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Mosiah 25–28 — They Were Called the People of God

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tagsscripture-study, book-of-mormon, mosiah, alma-the-elder, alma-the-younger, sons-of-mosiah, conversion, repentance, forgiveness, church, missionary-work, come-follow-me/2024
aliasesMosiah 25–28, Mosiah 25-28, They Were Called the People of God, Conversion of Alma the Younger

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Mosiah 25–28 — “They Were Called the People of God”

Come, Follow Me — May 27–June 2, 2024

Official reading: Mosiah 25–28
Official title: “They Were Called the People of God”
The official manual calls conversion—not merely the angel’s appearance—the miracle of this unit. Conversion cannot be inherited; it must happen, “in one way or another,” in every disciple. The manual therefore asks how to help others come to Christ, how faithful servants seek God’s will, how repentance and forgiveness work, how Christ changes us, and how prayer can bless people we love.1

← Previous: Mosiah 18–24 — We Have Entered into a Covenant with Him | Next: Mosiah 29–Alma 4 — The Choice Is Yours →

Key Verse

“And now there were seven churches in the land of Zarahemla. And it came to pass that whosoever were desirous to take upon them the name of Christ, or of God, they did join the churches of God; and they were called the people of God.” — Mosiah 25:23–24

Why These Chapters Belong Together

Mosiah 25 opens with four histories in one room. Mosiah’s people, Zarahemla’s people, Limhi’s people, and Alma’s people have arrived by different roads, carrying different memories of migration, bondage, compromise, covenant, grief, and rescue. King Mosiah does not erase those histories to manufacture unity. He has the records read aloud. The listeners weep, rejoice, give thanks, and ache for the Lamanites. Only after the stories have been heard do the people become one Church and receive one name.

Then the narrative asks the hard question: Can a gathered people remain a converted people? The answer is not automatic. The “rising generation” did not understand King Benjamin’s words, did not believe, would not be baptized, and began to separate themselves from the Church. Alma the Elder must learn by revelation how a covenant community combines invitation, accountability, repentance, forgiveness, and respect for agency. The crisis enters his own home when his son and Mosiah’s sons try to destroy the Church.

The angel stops their destructive work, but the angel is not the end of the story. Alma must choose repentance, receive Christ’s redemption, confess what has happened, repair injuries, and turn his gifts toward peace. The sons of Mosiah move from stealing hearts to longing that no soul should perish. Mosiah 28 then opens the door to their mission and closes the book’s record-keeping circle: Mosiah translates the Jaredite record and entrusts sacred records and interpreters to the converted Alma.

The unit therefore moves through four forms of gathering:

ChapterGathering movementCentral question
Mosiah 25separated peoples become one covenant peopleCan shared memory become shared discipleship?
Mosiah 26the Church learns how to respond to sin and dissentHow do mercy, accountability, revelation, and agency belong together?
Mosiah 27a persecutor is stopped, redeemed, and restoredWhat does it actually mean to be born of God?
Mosiah 28converted sons seek the spiritual recovery of enemiesWhen Christ changes a heart, where does that new love go?

The governing image is a doorway with a name over it. In chapter 25, people freely enter and take Christ’s name. In chapter 26, the Lord explains who is willing to remain and how a repentant wanderer returns. In chapter 27, Alma—who tried to tear down the house—comes back through the door as a new creature. In chapter 28, he and his friends hold the door open toward the Lamanites.

What to Watch for While Reading

  • Count the identities in Mosiah 25: people of Nephi, people of Zarahemla, people of Limhi, people of Alma, and finally people of God.
  • Notice that unity begins by reading records, not by suppressing painful history.
  • Track the listeners’ emotional sequence in 25:7–11: amazement, joy, sorrow, thanksgiving, pain, and anguish.
  • Compare “two bodies” in 25:4 with “one church” in 25:22. Unity is achieved without pretending there is only one congregation.
  • Mark the doctrine Alma preaches repeatedly: repentance and faith on the Lord.
  • In 26:1–4, follow the progression: could not understand → did not believe → would not be baptized → would not call upon God.
  • Do not use “rising generation” as a label of contempt. The manual turns the passage into a question about how believers can help others develop faith.1
  • Watch Alma’s uncertainty. Faithful leadership is not omniscience; it is the willingness to inquire, pour out one’s soul, receive revelation, and act.
  • Circle every first-person divine pronoun in 26:22–24: my church, I forgive, I take sins, I created, my right hand. Christ remains the Savior and final Judge.
  • Compare the phrases will hear and will not hear. The passage honors agency rather than treating membership as compulsion.
  • Mark every use of repent and forgive in 26:29–31. The Lord joins receiving mercy to extending mercy.
  • In chapter 27, distinguish the angelic interruption from Alma’s inner rebirth. A spectacular event can arrest a path; only Christ can make a new creature.
  • Notice that the angel says “go, and remember” (27:16). Alma’s personal conversion grows inside his people’s larger memory of deliverance.
  • Compare Alma’s collapse with Saul’s encounter on the Damascus road, while preserving the differences between the accounts.
  • Track the reversal in 27:8–37: flattery → truth; stealing hearts → strengthening them; dissension → reconciliation; hindering the Church → publishing peace.
  • Do not stop repentance at confession. Alma and his companions strive to repair the injuries they caused.
  • In chapter 28, examine missionary motive: not adventure, status, or conquest, but anguish that another soul might remain in torment.
  • Watch the records: Zeniff’s and Alma’s records unite Zarahemla; the Jaredite record warns Zarahemla; Alma receives the records that will instruct later generations.

