John Bytheway: 00:01 Welcome to part two with Dr. Stephan Taeger, Mosiah chapter 7-10.

Hank Smith: 00:07 And Stephan, as you go throughout the entire book of Mosiah, it gets complicated. There’s groups of people moving all over.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 00:14 Absolutely. Why does Mormon give us a flashback here? Again, I’m quoting from Grant Hardy from a book called Understanding the Book of Mormon. This is just one reason. I think Brother Hardy’s onto something here. He says, “Mormon knew that this settlement,” the one we’re about to read about, ” was the origin of both the Nephi Christian Church and the line of prophets who would dominate the years leading up to the coming of Christ.” These leaders included the two Almas, the two Helamans, and the later two Nephis as well. This is not a random story that Mormon’s trying to highlight here. This flashback is going to help us to understand where Alma the Elder came from and hence where Alma the Younger came from and then Helaman. In chapter nine, it starts off, this was written on the original plates, the record of Zeniff, an account of his people from the time they left the land of Zarahemla until the time that they were delivered out of the hands of the Lamanites.

  01:11 We mentioned this earlier, but this is just the story of this group of people who left Zarahemla to try to come back to the land of first inheritance or near there. Mosiah 9, verse one. This is Zeniff speaking. Mormon puts his first person record into the plates so that we can read this. As a historian, Mormon will do that. He’ll often include the sermon or the first person record or letters even we see in third Nephi. It says this in verse one, “I, Zeniff, having been taught in all the language of the Nephites and having had a knowledge of the land of Nephi or of the land of our father’s first inheritance, and having been sent as a spy among the Lamanites that I might spy on their forces, that our army might come upon them and destroy them. But when I saw that which was good among them, I was desirous that they should not be destroyed.” It’s interesting that he sees some good among them and it seems to cause a little bit of hesitation. Verse two, “Therefore, I contended with my brethren in the wilderness for I would that our ruler should make a treaty with them. But he being an austere and bloodthirsty man commanded that I should be slain. But I was rescued by the shedding of much blood, for father fought against father and brother against brother until the greater number of our army was destroyed in the wilderness, and we returned those of us that were spared to the land of Zarahemla to relate that tale to their wives and their children.”

  02:38 They have this battle, a small little lesson, the ugliness of contention. They have to go back and tell the people in Zarahemla what happened, and then we get this key principle and that we’re going to see here in verse three. It says, “And yet I being overzealous to inherit the land of our fathers collected as many as were desirous to go up to possess the land,” again up in elevation, but down south, “and started again on our journey into the wilderness to go up into the land. But we were smitten with famine and sore afflictions for we were slow to remember the Lord our God.”

  03:15 Overzealousness, it might lead to bad judgment. When we obsess about one thing in our lives, one aspect of our life or one aspect of a certain story, then it leads to bad judgment. If our story determines our possibilities, if we focus in on one aspect of it, one scene, we won’t see things clearly. President Packer, he has this analogy that I love. He says, “The gospel might be likened to the keyboard of a piano, a full keyboard with a selection of keys on which one who is trained can play a variety without limits, a ballad to express love, a march to rally, a melody to soothe, and a hymn to inspire. An endless variety to suit every mood and satisfy every need. How short-sighted it is then to choose a single key and endlessly tap out the monotony of a single note or even two or three notes when the full keyboard of limitless harmony can be played.”

  04:15 Elder Packer is teaching us something really powerful. What’s one way that we overcome overzealousness, is to play the rest of the keys, to see the gospel story in its fullness and to see our life experience in its fullness. We don’t just teach grace, we also teach truth. Sometimes people need grace and sometimes they need truth, and we make sure we’re teaching both of those things as much as we can. Yes, we believe in tradition, but we also believe in innovation. Sometimes the leaders of the church say we’re going to do things differently, and that’s okay. And also sometimes it’s important to say, do you know what? This is tradition. We believe in a sanctification that we can slowly become more like Christ over time through his grace, but we also believe in justification which the church defines as you are declared guiltless, legally clean before God right now.

  05:01 We believe in diversity and having a variety of gifts and backgrounds, but we also believe in unity. The way that we prevent ourselves from becoming overzealous is to play all the keys on the piano, to be balanced and make sure that we’re seeing all the facets of the restored gospel.

