Compare and contrast the behavior of the members of the
church in Alma chapter 1 and in Alma chapter 4:
In the Book of Mormon this is called the “Pride Cycle” which
we will see repeated many times. The people are righteous, the Lord blesses
them, they prosper, eventually they become prideful and vain, they backslide
into wickedness, the Lord sends or allows some trial to humble them (this will
come!), they repent and become righteous again, repeat cycle. Right now the
Nephites are in the “backslide into wickedness” stage of the cycle. And of
course when the people of the church begin acting selfishly and arrogantly, you
can image what a turn-off that is for people who don’t belong to the church, as
well as a license for the non-believers to act the same way (vs. 11). How much
do we see this in our society? I know many people who feel leery of religion
because of the awful way they have seen some people behave who profess to be
religious. This has always been so sad to me, and I can’t blame people for
feeling that way! But I also feel like they are missing out on the peace,
direction, and hope that true doctrine and faith will bring them, because their
image of religion has been morphed by bad experiences with bad examples (who
aren’t really living as their faith teaches).
Alma, who is the chief judge of the land as well as the high
priest of the church, is very worried enough about the downward-slide of the
people. He decides to give up his position as chief judge so he can focus completely on his role as high priest of the
church.
19 And this he did that he himself might go forth among his people, or among the people of Nephi, that he might preach the word of God unto them, to stir them up in remembrance of their duty, and that he might pull down, by the word of God, all the pride and craftiness and all the contentions which were among his people, seeing no way that he might reclaim them save it were in bearing down in pure testimony against them.
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