Historical and Literary Context

The narrative braid becomes a people

The preceding unit completed Mormon’s long flashback through the records of Zeniff, Limhi, and Alma. Mosiah 25 returns the reader to the narrative present in Zarahemla. King Mosiah now has those same records read to people who can look across the assembly and see the survivors whose lives the records describe. Unshaken calls this hearing of one another’s stories a way to cross judgment’s distance and cultivate empathy; Don’t Miss This compares the gathering to a family reunion in which deliverance stories become scripture.23

The people gather “in two bodies” (25:4), the people of Nephi and the people of Zarahemla. Mormon later says that Limhi’s people were “numbered with the Nephites” (25:13). The text describes real political and religious incorporation, but it does not say that every lineage, memory, or social tension disappeared. The BYU Studies index points readers toward scholarship about Mulekites, tribal affiliation, and covenant assemblies; those works offer historical models, not settled identifications for every group or later faction.4

From a righteous kingdom toward an organized Church

King Benjamin’s national covenant was profound, but the next generation still needed personal conversion. Alma’s Church provides recurring congregational life, authorized teachers, baptism, discipline, shared doctrine, and a name centered in Christ. FollowHIM emphasizes that the Atonement has a communal dimension: covenant binds disciples vertically to Christ and laterally to one another.5

Gospel Talktrine proposes a broad “church versus tribe” reading: identity by covenant begins to reorder identity by lineage. That is a useful devotional lens, especially beside John 1:12–13, but it should not be overclaimed as a complete reconstruction of Nephite institutions. Mormon’s explicit point is simpler and stronger: seven churches can be one Church of God, and people of many backgrounds can be called by Christ’s name.6

Conversion told three times

Mosiah 27 gives Mormon’s third-person narrative. Alma 36 later gives Alma’s intensely personal retelling to Helaman, including remembered pain, the thought of Jesus Christ, joy, and chiastic structure. Alma 5 turns the language of captivity, deliverance, and rebirth into a sermon for an entire Church. S. Kent Brown’s study, surfaced by BYU Studies, traces how Alma uses his conversion as a repeated teaching tool rather than a private spiritual trophy.4

The accounts should be read together, not flattened into one. Mosiah 27 emphasizes communal prayer, divine power, and public repair. Alma 36 emphasizes Alma’s interior movement from torment to joy through remembering Jesus Christ. Alma 5 asks listeners whether they have experienced their own mighty change.

A note on “eternal torment”

Alma says he was “racked with eternal torment” during a finite period (27:29). Restoration scripture explains that “Eternal” and “Endless” are divine names; “endless punishment” means God’s punishment, not necessarily a statement that its duration can never end (Doctrine and Covenants 19:4–12). This does not trivialize Alma’s suffering. It clarifies that Christ’s redemption really can end it.

The Architecture of a Converted People

MovementPassageHuman responseDivine workCovenant insight
Hear the records25:1–11gather, listen, feel, rememberprior deliverances become present testimonytruthful memory can unite without sanitizing pain
Receive one name25:12–24accept identity, hear Alma, seek baptism, jointhe Spirit is poured outChrist’s name is larger than inherited divisions
Face unbelief26:1–12some separate and persuade others; leaders bring casesagency remains realconversion cannot be inherited or coerced
Seek revelation26:13–32Alma fears error and pours out his soulChrist names His Church, judges finally, and teaches repentance and forgivenessstewardship must remain under the Savior
Regulate with mercy26:33–39confess, repent, forgive, admonish, laborpeace returnsdiscipline aims at repentance and protects the flock
Protect religious freedom27:1–7Mosiah prohibits persecution and commands equalitygrace attends priests and teachersfreedom to believe and not believe does not include freedom to persecute
Interrupt destruction27:8–17Alma persecutes; the angel commands him to stop and rememberGod answers prayers and protects His workprayer matters, but God’s timing and methods remain His
Become new27:18–31community fasts; Alma repents and testifiesChrist redeems and births a new creaturean encounter becomes conversion through the Redeemer
Repair and publish peace27:32–37converts confess, repair, teach, and sufferthe Lord makes them instrumentschanged direction turns old abilities toward healing
Seek the Lamanites28:1–9sons plead to serve enemies; Mosiah asks GodGod authorizes and promises deliveranceconversion expands concern beyond one’s own group
Translate and entrust28:10–20Mosiah preserves, translates, and transfers recordsGod provides interpreters and revelationsacred memory prepares future conversion

Major Themes

1. Unity is not amnesia

King Mosiah’s first act is not “Let us forget our differences.” He reads the records. The assembly hears sin and faithfulness, death and deliverance, consequences and mercy. Their tears are part of becoming one.

This is a powerful model for a ward, family, or nation. Shallow unity asks people to leave difficult history at the door. Covenant unity makes room for truthful witness and then gives every story a larger center in Christ. Unshaken’s phrase “fellowship of suffering” captures the scene: judgment loses some of its power when another person becomes three-dimensional rather than a label.2

Teaching illustration — The stitched family quilt

Imagine four families arriving with torn pieces of fabric. One piece is bright with deliverance, another dark with grief, another stained by bad choices, another worn thin by endurance. Unity does not dye every piece the same color. It stitches the pieces around one center. Mosiah’s reading of the records is the stitching; Christ’s name is the center.

Come, Follow Me connection: Whose story do I need to hear before I can love that person without caricature?

2. A testimony is not a family heirloom

The official manual says conversion “cannot be passed like an inheritance to one’s children.”1 Parents can pass scripture, practice, example, covenants, stories, and a community that makes belief plausible. They cannot transfer a changed heart by genealogy.