Hank Smith: 05:17 Wow, that is wonderful. If we lean to one side, we will lose some wonderful things on the other side, and we get too zoned in on this one thing and it becomes a problem. What was once great is now a thorn, a problem.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 05:36 If our story determines our possibilities, we have to consistently ask ourselves, is my story balanced? Am I getting the full picture or am I just narrowly becoming overzealous about one thing?

Hank Smith: 05:47 This is wonderful. I work with quite a few college students, as do both of you. I’ll ask them when we get to this verse, when have you been a little overzealous about something? And they’ll say, “What do you mean?” Have you ever looked back and said, I really missed some obvious red flags, and they all raise their hand, this regret of I jumped in too fast. I could have been more careful. I think of sometimes of jumping into debt, I was overzealous. I wanted that thing so badly. I jumped in and now I regret it. Or a relationship, I jumped in too quickly, pushed forward too fast, because doesn’t it sound like to you both, he has a bit of regret as he’s writing this. He’s like, it was a good thing, but I missed some cues. When the Lamanites say, “Oh yeah, sorry, this is yours. We’ll give it back.” You would think-

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 06:42 You have to wonder if it’s his overzealousness that caused him to misjudge that situation.

John Bytheway: 06:47 I love that Zeniff would say at the end of verse three, we were slow to remember. Sounds like he picked up a lesson from it all. I put in my margin Zeniff was a just man, because we’re going to hear that description of him later.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 07:01 Well, eventually, Zeniff and the people with him, they return south to give back their land of first inheritance or nearby and Zeniff approaches the Lamanite King and Zeniff writes this about that moment. He says, “And I went in unto the king and he covenanted with me that I might possess the land of Lehi-Nephi and the land of Shalom.” The king of the Lamanites has all the Lamanites leave that land. Zeniff and his people, they begin to build buildings and rebuild the walls of the city of Lehi-Nephi, and Shalom. They plant crops. They grow and multiply in the land. It says in verse 10, “Now, it was the cunning and the craftiness of King Laman to bring my people into bondage, that he yielded up the land that we might possess it.” Like we said a second ago, you have to wonder if maybe he had not been overzealous, if this would’ve prevented this poor decision-making. But it’s interesting because this decision is going to affect a lot of people around Zeniff.

Hank Smith: 07:59 His children and his grandson. We’ve already talked about, Limhi.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 08:04 In verse 11, “Therefore, it came to pass that after we had dwelt in the land for the space of twelve years, that King Laman began to grow uneasy. Lest by any means, my people should wax strong in the land and they could not overpower them and bring them into bondage. Now, they were a lazy and idolatrous people,” which means they worshiped idols. “Therefore, they were desirous to bring us into bondage, that they might glut themselves with the labors of our hands. Yea, that they might feast themselves upon the flocks of our fields.” Some of the Lamanites then attack. Zeniff is called upon for protection, and he writes this in the first person, “Yea, in the strength of the Lord, did we go forth to battle against the Lamanites. For I and my people did cry mightily to the Lord that he would deliver us out of the hands of our enemies, for we were awakened to a remembrance of the deliverance of our fathers.”

  08:55 Again, in this moment of difficulty, they draw on a powerful story. If we fill our life with stuff that can’t nourish the soul, superficial spirituality, or only the stories of this world, then we won’t have the powerful gospel narratives to draw upon in the moments of our most trying times. He says, “They were awakened to a remembrance of the deliverance of their fathers.” Truly, our story determines our possibilities.

Hank Smith: 09:27 My scripture study, Stephan, almost becomes like a food storage that I build up. So in those times of need, I have these friends to call on.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 09:35 Absolutely. In fact, Elder Richard G. Scott, he recommends memorizing certain passages and he uses that analogy. So like friends, you can call upon them at the right time. How many times is just the right scripture come to your heart and mind in a moment of need because you’ve previously studied it.

