM-31 followHIM transcript. See especially extraction lines 619–655 and 780–887 (chiasmus and Christ-centered turn), 1290–1341 (conversion and enlarged memory), 1342–1410 (small brushstrokes), and 1413–1503 (Shiblon, temperance, boldness, and bridled passion). Devotional and scholarly expert interview; not an official Church publication. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

6. Stephan Taeger, “Alma’s Chiasmus as Transformative Vicarious Experience,” in Give Ear to My Words (2019), 433–50, https://rsc.byu.edu/give-ear-my-words/almas-chiasmus-transformative-vicarious-experience. Rhetorical and homiletic scholarship, not official doctrine. Taeger argues that narrative sequence, concrete language, and the overheard father-son conversation help readers descend with Alma, experience the sudden Christ-centered shift, and imagine transformation. ↩ ↩²

7. Jared Halverson, “Come Follow Me — Alma 36–38 — Real Repentance,” Unshaken (Faith Matters), local generated transcript Come Follow Me — Alma 36–38 — Real Repentance, original video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwnYspP4Myk. See transcript lines 81–136 (conversion and chiasmus), 191–225 (rack and harrow), 360–440 (the remembered Christ and cry for mercy), 522–615 (joy and the records’ purpose), 619–769 (sacred things, enlarged memory, counsel, and Liahona), and 801–973 (Shiblon’s strengths, cautions, and bridled passion). Devotional interpretation; psychological analogies and the “shadow side of strength” reading are Halverson’s, not official diagnoses or declarations about Shiblon. ↩ ↩² ↩³

8. Frank F. Judd Jr., “Alma and the Sacred Things,” in Give Ear to My Words (2019), 155–80, https://rsc.byu.edu/give-ear-my-words/alma-sacred-things. Historical and textual scholarship. Judd inventories the Nephite plates, brass plates, twenty-four Jaredite plates, interpreters, and Liahona, and reviews the textual uncertainty about whether Gazelem names the servant or stone. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

9. Matthew S. Holland, “The Exquisite Gift of the Son,” general conference, October 2020, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2020/10/26holland?lang=eng. Official Church teaching. Elder Holland uses Alma 36 to testify that Christ’s Atonement can address both agony from moral failure and undeserved mortal suffering, inviting hearers to let their minds catch hold of the Son of God. ↩ ↩²

10. John W. Welch, “A Masterpiece: Alma 36,” in Rediscovering the Book of Mormon (1991), https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/masterpiece-alma-36; and Boyd F. Edwards and W. Farrell Edwards, “When Are Chiasms Admissible as Evidence?” BYU Studies 49, no. 4 (2009), https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/when-are-chiasms-admissible-as-evidence/. Literary analysis. The guide presents the widely recognized broad structure while acknowledging that detailed diagrams and claims of evidentiary weight require methodological care. ↩

11. D. Todd Christofferson, “The Blessing of Scripture,” general conference, April 2010, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2010/04/the-blessing-of-scripture?lang=eng. Official Church teaching. The address, linked by the official manual, teaches that scripture enlarges memory, exposes error, reveals Christ, and supplies standards and truth through the Holy Ghost. ↩

12. Alma 36–38, in The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, Church scripture edition: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/alma/36?lang=eng, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/alma/37?lang=eng, and https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/alma/38?lang=eng. Primary scripture text for all verse-level claims and quotations. ↩