Mosiah 26 does not give enough information to assign one simple cause for the rising generation’s unbelief. They were too young to understand Benjamin’s sermon, but the text also describes choices they later made. Jared Halverson usefully traces the progression from could not to did not to would not. The progression protects two truths: early lack of understanding deserves patience, and maturing agency deserves respect.2

The right response is neither panic nor contempt. Alma teaches, prays, receives revelation, sets boundaries, and keeps forgiveness available. Don’t Miss This asks the pastoral question: Who is the boy or girl in your circle whom you refuse to reduce to the present chapter of the story?3

Come, Follow Me connection: Instead of asking only “Why do they not believe what I believe?” ask “What do they understand? What have they experienced? What honest next step toward Christ can I support?”

3. Christ is the Shepherd, Savior, and final Judge

Alma is frightened that he will “do wrong in the sight of God” (26:13). His anxiety is not proof that he lacks revelation; it is evidence that he understands the weight of souls. He pours out his whole soul, and the Lord’s answer begins by blessing him before giving procedure.

The answer’s pronouns relocate the burden:

“This is my church … him will I freely forgive. For it is I that taketh upon me the sins of the world; for it is I that hath created them.” (Mosiah 26:22–23)

FollowHIM’s memorable analogy is that the Lord is the surgeon and the parent or leader is the assistant. Trouble comes when the assistant tries to direct the surgery and asks Christ merely to help.5 This does not make stewardship passive. The assistant must listen, prepare, act, and care. It means no leader should confuse stewardship with Atonement.

H. Donl Peterson’s study of church discipline, indexed by BYU Studies, emphasizes confession, proportionate judgment, repentance, and forgiveness for both the transgressor and the body of Saints.4 The current term membership council may differ from older source language, but the scriptural purpose remains redemptive rather than retaliatory.

4. Baptism begins a life of repentance

The Lord says a person “shall be baptized unto repentance” (26:22). Baptism is not a graduation from repentance. It is a covenant to keep turning toward Christ. Halverson describes faith, repentance, and baptism as interlocking gears: baptism intensifies lifelong repentance, and repeated repentance deepens faith in grace.2 Don’t Miss This similarly calls the baptized person a committed “repenter,” not a person who will never need forgiveness again.3

That is why Mosiah 26:30 is so hopeful: “as often as my people repent will I forgive them.” This is not permission for preplanned sin. Sincere repentance includes confession, turning, repair where possible, and renewed covenant loyalty. It is assurance that repeated need does not exhaust Christ.

This theme connects directly to Repentance and Conversion. Repentance is the recurring turn; conversion is the deepening change of allegiance and nature that Christ produces over time.

5. The angel changes Alma’s direction; Christ changes Alma

An angel also appeared to Laman and Lemuel, but spectacle did not create enduring conversion. The angel in Mosiah 27 commands Alma to stop destroying the Church, testifies of God’s power, and tells him to remember. Alma’s rebirth unfolds as he confronts his condition and is “redeemed of the Lord” (27:24).

The official manual therefore refuses to make the angel the true miracle.1 Alma’s language is relational and creative:

  • “I have repented of my sins.”
  • “I have been redeemed of the Lord.”
  • “I am born of the Spirit.”
  • “All mankind … must be born again.”
  • They become “new creatures.”

John 1:12–13 and 2 Corinthians 5:17 use the same family of images: receiving Christ, being born of God, and becoming new creation. Alma’s conversion is dramatic, but its doctrine is ordinary Christianity at full strength: no one enters God’s kingdom merely by admiration, ancestry, or proximity.

Elder David A. Bednar’s pickle image protects this point from an exclusively sudden-conversion reading. A cucumber becomes a pickle through sustained immersion; disciples are “spiritually born again” as gospel influence steadily penetrates them.7 Alma’s crisis is sudden. His life as a new creature is then proven across years of repair, service, sacrifice, and teaching.

6. Prayer is powerful, but it is not a formula for controlling another person

The angel says he has come because of the prayers of Alma’s father and the people (27:14). The community then fasts and prays for Alma’s recovery. The text gives real hope to anyone praying for someone they love.

It does not teach that every faithful parent will receive the same kind of intervention on the same timetable. Gospel Talktrine warns against concluding that a loved one’s continuing unbelief proves inadequate parental faith; the chapter does not tell us how long Alma prayed, and God’s purposes and another person’s agency cannot be reduced to a formula.6 FollowHIM makes the same pastoral caution while affirming that God hears prayers and can answer across times and circumstances we cannot see.5

A harmful inference to reject

“If I had Alma the Elder’s faith, an angel would already have changed my child.” The text says the prayer mattered. It does not authorize comparison, blame, or a timetable.

Come, Follow Me connection: Pray specifically and faithfully; fast when appropriate; create conditions for truth and love; then entrust the person to the Redeemer rather than trying to become the Redeemer.

7. Repentance faces backward in repair and forward in mission

After their conversion, Alma and his companions travel throughout the land “zealously striving to repair all the injuries which they had done” (27:35). This is one of scripture’s clearest pictures of restitution. They do not say, “Christ forgave us, so the damage no longer matters.” Forgiveness removes condemnation; love turns them toward the people they harmed.

Their old gifts are not erased. Alma had been “a man of many words.” Halverson’s vivid observation is that God may dislike a person’s direction while loving the momentum that, once turned, can become powerful discipleship. Flattery can become testimony; stolen hearts can be strengthened; dissension can become redemption.2

Then Mosiah 27:37 describes them with Abinadi’s Isaiah text: they “published peace” and declared that the Lord reigns. The words once used by Noah’s priests to challenge Abinadi (Mosiah 12:20–24) now describe Abinadi’s convert’s converted son and companions. The seed did not merely survive martyrdom; it became a missionary forest.