Hank Smith: 09:54 Stephan, this is fascinating to me because way back in the beginning of the chapter, he does not want to hurt Lamanites. He’s a good guy, but now he’s fighting Lamanites like in the strength of the Lord. Oh, how it’s turned. The poor guy, I really feel for Zeniff, he didn’t want to kill the Lamanites. He was a little overexcited, missed some red flags, and now he’s in serious trouble. He’s living his life in bloodshed.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 10:23 Yeah. And verse 18, thankfully it says, “And God did hear our cries and did answer our prayers, and we did go forth in his might. We did go forth against the Lamanites, and in one day and a night we did slay 3,043. We did slay them even until we had driven them out of our land.”

  10:42 Flipping over to chapter 10, Zeniff’s people prosper and they have continual peace in the land. But then verse six, “And it came to pass, that King Laman died and his son began to reign in his stead and began to stir his people up in rebellion against my people.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 11:00 Therefore, they began to prepare for war and to come up to battle against my people.” Zeniff’s overzealous plan is proving to be problematic, and not just for himself, but for a lot of the people around him as well.

Hank Smith: 11:15 I’ve told John this before, this is something that really hits home to me. Well, I’m going to try not to be too overzealous, but I want to show you both something.

  11:26 If you go all the way back to Omni, and you look at Omni 1, there’s only one chapter, verse 12, and this is Mosiah, this is Benjamin’s father, Amaleki says, there’s this king, Mosiah. The Lord warned him that he should flee out of the land of Nephi, and as many as would hearken unto his voice. You’ve got to get out of the land of Nephi.

  11:50 They get up and they find the people of Zarahemla. We’ve talked about that, and then you have Zeniff, who wants to go back to the very place that the Lord had told Mosiah to get out of, and I can’t tell you how much this frustrates me because this decision that he makes… And Zeniff, you guys, is a good guy.

  12:14 You wouldn’t read 9 and 10 and go, “Yeah, Zeniff, he’s not a believer.” He is a believer. He is a good guy, but this decision to leave the prophet is one, going to cause him and his people to miss King Benjamin entirely when they could be in Zarahemla having this miraculous experience with Benjamin.

  12:36 They’re not, they’re down here fighting Lamanites, not because Zeniff is a bad guy. He’s not a bad guy, but because he just didn’t think this through.

  12:46 I mentioned earlier that I have two grandpas who died of alcoholism. They have their own reasons and I don’t think they’re bad people, but if I could grab them, I’d probably just shake them for a second and say, “Do you have any idea how your decisions are going to affect your children, my parents and me? We are all going to suffer because of these decisions, and you’re not a bad guy.”

  13:16 I got to calm down. Stephan’s going to say, “You’re a little overzealous there, Hank,” but I was deeply touched by a talk that Elder Holland gave because it hit so personally way back in 2003. I can’t believe I’m saying way back in 2003, but Elder Holland, the talk is called A Prayer for the Children.

  13:36 He says this, he talks about parents and grandparents who drift a little from the prophet. He says, “I speak carefully and lovingly,” because he knows these are not people who do not believe in God or want to fight against God. But he said, “Please be aware that the full price to be paid for such a stance does not always come due in your lifetime. No sadly, some elements of this can be a kind of profligate national debt with payments coming out of your children’s and your grandchildren’s pockets in far more expensive ways than you ever intended to be.”

  14:19 He tells this story, he says, “Not long ago, sister Holland and I met a fine young man who came in contact with us after he had been roaming around through the occults, sorting through a variety of Eastern religions, all in an attempt to find religious faith. His father, he admitted, believed in nothing whatsoever, but his grandfather, he said, was actually a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but he didn’t do much with it. The young man said he was always pretty cynical about the church.”

  14:50 From a grandfather who is cynical, to a son who is agnostic, to a grandson who is now looking desperately for what God had already once given his family. Don’t you just want to grab Zeniff and say, “You’re walking away from a place that your grandson is going to spend his entire life trying to get back to, and you’re willingly walking away from that?”

  15:21 I try to be vulnerable on our show, talking about my childhood. It was not ideal and we suffered immensely. My siblings, my parents, extended family, we suffered immensely because of the decisions of past generations, and I’m sure that they had their reasons, but it takes a grand level of spiritual maturity to say, “How are my decisions here going to affect my children and my grandchildren?”

  15:54 Because you might be just fine, right? You might say, “I’m going to take this journey over here,” not thinking through who might have to pay the price for that.