8. Conversion enlarges the circle of “our people”

The sons of Mosiah cannot bear the thought that any human soul should perish (28:3). Their love crosses the boundary between Nephite and Lamanite—the very boundary that structured fear, war, and inherited grievance. They relinquish possible royal succession to seek people many Nephites regard as enemies.

FollowHIM calls this the catalyst of conversion: the more deeply Christ saves them, the less able they are to keep salvation to themselves.5 Their motive does not erase risk. Mosiah fears for them and inquires of the Lord. God does not promise an easy mission; He promises that many will believe, that the sons will have eternal life, and that He will deliver them.

This prepares Alma 17–22 — I Will Make an Instrument of Thee. Mosiah 28 supplies the desire; Alma 17 supplies the disciplines of scripture, prayer, fasting, patience, and service by which that desire becomes fruitful mission.

9. Records carry deliverance farther than memory alone

The unit begins and ends with records. Zeniff’s and Alma’s records turn strangers into witnesses of one another’s deliverance. The twenty-four Jaredite plates disclose another civilization’s rise and destruction. Mosiah uses interpreters—“two stones which were fastened into the two rims of a bow” (28:13)—to translate them. He then gives the plates, interpreters, and other sacred objects to Alma.

The BYU Studies index links Mosiah 28 to “Joseph the Seer,” an official Church-history article explaining Joseph Smith’s use of seer stones and the Restoration’s language of interpreters.4 The point of either instrument is never technological self-sufficiency. Mosiah 8:13–18 defines a seer as one enabled by God to reveal hidden things for the people’s benefit.

Records in this unit do three things:

  1. They preserve identity: separated groups can remember how God dealt with them.
  2. They expose consequences: the Jaredite account brings knowledge mixed with sorrow.
  3. They enable future conversion: Alma receives a record trust that will shape sermons, sons, and nations.

Verse-by-Verse Commentary

Mosiah 25

Mosiah 25:1–4 — One assembly, two bodies, several histories

“All the people of Nephi were assembled together, and also all the people of Zarahemla, and they were gathered together in two bodies.”

Mosiah gathers everyone, but verse 4 refuses to romanticize the scene: they are physically together and still arranged in two bodies. The people of Zarahemla outnumber the descendants of Nephi, while the combined Nephite and Zarahemla population remains smaller than the Lamanites (25:2–3). Mormon keeps demographic and political complexity visible.

The gathering creates the possibility of unity but does not itself guarantee it. Romans 12:4–5 similarly imagines many members becoming one body in Christ—not by becoming interchangeable, but by belonging to one another.

Come, Follow Me connection: Attendance places people in the room; listening and covenant begin to make them one.

Mosiah 25:5–6 — Records become shared memory

“Mosiah did read, and caused to be read, the records of Zeniff … [and] the account of Alma and his brethren.”

The king gives public time to the histories of the returning minorities. The sequence matters: people who remained safely in Zarahemla must hear what others endured. Don’t Miss This’s family-reunion image is apt: scripture is a preserved story of God’s action in real lives, and personal records can serve a similar covenant function when they witness truthfully rather than perform impressively.3

The two records correspond to the material Mormon has just embedded in Mosiah 9–24. The characters hear what the reader has read. Literature becomes liturgy.

Come, Follow Me connection: Record not only outcomes but the Lord’s patience, correction, and deliverance. Future unity may depend on honest memory.

Mosiah 25:7–11 — The six emotions of covenant listening

“They were filled with exceedingly great joy … sorrow … thanks to God … pain and anguish.”

The listeners do not select one emotionally comfortable meaning. Deliverance brings joy; deaths bring tears; God’s intervention brings praise; the Lamanites’ condition brings anguish. Mature covenant memory can hold gratitude and grief at once.

FollowHIM calls this an emotional history that teaches proportion: nothing happens in isolation, and consequences enter a larger stream of past, present, and future.5 Their anguish for Lamanite souls will receive an unexpected answer when the current persecutors become the next missionaries.

Come, Follow Me connection: Which emotion am I tempted to suppress—grief because I think faith must look cheerful, or gratitude because grief feels all-consuming?

Mosiah 25:12–13 — Numbered with the Nephites

Limhi’s people and Alma’s people are incorporated, and all the people of Zarahemla are “numbered with the Nephites.” This is a political designation as well as a narrative one; it does not prove that ancestry disappears. Mormon can later use Nephite for a coalition identity larger than direct descent from Nephi.

The BYU Studies articles on Mulek and Book of Mormon peoples help map possible background, but claims about exact later tribal factions should remain labeled as scholarly proposals.4

Come, Follow Me connection: Covenant belonging can honor origin without making origin the final measure of worth.

Mosiah 25:14–17 — Alma preaches repentance, faith, and remembered deliverance

Mosiah invites Alma to speak. Alma divides the assembly so each group can hear him, preaches repentance and faith, and exhorts Limhi’s people to remember that the Lord delivered them. Limhi and his people then desire baptism.

Alma does not present himself as their deliverer. His sermon redirects memory toward the Lord. That becomes the theological spine of his son’s later preaching: remember captivity, trust the Deliverer, and be born of God.

Come, Follow Me connection: A testimony is not “Look what I survived.” It is “Remember who delivered me.”

Mosiah 25:18–24 — Many churches, one Church, one name

Alma baptizes Limhi and his people. Mosiah authorizes Alma to establish churches and ordain priests and teachers. The congregations assemble in different bodies, but “there was nothing preached in all the churches except it were repentance and faith in God” (25:22).