John Bytheway: 16:06 I want to give a second witness to that story with another story. Do you guys remember Elder Richard C. Edgley-

Hank Smith: 16:15 Yes.

John Bytheway: 16:15 … presiding bishop at the time, a talk in 2012 called The Rescue for Real Growth, he said, “A few months ago after meeting with new converts and less active members, a reactivated gentleman about my age came up to me and said, ‘I am one who has been less active most of my life. I fell away from the church early in my life, but I am back now and at work in the temple with my wife.’ To let him know that everything was okay, my response was something like this, ‘All is well, that ends well.’ He responded, ‘No, all is not well. I am back in the church, but I have lost all of my children and my grandchildren. I am now witnessing the loss of my great-grandchildren, all out of the church. All is not well.'”

  16:59 “In our family,” Elder Edgley continued, “We have an ancestor who joined the church in Europe, in the early days of the church. One son became inactive. Sister Edgley and I have attempted to track the inactive descendants of this ancestor. It was easy for my wife and me to conclude that during the following six generations and with reasonable assumptions, there could be a loss of up to 3,000 family members. Now project two more generations, the loss could theoretically approach 20,000 to 30,000 of our Heavenly father’s children.”

  17:33 That’s one of those talks that I remember, all is not well, no. Motivating to me to stay the course and to shout out to my dad who did not tell his parents he was getting baptized because he thought his mother would be against it. Fortunately, my grandparents were, my grandmother in particular was baptized and my grandfather reactivated.

  17:59 So wow, those decisions Hank have an impact. Man, thanks for, like you said, being vulnerable and sharing that, and I hadn’t really applied that to Zeniff before.

Hank Smith: 18:10 Yeah, and Zeniff’s a good guy, it would be easier almost if Zeniff was an evil guy, but the fact that he’s such a good guy…

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 18:20 It’s clear that we don’t make decisions in a vacuum, and there is an intergenerational element to the gospel, when you think about Malachi chapter four, ultimately when things will be set right is when the human family is sealed together.

  18:37 Truly, our decisions can affect generations, and that includes the positive ones, that includes the small acts of goodness and obedience and love, love of God and love of others, and those too will set a ripple effect for something holy and sacred to happen in our families. There is a lot at stake in every decision we make.

Hank Smith: 18:58 Mike Wilcox, who we’ve had on the show many times, he talked about once growing up on the ranch, and he said the adult cows would push against the fence. They just didn’t like that fence, so they would push against the fence and they could never make it out. They’d just push against the fence. But he said they’d lift up the fence enough for the calves to get out, and he said he would find the calves devoured by predators.

John Bytheway: 19:26 And there was grass right there, they had what they needed right there, but they would push against the fence.

Hank Smith: 19:33 It hits close to home for me. Stephan, should we keep going?

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 19:37 Yeah. Thanks for that Hank. That was powerful and thanks for being open and real with us there.

  19:44 Zeniff, because they’re getting ready for battle. He tells the old and the young men to prepare for battle, and then the women and children, they are hidden in the wilderness. And then interestingly enough, Zeniff starts to tell us the Lamanite side of history.

  19:59 Remember as we go through this little theme we’ve been talking about, that our story determines our possibilities. We’ll start in verse 12, “Believing in the tradition of their fathers, which is this, believing that they were driven out of the land of Jerusalem because of the iniquities of their fathers, and that they were wronged in the wilderness by their brethren, and that they were also wronged while crossing the sea, and again, that they were wronged while in the land of their first inheritance after they had crossed the sea. And all this because that Nephi was more faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord.”

  20:36 Now, the story that this group of Lamanites is telling themselves is much, much, much older than Nephi and Laman and Lemuel. In fact, this kind of story, it goes all the way back to the garden of Eden.

  20:49 If you remember, Adam and Eve partake of the fruit, the Lord approaches Adam, Genesis 3:12, he says this, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat.”

  21:03 Then when Eve is asked about it, quote, Genesis 3:13, “The serpent beguiled me and I did eat.”

  21:11 Adam says, “It was Eve’s fault.” And Eve says, “It was the snake’s fault. It was the serpent’s fault.”

  21:18 Elder Lionel Kendrick, he said this in general conference, “It has been from the beginning and it will be till the end, that the natural man will have a tendency to rationalize and to blame his behaviors on others or on certain circumstances.”