One Church does not require one meeting place. Unity comes through Christ, authorized ministry, baptism, and shared doctrine. Those who desire Christ’s name join and become the people of God. The title is therefore an invitation before it is a label: “whosoever were desirous.”

1 Corinthians 12:12–27 provides a useful parallel: one body has many members, and the members need one another.

Come, Follow Me connection: Do I treat the ward as an audience I attend or as a covenant body to which I contribute repentance, faith, service, and care?

Mosiah 26

Mosiah 26:1–4 — Conversion cannot be inherited

“There were many of the rising generation that could not understand the words of king Benjamin.”

They had been little children during Benjamin’s speech. The text then moves from limited childhood understanding to later unbelief and refusal. They do not believe resurrection or Christ’s coming, cannot understand God’s word because of unbelief, harden their hearts, reject baptism, refuse Church membership, and will not call upon God.

This is not permission to speak scornfully of youth. It is a warning to every generation that borrowed memory cannot substitute for personal encounter. The manual’s application faces outward: seek Spirit-guided ways to help others develop faith in Jesus Christ.1

Come, Follow Me connection: Teach reasons, practices, and lived witness—not only conclusions and family expectations.

Mosiah 26:5–6 — Unbelief gains social power

The unbelievers are fewer at first, but dissensions, deception, and flattering words lead Church members into sin. Ideas have social consequences. At the same time, civil society cannot simply punish unbelief; chapter 27 will explicitly protect religious freedom. The issue here is harm within a voluntary covenant body.

Gospel Talktrine highlights the distinction between freedom not to believe and a campaign to destroy others’ freedom to believe.6 That is an interpretive application, but it fits Mosiah’s later decree against persecution.

Come, Follow Me connection: Examine rhetoric by its fruit. Does it enlarge agency and truth, or gain influence by flattering resentment and narrowing another person’s freedom?

Mosiah 26:7–12 — A new jurisdictional problem

Priests bring accused members to Alma. Alma sends them to Mosiah, assuming the king should judge. Mosiah returns the cases: “I judge them not; therefore I deliver them into thy hands” (26:12). Neither man is eager to seize power.

This separation is incomplete by modern standards—both remain intertwined leaders—but Mormon shows a meaningful distinction between civil wrong and ecclesiastical accountability. Unbelief itself is not made a crime. Alma needs revelation concerning membership and repentance.

Come, Follow Me connection: Before acting, ask: Is this mine to judge? What stewardship applies? What outcome belongs to God rather than me?

Mosiah 26:13–14 — “He feared that he should do wrong”

Alma’s spirit is troubled. He inquires and “poured out his whole soul to God.” Don’t Miss This rightly notices that this is not a casual request tossed toward heaven; pastoral fear becomes sustained prayer.3

The manual asks what this teaches about hard family and Church problems. The answer is not “a faithful leader always knows.” It is “a faithful servant seeks God’s will and remains teachable.”1

Come, Follow Me connection: Bring God not only the problem but also fear, assumptions, preferred outcomes, and willingness to be corrected.

Mosiah 26:15–21 — Blessing before procedure

The Lord repeatedly calls Alma blessed: for his faith in Abinadi’s words, for establishing the Church, and for inquiring concerning the transgressor. Before giving administrative instruction, God locates Alma inside grace.

Verse 20 promises eternal life to Alma. Verse 21 defines belonging through hearing the Shepherd’s voice: “he that will hear my voice shall be my sheep; and him shall ye receive into the church.” Halverson notes the humility in this definition: the Church is not a collection of flawless shepherds but of sheep who are willing to hear and return.2

Come, Follow Me connection: Correct from the security of Christ’s grace, not from anxiety that your worth depends on producing a flawless community.

Mosiah 26:22–24 — “This is my church”

Christ centers every part of redemption in Himself. Baptism is unto repentance; the Church receives those who believe; Christ freely forgives; He takes the sins of the world; He created each soul; He grants a place at His right hand.

The Lord answers more than Alma asked because the immediate decision must be placed inside the final reality: Christ owns the Church, carried the sins, created the people, and determines the eternal outcome. FollowHIM calls this reassurance for any overwhelmed leader: assist the Savior; do not replace Him.5

Come, Follow Me connection: Which burden am I carrying as though Christ had assigned me His role rather than my stewardship?

Mosiah 26:25–28 — Knowing God and hearing His voice

The Lord looks toward resurrection and judgment. Those who know Him will be gathered; those who refuse His voice cannot be treated as though they desire covenant membership. The repeated distinction is volitional—will hear or will not hear—not a condemnation of people who need time, understanding, healing, or patient teaching.

Church boundaries and divine final judgment are not identical. Alma administers a present covenant community; Christ knows the soul completely.

Come, Follow Me connection: Respect another person’s agency without closing the future. An open door does not require pretending the person has chosen to be inside it.

Mosiah 26:29–32 — Repent, confess, forgive—as often as needed

The Lord tells Alma to judge conduct, receive sincere confession and repentance, forgive, and teach the Church to forgive. “As often as my people repent will I forgive them” (26:30). Those who refuse repentance are not numbered among the covenant community.

The pattern combines mercy and moral seriousness. Grace is not indifference to harm; accountability is not a declaration that someone can never return. Moroni 6:8 preserves the same open-ended promise: as often as people repent and seek forgiveness with real intent, they are forgiven.

Come, Follow Me connection: Is my idea of repentance large enough to include repair and my idea of forgiveness large enough to remain available repeatedly?