  21:35 A spouse gets home from work and they say, “Why can’t you keep the house clean?” And they forget how maybe they don’t help out a lot.

  21:43 Or a young woman in college, she says to her roommates, “Hey, whenever people come over, you guys treat me different.” But she doesn’t stop to think that maybe she’s not the most warm or friendly person socially.

  21:55 A student walking around a maybe BYU campus and says, “No one ever comes up and says hi.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 22:01 And it is true, and we have to be really, really clear about this, that people can make decisions that seek to inflict harm on other people. But a very common and restricting story that humans tell ourselves is that someone else is ultimately the reason for my sadness and difficulty in life. It’s absolutely true that humans can hurt each other, but when we take that too far and say, “Another person is the ultimate reason why I’m not happy.” That’s when it starts to cross the line into blame and accusation. It says in verse 14 that Nephi’s brethren were wroth with him. Zeniff says, “Because they understood not the dealings of the Lord. They hardened their hearts against the Lord. They claimed Nephi had taken the ruling of the people out of their hands because Nephi took the records which were engraven on the plates of brass.” This is obviously a very different version of history than we read earlier in 1 Nephi, but some of these people have taken up the story of their primary identity has come from they have been wronged, that someone has wronged them.

  23:12 Again, it is true that people can wrong others, but it’s dangerous if we take that up as our primary sense of identity. One of the things that I’m very interested in is self-deception and how humans have a tendency to blame and to rationalize. I quoted a Terry Warner story the last time I was on this podcast, and I’d like to read another one and unpack this phenomenon for a second. I believe all of the stories in Brother Warner’s book, Bonds that Make Us Free are true stories. “Carol hated Saturdays because her husband yelled at the children when he supervised their household chores. She said this ruined her hopes for a day of cooperative work and loving play. When he would begin to yell, she would roll her eyes and say, under her breath, or sometimes a little louder than that, ‘Here we go again,’ or, ‘He’s ruining everything, just like every Saturday.'”

  24:03 “As a victim of this domestic autocrat, she would often cry. Then she came to a realization that astonished her. In a flash of understanding, she saw that the Saturday morning problems were not entirely her husband’s fault. I told myself I was trying with all my might to make sure we had a good time together, but in reality, I was looking hard for evidence that he was making it impossible. That’s what surprised me so much. What was most on my mind was, ‘How can I be a good mother when the father acts like this?’ Ironically, I could tell that my criticism not only hurt him, but seemed to make him even more agitated and impatient. My criticism was contributing to the problem.” And then Brother Warner writes, “Carol’s story shows clearly how three aspects of the self-betrayer’s conduct always go together.” And this is one of the most brilliant insights that Dr. Warner has to offer.

  25:06 He says, “These three things go together: one, accusing others, two, excusing ourselves, and three, displaying oneself as a victim.” Because these happen in the same emotional move … If I remember correctly, and we’re going to get technical for a second, but Dr. Warner calls this a unitary act of self-deception. I don’t notice that it’s happening, but at the same time I blame someone, I’m also excusing myself and displaying myself as a victim. Now we need to be really clear. If people are wrong, especially in serious ways, then it is perfectly the Christian thing to do to set boundaries and to seek justice and to tell the truth. It is not Christian to allow evil to continue, but even when we have to stand up for what’s right and sometimes do that in tough ways, we have to be cautious that we don’t let the poison of anger that is coming our way infect our own souls and our own spirits.

  26:09 Otherwise, we get what Hank was talking about so beautifully a few minutes ago and verse 17, “And thus they had taught their children that they should hate them and that they should murder them, and that they should rob and plunder them and do all that they could to destroy them. Therefore, they had an eternal hatred towards the children of Nephi.” Hank, you modeled that for us beautifully about being honest and vulnerable about maybe some of the complexities that have come into your own family life without becoming bitter. It doesn’t mean we bottle up our emotions and hide how we really think and feel about situations that is deeply unhealthy, but it means we don’t let the bitterness of another infect our own happiness. We refuse to let that happen.

Hank Smith: 26:55 Yeah, I’m grateful for that. I don’t think my grandparents and great-grandparents are bad people, and I don’t want to be a victim and say, “Well, I have no possible way out of my situation because of them.” But you’re telling me it’s okay to acknowledge, “Wow, we got handed a difficult situation.”

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 27:18 Yeah. I want to read a quote from Elder Bednar, that is for me incredibly liberating and deeply, deeply profoundly true. It’s a little hard on the natural man and woman, but ultimately it is incredibly liberating. He says this, “It ultimately is impossible for another person to offend you or to offend me. Indeed, believing that another person offended us is fundamentally false. To be offended is a choice we make. It is not a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone or something else.”

  27:55 Obviously we could be tempted, right? We could be tempted to be offended and to be agitated and annoyed, but Elder Bednar says, and he’s teaching the truth here. We have a choice if we’re going to lean into that or turn away from it. I’ll quote our beloved prophet, President Nelson, “The Savior’s message is clear: his true disciples build, lift, encourage, persuade, and inspire no matter how difficult the situation. True disciples of Jesus Christ are peacemakers.” The antidote for accusation and blame is to be a peacemaker, and we have all of the resources we need to do this. Why? Because if Jesus went to Gethsemane and Golgotha for us, if we are that loved, if we are that forgiven, if Jesus really rose from the dead and we will also rise from the dead, there is no human on this planet that can permanently hurt us. The faithful will prevail in Christ. And because that’s the heart of our story, we have the most beautiful possibilities in Jesus of Nazareth.

John Bytheway: 29:07 This mindset that they grew up with being taught by their parents, “We were wronged here. We were wronged there. We were wronged there.” And then in verse 17 that you read that you grimace when you hear this, “they have taught their children that they should hate them.” And I don’t think hate comes naturally to children. I think they were taught that. I put in my margin that this idea went for so long that way into the middle of the war chapters, when Ammoron, the brother of Amalickiah writes a letter to Moroni, he says, in Alma 54 verse 24, “This war hath been waged to avenge their wrongs.”

  29:48 He’s got the same list of wrongs in his mind that has persisted generationally. “We were wronged, we were wronged, we were wronged.” And it reminds me of Stephen Covey who said he found this quotation in a book in Hawaii. I think I’ve mentioned it before that you’ll love it. It reminds me of C. Terry Warner, but, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space lies our freedom to choose our response. And in that space lies our growth and our happiness.” That’s like what Elder Bednar’s saying, you get to choose because we have that space, and animals and physics and action/reaction, they don’t have that, but we have a space to choose our response. I’m glad you brought up the Elder Bednar quote because he said that beautifully.

Hank Smith: 30:38 I’m sure both of you remember this story, but if not, let me tell it to you, and I would love for you, Stephan, to analyze this with all the wonderful research you’ve done and all that you’ve read. This is a story from John Groberg, Elder Groberg, what did they call him, John?

John Bytheway: 30:53 Kolipoki.

Hank Smith: 30:54 Yeah, Kolipoki. He was in Hawaii when he met a man who told him this story. He met a husband and wife and, “They were willing to accept a calling,” he says, “And I was very grateful.” And he said, “The husband told me of an experience he had when he was 12 years old that stayed with him throughout his life. In the early 1900s, his family joined the church in Hawaii. They were faithful members and after two years, he and his father received the priesthood. The family prospered, enjoyed the fellowship of their little branch, and they anxiously looked forward to being sealed as a family in the nearly completed Laie Temple.”

  31:30 “Then as it happens, adversity crossed their path. One of the sisters became ill with an unknown disease and was sent to the hospital. At this time, people in Hawaii were wary of unknown diseases as disease had wrought great havoc in the islands. The concerned family went to church on Sunday hoping to receive strength and understanding from their fellow branch members. The son and his father had responsibilities of blessing and passing the sacrament that Sunday. They reverently broke the bread while the congregation sang the sacrament hymn. When the hymn was finished, the father started to kneel to offer the sacrament prayer. All of a sudden, the branch president realized who was at the sacred table and sprang to his feet. Pointing his finger he cried, ‘Stop. You cannot touch the sacrament. Your daughter is ill and you may get the rest of us sick. Leave immediately. Someone else will fix new sacrament bread. We can’t have you here. Go.'”