Mosiah 26:33–39 — Revelation becomes patient practice

Alma writes the Lord’s words, judges cases, blots out the names of those who will not repent, and restores order. The priests and teachers labor diligently, suffer affliction, admonish and are admonished, and see peace return.

Leaders are not above the same word they teach. Mosiah 26:39 corrects a possible scribal phrase from “his sins” to “the sins which he had committed.” Halverson reads the correction devotionally: repented sins need not remain permanent possessions defining the person.2 That is an insightful reading, though the text does not explicitly explain the wording change.

Come, Follow Me connection: In a redemptive community, identity is not frozen at the worst truthful sentence one could write about a person.

Mosiah 27

Mosiah 27:1–7 — Religious freedom and economic equality

Complaints of persecution reach Mosiah. He consults Church leaders and sends a proclamation forbidding unbelievers to persecute believers and forbidding mutual persecution. Priests and teachers are to labor for their own support; equality is commanded; peace and prosperity follow.

Religious freedom does not mean freedom from disagreement. It means that belief and unbelief do not license persecution. The economic instruction also limits priestcraft and status: ministry must not become a ladder for wealth or hierarchy.

Come, Follow Me connection: Defend the religious freedom of people whose convictions differ from yours, while also refusing coercion and contempt.

Mosiah 27:8–10 — Gifted influence turned against God

Alma the Younger and Mosiah’s sons belong to the unbelievers. Alma is “a man of many words” who uses flattery, causes dissension, steals hearts, hinders the Church, and creates opportunity for the enemy.

Mormon does not soften the damage because Alma later becomes a prophet. Redemption becomes more—not less—astonishing when the old direction is named honestly. Unshaken’s “momentum and direction” insight is useful: the gift of words remains, but conversion turns it toward a new Lord and purpose.2

Come, Follow Me connection: Which gift am I tempted to condemn because of its present misuse? What might it become if consecrated?

Mosiah 27:11–17 — The angel: stop, stand, remember

An angel descends “as it were in a cloud,” speaks with thunder, and shakes the earth. The group falls. The angel commands Alma to stand and asks whether he can dispute God’s power. The Lord has heard Alma’s father and His people. Yet the angel’s stated institutional purpose is also clear: Alma may choose destruction for himself, but he will not be permitted to destroy God’s Church.

The sermon ends, “Go, and remember the captivity of thy fathers … for they were in bondage, and he has delivered them” (Mosiah 27:16). The command is not merely “fear.” It is “remember grace.”

Saul’s encounter in Acts 9:1–9 is an illuminating parallel: a persecutor is stopped by heavenly manifestation, falls, and becomes a witness. The narratives are related in pattern, not identical in every detail.

Come, Follow Me connection: When correction exposes sin, remember not only consequence but previous deliverance. God’s goodness supplies a reason to turn.

Mosiah 27:18–23 — A helpless son and a praying community

Alma cannot speak or move. His companions carry him to his father and report everything. Alma the Elder rejoices—not at suffering, but because he recognizes God’s hand. He gathers priests, and they fast and pray for Alma’s mouth, strength, and the people’s ability to see God’s goodness and glory.

FollowHIM observes that the father does not hide his son to protect his own reputation. He gathers the community so that God’s work, not parental image, becomes central.5 The scene also makes conversion communal without making it coercive: others carry, fast, pray, and witness; Alma must still repent and speak.

Come, Follow Me connection: A faithful community does not turn another person’s crisis into gossip or a verdict. It carries, prays, waits, and looks for God’s glory.

Mosiah 27:24–26 — Born of the Spirit, made new in Christ

“Marvel not that all mankind … must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God.”

Alma stands and immediately moves the focus from exceptional biography to universal doctrine. All must be born again. “New creatures” does not mean annihilated personality. The old ruling allegiance and fallen state yield to a new life from God.

The sequence is important: repentance, redemption by the Lord, birth by the Spirit. Alma does not claim self-reinvention. 2 Corinthians 5:17 similarly says that in Christ there is new creation.

Come, Follow Me connection: Ask not only, “Did I once have a conversion experience?” but “What is Christ making new in me now?”

Mosiah 27:27–31 — Snatched from bitter gall; every knee shall bow

Alma testifies that he has waded through tribulation, nearly been destroyed, and been “snatched” from an everlasting burning. His soul is redeemed from bitter gall and bonds of iniquity. He once rejected the Redeemer; now he knows that God remembers every creature.

The climax widens beyond Alma: Mosiah 27:31 echoes Isaiah 45:23 and anticipates Philippians 2:10–11: every knee bows and every tongue confesses God. The confession is not Alma’s private discovery but final reality.

Come, Follow Me connection: Christ’s remembrance is larger than my rejection. That truth invites repentance now rather than despair.

Mosiah 27:32–37 — The convert repairs and becomes the message

Alma and the sons of Mosiah publish what they have seen and heard, confess their sins, explain scripture, and strive to repair injuries. They suffer persecution from former allies but bring consolation to the Church. Their transformation fulfills the language of Isaiah 52:7 and Mosiah 15:14–18: they publish peace and declare that the Lord reigns.

Gospel Talktrine puts the literary reversal well: the messengers become inseparable from the message they now embody.6 The claim is devotional, but Mormon’s editorial echo of Abinadi is explicit.

Come, Follow Me connection: What injury can I responsibly repair? What restitution, apology, corrected story, returned resource, or changed pattern would make repentance visible?

Mosiah 28

Mosiah 28:1–4 — Conversion becomes anguish for souls

The sons of Mosiah ask permission to preach to the Lamanites because they cannot bear that any human soul should perish. Their own experience of torment has made another person’s suffering intolerable to them. “The very vilest of sinners” become those most eager to share mercy.

Mission here is not conquest by religious winners. It is one group’s repentant sons approaching hereditary enemies in weakness, knowing that they themselves live only by grace.

Come, Follow Me connection: Genuine witness does not say, “Become like me because I am superior.” It says, “Come to the Deliverer because I needed deliverance too.”

Mosiah 28:5–9 — Mosiah asks; God authorizes and promises

Mosiah hesitates and asks the Lord. God says, “Let them go up,” promises that many will believe, grants eternal life, and promises to deliver the sons. Mosiah then permits the mission.

The pattern repeats Alma’s leadership lesson: love does not eliminate discernment; righteous desire still goes to God. The mission’s danger remains real, and the promise of deliverance does not specify a painless route.

Come, Follow Me connection: Consecrated courage is neither impulsiveness nor fearlessness. It is desire submitted to revelation and then acted upon.

Mosiah 28:10–17 — A succession problem and the twenty-four plates

Because all Mosiah’s sons decline the kingdom and depart, he has no son to receive it. He takes all the records, including the plates found by Limhi’s people, and translates the Jaredite account with interpreters prepared by God.

The translated story runs from the tower and confounding of language to a nation’s destruction. The people receive it with sorrow even as it gives knowledge. Like the records read in chapter 25, this record refuses entertainment without moral weight.

Joseph Smith—History 1:35 uses related language for the Urim and Thummim delivered with the plates. “Joseph the Seer” provides careful Church-history context for interpreters and seer stones without making every instrument identical.4

Come, Follow Me connection: Revelation may answer curiosity with responsibility. What should this knowledge change in me?

Mosiah 28:18–20 — Sacred trust passes to a converted keeper

Mosiah makes the records known but follows divine restrictions concerning what cannot yet be revealed. He then entrusts the plates, interpreters, and preserved sacred objects to Alma the Younger.

This is the final reversal of the unit. The man who used words to destroy faith receives responsibility to preserve words for future faith. Conversion does not merely give Alma relief; it makes him trustworthy with communal memory.

The handoff leads directly into Mosiah 29–Alma 4 — The Choice Is Yours, where the kingdom ends, judges begin, and Alma receives both public and ecclesiastical responsibility.

Come, Follow Me connection: What trust could God place in a changed version of me that the present version is not yet ready to carry?

Assigned chapters

  • Mosiah 25 — records read, peoples gathered, many churches become one Church.
  • Mosiah 26 — rising generation, Alma’s revelation, repentance, forgiveness, and Church order.
  • Mosiah 27 — religious freedom, angelic intervention, rebirth, restitution, and publishing peace.
  • Mosiah 28 — the sons’ missionary desire, divine authorization, Jaredite translation, and record transfer.

Restoration and biblical parallels

Teaching Ideas and Discussion Questions

Teaching object lesson — Name tags and story cards

Give each participant two cards. On the first, invite a private sentence naming a group identity or life experience that has shaped them. On the second, write “I am willing to bear the name of Christ.” Read Mosiah 25:4, 22–24. Discuss:

  • Which differences can remain real while Christ makes a people one?
  • What changes when another person’s history is heard before a judgment is made?
  • How does bearing Christ’s name govern the way we carry all lesser names?

Do not require people to disclose painful stories. The lesson is about making safe room for testimony, not extracting vulnerability.

Teaching illustration — Momentum and direction

Draw a long arrow moving rapidly away from a center marked Christ. Ask whether speed is good or bad. Then rotate the arrow toward the center. Halverson’s insight is that Alma’s words, courage, influence, and intensity were not destroyed; their direction was converted.2

Questions:

  1. Which of Alma’s pre-conversion traits later became missionary strengths?
  2. Which gift in another person may be easier to redirect than to crush?
  3. How can correction oppose harm without declaring the person’s whole capacity evil?

Case study — “I do not know what to do”

Read Mosiah 26:10–14 and list Alma’s sequence:

  1. recognize that the situation is new;
  2. seek correct jurisdiction;
  3. admit fear of doing wrong;
  4. inquire of the Lord;
  5. pour out the whole soul;
  6. receive more context than the immediate question requested;
  7. act according to revelation;
  8. remain subject to the same word one teaches.

Apply the sequence to a nonconfidential family, ministering, or leadership problem. Which step is most often skipped?

Discussion questions

  1. Why does Mosiah read the painful records before Alma organizes the people into one Church?
  2. What is the difference between unity, uniformity, and amnesia?
  3. Where do you see “could not,” “did not,” and “would not” in Mosiah 26? How should the response change at each stage?
  4. What does Alma’s fear of error teach about righteous leadership?
  5. How do the first-person pronouns in Mosiah 26:22–24 reduce unhealthy parental or leadership control?
  6. How can a Church protect its members and still keep repentance’s door open?
  7. What is the difference between an event that interrupts behavior and conversion that changes desire?
  8. Why is “repair all the injuries” essential to the account of forgiveness?
  9. How does Alma’s personal deliverance grow from the earlier physical deliverance of his people?
  10. What does the sons of Mosiah’s mission desire reveal about the social fruit of conversion?
  11. Why does the unit end with records and interpreters rather than with the missionaries’ departure alone?
  12. What story of God’s deliverance should your family preserve more carefully?