  32:25 “The stunned father slowly stood up. He looked at the branch president then at the congregation. Sensing the anxiety, tension, and embarrassment of all of it, he motioned to his family and they quietly filed out of the chapel. Not a word was said as they moved along the dusty trail to their small home, their heads hung. The young son noticed his father’s firmly clenched fists. When they entered their home, they all sat on the floor in a circle and the father said, ‘We will be silent until I am ready to speak.’

Hank Smith: 33:00 All sorts of thoughts went through this young boy’s mind. He envisioned his father coming up with different ways of getting revenge. Would they kill the branch president’s pigs? Burn his house down? Quit going to church? Join another church? He could hardly wait to see what his father would decide. Five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, not a sound. He glanced at his father. His eyes were still closed, his mouth set, his fingers clenched, but no sound. 20 minutes, 25, still nothing. Then he noticed a slight relaxing of his father’s hands, a small tremor on his father’s lips, then a barely perceptible sob. He looked at his father and saw tears trickling down his cheeks. Soon, his mother was crying also. Then one child, then another, and soon the whole family.

  33:49 Finally, the father opened his eyes, cleared his throat and announced, “I am now ready to speak. Please listen carefully.” He turned to his wife and with deep feeling said, “I love you.” Then he turned to each child and said, “I love you. I love all of you. This is not the branch president’s church. It is the church of Jesus Christ. We will not let any man or any amount of hurt or embarrassment or pride keep us from staying actively involved in God’s kingdom on earth. Next Sunday, we will go back to church. We will stay by ourselves until the illness is known. We will let other people look at us however they will and say whatever they want about us, but we will go back.” Stephan, does that fit what you’ve been talking about here in chapter 10?

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 34:45 It was when he thought of Jesus and it being his church that softened his heart, and what an example of true fatherhood. What an example of saying that’s real strength. Our culture tells us that strength means he would’ve exploded and gotten mad and spoke up. But the real strength is I will do the simple loving thing. It doesn’t mean we can’t tell the truth about a situation. It doesn’t mean we can’t express how we feel, but we’re still going to do the right thing, whatever that is. I think the balance here is to be honest about other people’s decisions, and people can do wrong and they can do wrong towards us. Absolutely. And people can wrong us, but that can’t be as an excuse to wrong others. Even if we have to be tough with people, we do it in a way that shows respect to their humanity and shows love, even if we have to set boundaries.

Hank Smith: 35:41 And Zeniff, he finishes here in chapter 10, I, Zeniff, having told all these things to my people concerning the Lamanites. We battled with our might. We put our trust in the Lord. They return to their own land and start to tend their flocks. Zeniff has had a tough life since leaving Zarahemla.

John Bytheway: 36:02 But I love what you brought up, Stephan. Grant Hardy said, “Why is this story in here?” Because through this story and through what happens in the land of Nephi, comes Abinadi, comes Alma, and you can start at Alma and watch the plates, the records get passed down all the way to Moroni starting at Alma. Abinadi changes the world. And Alma that listened to him, Alma the Elder, that was interesting to me. Why is this story in here? Why did Mormon say, “We got to tell this story?” Because this is where the plates start getting handed down.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 36:35 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 36:36 Yeah. Let me ask you both before I let you go, Stephan, Zeniff’s decision to leave Zarahemla, go down to the land of Nephi, causes a lot of problems. But as John is saying, some good comes out of it.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 36:49 One of the most beautiful stories, and if our stories determine our possibilities, this is an example of what you’re teaching there, Hank, is with the last 116 pages, that God can take the mistakes of others and even ourselves. But if we repent, he can redeem those. In the words of Isaiah, we can get beauty for ashes, but we have to allow him to do that through our faithfulness and our repentance. And that’s when he can take difficult situations and redeem them and make them better for us and actually teach us powerful, powerful lessons.

John Bytheway: 37:21 I love that. Anyone who is listening, who’s in a tough spot, tough place, tough situation, even with consequences of their own choices, with regrets, whatever, look what God can do. God can turn that, and he is so good at it. And so much of what we read in these stories is evidence of he’ll take anybody where they’re at and he’ll make it better.

Hank Smith: 37:48 And I’m seeing what Stephan taught us here, John, is that if you don’t open your heart to that, you can allow anger and resentment to poison you. And that poison goes to maybe the next generation.