Personal Study Invitations

  • Write a six-line “Mosiah 25 memory”: one line each for wonder, joy, sorrow, gratitude, anguish, and hope in your own history.
  • In Mosiah 26:22–24, circle every word that assigns Christ a role. Then list only the roles that remain yours.
  • Read Mosiah 27 beside Alma 36. Make two columns: what the public account emphasizes and what Alma’s private retelling emphasizes.
  • Identify one repair—not merely regret—that would make a past change of heart more honest. Seek consent and wisdom before reopening harm.
  • Pray for one person by name without prescribing God’s timetable or method. Ask what loving action belongs to you today.
  • Record one way Christ’s influence has changed you gradually. Sudden spectacle is not required for real rebirth.

← Previous: Mosiah 18–24 — We Have Entered into a Covenant with Him | Next: Mosiah 29–Alma 4 — The Choice Is Yours →

Annotated Source Guide

  • Official Come, Follow Me manual (2024). Supplies the exact title and the unit’s governing doctrinal frame: conversion is the true miracle; it cannot be inherited; faithful servants seek God’s will; Christ freely forgives; all need rebirth; and prayer for loved ones matters without controlling God’s will or timing.1
  • BYU Studies Come, Follow Me index, lesson 22. Audited first as the scholarly inventory. It contributes resources on the Zarahemla/Mulekite setting, covenant assemblies, Church discipline, priesthood, spiritual choice, Alma’s conversion reminiscences, atonement terminology, missionary instruments, and seeric translation. The retained index note distinguishes scholarly proposals from official teaching.4
  • followHIM, BM-22, Dr. Jenet Erickson (2024). The local proofread PDF and extracted companion transcript contribute the communal dimensions of Atonement and covenant, Christ as the true Redeemer amid parental fear, Alma’s move from physical to spiritual deliverance, the pastoral warning against parent-blame, and conversion as a catalyst for saving work.5
  • Unshaken, Jared Halverson, Mosiah 25–28. Contributes close reading of the gathered groups, the “could not / did not / would not” progression, the Shepherd’s sheep, baptism unto lifelong repentance, and the reversal of Alma’s momentum and gifts. This is devotional interpretation and is identified as such.2
  • Don’t Miss This, David Butler and Emily Belle Freeman, Mosiah 25–28. A locally retained prior-cycle episode contributes the family-reunion image, pastoral questions for helping the rising generation, practical reflections on pouring out the soul, baptism unto repentance, communal prayer, and “repair the injuries.” Its filename dates May 18–24 and should not be mistaken for a 2024 production.3
  • Gospel Talktrine, Mark Holt, S03E20. Contributes the covenant-identity “church versus tribe” interpretation, agency and religious freedom, caution against blaming faithful parents for the absence of angelic intervention, and the messenger-becoming-message reading. Several historical reconstructions are the presenter’s proposals, not official Church teaching.6
  • David A. Bednar, “Ye Must Be Born Again.” The official manual’s linked general conference talk supplies the pickle metaphor for gradual, penetrating conversion and balances Alma’s sudden crisis with lifelong spiritual rebirth.7

Source availability audit

A matching 2024 followHIM PDF was already local and was extracted to a companion Markdown artifact for safe searching. Matching local Unshaken, Don’t Miss This, and Gospel Talktrine transcripts were found and cited. No matching local file was found in the Scripture Central series collection during this run; the BYU Studies index nevertheless supplied relevant canonical Scripture Central/archive and RSC links. No source was cited merely because a series normally exists.

Footnotes

  1. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “May 27–June 2: ‘They Were Called the People of God.’ Mosiah 25–28,” Come, Follow Me—For Home and Church: Book of Mormon 2024 (2023), official curriculum, canonical manual page. The opening quotation and lesson emphases are official Church teaching. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  2. Jared Halverson, “Come Follow Me — Mosiah 25–28 — Conversion of Alma the Younger,” Unshaken, local transcript Come Follow Me - Mosiah 25-28 - Conversion of Alma the Younger, YouTube source, especially transcript lines 16–160, 376–598, and 600–819. Devotional interpretation. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10

  3. David Butler and Emily Belle Freeman, “Come Follow Me Mosiah 25–28 (May 18–24),” Don’t Miss This, locally retained prior-cycle transcript Come Follow Me Mosiah 25-28 (May 18-24), YouTube source, especially transcript lines 64–100, 250–429, and 430–609. Devotional and teaching application; not a 2024 episode despite its relevance to the same chapters. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  4. BYU Studies, “They Were Called the People of God—Mosiah 25–28,” Come, Follow Me: Book of Mormon, lesson 22, canonical index; retained locally as BYU Studies Come, Follow Me — They Were Called the People of God — Mosiah 25–28. The index is a scholarly bibliography; linked historical and literary arguments are not automatically official Church positions. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  5. Jenet Jacob Erickson with Hank Smith and John Bytheway, “Mosiah 25–28: ‘They Were Called the People of God,’” followHIM BM-22, 2024, especially part 1 at 00:26–01:05 and part 2 at 00:03–00:33; proofread local PDF BM-22-Dr.-Jenet-Erickson-Mosiah-25-28-followHIM-Podcast-SHOW-NOTES.pdf and searchable extraction BM-22-Dr.-Jenet-Erickson-Mosiah-25-28-followHIM-Podcast-SHOW-NOTES.md. This is faithful devotional and academic commentary, not an official Church publication. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8

  6. Mark Holt, “Mosiah 25–28 — S03E20,” Gospel Talktrine, local transcript S03E20 - Mosiah 25-28, especially lines 28–126 and 150–238. Devotional interpretation; the local note identifies a SoundCloud source but contains no working canonical episode URL. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  7. David A. Bednar, “Ye Must Be Born Again,” April 2007 general conference, official Church teaching, canonical address. The talk is also linked by the official 2024 manual. ↩ ↩2

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