John Bytheway: 38:02 And the next and hundreds of centuries. If they’re still talking about in the war chapters, “Hey, we were wronged back in 600 B.C.,” imagine if verse 17 had said, “Thus, they were taught to love, to forgive, to choose the right even when they’ve been wronged, to go forward, even when injustices happened to them.” I mean, imagine how different that verse could have been.

Hank Smith: 38:28 It’s interesting in verse 17, Stephan, “Therefore, they had an eternal hatred.”

John Bytheway: 38:34 Yeah, what a phrase.

Hank Smith: 38:35 Yeah, that’s a powerful phrase. Stephan, as we walk away from Mosiah 7 through 10, let’s say I’m on my commute and I’ve been really impressed and touched by what you’ve said. What’s my action item? Give me a, therefore, what should I do? I’m going to pull into my driveway. I walk into my house. What do I do?

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 38:59 Hank, can I answer that indirectly?

Hank Smith: 39:01 Please do.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 39:02 I’m going to tell a story and I want you to hear it for the first time. And Joseph dreamed a dream and he told it his brethren, and they hated him yet the more. Now, if someone was talking to Joseph’s brothers, they might say, “Hey, I know Joseph is difficult. Forgive him. Forgive him. Be patient with Joseph. Forgive him.” But what Mosiah 10 is indirectly teaching us is that’s not the problem. Eventually they throw Joseph into a pit. Genesis 39, verse 28. Then they’re passed by Midianites, merchant men, and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph into Egypt. They thought Joseph was such a problem, they felt completely justified in doing this horrible act to him because they thought Joseph was the issue. Later in life, in Egypt, the tables are turned. Joseph is now successful and in power. Joseph’s brothers show up. They need food. Joseph knows it’s them. He knows it’s them, and they don’t know it’s him. And at one point they say this. Genesis 42:21, “They said one to another, we are verily guilty concerning our brethren, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear. Therefore, is this distress come upon us.” They refused to see Joseph’s humanity. They didn’t see that his thoughts, his feelings, his wishes mattered as much as their own. All those years, people might’ve been like, “Oh, just forgive Joseph. Forgive Joseph. Be patient with him.” That’s what they could have said to Joseph’s brothers, but to draw on a principle from Terry Warner, in order to be set free of their anguish, they didn’t need to forgive. They needed to repent.

  41:09 And when I say repent, I mean they need to repent for their harsh and unkind feelings towards their brother for all those years, for seeing him less than human. So, there are two stories that we are taught about our interactions with others. One is true and one is false. The first one I’m going to tell you is false. The story goes like this. My resentment, my bitterness and anger are someone else’s fault. The other story, the true story, is I am free to love all people, including my enemies. Our story determines our possibilities.

Hank Smith: 41:52 Stephan, thank you. Thank you for that. That answered that question perfectly. What a great day. Dr. Taeger, thanks for spending your time with us.

Dr. Stephan Taeger: 42:01 Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Hank Smith: 42:03 Yeah, we loved it. John, I’ve got all sorts of new notes.

John Bytheway: 42:07 Me too. What a blessing. Thank you.

Hank Smith: 42:10 We want to thank Dr. Stephan Taeger for being with us today. We want to thank our executive producer, Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen, and we always, every episode, we remember our founder, Steve Sorensen. We hope you’ll join us next week. We’re going to cover more chapters in the book of Mosiah on FollowHIM.

  42:31 Before you skip to the next episode, I have some important information. This episode’s transcript and show notes are available on our website, FollowHim.co. That’s FollowHim.co. On our website, you’ll also find our two books, Finding Jesus Christ in the Old Testament and Finding Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Both books are full of short and powerful quotes and insights from all our episodes from the Old and New Testaments. The digital copies of these books are absolutely free. You can watch the podcast on YouTube. Also, our Facebook and Instagram accounts have videos and extras you won’t find anywhere else. If you’d like to know how you can help us, if you could subscribe to, rate, review, and comment on the podcast, that will make us easier to find. Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production crew. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Neilson, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, Ariel Cuadra, and Annabelle Sorensen.

President Russell M. Nelson: 43:25 Whatever questions or problems you have, the answer is always found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Turn to him. Follow him.